They
Have Sticks Likewise, With Which They Strike The Ground,
Accompanying The Blow With A Motion Of Their Whole Bodies.
They
begin their concert by stamping their feet on the ground, and
playing gently on their instruments; but when
They have heated
themselves by degrees, they leave off drumming, and fall to leaping,
dancing, and clapping their hands, at the same time straining their
voices to the utmost pitch, till at length they have no regard
either to the tune or the pauses, and seem rather a riotous than a
religious assembly. For this manner of worship they cite the psalm
of David, "O clap your hands all ye nations." Thus they misapply
the sacred writings to defend practices yet more corrupt than those
I have been speaking of.
They are possessed with a strange notion that they are the only true
Christians in the world; as for us, they shunned us as heretics, and
were under the greatest surprise at hearing us mention the Virgin
Mary with the respect which is due to her, and told us that we could
not be entirely barbarians since we were acquainted with the mother
of God. It plainly appears that prepossessions so strong, which
receive more strength from the ignorance of the people, have very
little tendency to dispose them to a reunion with the Catholic
Church.
They have some opinions peculiar to themselves about purgatory, the
creation of souls, and some of our mysteries. They repeat baptism
every year, they retain the practice of circumcision, they observe
the Sabbath, they abstain from all those sorts of flesh which are
forbidden by the law. Brothers espouse the wives of their brothers,
and to conclude, they observe a great number of Jewish ceremonies.
Though they know the words which Jesus Christ appointed to be used
in the administration of baptism, they have without scruple
substituted others in their place, which makes the validity of their
baptism, and the reality of their Christianity, very doubtful. They
have a few names of saints, the same with those in the Roman
martyrology, but they often insert others, as Zama la Cota, the Life
of Truth; Ongulari, the Evangelist; Asca Georgi, the Mouth of Saint
George.
To bring back this people into the enclosure of the Catholic Church,
from which they have been separated so many ages, was the sole view
and intention with which we undertook so long and toilsome a
journey, crossed so many seas, and passed so many deserts, with the
utmost hazard of our lives; I am certain that we travelled more than
seven thousand leagues before we arrived at our residence at
Fremona.
We came to this place, anciently called Maigoga, on the 21st of
June, as I have said before, and were obliged to continue there till
November, because the winter begins here in May, and its greatest
rigour is from the middle of June to the middle of September. The
rains that are almost continually falling in this season make it
impossible to go far from home, for the rivers overflow their banks,
and therefore, in a place like this, where there are neither bridges
nor boats, are, if they are not fordable, utterly impassable.
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