The Customs Of These Indians Are For The Most Part Much The Same As Those
Of Hispaniola And The Neighbouring
Islands; but those people of Veragua
and the country about it, when they talk to one another are constantly
turning
Their backs and always chewing an herb, which we believed to be
the reson that their teeth were rotten and decayed. Their food is mostly
fish, which they take with nets, and with hooks made of tortoiseshell,
which they cut with a thread as if they were sawing, in the same manner as
is done in the islands. They have another way of catching some very small
fishes, which are called Titi in Hispaniola. At certain times these are
driven towards the shore by the rains, and are so persecuted by the larger
fish that they are forced up to the surface in shoal water, where the
Indians take as many of them as they have a mind by means of little matts
or small meshed nets. They wrap these up singly in certain leaves, and
having dried them in an oven they will keep a great while. They also catch
pilchards in the same manner; for at certain times these fly with such
violence from the pursuit of the large fish, that they will leap out of
the water two or three paces on the dry land, so that they have nothing to
do but take them as they do the Titi. These pilchards are taken after
another manner:
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