ULLOA's voyage to south AMERICA. 52 1 



approaching judgment, and his prefent danger. After fpeaking thus a confiderable 

 time, without a word from the patient, or the leaft fign of emotion in his countenance, 

 the good man proceeds to remind him of his fins, and exhorts him to a fmcere repent- 

 ance, and to implore the mercy of his Creator ; as otherwife, his foul will be punifhed 

 to all eternity. The Indian at length anfwers, with a ferene faintnefs, " So it will be, 

 father :" meaning, that things will happen as he has predicted ; but does not underftand 

 in what thefe threatened fufferings confift. I have often heard priefts of thofe towns, 

 and men of parts and learning, talk with great concern on this fubjedt. Hence it is 

 that there are very few Indians to whom the holy eucharift is adminiftered ; nor would 

 thofe of the houfe, where a fick perfon lies, ever give notice of it to the prieft, were 

 they not afraid of the punilhment which the law in thefe cafes inflicls ; and even as it 

 is, they often negled this duty, and the patient dies without receiving the facrament. 



In their marriages, they run counter to the fentiments of all nations, efleeming what 

 others detefl ; a virgin being never the objedt of their choice : for they look on it 

 as a fure fign, that Ihe who has not been known to others, can have nothing pleafmg 

 about her. 



After a young man has aiked the obje£t of his affedions of her father, and obtained 

 his confent, they immediately begin to live together as man and wife, and aflifl the 

 father-in-law in cultivating his chacara. At the end of three or four months, and often 

 of a year, he leaves his bride, without ceremony, and perhaps for the wild reafon 

 above mentioned : and even expoftulates with the father-in-law, that he fhould endea- 

 vour to deceive him,^ by impofing upon him his daughter, whom nobody elfe had 

 thought worthy of making his bedfellow. But if nothing of this happens, after palling 

 three or four months in this commerce, which they call Amanarfe, i. e. to habituate 

 one's felf, they then marry : and this cuftom is llill very common, having hitherto 

 proved too ftrong for the joint endeavours of the whole body of the clergy to extir- 

 pate. Accordingly, the firfl queftion at the ceremony of marriage is, whether they 

 are Amannados, in order to abfolve them of that fm before they receive the nuptial 

 benediction. They look upon no marriage to be legal which is not folemn, and 

 according to them the whole confifts in the nuptial benedidion, which muft be given 

 them at the time they join their hands, as otherwife, on any caprice, they feparate : 

 and it is to no purpofe to go about to perfuade them that they were married ; nor will 

 any punifhment have the leaft effeO:. For as it does not imply any infamy, the inten- 

 tion is loft. It is the fame thing with them to be expofed to the public derifion and 

 infults, as to be ordered to lliew their {kill in dancing on a feftival ; the thing which, 

 of all others, they moft delight in. They are indeed fenfible of corporal puniftiments 

 during the time they are inflicting, but immediately afterwards are as placid and eafy 

 as if they had not been touched. This occafions many things to be connived at in 

 them, and other means of prevention ufed. 



It is not uncommon- among them to change their wives, without any other prelimi- 

 nary or agreement, than having been familiar with the wife of another. The former 

 wife, together with the injured huft)and, concert a revenge j and if reproached for 

 fuch a proceeding, they cheerfully anfwer, that they had ferved them only as they 

 deferved ; and it avails little to feparate them, as they foon find means to return to the 

 fame manner of living. Incefts are very common among them, both as the confequence 

 of their monftrous drunkennefs, already mentioned, and from their making no 

 diftin6tion between honour and infamy, whereby their brutal appetites are under no 

 reftraint, 



VOL. XIV, 3 X If 



