ca became independent. But they
had already made the language of the Indians, Guarany, a culture-
tongue, reducing it to writing, and printing religious books in it.
Guarany is one of the most wide-spread of the Indian tongues, being
originally found in various closely allied forms not only in Paraguay
but in Uruguay and over the major part of Brazil. It remains here and
there, as a lingua general at least, and doubtless in cases as an
original tongue, among the wild tribes. In most of Brazil, as around
Para and around Sao Paulo, it has left its traces in place-names, but
has been completely superseded as a language by Portuguese. In
Paraguay it still exists side by side with Spanish as the common
language of the lower people and as a familiar tongue among the upper
classes. The blood of the people is mixed, their language dual; the
lower classes are chiefly of Indian blood but with a white admixture;
while the upper classes are predominantly white, with a strong
infusion of Indian. There is no other case quite parallel to this in
the annals of European colonization, although the Goanese in India
have a native tongue and a Portuguese creed, while in several of the
Spanish-American states the Indian blood is dominant and the majority
of the population speak an Indian tongue, perhaps itself, as with the
Quichuas, once a culture-tongue of the archaic type. Whether in
Paraguay one tongue will ultimately drive out the other, and, if so,
which will be the victor, it is yet too early to prophesy. The English
missionaries and the Bible Society have recently published parts of
the Scriptures in Guarany and in Asuncion a daily paper is published
with the text in parallel columns, Spanish and Guarany--just as in
Oklahoma there is a similar paper published in English and in the
tongue which the extraordinary Cherokee chief Sequoia, a veritable
Cadmus, made a literary language.

The Guarany-speaking Paraguayan is a Christian, and as much an
inheritor of our common culture as most of the peasant populations of
Europe. He has no kinship with the wild Indian, who hates and fears
him. The Indian of the Chaco, a pure savage, a bow-bearing savage,
will never come east of the Paraguay, and the Paraguayan is only
beginning to venture into the western interior, away from the banks of
the river--under the lead of pioneer settlers like Rickard, whom, by
the way, the wild Indians thoroughly trust, and for whom they work
eagerly and faithfully.