CHAP, in.] WEST INDIES. 77 



system of heraldry ; whereby they intended to render, 

 not the name alone, but the persons also, of their 

 worthies, immortal. If a cacique was slain in battle, 

 and the body could not be recovered, they composed 

 songs in his praise, which they taught their children; 

 a better and nobler testimony siirely, then heaps of 

 dry bones or even monuments of marble; since me- 

 morials to the deceased are, or ought to be, intended 

 less in honour of the dead, than as incitements to the 

 living.* 



o 



These heroic effusions constituted a branch of those 

 solemnities, which, as hath been observed, were cal- 

 led Arietoes ; consisting of hymns and public dances, 

 accompanied with musical instruments made of shells, 

 and a sort of drum, the sound of which was heard at 

 a vast distance. t These hvmns reciting the great ac- 



l J o O 



tions of the departed cacique ; his fame in war, and his 



* It is related by Martyr, that on the death of a cacique, the most be- 

 loved of his wives was immolated at his funeral. Thus he observes that 

 Anacaona, on the death of her brother King Behechio, ordered a very 

 beautiful woman, "whose name was Guanahata Benechina, to be buried 

 alive in the cave where his body (after being dried as above mentioned) 

 was deposited. (Martyr, decad. iii. lib. ix.) But Oviedo, though by no 

 means partial towards the Indian character, denies ihat this custom 

 was general among them. (Oviedo, lib. v. c. iii.) Anacaona, who had 

 been married to a Charaibe, probably adopted the practice from the ac- 

 count she had received from her husband of his national customs. And it 

 is not impossible, under a female administration, among savages, but 

 that the extraordinary beauty of the unfortunate victim, contributed to 

 her destruction. 



j- Herrera, lib. iii. c. iv. P. Martyr, decad. iii. c. vii. F.Columbus, 



