They Worship An Idol Also, Which
Resembles A Man From The Navel Upwards, All Below Being In The Likeness Of
An Ox; And This Idol Delivers Oracles, As They Believe, And Sometimes
Requires The Sacrifice Of Forty Virgins.
On this account, the people
consecrate their sons and daughters to the idols, even as we Christians
dedicate our sons and daughters to some particular order of religion, or to
some of the saints in Heaven.
They even sacrifice their sons and daughters,
so that many are put to death in honour of this accursed idol; and they
commit many other abominable and beastly actions; and I saw many other
strange things among them which I refrain from relating[2].
This nation has another most abominable custom; that when a man dies, his
body is burned to ashes, and his living wife is burned along with him, that
she may assist her husband in his trade or husbandry in the next world.
Yet, if she have children by her husband, she may remain alive with them,
if so inclined, without shame or reproach; yet most of them prefer to be
burnt with the bodies of their husbands. But husbands are not influenced by
any similar law, as when they lose their wives they may marry again. There
are some other strange customs among the people of this country; insomuch,
that the women drink wine, which the men do not; and the women shave their
eyebrows, and eyelids, and their beards, besides many other filthy customs,
contrary to the true decorum of the sex.
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