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friends of the Castilians. That ethnographic 

 piece, called el auto de Figueroa, is one of the 

 most curious records of the barbarism of the 

 first conquistador es. Never had the spirit of 

 system served more effectually to flatter the 

 passions. Our geographers do not distinguish 

 more arbitrarily in central Asia the Mongul 

 from the Tatar nations, than Figueroa traced 

 the limit between the cannibals and the Gua- 

 tiaos. Without any attention to the analogy of 

 languages, every nation, that could be accused 

 of having devoured a prisoner after a battle, 



de los Castellanos, que estan mas adelante de la isla Espafiola. 

 En lo mas arriba de la costa de Tierra firme havia una provin- 

 cia que se decia Parucuria, la qual era de Guatiaos que no son 

 Caribes." Herera, Dec. 2, p. 258 ; Dec. 3, p. 210. Becoming a 

 guatiao of any one appears to me, to have signified in the lan- 

 guage of Haiti concluding a treaty of friendship. In the 

 West India Islands, as well as in the archipelago of the 

 South Sea, names were exchanged as a token of alliance. 

 " Juan de Esquivel (1502) se hice Guatiao de Cacique 

 Cotubanama ; el qual desde adelante se llamo Juan de Es- 

 quivel, porque era liga de perpetua atnistad entre los Indios 

 trocarse los nombres : y trocados quedaban Guatiaos, que era 

 tanto como confederados y hermanos en armas. Ponce de 

 JLeon se hice Guatiao con el poderoso Cacique Agueinaha." 

 Herera, Dec. 1, p. 129, 159, 181. One of the Lucayes 

 islands, inhabited by a mild and pacific people, was hereto- 

 fore called Guatao (Laet, p. 20); but we will not insist 

 on the etymology of this word, because, as was observed 

 above, the languages of the Lucayes islands differed from 

 those of Haiti. 



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