But Very Few Are Able To Do So, As No One Ever Visits
The Sick Person After His Suspension.
Should any of these leave the
hammock and die in the wood, they get no other burial.
They have several
other barbarous customs, which I omit mentioning, to avoid being prolix.
They use various medicines for curing their diseases, which are so totally
different from those used among us, that it is wonderful any one should
recover by their means. When any one is ill of a fever, they plunge the
patient at its heighth in the coldest water, after which he is forced to
run round a large fire for two hours till he is all over in a violent
perspiration, and is then taken to bed. By this strange remedy we have
seen many restored to health. They will sometimes refrain from food for
three or four days. They draw blood, not from the arms, but from the loins
and the calves of the legs. They excite vomiting by means of certain herbs
which they chew, and keep in their mouths. They use likewise various other
remedies and antidotes, which it were tedious to enumerate. They are
subject to different sanguineous and phlegmatic humours, occasioned by the
nature of their food, which consists of fish, with various roots, fruits,
and herbs. They use no meal of any kind of corns or other seeds; but their
chief food is made from the root of a certain tree, which they bruise down
into a tolerably good kind of meal. This root is called by some jucha,
by others chambi, and by others igname. They scarcely eat of any kind
of flesh except that of men, in the use of which they exceed every thing
that is brutal and savage among mankind; devouring their enemies, whether
slain or taken prisoners, both men and women indiscriminately, in the most
ferocious manner that can be conceived. I have often seen them employed in
this brutal feast, and they expressed surprize that we did not eat our
enemies as they did. All this your majesty may be assured is absolutely
true; and that their customs are so many and barbarous, it were tedious to
describe them all. Having seen many things during my four voyages
exceedingly different from our manners and customs, I have composed a book
in which all these are particularly described, but which I have not yet
published.
In this beginning of our course along the coast, we did not discover any
thing from which any great profit could be derived, probably because we
did not understand the language of the natives, except that we observed
several indications that gold was to be found in this country, which in
all other repects is most admirably situated. It was therefore agreed upon
to continue our voyage, always keeping as near as possible to the shore,
which occasioned us to make many tacks and circuits, keeping up frequent
intercourse with the natives as we proceeded.
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