It Is The Eastern Shore Of An Inland Sea Which May Be Considered As A Basin With Several Outlets. This

Peculiar configuration of the land has served to support the different systems of migration, by which it has been attempted

To explain the settlement of the nations of the Carib race in the islands and on the neighbouring continent. The Caribs of the continent admit that the small West India Islands were anciently inhabited by the Arowaks,* a warlike nation, the great mass of which still inhabit the insalubrious shores of Surinam and Berbice. (* Arouaques. The missionary Quandt (Nachricht von Surinam, 1807 page 47) calls them Arawackes.) They assert that the Arowaks, with the exception of the women, were all exterminated by Caribs, who came from the mouths of the Orinoco. In support of this tradition they refer to the traces of analogy existing between the language of the Arowaks and that of the Carib women; but it must be recollected that the Arowaks, though the enemies of the Caribs, belonged to the same branch of people; and that the same analogy exists between the Arowak and Carib languages as between the Greek and the Persian, the German and the Sanscrit. According to another tradition, the Caribs of the islands came from the south, not as conquerors, but because they were expelled from Guiana by the Arowaks, who originally ruled over all the neighbouring nations. Finally, a third tradition, much more general and more probable, represents the Caribs as having come from Florida, in North America. Mr. Bristock, a traveller who has collected every particular relating to these migrations from north to south, asserts that a tribe of Confachites (Confachiqui* (* The province of Confachiqui, which in 1541 became subject to a woman, is celebrated by the expedition of Hernando de Soto to Florida. Among the nations of the Huron tongue, and the Attakapas, the supreme authority was also often exercised by women.)) had long waged war against the Apalachites; that the latter, having yielded to that tribe the fertile district of Amana, called their new confederates Caribes (that is, valiant strangers); but that, owing to a dispute respecting their religious rites, the Confachite-Caribs were driven from Florida. They went first to the Yucayas or Lucayes Islands (to Cigateo and the neighbouring islands); thence to Ayay (Hayhay, now Santa Cruz), and to the lesser Caribbee Islands; and lastly to the continent of South America.* (* Rochefort, Hist. des Antilles volume 1 pages 326 to 353; Garcia page 322; Robertson book 3 note 69. The conjecture of Father Gili that the Caribs of the continent may have come from the islands at the time of the first conquest of the Spaniards (Saggio volume 3 page 204), is at variance with all the statements of the early historians.) It is supposed that this event took place toward the year 1100 of our era. In the course of this long migration the Caribs had not touched at the larger islands; the inhabitants of which however also believed that they came originally from Florida. The islanders of Cuba, Hayti, and Boriken (Porto Rico) were, according to the uniform testimony of the first conquistadores, entirely different from the Caribs; and at the period of the discovery of America, the latter had already abandoned the group of the lesser Lucayes Islands; an archipelago in which there prevailed that variety of languages always found in lands peopled by shipwrecked men and fugitives.* (* La gente de las islas Yucayas era (1492) mas blanca y de major policia que la de Cuba y Haiti. Havia mucha diversidad de lenguas. [The people of the Lucayes were (1492) of fairer complexion and of more civilized manners than those of Cuba and Hayti. They had a great diversity of languages.] Gomara, Hist. de Ind. fol. 22.)

The dominion so long exercised by the Caribs over a great part of the continent, joined to the remembrance of their ancient greatness, has inspired them with a sentiment of dignity and national superiority which is manifest in their manners and their discourse. "We alone are a nation," say they proverbially; "the rest of mankind (oquili) are made to serve us." This contempt of the Caribs for their enemies is so strong that I saw a child of ten years of age foam with rage on being called a Cabre or Cavere; though he had never in his life seen an individual of that unfortunate race of people who gave their name to the town of Cabruta (Cabritu); and who, after long resistance, were almost entirely exterminated by the Caribs. Thus we find among half savage hordes, as in the most civilized part of Europe, those inveterate animosities which have caused the names of hostile nations to pass into their respective languages as insulting appellations.

The missionary of the village of Cari led us into several Indian huts, where extreme neatness and order prevailed. We observed with pain the torments which the Carib mothers inflict on their infants for the purpose not only of enlarging the calf of the leg, but also of raising the flesh in alternate stripes from the ankle to the top of the thigh. Narrow ligatures, consisting of bands of leather, or of woven cotton, are fixed two or three inches apart from each other, and being tightened more and more, the muscles between the bands become swollen. The monks of the missions, though ignorant of the works or even of the name of Rousseau, attempt to oppose this ancient system of physical education: but in vain. Man when just issued from the woods and supposed to be so simple in his manners, is far from being tractable in his ideas of beauty and propriety. I observed, however, with surprise, that the manner in which these poor children are bound, and which seems to obstruct the circulation of the blood, does not operate injuriously on their muscular movements. There is no race of men more robust and swifter in running than the Caribs.

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