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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The Young Girls Wear Very Tight Bandages Round
Their Knees In Order To Give Thickness To The Thighs And Calves Of The
Legs.]) On Observing The Spirit Of Order And Submission Which Prevails
In The Carib Missions, The Traveller Can Scarcely Persuade Himself
That He Is Among Cannibals.
This American word, of somewhat doubtful
signification, is probably derived from the language of Hayti, or that
of Porto Rico; and it has passed into the languages of Europe, since
the end of the fifteenth century, as synonymous with that of
anthropophagi.
"These newly discovered man-eaters, so greedy of human
flesh, are called Caribes or Cannibals,"* says Anghiera, in the third
decade of his Oceanica, dedicated to Pope Leo X. (* Edaces humanarum
carnium novi helluones anthropophagi, Caribes alias Canibales
appellati.) There can be little doubt that the Caribs of the islands,
when a conquering people, exercised cruelties upon the Ygneris, or
ancient inhabitants of the West Indies, who were weak and not very
warlike; but we must also admit that these cruelties were exaggerated
by the early travellers, who heard only the narratives of the old
enemies of the Caribs. It is not always the vanquished solely, who are
calumniated by their contemporaries; the insolence of the conquerors
is punished by the catalogue of their crimes being augmented.
All the missionaries of the Carony, the Lower Orinoco and the Llanos
del Cari whom we had an opportunity of consulting assured us that the
Caribs are perhaps the least anthropophagous nations of the New
Continent. They extend this remark even to the independent hordes who
wander on the east of the Esmeralda, between the sources of the Rio
Branco and the Essequibo. It may be conceived that the fury and
despair with which the unhappy Caribs defended themselves against the
Spaniards, when in 1504 a royal decree declared them slaves, may have
contributed to acquire for them a reputation for ferocity. The first
idea of attacking this nation and depriving it of liberty and of its
natural rights originated with Christopher Columbus, who was not in
all instances so humane as he is represented to have been.
Subsequently the licenciado Rodrigo de Figueroa was appointed by the
court, in 1520, to determine the tribes of South America, who were to
be regarded as of Carib race, or as cannibals; and those who were
Guatiaos,* that is, Indians of peace, and friends of the Castilians.
(* I had some trouble in discovering the origin of this denomination
which has become so important from the fatal decrees of Figueroa. The
Spanish historians often employ the word guatiao to designate a branch
of nations. To become a guatiao of any one seems to have signified, in
the language of Hayti, to conclude a treaty of friendship. In the West
India Islands, as well as in the archipelago of the South Sea, names
were exchanged in token of alliance. Juan de Esquivel (1502) se hice
guatiao del cacique Cotubanama; el qual desde adelante se llamo Juan
de Esquivel, porque era liga de perpetua amistad entre los Indios
trocarse los nombres:
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