190 
ALIBAMONS. — PATAGONIANS, 
Alibamons. 
This is one of the native tribes of Americans on the river Alibama 
in Georgia, This tribe is remarkable for their hospitality and frank- 
ness. They believe in a future state of existence, resembling the 
sensual paradise of Mahomet. Their dead are buried in a sitting 
posture, with a pipe and tobacco ; but the bodies of suicides, who are 
considered as cowards, are thrown into the rivers. As they marry 
only one wife, they are exceedingly jealous of their honour, though 
their young women are allowed to trifle with their chastity. This spirit 
of jealousy induces them to set out on their hunting parties with 
their families, in canoes, about the end of October ; and after travelling 
through a distance of eighty or a hundred leagues, they return at their 
seed-time, in March, loaded with skins and dried flesh. Their diet 
consists chiefly of toasted maize cooked w'ith flesh, which they call 
sagamiti. The Alibamons have their magicians and little deities or 
manitus, and pretend to heal diseases by magical incantations. 
Patagonians. 
These are the inhabitants of Patagonia, in South America. From 
the accounts of Commodore Byron and his crew, and the testimonies of 
other navigators, some of the Patagonians are of a gigantic stature, and 
clothed with skins ; others go almost quite naked, notwithstanding 
the inclemency of the climate. Some of them also who live about 
the streights, are perfect savages ; but those with whom Byron 
and his people conversed, were gentle and humane. They live on 
flsh and game, and what the earth produces spontaneously. A vast 
deal has been said respecting the stature of the Patagonians, by peo- 
ple of dilferent nations, and on various occasions. Mr. Charles 
Clarke, who was on board Byron’s ship in 1764, says that some of 
them are certainly nine feet, if they do not exceed it. Captain Wal- 
lis, on the other hand, who went out to the Straits of Magellan after 
Byron’s return, found that the tallest man among them measured only 
six feet seven inches high ; several were within an inch or two as 
tall ; but the ordinary size was from five feet ten inches to six feet. 
All agree, however, that the hair is black, and harsh like bristles ; that 
they are of a dark copper colour; that their features are rather hand- 
some than ugly; that they clothe themselves with skins; that they 
paint themselves variously, and there is reason to suspect that by that 
variety they distinguished their tribes. One remarkable observation 
made by our vogagers is, that the Patagonians could repeat whole 
sentences after our men, more distinctly than almost any European 
foreigner, of what nation soever. Another very remarkable particular 
is, that they had none of the characters of a ferocious people, there 
were no offensive weapons among them, except the scymeter, and a 
kind of sling which they use in hunting, consisting of two round 
stones of about a pound weight each, connected together by a thong. 
These stones were fastened to the extremities of the thong; and 
when they threw them, they held one stone in the hand, and swung the 
other about the head. 
