Their Employment is Hunting, Fishing, Tilling, Building of Houses, and the like. Theft is not known amongst them, so that no Man is suspicious of his Neighbor; wherefore they leave their Huts open both Night and Day. They are also seldom at Variance one with another, but generally Love sways amongst them; yet if a Quarrel doth happen, then the injur’d Person revenges himself to the heighth. Persons that profess Chastity are much honor’d amongst them; and here Youth bears great respect to Age.
Their Ignorance.
They are also very ignorant in natural Knowledge, insomuch that when the Moon is Eclips’d, they suppose that it is devour’d by Maboya; and wheresoe’re they smell any ill scent, they believe the Devil to be not far from thence. Gunpowder they suppose to be a Grain, and are very fearful of Fire-Arms: Though they have many brave Salt-pits, yet they use no Salt, nor eat any Swines-flesh, though all those Islands abound in that sort of Animal, fearing that if they should eat the same, it would cause them to have little Eyes, which they account very homely, though it is a property generally incident to them; neither will they eat any Tortoise, because they would not be so gross as that Creature. Lastly, they know now no greater Number than they reckon on their Fingers and Toes, for what exceeds twenty is to them innumerable: They hold that good Spirits, whom they call Akamoue, residing in Heaven, never trouble themselves with Earthly Affairs.
Their Offerings consist in Cassave and the first of their Fruits, which are set at the end of their Huts in Vessels on small Tables, cover’d with Leaves or Rushes, without uttering any Prayers; for they never Pray but in publick in company of the Boyez or Priests, and that either for revenge against Injuries, or for recovery from Sickness, or that they may know the Events of War, or for Protection against the Maboya.
Each Boye hath his peculiar God, which, Singing with a conjuring Verse, he calls to him in the Night whilst he Smoaks a Pipe of Tobacco.
Their Fear of the Maboya.
Some have been of Opinion, that this Conceit of the Maboya proceeds from the phlegmatick Nature of the Caribbeeans, who in their melancholy Dreams imagine themselves to be grievously beaten by the said Maboya. But there are sufficient testimonies to prove, that these Heathens have often really suffer’d much by this Maboya, often appearing to them in such horrid shapes, that the poor Caribbeeans would sweat and quake at the sight thereof, and inflicting such sad Pinches and bloody Stripes all over their Bodies, that they liv’d in perpetual fear of this evil Spirit: and yet notwithstanding these cruel Sufferings, they shew’d no manner of Worship to Maboya, onely they believ’d that they had some ease, when they wore little Pictures about their Necks, made resembling the Shapes in which Maboya appear’d to them; but their best Remedy was to flye to the Christians.
Their Consultations about the Death of any Relation.
They believe their Boyez able to resolve any Question they ask of them; particularly, when any one dies, the nearest ally’d to him asks the Boye this Question, Who is the occasion of his Death? to which if the Boye names any one, they never rest till they have dispatch’d him to the other World. Concerning their original brutish way of living, they give much credit to an ancient Fable, which is to this effect:
Fabulous Tradition.