But matings, I thought, occurred
only of free and mutual desire, and not more frequently
than in other countries. The women were not without modesty,
nor the men without a pale chivalry. At first I thought
constraint or rule did not enter in, but after a talk with their
priest through Diego Colon, I gathered that there prevailed
tribe and kinship restraints. Later we were to find that a
great network of "thou shalt" and "thou shalt not" ran
through their total society, wherever or to what members
it might extend. Common good, or what was supposed to
be common good, was the master here as it is everywhere!
The women worked the gardens, the men hunted; both men
and women fished. Women might be caciques. There were
women caciques, they said, farther on in their land. And it
seemed to us that name and family were counted from the
mother's side.
The Admiral had solemnly laid it upon us to discover the
polity of this new world. If they held fief from fief, then
at last we must come through however many overlords to
the seigneur of them all, Grand Khan or Emperor. We
applied ourselves to cacique and butio, but we found no
Grand Seigneur. There were other caciques. When the
Caribs descended they banded together. They had dimly,
we thought, the idea of a war-lord. But it ended there, when
the war ended. Tribute: He found they had no idea of
tribute.
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