Antigua and the Antiguans, Volume 1 (of 2): A full account of the colony and its inhabitants from the time of the Caribs to the present dayLanaghan, Mrs.
History
Antigua and the Antiguans, Volume 1 (of 2): A full account of the colony and its inhabitants from the time of the Caribs to the present day
Lanaghan, Mrs.
Antigua -- Description and travel; Antigua -- History
superiority of fire-arms over the bow and arrows of their own
country, they viewed them with unbounded admiration; but the
inventions and improvements of civilized life, with all the arts
and manufactures of the Spaniards, they regarded with apathy, or
paid them the same attention as we do the toys of childhood.
Columbus noticed two distinct races of Caribs. One was quite
black, with hair approaching to woolly; the other, of a deep
copper colour complexion, with long, straight hair; the latter
inhabited Antigua and the adjoining islands, while the blacks
predominated more in the islands further south. In appearance,
the Caribs were robust and muscular; their limbs flexible and
active. They ornamented their hair with shells and grease; and
some of them had it turned up like women, and decorated with thin
plates of gold, which they procured from the Arrowawks. Their
garments were composed of cotton cloth, fabricated by their
females, and which they had the art of staining red, their
favourite colour; but many of them were in a state of nudity. The
cartilage of the nostril was perforated, and in it they stuck a
piece of tortoise-shell, the bone of a fish highly polished, or a
parrot’s feather. They adorned their arms, neck, and ankles, with
the teeth of their enemies which they had slain in battle, or
devoured at home. Their bodies were painted in the most hideous
manner, which appears to have been intended to make them look
more formidable in the eyes of their enemies than pleasing in the
sight of their friends. The favourite style of doing this, was
first to smear a quantity of red paint all over them; they then
encircled one eye with a streak of white, and the other with one
of black; they also disfigured their cheeks with deep incisions
and horrible scars, which they stained with various colours; and
the greater number and depth of these disfigurations constituted
their idea of manly beauty, and martial appearance.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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