A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 03: Arranged in Systematic Order: Forming a Complete History of the Origin and Progress of Navigation, Discovery, and Commerce, by Sea and Land, from the Earliest Ages to the Present TimeKerr, Robert
History
A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 03: Arranged in Systematic Order: Forming a Complete History of the Origin and Progress of Navigation, Discovery, and Commerce, by Sea and Land, from the Earliest Ages to the Present Time
Kerr, Robert
Voyages and travels
6. Guagugiana being full of these blotches which we call the French pox,
was put by a woman named Guabonito into a guanara, or bye-place, and there
cured. He was afterwards named Biberoci Guahagiona, and the women gave him
abundance of guanine and cibe to wear upon his arms. The cibe or colecibi
are made of a stone like marble, and are worn round the wrists and neck,
but the guanine are worn in their ears, and they sound like fine metal.
They say that Guabonito, Albeboreal, Guahagiona, and the father of
Albeboreal were the first of these Guaninis. Guahagiona remained with the
father called Hiauna; his son from the father took the name of Hia Guaill
Guanin, which signifies the son of Hiauna, and thence the island whether
Guahagiona went is called Guanin to this day.
7. The men who had been left without women were anxious to procure some,
and one day saw the shape of human beings sliding down the trees, whom
they could not catch. But by employing four men who had rough hands from a
disease like the itch, these four strange beings were caught.
8. Finding those beings wanted the parts of women, they caught certain
birds named turiri cahuvaial, resembling woodpeckers, and by their means
fashioned them to their purpose.
9. There was once a man named Giaia, who had a son named Giaiael, which
signifies the son of Giaia; and who, intending to kill his father was
banished and afterwards killed by his father, and his bones hung up in a
calabash. Afterwards going to examine the bones, he found them all changed
into a vast number of great and small fishes.
10. There were four brothers, the sons of a woman named Itiba Tahuvava,
all born at one birth, for the woman dying in labour they cut her open.
The first they cut out was named Diminan, and was a caracaracol, or
afflicted with a disease like the itch, the others had no names. One day
while Giaia was at his conichi or lands, these brothers came to his house
and took down the calabash to eat the fish; but not hanging it up properly,
there ran out so much water as drowned the whole country, and with it
great quantities of fish: And in this manner they believe the sea had its
original.
11. After a long story of a live tortoise being cut out from the shoulder
of Diminan Caracaracol, quite away from the purpose, F. Roman proceeds to
say that the sun and moon came out of a grotto called Giovovava, in the
country of a cacique named Maucia Tiuvel. This grotto is much venerated,
and is all painted over with the representation of leaves and other things.
It contained two cemis made of stone, about a quarter of a yard long,
having their hands bound, and which looked as if they sweated. These were
called Boinaiel and Maroio, and were much visited and honoured, especially
when they wanted rain.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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