The red book of animal stories/Guanacos Living and Dying
GUANACOS: LIVING AND DYING
When the Spaniards under Pizarro conquered the great country of Peru, about the year 1520, they found much value set upon the race of Llamas, of which four kinds existed in Peru, all of them highly prized for one thing or another.
The llama itself, which is the largest of the four, is chiefly used as a beast of burden, though it can only carry about a hundred pounds weight at a time, and is able to travel no more than sixteen miles a day, or about as much as an ordinary soldier’s march. If an extra pound is put on, the llama simply declines to move; and if its driver tries to give it a blow, he will receive something very unpleasant in his face, as visitors to Zoological Gardens know very well! A hundred pounds does not seem a great load for such a large beast, but there are many qualities about a llama which cause him to be employed, rather than many another stronger animal.
First he is there, and in great numbers, so that he is to be had for the asking. Then he is easily managed; never wants water for weeks or months together, and lives on any poor kind of grass (especially a sort called ychu) that he can pick up on the sides of the rocky Andes or Cordilleras. His wool is so thick and clinging, that it is very seldom necessary to tie on the load, which sticks on of itself; a pointed claw enables the llama to walk safely over slippery places, even over ice, much better than any shoes would do, and finally, if no other food is to be had, his flesh is quite tolerable.
The llama varies in colour, but is generally of a sort of white. His neck and legs are long. Fond of company, when his pride is not touched he is easily led, and it was no uncommon thing for the Spaniards, when they first entered the country, to meet whole
SPANIARDS MEETING A CARAVAN OF LLAMAS
caravans of llamas laden with silver ingots from the mines of Potosi, travelling under the charge of a single native. Indeed, it has been reckoned that fully 300,000 llamas were employed in this service.
But though the wool of the llama was sometimes used for rough kinds of cloth, it was not nearly so highly valued as that of the smaller variety of the breed, called the vicuna, whose hair was woven into the finest material, reserved especially for the Peruvian nobles. The vicunas are little beasts, with soft feet and excellent appetites, and when the grass on the higher mountains withers in the summer heat, they come down in search of the pasture on the moist plains. In every herd there are generally fifteen or sixteen females to one male, but he is very careful of his charges, and when they are on the march always brings up the rear. The little ones are strong and swift, even from the moment of their birth; but when the males are quite grown up the mothers all join together to expel them from the flock, and the young creatures then form a club of their own, from which, in their turn, the females are excluded.
The laws of hunting in Peru were very strict, and the peasants were strictly forbidden to break them. Once a year the Government arranged a chase on a large scale, which lasted a whole week, and was shared in by all the men of the district; but great care was taken that the hunt should only be held in the same place every fourth year. Each man had his appointed place and brought with him a pole and spear, and a weapon called a bolas, made of two balls joined by a string. This was whirled round the head and let fly at the animal, and so skilful were the Peruvians in its use, that the creature was generally killed at the first blow
As the hunt went on, the circle of men was drawn closer and closer, till at the end, nothing was left alive but the valuable vicunas and their cousins the guanacos, who were always held sacred. Then a great shearing took place—sometimes as many as forty thousand of these llamas remained to be sheared—and the wool was stored in the royal magazine till the different kinds could be sorted and separated. When this was done, the finer sorts were reserved for the nobles, and the rest given to the common people, who had a right to all the flesh of the dead animals. The skins fell to the priests.
The guanaco, which is smaller than the llama, and larger than the vicuna, wanders over the whole of South America, and is to be met with on peaks of the Andes more than twenty thousand feet high, as well as in the bare lands of southern Patagonia, where he is most numerous. He is about four feet high from the shoulder, and seven or eight feet in length, and his wool is of a pale reddish colour and very thick. It is shortest and reddest on the top, and is exactly suited to the cold bare places where the guanaco loves to roam. Like the llamas, they are generally to be found several together, but they are very cautious, and never attempt to eat the smallest meal without placing a scout to give warning of the approach of an enemy. If one is seen—or smelt—for the scent of the guanaco is extraordinarily keen, the scout utters a peculiar penetrating cry, something like the bell of a deer, and the flock instantly make off to a place of safety. But if the enemy to be dreaded is a puma, his scent is sharper and his feet swifter than those of a guanaco, and many are the bodies found lying on the pampas, with dislocated necks.
Like many shy people, guanacos are very curious, and, as has happened before now, their curiosity often ends in their undoing. Sometimes a band will unite to explore some special district, and when they have discovered what they are looking for, they will wheel round as cleverly as a troop of soldiers, and return whence they came in a straight line. They are all good swimmers, and of very accommodating habits; if no grass is to be had, they can go without for a surprising length of time, and if fresh water cannot be got, they content themselves with salt. They are lively and excitable, and may be seen giving vent to their feelings just as human beings do, by making strange noises, and jumping about.
Guanacos are very rarely seen by themselves, but may be met with in flocks varying from five hundred down to six. They are easily tamed, but, unlike most other animals, become more ready to defend themselves in their tame than in their wild state. They will even learn to attack man, and to strike out in a peculiar way with both knees from behind.
One strange fact has been discovered about the guanacos which is not as yet known of any other creatures. When, by some curious and unexplained instinct, they feel that they have received their death wound, or been stricken with their last illness, they leave their fellows, and make straight for one of their dying places, perhaps hundreds of miles away. Some of these dying places have been seen by travellers, in South Patagonia, where they are most frequent, usually near rivers, in the midst of low trees, and thick scrub. Why the stricken beast should take the long and often difficult journey, instead of creeping away like other creatures into the nearest hole or thicket to die, we do not know. It may be an inherited longing for a spot which was originally a place of shelter, or it may be that they are pushed by invisible hands to the grassy refuge that is whitened by their father’s bones. What becomes of all the dead animals? Does anybody know? Of the sparrows, the monkeys, the hares? A ‘dead donkey’ is such a rare sight that it has turned into a proverb. But what about the rest?