Cap. XIII. The Caribby-Iflands. 



Befidesthe#^ez,or Magicians who are highly refpe&ed and 

 honoured among them, they have alfo Sorcerers, atleaft they 

 think them luch 5 who, as they fay, fend charms upon them, 

 and dangerous and fatal enchantments 3 and thofe whom tt ey 

 account fuch,they kill, if ever they light on them.* 'Tis ma- 

 ny times a plaufible pretence to be rid of their Enemies. 



The Caribbians are fubjecl: to fome other mifchiefs, which 

 they fay proceed from Maboya, and they often complain that 

 he beats them : True it is, that fome perfons of worth, who 

 have converfed a certain time among this poor people-, are per- 

 fwaded that they are neither molefted,nor effe&ually beaten by 

 the Devil 3 and that all the complaints and dreadful relations 

 they make as to that, are grounded only on this, that being of 

 a very melancholick conftitution, and having for the moft part 

 their fpieens fwell'd and inflam'd, they are many times fubjeft 

 to terrible dreams, wherein they imagine the Devil appears to 

 them, and beats them: whereupon they ftart up frighted out 

 of their wits , and when they are fully awake, they lay that 

 Maboya hath beaten them , and having the imagination thus 

 hurt, they are perfwaded that they feel the pain. 



But it is manifeft by the teftimonies of feveral other perfons 

 of quality and exquifite knowledge, who have fojourned a 

 long time in the Ifland of St. Vincent, which is inhabited only 

 by the Caribbians, and fuch as have alfo feen thofe of the fame 

 Nation who live in the Continent of the Meridional part of 

 America, that the Devils do effectually beat them, and that 

 they often mew on their bodies the vifible marks of the 

 blows they had received .* We are allured further by the Re- 

 lations of divers of the French Inhabitants of Martinice, that 

 going into the Quartet of thefe Savages, who live in the fame 

 Ifland, they have many times found them making horrid com- 

 plaints that Maboya had immediately before their coming thi- 

 ther treated them ill, and faying that he was Mouche fache con- 

 tre Caraibes, mightily incens'd againji the Caribbians 3 fo that 

 they accounted the French happy, that their Maboya did not 

 beat them. 



Monfieur du Montel, who hath often been prefent at their af- 

 femblies, and converfed very familiarly and a long time toge- 

 ther with thofe of that Nation who inhabit in the Ifland of St. 

 Vincents, as alfo with thofe of the Meridional Continent, gives 

 this teftimony upon this fad occafion: "Notwithstanding the ig- 

 " norance and irreligion wherein our Caribbians live,they know 

 "by experience, and fear more than death the evil Spirit, 

 f whom they call Maboya •, for that dreadful Enemy doth ma- 

 "ny times appear to them under moft hideous fha pes : And 

 ^ what w particularly obfervable, that unmerciful and bloudy 

 " executioner, who is an infatiable murtherer from the begin- 

 :c ing of the world, cruelly wounds and torments thofe mife- 



O o sable 



