End of puberty ritual for Carib boysArticle 11 of 16 The first Europeans co-opt Mabi-beer. 16th-17th

The blissful afterlife of the Carib Indians.

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" And after Chemin has entered, who is then by the door, he makes them believe that he is one of their dead parents or children, and forges their voices and actions as if he were there alive, and says that he has come down expressly from heaven (or to speak in their terms from the hut where the moon stands) to beg them to let themselves die, since one lives much happier up there than down here, saying that there are high mountains made of hot cassavas and great rivers of sweet potato wine and cassavas, and that they have no trouble working to make pirogues or boats for going to war to take their enemies, because there are many of them already taken and that they eat as much as they want and are served by plenty of negroes. " (Anonyme de Carpentras, 1618-1620, éd. Moreau 2002, 183).

 

One part of this "Eden" is well dated. The evocation of black servants is inspired by the deportation of the first African slaves organised by the Spaniards in Santo Domingo in 1503. The Amerindians of the West Indies were struck by the cruelty of the whites and quickly understood that the settlement of their islands by black slaves meant their own disappearance. Hence the fierce resistance of the Carib Indians to the Spanish occupation, whenever they could.

End of puberty ritual for Carib boysArticle 11 of 16 The first Europeans co-opt Mabi-beer. 16th-17th