I Can Give No
Account Of Their Language, As It Has No Affinity Either To Chinese Or
Malay.
Their weapons are lances headed with iron, and they wear a kind
of armour of buffalo-hide without sleeves, reaching below their knees,
where it is three feet wide, and as stiff as a board, but close at the
shoulders.
[Footnote 199: This is rather inexplicable, as we cannot conceive how
they got the guts and skins without killing the goats. - E.]
I could not perceive that they had any worship, neither saw I any idols
among them. They seemed to have no government or precedency, except that
the children were very respectful to their parents. They seem, however,
to be regulated by some ancient customs, instead of laws, as we saw a
young lad buried alive, which we supposed was for being guilty of theft.
The men have each only one wife, and she and her children were very
obedient to the head of the family. The boys are brought up to fishing
along with their fathers; and the girls work along with their mothers in
the plantations in the vallies, where each family plants a piece of
ground proportional to their numbers. They are a civil quiet people, not
only among themselves, but in their intercourse with strangers; for all
the time we were here, though they came frequently aboard, exchanging
their yellow metal, goats, and fruits, for iron, we never saw them
differ either among themselves or with our men, though occasions of the
latter were not wanting.
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