THE SPANISH IN PUTUMAYO.

New Zealand Herald, Volume L, Issue 15234, 22 February 1913, Page 5 (Supplement)

THE SPANISH IN PUTUMAYO.

The sinister occurrences of Putumayo are, to some extent, the.' result of a sinister human element—the Spanish and. Portuguese character. The remarkable trait of callousness, to human suffering which tho Iberian people' of Portugal and Spain— themselves a mixture of Moor, Goth, Semite, Vandal, and other peoplesintroduced into the Latin American • race is here shown in its intensity, and is augmented by a further Spanish quality. The Spaniard often regards the Indians as animals. Other European people may have abused-the Indian of America, but none have that peculiar' Spanish attitude towards them of frankly considering them as non-human. To-day the, Indians are commonly referred to among Spaniards and Mestizos as' animates. The present writer, in his travels in Peru and Mexico, has constantly been met with the halfimpatient exclamation,' on having.- protested against maltreatment of the Indian, of "They are animals, senor .they • are not folk The torture or mutilation of the Indian is therefore regarded much as it would be in the case of an ox or a horse. This attitude of mind was well shown in ,the barbarous, system of forced labour in the mines in the times of the J viceroys of Peru and Mexico, where the i Indians • were driven into the mines by armed guards and branded on the face with hot irons- When their overtaxed strength gave way under the heavy labour, which rapidly occurred, 'their carcasses were pitched aside and they were replaced by other slaves. These operations of the time of the Spaniards have their counterpart in the Amazon Valley to-day. There is yet a further trait of the Latin American which to the Anglo-Saxon mind is almost inexplicable.. This is the pleasure in the torture of the Indian as a diversion, not merely as a vengeance or "punishment." As has been shown on the Putumayo, and has happened on other occasions elsewhere, the Indians have been abused, tortured, and killed for merely frivolous reasons, or for diversion. • Thus Indians are shot at in sport to make them run or as exercise in target practice, and burnt by pouring petroleum over them and setting it on fire in order to watch their agonies. This love of inflicting agony for sport is a curious psychic attribute of the Spanish race. The present writer, when in remote regions in Peru and Mexico, has had occasion to intervene, sometimes at personal risk, in the ill-treatment of-Indians'and peones, who were being tortured or punished to extort confession fur small misdemeanours, or even for pin-sly frivolous reasons.- Tho Indians of Latin America are in reality grown-up children, with the qualities of such, but the Spaniard and Portuguese ; have recognised in this .littlo, but what they term animal qualities. .. .