4H A VOYAGE to Book VL 



It is not uncommon among them to change their 

 wives, without any other preliminary or agreement^ 

 than having been familiar with the wife of another. 

 The former wife, together with the injured hufband, 

 concert a revenge ; and if reproached for iiich a pro- 

 ceeding, they chearfully anfwer, that they had ferved 

 them only as they deferved ; and it avails little to fe- 

 ' parate them, as they foon find means to return to 

 the fame manner of living. Incefts are very com- 

 mon among them, both as the confequence of their 

 monftrous drunkennefs, already mentioned, and from 

 their making no diftin6lion between honour and in- 

 famy, whereby their brutal appetites are under no 

 reftraint. 



If the foregoing tempers or cuftoms appear ftrange, 

 their behaviour at confeflion is not lefs fo : for, befides 

 having but a flender acquaintance with the Spanifti 

 language, they have no form to dire6b them in it. 

 On their coming to the confeflbr, which is always at 

 his fummons, he is obliged to inftru6l them in what 

 they are going about, and with them repeat the Con- 

 jiteor from one end to the other. For if he flops, 

 the Indian alfo remains filcnt. Having gone through 

 this, it is not enough for the pried to afk him, whe- 

 ther he has committed this or that fault-, but if it be 

 one of the common fort, he muft affirm that he has 

 committed it, otherwife the Indian would deny every 

 thing. The pried further is obliged to tell him, that 

 he well knows he has committed the fin, and he has 

 proofs of it. Then the Indian, being thus prefied, an- 

 swers, with great aftonifhment, that it is fo ; and, 

 imagining the pried really endued with fome fuper- 

 natural knowledc^e, adds circumdances which had not 

 been afl<:ed him. It is not only difficult to bring them 

 to declare their faults, out evea to keep them from 

 denying them, though publicly committed, and equal- 

 ly fo to prevail on them to determine the number; 

 this being only to be obtained by fineffes \ and then 



