8.6 A N T I E N T M E T A P H Y S I G S. Book I. 



Brazil upon the eaft, and upon the weft by Peru and Chili *. It is 

 inhabited by a great number of fmall nations : For, into fuch, men 

 at firft aflbciated ; and it was only in procefs of time that great na- 

 tions were formed. All thefe nations were in a ftate of the greatcft 

 barbarity when the Jefuits came among them, excepting only the 

 Manaficas, who, from the account which Charlevoix gives of themf, 

 appear to have had fome civility and government among them : 

 But all the reft of them had no kind of government at all, not even 

 family government. They lived in the Cyclopian way, in detached 

 families, but of which the father had no authority over his children, 

 who had fuch abhorrence of all conftraint or obedience to fuperiors, 

 that they had no regard to the commands of either father or mo- 

 ther. Thefe families, however, when they went to war with any 

 of their neighbours, affociateu together, under a chief who was cal- 

 led a Cacique, but who had no authority except while the war laft-" 

 ed %. None of them pradifed any kind of agriculture ; and all of 

 them lived chiefly by hunting and the flefh diet, of which they were 

 fo ravenous, that they ate of it as often as they could find it, as 

 tygers and lions do : So that, as Muratori tells us, it was with the 

 greateft difficulty, that their inftrudors, the Jefuits, could perfuade 

 them to make regular meals fuch as Europeans make. They were 

 Canibals too, and the worft of that kind we have ever heard of. The 

 New Zcalanders eat only their enemies, as the Indians of North A- 

 merica formerly did, and as fome of them, far removed from any 

 commerce vvith the Europeans, do at this day ; but the Savages of Pa- 

 raguay ate their countrymen and friends, when they could furprifc 

 and catch them. In fhort, men were their prey as much as the 

 beafts of the field are ours § ; and human flefti being, as I have ob- 



ferved, 



* Charlevoix's Hiftory of Paraguay, vol. I. p. 7. 



-}■ Ibid. vol. II, p. 274. 



■^ Ibid. vol. I p. 191, and 192= 



§ Muratori, p. 26. 



