The missionaries' privilege was to console humanity for a part of the evils committed by the conquistadores; to plead the cause of the Indians before kings, to resist the violence of the comendadores, and to gather nomadic Indians into small communities called missions (42) to help agriculture progress. And so, imperceptibly, following a uniform and premeditated plan, these vast monastic establishments were formed into extraordinary regimes, always isolating themselves, with countries four or five times larger than France under their administration.

Like all the Indian tribes that I know the Chaimas have small, slender hands. Contrary to this, their feet are large, and their toes remain extremely mobile. All the Chaimas resemble each other, as if they were all related, and this is all the more evident because between twenty and fifty years old, age is not indicated by wrinkling skin, white hair or body decrepitude. When you enter a hut it is hard to differentiate a father from a son, one generation from another. I think that this family resemblance has two different causes: the local position of the Indian villages, and the lack of intellectual culture. Indian nations are subdivided into an infinity of tribes, all hating each other, and never allied even if speaking the same language or living on the same river or nearby hill. This characteristic is preserved in the missions where marriages are made only within tribes. This blood link that unites a whole tribe is naively illustrated by those Spanish-speaking Indians who designate members of the same tribe as mis parientes (my relatives).