History of the Caribs. 237 
their huts, and use them for some sorcery. They say 
that the spirit of the dead one speaks through these and 
forewarns them of the designs of their enemies. They 
believe that they have several souls. The first near the 
heart, called Gonanni or Lanichi ; the second at the 
head ; and the others at all the points of the body where 
there is pulsation of arteries. Only the first-mentioned 
goes to the sky after death ; and changes into a young 
and new body, the others remain on earth changed into 
beasts or in MABOIA. All these spirits are of different 
sexes and multiply. 
The Caribs have a sad temperament, and are dreamy 
and melancholic. Sometimes they remain a whole day 
on one spot, their eyes fixed to the ground, without 
saying a word. Fishing, laziness, and the air, mus^ 
contribute very much to this temperament of theirs ; and 
they are never jolly but when they have drunk a little 
too much. They are very splenetic, and get vexed ; 
they have no wit, though they believe themselves to have 
more than any other nation, as also that they are the best 
made. They laugh at us when, while walking we stop 
to speak. They get offended when they are called 
savages, and, told that they live like beasts, and they 
answer that we are just as bad in their estimation, 
because we don't live according to their fashion : that 
they have their wav of doing things and we have ours.* 
When they want to make friends, they ask for our 
names and give theirs. To show affe6tion and friendship 
they want us to exchange names, and, to get very 
* Some two centuries after La Borde wrote this, we still have not 
sufficiently realized that the uncontaminated fashions of the Red Man 
were not altogether ignoble or savage. 
