ABORIGINES OF THE WEST INDIES. 379 



word can not be applied to cannibalism, for once a man is dead it is 

 not more cruel to eat his body than to bury or burn it. 



The Inquisition had made the Spaniards callous to barbarity, but 

 cannibalism was a different matter; they were not accustomed to it, 

 had never before met with it. Rough sailors, relentless bigots as 

 they were, who at home doubtless would have attended a bullfight 

 or an auto-da-fe with equal pleasure, they could not stomach canni- 

 balism, and it was with loathing and unspeakable disgust that in the 

 round, bell-like houses of an Indian village they often found. 



in their kitchens man's flesh, duck's flesh, and goose flesh, all in one pot, 

 and other on the spits ready to be laid on the fire. Entering into their 

 inner lodgings, they found fagots of the bones of men's arms and legs, 

 which they reserve to make heads for their arrows, because they lack iron ; 

 the other bones they cast away when they have eaten the flesh. They found 

 likewise the head of a young man fastened to a post, and yet bleeding. 



By the people supposed to be of Arrowauk descent the Spaniards 

 were generally received with submission and fear, the people mistak- 

 ing them for Caribs, except in a part of Jamaica, where the inhabit- 

 ants at first offered a feeble resistance. In some instances the new 

 arrivals were even worshiped as gods. Such was the case in the 

 Bahamas and in Haiti, where ancient prophecies had taught the 

 Indians to expect the arrival of 



Maguacochios — i. e., men clothed in apparel, and armed with such swords 

 as should cut a man in sunder at one stroke, under whose yoke their pos- 

 terity should be subdued. 



The existence of these prophecies seems not to have excited any 

 great surprise or to have caused much speculation as to their origin 

 in the minds of the Spaniards. Such apparently miraculous fore- 

 sight on the part of the Indians the new arrivals easily, and to them- 

 selves satisfactorily, accounted for by the fact that the barbarians 

 were worshipers of the Evil One, and that their priests and idols, or 

 zemis, were enabled to prophesy because of their intercourse and 

 familiarity with devils. But, notwithstanding much that was ob- 

 jectionable and false, the creed of the Indians does not appear to 

 have been altogether debased, and as explained to Columbus by one 

 of the old chieftains of Cuba, the doctrines of those remote and be- 

 nighted savages might claim some affinity to those professed by the 

 Christians. Columbus and his men had landed and were hearing 

 mass on the Cuban shore when " there came toward him a certain 

 governor, a man of fourscore years of age, and of great gravity, 

 although he were naked," and who ■ 



had a great train of men waiting on him. All the while the priest was at 

 mass he showed himself very humble, and gave reverent attendance with 

 grave and demure countenance. 



