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Writing Type: Edited Book
Tristán describes the Peruvian female camp followes, rabonas, with a combination of admiration and disgust.
Keywords: Rabonas, Peru, women
Archive: University Library, Cambridge
Location Details: Extract from Jean Hawkes, Peregrinations of a Pariah, pp.179-181, 215.
Text: They form a considerable troop, preceding the army by several hours so that they have time to set up camp, obtain food and cook it. To see the female avant-garde set out gives one an immediate idea of what these women have to suffer and the dangerous life they lead. The rabonas are armed; they load onto mules their cooking-pots, tents and all the rest of the baggage, they drag after them a hoard of children of all ages, they whip their mules into a gallop and run along beside them, they climb high mountains, they swim across rivers, carrying one or even two children on their backs. When they arrive at their destination, they choose the best site for the camp, then they unload the mules, erect the tents, feed the children and put them to bed, light the fires and start cooking. If they chance to be near an inhabited place, they go off in a detachment to get supplies; they descent on the village like famished beasts and demand food for the army. When it is given with good grace they do no harm, but when they are refused they fight like lionesses and their fierce courage overcomes all resistance. Then they sack the village, carry the loot back to the camp and divide it among themselves.
These women, who provide for all the needs of the soldier, who wash and mend his clothes, receive no pay and their only reward is to rob with impunity. They are of Indian race, speak the native language and do not know a single word of Spanish. The rabonas are not married, they belong to nobody and are there for anybody who wants them. They are creatures outside society: they live with the soldiers, eat with them, stop where they stop, exposed to the same dangers and endure far greater hardships than the men. When the army is on the march it is nearly always on the courage and daring of these women four or five hours ahead of them that it depends for its subsistence, and when one considers that in leading this life of toil and danger they still have the duties of motherhood to fulfil, one is amazed that any of them can endure it. It is worth observing that whereas the Indian would rather kill himself than be a soldier, the Indian women embrace this life voluntarily, bearing its fatigues and confronting its dangers with a courage of which the men of their race are incapable. I do not believe it possible to adduce a more striking proof of the superiority of women in primitive societies; would not the same be true of peoples of a more advanced stage of civilisation if both sexes received a similar education? We must hope that some day the experiment will be tried.
Several able generals have sought to find a substitute for the service the rabonas provide and prevent them from following the army, but the soldiers always revolted against any such attempt and it has been necessary to yield to them. They are not at all sure that the military administration would be able to provide for their needs, and that is why they refuse to give the rabonas up.
These women are horribly ugly, which is understandable when one considers the kind of hardships they endure. In fact they have to withstand the extremes of climate ranging from the burning sun of the pampas to the icy summit of the Cordilleras, so their skin is burnt and wrinkled, their eyes red-rimmed; their teeth, however, are very white. Their only clothing is a little woollen skirt which reaches only to their knees, and a sheepskin cover with a hole in the middle for their head to go through, while the two sides cover their chest and back; their feet, arms and head are always bare. They seems to get on fairly well together, though jealous scenes sometimes lead to murders; as there is nothing to restrain their passions, such happenings should occasion no surprise. There is no doubt that if an equal number of men were freed from all control and forced to lead the life of these women, murders would be far more frequent. The rabonas adore the sun but do not observe any religious practices.
p.215
Arequipa 1834: The quarters of the rabonas had suffered most: in the confusion [Colonel] Morant’s artillery had scored a hit and wrought havoc there. Three of the women had been killed and seven or eight seriously wounded.
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