La Relación - page 41

La Relación - page 41

is that, when an offspring or sibling dies, no one in the household looks for food for three months; they would sooner let themselves starve to death. Relatives and neighbors provide them with food. Since many of their people died while we were there and this custom and ritual was observed, there was great hunger in many households. Those who sought food found very little despite their great efforts because the weather was so bad. For this reason the Indians who were holding me left the island and crossed to the mainland in canoes. They went to some bays where there are many oysters. They eat nothing else and drink very bad water for three months of the year.

Firewood is scarce for them, but mosquitos are plentiful. Their houses are made of mats and built on oyster shells, on which they sleep naked, putting animal hides on them if they happen to have any. We stayed there until the end of April, when we went to the seacoast and ate blackberries for the entire month, during which they hold their festivals with areítos and singing.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN
What Happened to Us in the Village of Misfortune

0n that island I have spoken of, they wanted to make us physicians, without testing us or asking for any degrees, because they cure illnesses by blowing on the sick person and cast out the illness with their breath and their hands. So they told us to be useful and do the same. We laughed at the idea, saying they were mocking us and that we did not know how to heal. They in turn deprived us of our food until we did as they ordered. Seeing our reluctance, an Indian told me that I did not know what I was talking about when I said that all that was useless. He knew that even rocks and other things found in the fields have beneficial properties, for he healed and took away pain by passing a hot rock across the stomach.

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