Strange making of Obligations.
When in conversing with them they observ’d their strange manner of Sealing their Bargains and Contracts one with another, they were amaz’d, for not using Wax, they usually Seal’d their Compacts with their own Blood, commonly drawn with a Stone Knife, either from their Tongue, Hand, or Arms.
Their Priests live single, and if found to be Unchast, are punisht with Death. An Adulteress is sold for a Slave: Unmarry’d People may not frequently converse with Marry’d: Thirty five days in the year makes their Lent, in which they abstain not onely from Flesh, but Fish also, feeding onely upon Roots and Herbs. In this place the Spaniards were receiv’d in great state, Canopy’d with green Palm-Tree-Branches, and in like manner conducted aboard again, not without many Presents, viz. the Effigies of a Man curiously wrought in Gold, wherewith they return’d to Cuba.
Sect. IXa.
The Expedition of Ferdinand Magaglian, commonly call’d Magellane.
Bishop Casis sad effect concerning the Pearl catching.
The Bishop Bartholomew de Casis, living a considerable time in Hispaniola, in the City Dominico, being inform’d of the abundance of Pearls which were caught before Cubagua, and the unsupportable cruelty of the Spaniards there under Ocampus, us’d against the Inhabitants, went to Spain, with a design to obtain of the Emperor Charles the Fifth, the Government over Cumana and Cubagua, under pretence, to draw the ignorant Natives from their Idolatry, to Christianity; which his request was especially promoted by William of Nassaw, the Emperors prime Favorite; so that having his Letters Patents granted to that purpose, he took Ship, and arriv’d with three hundred Spanish Gentlemen of Quality in Cumana: And that they might have the greater respect shown to them there, they had each a Red Cross given them, such as the Knights of Calatrava generally wear. Yet little did Ocampus, the old Governor of Cumana, regard either them or their Authority; for in stead of receiving and submitting, he kept the Bishop de Casis out by force of Arms; who then made complaint to the Vice-Roy of the West-Indies in Hispaniola, and in the mean time, put his Cargo into a new Store-house.
But whilst he made his Addresses, Ocampus having sufficiently inrich’d himself departed, which incourag’d the Cumaners, who already were incens’d, and weary of their former sufferings, to venture on a design, whereby they might revenge themselves of the Spaniards, which their undertaking prov’d so successful, that very few escap’d the Massacre: Of which, de Casis being inform’d, and much discontented thereat, betook himself to a Dominican Cloyster in Hispaniola.
Cruelty of Castellio in Cumana.
Yet not long after, the Cumaners paid dear for that slaughter, for one Castellio, though not without several Engagements, with various success, lasting forty days together, having at last utterly vanquish’d them, put to an ignominious Death, Hanging up seventy of their Princes, and to them of meaner quality, shewing as little mercy.
Lampagnano discontented.