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They spent some time cruising on the coasts of Jucatan, where inhabit many Indians, who seek for the said amber in those seas. And I shall here, by the by, make some short remarks on the manner of living of the Indians, and their religion.
After this superstitious and idolatrous manner live those miserable and ignorant Indians that inhabit the islands of the gulf of Honduras; as also many of them on the continent of Jucatan, in the territories whereof are most excellent ports, where those Indians most commonly build their houses. These people are not very faithful to one another, and use strange ceremonies at their marriages.
Next day the bride comes to her mother, and in her presence pulls off the garland, and tears it in pieces, with great cries and lamentations. Many other things I could relate of the manner of living and customs of those Indians, but I shall follow my discourse. Our pirates therefore had many canoes of the Indians in the isle of Sambale, five leagues from the coasts of Jucatan.
As to the people of Jucatan, and the neighbourhood, Grotius makes them come from Ethiopia by the way of the Ocean. He grounds this opinion on the practice of circumcision among these nations of America, which was also used by the Ethiopians.
Laët easily shewed that Grotius's conjectures were ill founded, and that he had even advanced several facts which were not strictly true: he denied the existence of the city of Norembega, and maintained that Jucatan is too distant from Africa for the Ethiopians to penetrate into America, it being at least two months sail from Ethiopia to Jucatan.
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