Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 3 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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He Describes The Race Of That Tribe As Being
Naked With Long Hair, And Going To The Neighbouring Countries To
Trade; And Says The Women Are Cleanly, Well Dressed And Extremely
Engaging (Amorosas Y Galanas).
"I have not seen," adds the
Conquistador, "any women more beautiful* in all the Indian lands I
have visited:
They have one fault, however, that of having too
frequent intercourse with the devil." (* Cronica del Peru pages 21 and
22. The Indians of Darien, Uraba, Zenu (Sinu), Tatabe, the valleys of
Nore and of Guaca, the mountains of Abibe and Antioquia, are accused,
by the same author, of the most ferocious cannibalism; and perhaps
that circumstance alone gives rise to the idea that they were of the
same race as the Caribs of the West Indies. In the celebrated
Provision Real of the 30th of October, 1503, by which the Spaniards
are permitted to make slaves of the anthropophagic Indians of the
archipelago of San Bernardo, opposite the mouth of the Rio Sinu, the
Isla Fuerte, Isla Bura (Baru) and Carthagena, there is more of a
question of morals than of race, and the denomination of Caribs is
altogether avoided. Cieca asserts that the natives of the valley of
Nore seized the women of neighbouring tribes, in order first to devour
the children who were born of the union with foreign wives, and then
the women themselves. Foreseeing that this horrible depravity would
not be believed, although it had been observed by Columbus in the West
Indies, he cites the testimony of Juan de Vadillo, who had observed
the same facts and who was still living in 1554 when the Cronica del
Peru appeared in Dutch. With respect to the etymology of the word
cannibal, it seems to me entirely cleared up by the discovery of the
journal kept by Columbus during his first voyage of discovery, and of
which Bartholomew de las Casas has left us an abridged copy. Dice mas
el Almirante que en las islas passadas estaban con gran temor de
carib: y en algunas los llamaban caniba; pero en la Espanola carib y
son gente arriscada, pues andan por todas estas islas y comen la gente
que pueden haber. [And the Admiral moreover says that in the islands
they passed, great apprehension was entertained on account of the
caribs. Some call them canibas; but in Spanish they are called caribs.
They are a very bold people, and they travel about these islands, and
devour all the persons whom they capture.] Navarete tome 1 page 135.
In this primitive form of words it is easy to perceive that the
permutation of the letters r and n, resulting from the imperfection of
the organs in some nations, might change carib into canib, or caniba.
Geraldini who, according to the tendency of that age, sought, like
Cardinal Bembo, to latinize all barbarous denominations, recognizes in
the Cannibals the manners of dogs (canes) just as St. Louis desired to
send the Tartars ad suas tartareas sedes unde exierint.)
The Rio Sinu, owing to its position and its fertility, is of the
highest importance for provisioning Carthagena.
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