WHOLE VOL. THE WEST INDIES VAZQUEZ DE ESPINOSA 69 



boat to carry it off, with the women (whom they tied down) ; their 

 six dugouts having pushed ahead, the men who had come into his 

 boat, feeling that they were free, and considering him dead, untied 

 the women, wishing to enjoy them ; but this Aracoraima, returning 

 to his senses and seeing a stone-edged club nearby, laid hands upon 

 it and grappled with his opponents, killing some of them and knock- 

 ing the others into the water, and he succeeded in rescuing his women ; 

 and having escaped from such great danger, he returned victorious to 

 his village of Caroa, which was at the tip of the island of Trinidad. 



180. This tribe of the Aruacas thus commissions its captains or 

 headmen : the Indian who is to be made captain has to kill three 

 foes in battle with his war club, which is of a very remarkable striped 

 wood, and he has to make three notches in it, witnesses to his deeds, 

 to certify them to the general or cacique who governs them; and 

 when they are certified, they cut off his hair and put a hammock up 

 for him at the top of the house ; and there he stays a year in penance 

 and fasting, so savage that they give him no sustenance but the drink 

 mazato, which is like bread porridge, made from cassava, which is 

 their bread, with nothing else; and at the end of this year of penance, 

 they give him a big dish made of a gourd and holding about a gallon 

 (2 azumbres), and they give it to him full of a drink they make very 

 strong and thick out of peppers, which in their language they call 

 agitipoche, thinned with water, like bread porridge ; and it burns and 

 he has to drink it all up without a break or showing any weakness ; 

 and when he has drunk it up, they put a garland or headdress of 

 many-colored feathers on him, and they explain to him the rank he 

 is receiving, and the deeds of his ancestors, whom he is to follow 

 and imitate with courage ; whereupon two of the doughtiest Indians 

 give him cruel lashes, which he suffers with courage and calmness ; 

 and thus he is commissioned captain and knight, and might so be of 

 Christ, did he know Him, and so suffer for His love. The following 

 year he has to keep from eating meat ; he has to live only on cassava 

 and fish and nothing else, and he must not drink water, but only their 

 wine, or mazato, which is stoutly intoxicating ; and thus his penance 

 is fulfilled and his captaincy earned. 



Chapter XV 



( )f the Naval Battle Which the Aruaca Tribe Fought with the 

 Carina Caribs. 



181. Between the Aruaca tribe, whose General was Aramaya, 

 nephew of Aracoraima, and the Carina tribe of Caribs, there arose 



