132 CANARY ISLANDS. 



When the Canarians were mclined to marry their'daugh- 

 ters, they set them apart thirty days, during which, they 

 fed them with large quantities of milk and gofio, in order 

 to fatten them.* Polygamy was never practised among 

 them, as some misinformed writers have affirmed. They 

 were very careful in the education of their children, and 

 never failed to chastise them when they did wrong. It 

 was also a custom among them to propose two youths, one 

 virtuous and the other vicious, as examples for the rest, of 

 good and evil. 



When any of the nobles died, they deprived the body 

 of its intestines, washed it, and after drying it in the sun, 

 swathed it with bandages of goat-skin, and then fixed it 

 upright in a cave, clothed with the same garment as the 

 deceased wore when alive. But if no suitable cave was at 

 hand, they deposited the body in a stone coffin in some 

 barren part of the island, covering it up in a very ingeni- 

 ous manner with small stones. Some of their dead were 

 put into chests, and afterwards deposited in a kind of stone 

 sepulchre. The lower class of people were buried in holes 

 dug in some retired place, and covered over with dry stones. 

 All the bodies, except those set upright in caves, were 

 placed with their heads to the north. 



None of the Canarians exercised the occupation of a 

 butcher except the very lowest class of society. This 

 employment was accounted so ignominious, that they 

 would not so much as allow one of that profession to enter 

 any of their houses, or to touch anything that belonged to 

 them. It was unlawful for the butchers even to keep 

 company with any except those of their own profession, 

 and when they wanted anything of any other person, they 

 were obliged to carry a long staff with them, and point at 

 whatever they wanted, when standing at a considerable 

 distance. As a recompense for this abject state, the other 

 natives were obliged to supply them with everything that 



* A similar custom was practised amon^ the Libyans. Before they gave their 

 daughters in marriage, they kept tliem apart for a time, and fed them with milk 

 until they became fat. One of the principal articles of food among them was a 

 substance similar to gofio, which they called couscoussou. These customs tend to 

 prove that the Canarians descended fiom, or had some intercourse with, the 

 Libyans. 



