POLYGAMY OF THE NATIVES. 465 



them in the sun, and reduce them to powder without 

 separating the bones. I have seen masses of fifty or sixty 

 pounds of this flour, which resembles that of cassava. 

 When it is wanted for eating, it is mixed with water, and 

 reduced to a paste. In every climate the abundance of fish 

 has led to the invention of the same means of preserving 

 them. Pliny and Diodorus Siculus have described the jish- 

 bread of the ichthyophagous nations, that dwelt on the 

 Persian Gulf and the shores of the Eed Sea.* 



At Esmeralda, as everywhere else throughout the missions, 

 the Indians who will not be baptized, and who are merely 

 aggregated in the community, live in a state of polygamy. 

 The number of wives differs much in different tribes. It is 

 most considerable among the Caribs, and all the nations that 

 have preserved the custom of carrying off young girls from 

 the neighbouring tribes. How can we imagine domestic 

 happiness in so unequal an association ? The women live in 

 a sort of slavery, as they do in most nations which are in a 

 state of barbarism. The husbands being in the full enjoy- 

 ment of absolute power, no complaint is heard in their pre- 

 sence. An apparent tranquillity prevails in the household ; 

 the women are eager to anticipate the wishes of an imperious 

 and sullen master ; and they attend without distinction to 

 their own children and those of their rivals. The mission- 

 aries assert, what may easily be believed, that this domestic 

 peace, the effect of fear, is singularlv disturbed when the 

 husband is long absent. The wife who contracted the first 

 ties then applies to the others the names of concubines and 

 servants. The quarrels continue till the return of the 

 master, who knows how to calm their passions by the sound 

 of his voice, by a mere gesticulation, or, if he thinks it 

 necessary, by means a little more violent. A certain 

 inequality in the rights of the women is sanctioned by the 

 language of the Tamanacs. The husband calls the second 

 and third wife the companions of the first ; and the first 

 treats these companions as rivals and enemies (ipucjatoje), 



* These nations, in a still ruder state than the natives of the Orinoco, 

 contented themselves with drying the raw fish in the sun. They made up 

 the fish-paste in the form of bricks, and sometimes mixed with it the 

 aromatic seed of paliurus (rhamnus), as in Germany, and some other 

 cuunt-ies, cummin and fennel-seed are mixed with whcaten bread. 



