Chapter Index

× Proem 1. Which Tells When the Fleet Sailed, and of the Officers and People Who Went with It 2. How the Governor Came to the Port of Xagua and Brought a Pilot with Him 3. How We Arrived in Florida 4. How We Entered the Land 5. How the Governor Left the Ships 6. How We Entered Apalachee 7. What the Land is Like 8. How We Left Aute 9. How We Left the Bay of Horses 10. Of Our Skirmish with the Indians 11. What Happened to Lope de Oviedo with Some Indians 12. How the Indians Brought Us Food 13. How We Found Out about Other Christians 14. How Four Christians Departed 15. What Happened to Us in the Village of Misfortune 16. How Some Christians Left the Isle of Misfortune 17. How the Indians Came and Brought Andrés Dorantes and Castillo and Estebanico 18. How He Told Esquivel's Story 19. How the Indians Left Us 20. How We Escaped 21. How We Cured Some Sick People 22. How They Brought Other Sick People to Us the Following Day 23. How We Left after Having Eaten the Dogs 24. About the Customs of the Indians of That Land 25. How the Indians Are Skilled with a Weapon 26. About the Peoples and Languages 27. How We Moved On and Were Welcomed 28. About Another New Custom 29. How They Stole from One Another 30. How the Custom of Welcoming Us Changed 31. How We Followed the Corn Route 32. How They Gave Us Deer Hearts 33. How We Saw Traces of Christians 34. How I Sent for the Christians 35. How the Mayor Received Us Well the Night We Arrived 36. How We Had Them Build Churches in That Land 37. What Happened When I Wanted to Leave 38. What Happened to the Others Who Went to the Indies
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roots are beginning to sprout and are not good. These people love their children more and treat them better than any other people on earth. When someone's child happens to die, the parents and relatives and the whole village weep for him for a full year. The parents begin crying each morning before dawn, and then the whole village joins in. They do the same thing at midday and at sunset. At the end of a year, they honor the dead child and wash themselves clean of the soot on their bodies. They mourn all their dead in this manner except old people, whom they ignore, saying that their time has passed and they are of Iittle use, and that in fact they occupy space and consume food which could be given to the children. Their custom is to bury the dead, unless the dead man is a medicine man, in which case they burn the body, all dancing around the fire with much merriment. They grind the bones to a powder. A year later they honor the dead medicine man, scar themselves, and his relatives drink the powdered bones mixed with water.

Each one has a recognized wife. The medicine men have the greatest freedom, since they can have two or three wives, among whom there is great friendship and harmony. When someone gives his daughter in marriage, from the first day of the marriage onward, she takes all that her husband kills by hunting or fishing to her father's lodge, without daring to take or eat any of it. The husband's in-laws then take food to him. All this time the father-in-law and the mother-in- law do not enter his lodge and he does not enter their lodge nor the lodges of his brothers-in-law. If they encounter him somewhere, they move away the distance of a crossbow shot, and while they are moving away, they lower their heads and keep their eyes on the ground, because they think it is a bad thing for them to see each other. The women are free to communicate and converse with their in-laws and relatives. This custom is observed on the island and for a distance of more than fifty leagues inland.

Another custom of theirs