raptim sudibus ramificè ædificant, & aut cortice aut pellibus aut etiā tegete cōtegunt. Ignis in medio extruitur. Sed hæc iam satis supérque de regione & hominibus, maximè cùm accuratam regionis Chorographiam mittam; ex quo vno intuitu, quidquid de terrarum & maris situ dixi, liquidò apparebit. If, however, he does not appear to be in a dying condition by the time predicted, his friends and relatives even hasten his death by pouring jars of cold water over his stomach. Such is the piety of these servants of Satan. Thus, no doubt because he is always deceitful, the soothsayer never appears to deceive himself; although this lying race of prophets have lost much of their authority since the coming of the French, and now universally complain that their Devils have lost much of their power, [16] if compared with what it is said to have been in the time of their Ancestors. They so completely bury the very remembrance of the dead with their bodies that they will not even suffer their names to be mentioned afterwards. Of the one supreme GOD they have a certain slender notion, but they are so perverted by false ideas and by custom, that, as I have said, they really worship the Devil. To obtain the necessaries of life they endure cold and hunger in an extraordinary manner. During eight or ten days, if the necessity is imposed on them, they will follow the chase in fasting, and they hunt with the greatest ardor when the snow is deepest and the cold most severe. And yet these same Savages, the offspring, so to speak, of Boreas and the ice, when once they have returned with their booty and installed themselves in their tents, become indolent and unwilling to perform any labor whatever, imposing this entirely upon the women. The latter, besides the onerous rôle of bearing and rearing the children, also transport the game from the place where it has fallen; they are the hewers of wood and drawers of water; they make and repair the household utensils; they prepare food; they skin the game and prepare the hides like fullers; they sew garments; they catch fish and gather shellfish for food; often [17] they even hunt; they make the canoes, that is, skiffs of marvelous rapidity, out of bark; they set up the tents wherever and whenever they stop for the night--in short, the men concern themselves with nothing but the more laborious hunting and the waging of war. For this reason almost every one has several wives, and especially the Sagamores, since they cannot maintain their power and keep up the number of their dependents unless they have not only many children to inspire fear or conciliate favor, but also many slaves to perform patiently the menial tasks of every sort that are necessary. For their wives are regarded and treated as slaves. These Savages are extremely liberal toward each other;