The Women Are Very
Prolific, And Do Not Shun Labour Or Fatigue While Pregnant.
Their
deliveries are attended with little pain, so that they are able
immediately afterwards to go about their usual occupations in perfect
health and vigour; going in the first place to wash themselves in the
nearest river.
Yet such is their proneness to cruelty and malignant spite,
that if exasperated by their husbands, they take a certain poison in
revenge, which kills the foetus within them, so that they afterwards
miscarry, by which abominable practice vast numbers of their children are
destroyed. Their bodies are so elegant and well proportioned, that hardly
is any the smallest deformity to be seen among them. Though they go
entirely naked among the women, their appearance is tolerably decent[5],
yet are they no more moved by this exposure than we are by shewing our
faces. It is rare among them to see any women with lax breasts or
shrivelled bellies through frequent child-birth, as they are all equally
plump and firm afterwards as formerly. Their women were extremely fond of
our men.
We could not perceive that this nation had any religion, nor ought they on
that account to be accounted worse than the Jews, or Moors, since these
nations are much more reprehensible than the pagans or idolaters. We could
not discover that they performed any sacrifices or sacred rites of any
kind, neither had they any temples or other places for worship. Their way
of living, which is exceedingly voluptuous, I consider as epicurean[6].
Their houses, which are common to all, are built in the shape of a bell,
firmly constructed of large pieces of timber, and covered over with palm
leaves, so strong as to be able to resist winds and storms; some of them
so large as to be able to contain six hundred persons.
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