The Pirates of Panama: or, The Buccaneers of America; a True Account of the Famous Adventures and Daring Deeds of Sir Henry Morgan and Other Notorious Freebooters of the Spanish MainExquemelin, A. O. (Alexandre Olivier)
History
The Pirates of Panama: or, The Buccaneers of America; a True Account of the Famous Adventures and Daring Deeds of Sir Henry Morgan and Other Notorious Freebooters of the Spanish Main
Exquemelin, A. O. (Alexandre Olivier)
Buccaneers; Pirates; Spanish Main; West Indies -- History
They have now been above a hundred years under the Spaniards, to whom
they performed all manner of services; for whensoever any of them needed
a slave or servant, they sent for these to serve them as long as they
pleased. By the Spaniards they were initiated in the principles of the
Christian faith and religion, and they sent them every Sunday and
holiday a priest to perform divine service among them; afterwards, for
reasons not known, but certainly through temptations of the father of
idolatry, the devil, they suddenly cast off the Christian religion,
abusing the priest that was sent them: this provoked the Spaniards to
punish them, by casting many of the chiefs into prison. Every one of
those barbarians had, and hath still, a god to himself, whom he serves
and worships. It is a matter of admiration, how they use a child newly
born: as soon as it comes into the world, they carry it to the temple;
here they make a hole, which they fill with ashes only, on which they
place the child naked, leaving it there a whole night alone, not without
great danger, nobody daring to come near it; meanwhile the temple is
open on all sides, that all sorts of beasts may freely come in and out.
Next day, the father, and relations of the infant, return to see if the
track or step of any animal appears in the ashes: not finding any, they
leave the child there till some beast has approached the infant, and
left behind him the marks of his feet: to this animal, whatsoever it be,
they consecrate the creature newly born, as to its god, which he is
bound to worship all his life, esteeming the said beast his patron and
protector. They offer to their gods sacrifices of fire, wherein they
burn a certain gum called by them copal, whose smoke smells very
deliciously. When the infant is grown up, the parents thereof tell him
who he ought to worship, and serve, and honour as his own proper god.
Then he goes to the temple, where he makes offerings to the said beast.
Afterwards, if in the course of his life, any one injure him, or any
evil happen to him, he complains to that beast, and sacrifices to it for
revenge. Hence it often comes, that those who have done the injury of
which he complains are bitten, killed, or otherwise hurt by such
animals.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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