Marriage among the slaves.  But the poor slaves, who serve in the houses, marry each other without drinking and without any go-between.  They observe no ceremony, but simply say to each other, “Let us marry.”  If a chief have a slave, one of his ayoiys, who serves in the house, and wishes to marry him to a female slave of the same class belonging to another chief, he sends an Indian woman as agent to the master of the female slave, saying that her master wishes to marry one of his male slaves to the other’s female slave.  After the marriage has been arranged, he gives his slave an earthen jar, or three or four dishes, and there is no other ceremony.  Half of the children born to this couple will belong to the master of the female slave, and the other half will belong to the master of the male slave.  When the time comes when their children are able to work for their masters, the parents are made tumaranpoques, as we have said; because when a male slave of one chief marries the female slave of another chief, they immediately receive a house for their own use, and go out to work for their masters.  If a freeman marries a female slave, or vice versa, half of the children are slaves.  Thus, if there are two children, one is free and the other a slave, as the parents may choose.

In one thing these natives seem to go beyond all reason and justice.  It is usage among them that, if an Indian of one village owes twenty pesos (to suppose a case) to an Indian in another village, and when asked for the money refuses to repay it, when any Indian of that village where the said twenty pesos is due is caught, they seize him—­even if he is in no way related to or acquainted with the debtor—­and compel him to pay the twenty pesos.  It is their custom that he who first owed the twenty pesos must return to him who paid that sum forty pesos instead, on account of the violence used against him.  They say that they act thus in order not to use the mailed hand for collecting from the other in that village, since that would result in war.

Friendship.  Reconciliation between those who have quarreled, whether these are individuals or the people of different villages, is brought about by drawing blood from the arms of both parties, and each tasting the blood of the other, placed in a shell, sometimes mixed with a little wine; and such friendship is not to be broken.

Witches and sorcerers; physicians.  In this land are sorcerers and witches—­although there are also good physicians, who cure diseases with medicinal herbs; especially they have a remedy for every kind of poison, for there are most wonderful antidotal herbs.  The natives of this island are very superstitious; consequently, no native will embark for any voyage in a vessel on which there may be a goat or a monkey, for they say that they will surely be wrecked.  They have a thousand other omens of this sort.  For a few years past they have had among them one form of witchcraft which was invented