NATIVE WHITE BACES. 
337 
black as the Otomacs and other tribes, whose complexion is 
the darkest. \V ere they albinoes, such as have been found 
heretofore in the isthmus of Panama ? But examples of that 
degeneration are very rare in the copper-coloured race ; and 
Anghiera, as well as Gomara, speaks of the inhabitants of 
Paria in general, and not of a few individuals. Both de- 
scribe them as if they were people of Germanic origin;* 
they call them ‘Whites with light hair;’ they even add, 
that they wore garments like those of the Turks. t Gomara 
and Anghiera wrote from such oral information as they 
had been able to collect. 
^ These marvels disappear, if we examine the recital which 
Perdinand Columbus drew up from his father’s papers. 
There we find simply, that “ the admiral was surprised to 
* “ iEthiopes nigri, crispi lanati ; Parks incolse alii, capillis oblongis 
protensis flavis.”— Pet. Martyr, Ocean., dec. i, l,b. vi., ( e d. 157 I). 
“ Utnusque sexus indigent* albi velati nostrntes, prater eos qui sub sole 
v ei santur. ( I he natives of both sexes are as white as our people 
[Spaniards], except those who are exposed to the sun.)— Ibid. Gomara, 
speaking of the natives seen by Columbus at the mouth of the river of 
Cumana, says : “ Las donzellas eran atnorosas, desnudas y blancas (las de 
la casa); los Indios que van al campo cstan negros del sol.” (The young 
women are engaging in their manners : they wear no clothing, and those 
"'ho live in the houses are while. The Indians who are much in the 
open country are black, from the effect of the sun.)— Hist, de los Indios, 
cap. 74. “ Los Indios de Paria son blancos y rubios.” — (The Indians of 
Paria are while and red.) Garcia, Origcn de los Indios, 1729, lib. iv. 
cap. 9. 
t “They wear round their head a striped cotton handkerchief.”— 
Ferd. Columb., cap. 71. (Churchill, vol. ii.) Was this kind of head- 
dress taken for a turban ? (Garcia, Origen de los Ind., p. 303). I am 
surprised that people of these regions should have worn a head-dress; but, 
what is more curious still, Pinzon, in a voyage which he made alone to 
the coast of Paria, the particulars of which have been transmitted to us 
by Peter Martyr of Anghiera } professes to have seen natives who were 
clothed : “ Incolas omnes genu temis mares, foeminas suramin tenus, gos- 
sampinis vestibus amictos simplicibus repererunt ; sed viros more Turco- 
rum iusuto minutim gossypio ad belli usum duplicitms,” (The natives 
were clothed in thin cotton garments ; the men’s reaching to the knee, 
and the women’s to the calt ot the leg. Their war-dress was thicker, and 
closely stitched with cotton after the Turkish manner.)— Pet. Martyr, dec. 
u., lib. vii. Who were these people described as being comparatively 
civilized, and clothed with tunics (like those who lived on the summit of 
'he Andes), and seen on a coast, where before and since the time of 
Pmzon, only naked men have ever been seen ? 
VOL. I. 
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