1AWS OF IimEIlITANCE. 89 



of the "East; as suampans, they have been employed in the 

 operations of manual arithmetic by the Chinese, the Tartars, 

 and the liussiaus. The independent Caribs, who inhabit, 

 tlu little-known country situated between the sources ol the 

 Orinoco and those of the rivers Essequibo, Carony, and 

 Parimn, are divided into tribes ; and, like the nations of the 

 IMissotiri, of Chili, and of ancient Germany, form a political 

 confederation. This system is most in accordance with the 

 spirit of liberty prevailing amongst those warlike hordes 

 who see no advantage in the ties of society but for common 

 defence. The pride of the Caribs leads them to withdraw 

 themselves from every other tribe ; even from those to whom, 

 by their language, they have some affinity. 



They claim the same separation in the missions, which 

 seldom prosper when any attempt is made to associate them 

 with other mixed communities, that is, with villages where 

 every hut is inhabited by a family belonging to another 

 nation, and speaking another language. The authority of 

 the chiefs of the independent Caribs is hereditary in the 

 male line only, the children of sisters being excluded from 

 the succession. This law ol succession, which is founded on 

 a system ot mistrust, denoting no great purity of manners, 

 prevails in India; among the Ashantees (in Africa); and among 

 nil tribes of the savages of North America.* The young 

 chiefs, and other youths who are desirous of marrying, are 

 subject to the most extraordinary fasts and penances, and 

 are required to take medicines prepared by the marirris or 

 jtiuches, called in the transalleghanian countries, war-physic. 

 The Carribbee marirris are at once priests, jugglers, and 

 physicians ; they transmit to their successors their doctrine, 

 their artifices, and the remedies they employ. The latter are 

 accompanied by imposition of hands, and certain gestures 

 and mysterious practices, apparently connected with the 



* Among the Hurons (Wyandots) and the Natchez, the succession to 

 the magistracy is continued by the women : it is not the son who succeeds, 

 out the son of the sister, or of the nearest relation in the female line. 

 Tins mode of succession is said to be the most certain, because the supreme 

 i i Tmnins attached to the blood of the last chief; it is a practice that 

 insures legitimacy. Ancient traces of this strange mode of succession, 

 so common in Africa and in the East Indies, exist in the dynasty of tUe 

 Hiig of the \Vtst India Mauds. 



