HEMACKS.
5
But to return to our subject: while the men were thus employed, the women were far from idle : they wove the cloth from the cotton and bark of trees, and stained it of various colours. Of this cloth, which was very substantial, they made their beds, which were suspended from posts by the two ends, and obtained the name of hemacks, from beingmade by the southern islanders of the rind of a tree of that name. Columbus was so pleased with them, that he took the pattern, and used them for the bedding of his crew. They are still used at the present day under the appellation of hammocks. Of the leaves of the cocoa-nut and palmetto they also made baskets ; while the fibres were twisted into ropes. The negroes also follow them in this particular, making rope, and also baskets, which they call “ catacous.,, The Caribs have often been likened to the ancient Jews in some of their customs ; but they did not follow that peculiar people in abstaining from blood, as they frequently drank that of the Arrowawks in their inhuman festivals. It is true, they refrained from eating many kinds of flesh, which were generally reckoned luxuries by others ; but "if it was from religious motives, we are nowhere sufficiently informed," as Goldsmith justly observes. Their greatest treat, however, was human flesh, which they devoured with avidity whenever they could procure it. The Arrowawks, or inhabitants of Cuba, and the adjacent islands, as before remarked, were their principal prey. Sometimes they ate this horrible food raw ; at other times they roasted or boiled it ; but the fat was all preserved for the use of their children, both as food, and to anoint their bodies, in hopes of rendering them hardy and valiant ; and for this reason they were also frequently immersed in a bath of blood. Another of their viands, and indeed the principal part of their food, Avas fish. These they caught in nets, composed of the twisted fibres of the cocoa-nut ; or else speared them at night as they rose to the surface of the water to breathe. A similar practice is still pursued in Scotland ; and the dexterity consists in throwing a spear at the salmon as it springs