A.D. THE ENGLISH VOYAGES 



1595- 



Orenoque, betweene it and the West Indies are the 

 Wikiri, Saymi, and the rest before spoken of, all mortall 

 enemies to the Spaniardes. On the South side of the 

 maine mouth of Orenoque, are the Arwacas ; and beyond 

 them the Canibals and to the South of them the 

 Amazones. 



To make mention of the severall beasts, birds, fishes, 

 fruits, flowers, gummes, sweet woods, and of their 

 severall religions and customes, would for the first 

 require as many volumes as those of Gesnerus, and for 

 the rest another bundle of Decades. The religion of 

 the Epuremei is the same which the Ingas, Emperours 

 Piedro de of Peru used, which may be read in Cieza, and other 

 Cte^a. Spanish stories, how they beleeve the immortalitie of the 



soule, worship the Sunne, and burie with them alive their 

 best beloved wives and treasure, as they likewise doe in 

 Pegu in the East Indies, and other places. The Orenoque- 

 poni bury not their wives with them, but their jewels, 

 [III. 660.] hoping to injoy them againe. The Arwacas dry the 

 bones of their Lords, and their wives and friends drinke 

 them in powder. In the graves of the Peruvians the 

 Spaniards found their greatest abundance of treasure : 

 the like also is to be found among these people in 

 every Province. They have all many wives, and the 

 Lords five-fould to the common sort : their wives never 

 eate with their husbands, nor among the men, but serve 

 their husbands at meales, and afterwardes feede by them- 

 selves. Those that are past their younger yeeres, make 

 all their bread and drinke, and worke their cotten beds, 

 and doe all else of service and labour, for the men doe 

 nothing but hunt, fish, play, and drinke, when they are 

 out of the warres. 



I will enter no further into discourse of their maners, 

 lawes and customes : and because I have not my selfe 

 seene the cities of Inga, I cannot avow on my credit what 

 I have heard, although it be very likely, that the Emperour 

 Inga hath built and erected as magnificent palaces in 

 Guiana, as his ancestors did in Peru, which were for their 



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