AD. THE ENGLISH VOYAGES 



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duties of the men are to make bowes & arrowes, stirrops, 

 bridles, and saddles : to build houses & carts, to keepe 

 horses : to milke mares : to churne Cosmos and mares 

 milke, & to make bags wherein to put it : they keepe 

 camels also & lay burthens upon them. As for sheepe & 

 goates they tend and milke them, aswell the men as the 

 women. With sheeps milke thicked & salted they dresse 

 and tan their hides. When they wil wash their hands or 

 their heads, they fil their mouthes full of water, & 

 spouting it into their hands by little and little, they 

 sprinckle their haire & wash their heades therwith. As 

 touching mariages, your Highnes is to understand, that 

 no man can have a wife among them till he hath bought 

 her : whereupon somtimes their maids are very stale 

 before they be maried, for their parents alwaies keepe 

 them till they can sel them. They keepe the first and 

 second degrees of consanguinitie inviolable, as we do : but 

 they have no regard of the degrees of affinity : for they 

 wil marrie together, or by succession, two sisters. Their 

 widowes marie not at al, for this reason : because they 

 beleeve, that al who have served them in this life, shall do 

 them service in the life to come also. Whereupon they 

 are perswaded, that every widow after death shal returne 

 unto her own husband. And herehence ariseth an 

 abominable & filthy custome among them, namely that 

 the Sonne marieth somtimes all his fathers wives except 

 his own mother : For the court or house of the father or 

 mother falleth by inheritance alwaies to the yonger son. 

 Wherupon he is to provide for all his fathers wives, 

 because they are part of his inheritance aswel as his fathers 

 possessions. And then if he will he useth them for his 

 owne wives : for he thinks it no injurie or disparagement 

 unto himselfe, although they returne unto his father after 

 death. Therfore when any man hath bargained with 

 another for a maid, the father of the said damosel makes 

 him a feast : in the meane while she fleeth unto some of 

 her kinsfolks to hide her selfe. Then saith her father 

 unto the bridegrome: Loe, my daughter is yours, take 



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