Greece -- History -- To 146 B.C.; History, Ancient
99. Others of the Indians, dwelling to the East of these, are pastoral
and eat raw flesh: these are called Padaians, and they practise the
following customs:—whenever any of their tribe falls ill, whether it be
a woman or a man, if a man then the men who are his nearest associates
put him to death, saying that he is wasting away with the disease and
his flesh is being spoilt for them: 89 and meanwhile he denies stoutly
and says that he is not ill, but they do not agree with him; and after
they have killed him they feast upon his flesh: but if it be a woman
who falls ill, the women who are her greatest intimates do to her in the
same manner as the men do in the other case. For 90 in fact even if a
man has come to old age they slay him and feast upon him; but very few
of them come to be reckoned as old, for they kill every one who falls
into sickness, before he reaches old age.
100. Other Indians have on the contrary a manner of life as
follows:—they neither kill any living thing nor do they sow any crops
nor is it their custom to possess houses; but they feed on herbs, and
they have a grain of the size of millet, in a sheath, which grows of
itself from the ground; this they gather and boil with the sheath, and
make it their food: and whenever any of them falls into sickness, he
goes to the desert country and lies there, and none of them pay any
attention either to one who is dead or to one who is sick.
101. The sexual intercourse of all these Indians of whom I have spoken
is open like that of cattle, and they have all one colour of skin,
resembling that of the Ethiopians: moreover the seed which they emit is
not white like that of other races, but black like their skin; and the
Ethiopians also are similar in this respect. These tribes of Indians
dwell further off than the Persian power extends, and towards the South
Wind, and they never became subjects of Dareios.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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