The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation — Volume 06: Madiera, the Canaries, Ancient Asia, Africa, etc. — John Shaqi
The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation — Volume 06: Madiera, the Canaries, Ancient Asia, Africa, etc.Hakluyt, Richard
History
The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation — Volume 06: Madiera, the Canaries, Ancient Asia, Africa, etc.
Hakluyt, Richard
Discoveries in geography -- English; Voyages and travels
The Aegiptians firste of all other, deuised the names of the twelue Goddes,
builte vp Altares, and Images, erected Chappelles and Temples, and graued
in stone the similitude of many sondrie beastes. All whiche their doynges,
dooe manifestly make, that thei came of the Aethiopes, who (as Diodore the
Sicilian saieth) ware the firste inuentours of all these. Their women in
old tyme, had all the trade of occupiyng, and brokage [Footnote: To _broke_
i.e. to deal, or transact business particularly of an amorous character.
(See Fansh. Lusiad, ix., 44; and Daniel, Queen's Arcadia, iii., 3.)]
abrode, and reuelled at the Tauerne, and kepte lustie chiere: And the men
satte at home spinnyng, and woorkyng of Lace, and suche other thynges as
women are wonte. The men bare their burdeins on the heade, the women on the
shulder. In the easemente of vrine, the men rowked [Footnote: To bend.]
doune, the women stoode vprighte. The easemente of ordure thei vsed at
home, but commonly feasted abrode in the stretes. No woman tooke ordres,
either of God or Goddesse. Their maner of ordres, is not to make seuerally
for euery Goddesse and God, a seuerall priest, but al at a shuffe, in
generall for all. Emong the whiche, one is an heade, whose sonne enheriteth
his roume by succession. The men children, euen of a custome of that
people, did with good wil kepe their fathers and mothers, but the women
children (yf they refused it) ware compelled. The moste part of men in
solempne burialles, shaue their heades, and let theyr beardes growe, but
Thegiptians shaued their beardes and let their heades grow. They wrought
their doughe with their fiete, and their claye with their handes. As the
Grecians do beleue, this people, and their ofspring, are they that vsed
circumcision. Thei ordre their writyng from their right hande towarde their
left, contrary to vs. It was the maner emong them, that the menne should
weare two garmentes at ones, the women but one. As the Aethiopes had, so
learned they of them, two maner of lettres; the one seuerall to the
priestes thother vsed in commune. Their priestes, euery thirde daye shaued
their bodies, that there might be none occasion of filthinesse when they
shold ministre or sacrifie. Thei did were garmentes of linnen, euer cleane
wasshed, and white: and shoes of a certeine kinde of russhes, named
Papyrus, whiche aftre became stuffe, to geue name to our paper. They
neither sette beane their selues, ne eate them where soeuer they grewe: ne
the priest may not loke vpon a beane, for that it is iudged an vncleane
puls. They are wasshed euery daye in colde water thrise, and euery nighte
twise. The heades of their sacrifices (for that they vsed to curse them
with many terrible woordes) did they not eate, but either the priestes
solde them to such strangiers as had trade emonge them, or if there ware no
suche ready in time, they threwe them in to Nilus.
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