They are of medium stature, very well proportioned: their flesh is of a colour
the verges into red like a lion's mane: and I believe that if they went clothed,
they would be as white as we: they have not any hair upon the body, except the
hair of the head which is long and black, and especially in the women, whom it
renders handsome: in aspect they are not very good-looking, because they have
broad faces, so that they would seem Tartar-like: they let no hair grow on their
eyebrows, nor on their eyelids, nor elsewhere, except the hair of the head: for
they hold hairiness to be a filthy thing: they are very light
footed in walking and in running, as well the men as the women: so that a
woman recks nothing of running a league or two, as many times we saw them do:
and herein they have a very great advantage over us Christians: they swim (with
an expertness) beyond all belief, and the women better than the men: for we have
many times found and seen them swimming two leagues out at sea without anything
to rest upon. Their arms are bows and arrows very well made, save that (the
arrows) are not (tipped) with iron nor any other kind of hard metal: and instead
of iron they put animals' or fishes' teeth, or a spike of tough wood, with the
point hardened by fire: they are sure marksmen, for they hit whatever they aim
at: and in some places the women use these bows: they have other weapons, such
as fire-hardened spears, and also clubs with knobs, beautifully carved. Warfare
is used amongst them, which they carry on against people not of their own
language, very cruelly, without granting life to any one, except (to reserve
him) for greater suffering. When they go to war, they take their women with
them, not that these may fight, but because they carry behind them their worldly
goods, for a woman carries on her back for thirty or forty leagues a load which
no man could bear: as we have many times seen them do. They are not accustomed
to have any Captain, nor do they go in any ordered array, for every one is lord
of himself: and the cause of their wars is not for lust of dominion, nor of
extending their frontiers, no for inordinate covetousness, but for some ancient
enmity which in by-gone times arose amongst them: and when asked why they made
war, they knew not any other reason to give than that they did so to avenge the
death of their ancestors, or of their parents: these people have neither King,
nor Lord, nor do they yield
obedience to any one, for they live in their own liberty: and how they be
stirred up to go to war is (this) that when the enemies have slain or captured
any of them, his oldest kinsman rises up and goes about the highways
haranguing them to go with him and avenge the death of such his kinsman:
and so are they stirred up by fellow-feeling they have no judicial system, nor
do they punish the ill-doer: nor does the father, nor the mother chastise the
children and marvelously (seldom) or never did we see any dispute among them: in
their conversation they appear
simple, and they are very cunning and acute in that which concerns them: they
speak little and in a low tone: they use the same articulations as we, since
they form their utterances either with the palate, or with the teeth, or on the
lips:
The
manner of their living is very barbarous, for they do not eat at certain hours, and as often-times as they
will: and it is not much of a boon to them that the will may come more at
midnight than by day, for they eat at all hours: and they eat upon the ground
without a table-cloth or any other cover, for they have their meats either in
earthen basins which they make themselves,
or in the halves of pumpkins: they sleep in certain very large nettings made of
cotton, suspended in the air: and although this their (fashion of) sleeping may
seem uncomfortable, I say that it is sweet to sleep in those (nettings): and we
slept better in them than in the counterpanes. They are a people smooth and
clean of body, because of so
continually washing themselves as they do. . .
Amongst
those people we did not learn that they had any law, nor can they be called
Moors nor Jews, and (they are) worse than pagans: because we did not observe
that they offered any sacrifice: nor even had they a house of
prayer: their manner of living I judge to be Epicurean: their dwellings
are in common: and their houses (are) made
in the style of huts, but strongly made, and constructed with very large
trees, and covered over with palm-leaves, secure
against storms and winds: and in some places (they are) of so great breadth and
length, that in one single house we
found there were 600 souls: and we saw a village of only thirteen houses where
there were four thousand
souls: every eight or ten years they change their habitations: and when asked
why they did so: (they said it was)
because of the soil which, from its filthiness, was already unhealthy and
corrupted, and that it bred aches in their
bodies, which seemed to us a good reason: their riches consist of bird's plumes
of many colours, or of rosaries
which they make from fishbones, or of white or green stones which they put in
their cheeks and in their lips and
ears, and of many other things which we in no wise value: they use no trade,
they neither buy nor sell. In
fine, they live and are contended with that which nature gives them. The
wealth that we enjoy in this our Europe and elsewhere, such as gold, jewels,
pearls, and other riches, they hold as nothing; and although they have them in
their own lands, they do not labour to obtain them, nor do they value them. They
are liberal in giving, for it is rarely they
deny you anything: and on the other hand, liberal in asking, when they shew
themselves your friends. . . .
[T]hey
eat little flesh except human flesh: for your Magnificence must know that herein
they are so inhuman that they outdo every custom
(even) of beasts; for they eat all their enemies whom they kill or capture, as
well females as males with so much savagery, that (merely) to relate it appears
a horrible thing: how much more so to see it, as, infinite times and
in many places, it was my hap to see it: and they wondered to hear us say
that we did not eat our enemies: and this
your Magnificence may take for certain, that their other barbarous customs are
such that expression is too weak for the reality:
.
. .{I}f any of us became weary of the march, they carried us in their nets very
refreshingly: and in crossing the rivers, which are many and very large, they
passed us over by skilful means so securely that we ran no danger whatever, and
many of them came laden with the things which they had given us, which consisted
in their sleeping-nets, and very rich feathers, many bows and arrows,
innumerable popinjays of divers colours: and others brought with them loads of
their household goods, and of animals: but a greater marvel will I tell you,
that, when we had to cross a river, he deemed himself lucky who was able to
carry us on his back: and when we reached the sea, our boats having arrived, we entered into them: and so great
was the struggle which they made to get into our boats, and to come to see our ships, that we marvelled (thereat):
and in our boats we took as many of them as we could, and made our way to the
ships, and so many (others) came swimming that we found ourselves embarrassed in
seeing so many people in the ships, for there were over a thousand
persons all naked and unarmed: they were amazed by our (nautical) gear and
contrivances, and the size of the ships: and with them there occurred to us a
very laughable affair, which was that we decided to fire off some of our great
guns, and when the explosion took place, most of them through fear cast
themselves (into the sea) to swim, not otherwise than frogs on the margins of a
pond, when they see something that frightens them, will jump into the water,
just so did those people: and those who remained in the ships were so terrified
that we regretted our action:
Many tribes came to see us, and wondered at our faces and our whiteness: and they asked us whence we came: and we gave them to understand that we had come from heaven, and that we were going to see the world, and they believed it. In this land we placed baptismal fonts, and an infinite (number of) people were baptised, and they called us in their language Carabi, which means men of great wisdom.