66 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 102 



ordain matters that all those tribes may come to obey and know our 

 Holy Faith, bringing them out of the darkness of heathendom and 

 subjection to the Devil, who keeps them in blindness. 



Chapter XIV 



Of the Different Tribes Settled Along the Banks of the River 

 Orinoco, Near the District of Guiana. 



169. There are in the district of Guiana, or Santo Tome, many 

 heathen Indian tribes to be brought within the Faith ; those who live 

 along the banks and shores of the great River Orinoco, alone surpass 

 the number of 600,000 souls, not counting innumerable other tribes 

 which are settled inland, surrounding those which will be described 

 in this chapter. 



170. The first and most important tribe living near the sea is the 

 Aruacas, who were always friendly disposed to the Spaniards, 

 although under foreign instigation they have been in a state of rebel- 

 lion for over 10 years ; they live in the Esquibo Valley. Near this 

 tribe is that of the Tibitibes, who live in houses built over the water, 

 2 leagues from the harbors where the ships put in, through distrust 

 and fear of their Carib enemies and of the Spaniards. They build 

 their houses with such cleverness and artifice that to approach them 

 they cut and make use of palms and other slender tree trunks, with 

 so many curves and windings that it seems impossible to get to them, 

 both for the danger of such thin timbers and for the complicated 

 labyrinth ; and when some Spaniard arrives at their houses, after all 

 these risks run in getting there, although they may be full of people, 

 they disappear and become invisible by letting themselves drop into 

 the water, plunging into it through numerous trap doors which they 

 have made for that purpose, so that they seem bewitched ; and until 

 they are reassured by the interpreter who has been brought along, 

 they will not come back. 



171. They are so patient and ingenious that from a tree which 

 they call vice, and from another called vagasa, which are of monstrous 

 height and thickness, they manufacture with a scrap of iron which 

 they whet and sharpen like an adz, a boat or dugout which will hold 

 from 400 to 600 jugs of wine and 60 persons with all that is neces- 

 sary for their food and maintenance. One Indian alone will take a 

 whole year to turn one out, and even longer, helping himself out with 

 fire to open up the wood ; and when he has got it finished, he will 

 sell it to the Spaniards for 8 axes, which at the most are worth 16 

 8-real pesos. They have a tree like the royal palm from which they 



