Regional Geography
Peoples of the World-2
' Indian Dwellers in the Gran Chaco'
J. W. LINDSAY
In South America, in Paraguay, a lozenge of country marked in your map between Brazil on the north and east, Bolivia on the north-west, and Argentina on the west and south, is a great plain called the Gran Chaco , sandwiched between the mountain range of the Andes and the Brazilian Highlands.
Here live the Indians of story, ever on the move : their dwellings a thatch of grass over a rude structure of branches, their beasts of burden oxen, their transport a cart on great wheels eight feet high, the better to negotiate swamp and desert, their weapon the bow and arrow, their vanity appeased by head-dresses, ornaments, and anklets of ostrich feathers, their thirst often quenched by a drink from a plant that stores rain water.
This afternoon J. W. Lindsay is to tell you about these Indian nomads, those on the grassland hunting the ostrich, those in the forests hunting the jaguar, those by the water hunting the alligator. He will tell you of their struggle for existence against flood and tempest, and of their perpetual conflicts with governments over disputed territory.