GOSSIP THE AFFINITY OF RACES. 291 



between the language of the Caribs, and that spoken bj the natives 

 of Hispaniola and the other islands, is of itself convincing that 

 they were a distinct people. Some authors have supposed that 

 they came at first from Florida — that a colony of the Appalachian 

 race having been driven from the Continent, arrived at the Wind- 

 ward Islands, and exterminating the ancient male inhabitants, took 

 possession of their lands and their women. But besides other 

 objections to this, it is sufficiently known that there existed numer- 

 ous and powerful tribes of Charaibes in the southern peninsula, 

 extending from the river Orinoco to Essequebe, and throughout the 

 whole province of Surinam even to Brazil. This gives some colour 

 to an idea of their derivation from the Eastern continent. It is 

 admitted that their own traditions referred constantly to Guiana, 

 where they were always at war with the Arrawak tribes, their 

 hereditary enemies. It does not appear that they entertained the 

 most remote idea of a northern ancestry. 



Their customs were peculiar. Polygamy prevailed among them. 

 The climate made clothing unnecessary, and both sexes went stark 

 naked, without any sense of shame or indecency. The women were 

 mere drudges ; they did not eat with the men nor were admitted to an 

 equality with them ; they ground the maize, prepared eassava, and 

 gathered in the cotton. Both men and women had shining black 

 hair, the women's being finer than that of the men. They dressed 

 it with daily care, the men in particular decorating their heads with 

 feathers of divers colours. Both had a fondness for red paint, a 

 peculiarity of savages all over the American continent, and every 

 where ; and they covered their faces and bodies with arnotto so 

 extravagantly, that their natural complexion which was nearly that 

 of a Spanish olive, was not easily distinguished under the surface 

 of crimson. Besides this, the men disfigured their cheeks with 

 deep incisions and hideous scars, which they stained with black, 

 and they painted white and black circles round their eyes. Some 

 of them perforated the cartilage that divides the nostrils^ and 

 inserted the bone of some fish, a parrot's feather, or a fragment of 

 tortoise shell ; they strung together the teeth of their enemies slain 

 in battle, and wore them as trophies on their arms. and. legs; they 

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