282 



ISTDIAN AND OTHER 



to be about a year, being elapsed, the bones are once more 

 inhumed, and the individual to whom they belonged forgotten 

 for ever. Respedt and charity for the ashes of the deceased, 

 are not charadleristics peculiar to civilized nations, seeing that 

 they are likewise infused into the breast of barbarians ; but as 

 those who people the extensive territories of the Andes, and 

 the surrounding plains, are innumerable, there are not want- 

 ing among them Massagetans, who pierce with arrows their 

 expiring companions ; Romans, who cast them into the 

 rivers ; Troglodytes, who abandon the dead bodies, or cover 

 them with stones ; and Issedonians, who devour them. 



Strabo asserts, that the Bactrians delivered up their living 

 old men to be devoured by dogs ; and Eusebius testifies the 

 same of the Hyrcanians : an inhumanity which the learned 

 marquis of St. Aubin* regards as incredible. In our opinion, 

 that which father Figueroaf relates of the Cocamas, and 

 other barbarians residing on the same territory, is not less so. 

 He says, that when a child is born, the parents deliberate 

 whether they shall grant it life, or, on the other hand, put it 

 to death, to the end that they may not be burthened with chil- 

 dren, or leave any one behind them to lament their loss. If 

 the latter resolve be taken, they bury them alive with the se- 

 cundine, unless one of the progenitors, or any other person. 



■* Traite de rOpinion, torn. v. p. 78. 



t Father Francisco Figueroa, belonging to the extinguished order of Jesuits, a 

 celebrated missionary who visited the Maynas provinces, and gave an exadl and 

 minute description of them in 1665. The MS. containing a hundred and fif- 

 teen folio pages, is iu our possession,^ and has been of great use in the present 

 idetails. 



approach 



