them food and drink.  They did not take especial pains that, if the dead had possessed more property, everything should be left to him; but slaves, both men and women, were presented to them to serve them in the other life (which they no doubt imagined to be similar to the present life).  The custom that they observed with those slaves was, to behead them immediately after having fed them sumptuously, so that they might not fail the service and company of such influential men, since the latter needed them, as they said.  In confirmation of that, it happened that, on the death of a chief of that race, they killed all the sailors necessary for a boat’s crew, in order that servants, and rowers befitting his station might not be lacking to him in the life that they ignorantly imagined for such a person.  After the conclusion of those honors, they gave themselves up to extensive revelry and feasting, which they interspersed with their mourning, observing a notable silence in the nearest houses and in the streets.  No one worked, just as during a festal occasion; nor did he have to navigate under any consideration.  He who opposed the aforesaid usage did not escape death, which was inflicted on him with rigor and without recourse.

Among all the above and many other follies, they believed that the world had a beginning, and they had some notion of the flood; but it was confused with the greatest nonsense and lies.  They did not doubt the fact of there having been in its time a creation of man, but they believed that the first one had emerged from a bamboo joint and his wife out of another, under very ridiculous and stupid circumstances.  They did not consider homicide as wrong, and the taking of as many lives as possible was a great honor.  Consequently, the valiant and those who were feared set the heads of those who perished at their hands on the doors of their houses, as a proof of their deeds; for he who hung up the greatest number, in the sight of his other countrymen was most esteemed and applauded.  It was an abuse of obligation that, a father or mother having died, the son who inherited should retire from the village into the mountains and forests until he had despoiled at least two persons of the common light—­even though it should be, as one can well judge, at the risk of losing the light that he himself was enjoying.  When they had more children than they desired, or than they could support as they wished, they generally buried them alive.  In what pertains to political government, they had no greater superiority than that which the most powerful usurped in the matter of life and death over those who were not powerful, disposing of them as they wished.  Accordingly they made them slaves for very slight reasons and occasions.  When any suits and quarrels arose in regard to criminal or civil matters, their old men assembled, and composed these difficulties or passed sentence in them, and no one could appeal or petition from their decisions.  They proved causes orally, examining witnesses and investigating doubts verbally.  Their laws were only traditions and very old customs, but they observed these carefully—­not so much for fear of punishment, as because they believed that he who violated them would be instantly killed, or at least become afflicted with the disease of leprosy, and that another part also of his body would become corrupt.