WHOLE VOL. THE WEST INDIES — VAZQUEZ DE ESPINOSA /I 



without their receiving any benefit or catechism for Christian doc- 

 trine, but instead much abuse and ill treatment, which forced them 

 to run away; for these and other well-grounded reasons they can- 

 celed their fealty to the Spaniards, who had sad need of them ; indig- 

 nant over past abuses, they rebelled ; and not a Spaniard dares enter 

 their provinces, under risk of no less than loss of life. 



Chapter XVI 



Of the Rites, Ceremonies, and Customs of This Aruaca Tribe. 



183. This Aruaca tribe has the custom that when a woman's hus- 

 band is killed in war and she gets word of his death, she cuts off her 

 hair, which they wear very long, having no clothing other than what 

 Nature has given them ; she smashes all the pots and jars she has and 

 the cibucanes, which are contraptions made out of bamboo, having 

 the shape and build of a coatsleeve or a stocking, and which they use 

 like a press, in preparing their bread, which they make out of cassava ; 

 with them they squeeze and compress the cassava to get rid of its 

 sap and juice, which is deadly poison ; the bread, once this juice is 

 removed, is well-flavored, healthful, and good ; in her mourning she 

 burns also these cibucanes ; and she might have Spanish goods, like 

 axes, machetes, knives, and other commodities which they sent in to 

 trade for slaves, hammocks, cassava, honey, and other native prod- 

 ucts, goods held in trust by her husband, for the women looked after 

 them, to give an account of them to their owners. 



184. And after she has smashed and burned up all her belongings 

 through grief at the death of her husband, her relatives come to her 

 fields and plantations of yucca, gather it and prepare and bake the 

 cassava in little ovens which they call budales, until the bread made 

 out of the cassava is well toasted ; then they throw all this bread into 

 boiling water and go and put it back into the cibucanes which serve 

 them as presses, and they keep pouring off whatever distils from it, 

 into jars they have for this purpose, until it bubbles up like wine, 

 and they stir it with sticks so that it shall bubble up and ferment 

 evenly ; that is how their wine is made ; they call it guero ; it is the 

 same color as ours, but stronger, and when it begins to sink in the 

 jars, that is a sign that it is fully matured. 



185. After this all the relatives, friends, and neighbors meet to 

 observe the funeral rites of the deceased, weeping and singing of 

 his prowess, deeds, and valorous acts, with a solemn drinking bout, and 

 they drink nobly, till all get drunk and consume all that the widow 

 possessed of her late husband's property, without leaving her any- 



