United States or Liberia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Despite all such similar comments, and provided I may nourish the hope of not displeasing Your Holiness, I shall confine myself to narrating these great events with simplicity. Leaving these things aside, let us now return to the caciques of Paria.
He is also dressed every day in four different suits, entirely new, which he never wears a second time. None of the caciques ever enter his palace with their feet covered, and when those for whom he sends enter his presence, they incline their heads and look down, bending their bodies; and when they address him they do not look in his face; this arises from excessive modesty and reverence.
He is very skilled in this art, and has himself gone many degrees beyond the equinoctial line, sailing in the Service and at the expense of the Portuguese. According to this chart, we found the continent was larger than the caciques of Uraba told our compatriots, when guiding them over the mountains.
Fray Inigo admits, however, that there were some exceptions among them, and says that some of the Indians displayed much bravery and strength in the contests with the Spanish soldiers. Their forms were light and free, and there were no cripples among them. They were governed by Caciques, whose eldest sons inherited the succession.
Streets, there were none, the buildings being all over the place, as if they dropped from the sky or sprung up hap-hazard from the ground. About midway in the village one of the caciques left us to inform the queen of our arrival and to ask her pleasure as to my reception. The other cacique asked us into his house, and offered us refreshments.
The priests of the American Indians, says Monardur, whenever they were consulted by the chief gentlemen, or caciques, as they are called, took certain leaves of the tobacco, and cast them into the fire, and then received the smoke thus produced by them into their mouths, which caused them to fall upon the ground.
"It must be," said Luis, "that Cuba is narrow, though without end westwardly. A great point or tongue of Asia?" The Cubans were strong young men and not unintelligent. "Chiefs?" Yes, they had chiefs, they called them caciques. Some of them were fighters, they and their people. Not fighters like Caribs!
He sent his Indian interpreter to visit the neighbouring caciques, summoning them to a great conference to be held on the evening of the eclipse, as the Admiral had matters of great importance to reveal to them. They duly arrived on the evening appointed; not the caciques alone, but large numbers of the native population, well prepared for whatever might take place.
In all these respects the inhabitants of Chiloe resemble their neighbours on the continent, excepting that their caciques are stript in a great measure of their power and influence, by the tyranny of the Spaniards, who keep them under the most servile slavery, while the missionaries blind them by a superstitious and imperfect conversion to Christianity, of which not one of these natives know any thing more than merely that they were baptized; all their devotion consisting of mere idolatry of the cross, or the images of saints; for the Spanish clergy use no manner of pains to enlighten their minds, but probably think it better, by keeping them in ignorance, to make them more contented under the rigorous government of the Spaniards.
Holding secret communications with his tributary caciques, it was concerted that they should all rise simultaneously and massacre the soldiery, quartered in small parties in their villages; while he, with a chosen force, should surprise the fortress of Conception. The night of the full moon was fixed upon for the insurrection.
Word Of The Day