"Most of the caciques have three stones also, to which they and their people shew great devotion. One of these they say helps the growth of all sorts of grain, the second causes women to be delivered without pain, and the third procures rain or fair weather, according as they stand in need of either. I sent three of these stones to your highnesses by Antonio de Torres, and I have three more to carry along with myself. When these Indians die, their obsequies are performed in several manners, but their way of burying their caciques is this. They open and dry him at a great fire, that he may be preserved whole. Of others they preserve only the head. Others they bury in a grot or den, and lay a calabash of water and some bread on his head. Others they burn in their houses, having first strangled them when at the last gasp, and this is done to caciques. Others are carried out of the house in a hammock, laying bread and water at their head, and they never return any more to see after them. Some when dangerously ill are carried to the cacique, who gives orders whether they are to be strangled or not, and their orders are instantly obeyed. I have taken pains to inquire whether they know or believe what becomes of them after death, and I particularly questioned Caunabo, who was the chief cacique in all Hispaniola, a man well up in years, experienced, and of a most piercing wit and much knowledge. He and the rest answered, that they go after death to a certain vale, which every great cacique supposes to be in his own country, and where they affirm they rejoin their relations and ancestors, that they eat, have women, and give themselves up to all manner of pleasures and pastimes. These things will appear more at large in the following extended account which I ordered to be drawn up by one father Roman, who understood their language, and set down all their ceremonies and antiquities: But these are so filled with absurdities and fable, that it is hardly possible to make any thing out of them, except that the natives have some ideas of the immortality of the soul and of a future state."

I, Father Roman, a poor anchorite of the order of St Jerome, by command of the most illustrious lord admiral, viceroy and governor-general of the islands and continent of the Indies, do here relate all that I could hear and learn concerning the religious opinions and idolatry of the Indians, and of the ceremonies they employ in the worship of their gods.

Every one observes some particular superstitious ceremonies in worshipping their idols, which they name cemis. They believe that there is an immortal being, invisible like Heaven, who had a mother, but no beginning, whom they call Atabei, Jermaoguacar, Apito, and Zuimaco; which are all several names of the Deity. They also pretend to know whence they came at the first, to give an account of the origin of the sun and moon, of the production of the sea, and what becomes of themselves after death. They likewise affirm that the dead appear to them upon the roads when any person goes alone, but that when many are together they do not appear. All these things they derive from the tradition of their ancestors, for they can neither write nor read, and are unable to reckon beyond ten.

1. In a province of the island named Caanan, there is a mountain called Carita, where there are two caves named Cacibagiagua and Amaiauva, out of the former of which most of the original inhabitants came. While in those caverns, they watched by night, and one Marocael having the watch, he came one day too late to the door and was taken away by the sun, and he was changed into a stone near the door. Others going to fish were taken away by the sun and changed into trees called jobi, or mirabolans.

2. One named Guagugiana ordered another person named Giadruvava to gather for him the herb digo, wherewith they cleanse their bodies when they wash themselves. Giadruvava was taken away by the sun and changed to a bird called giahuba bagiaci, which sings in the morning and resembles a nightingale.

3. Guagugiana, angry at the delay, enticed all the women to accompany him, leaving their husbands and children.

4. Guagugiana and the women came to Matinino, where he left the women, and went to another country called Guanin. The children thus deserted by their mothers, called out ma! ma! and too! too! as if begging food of the earth, and were transformed into little creatures like dwarfs, called tona; and thus all the men were left without women.

5. There went other women to Hispaniola, which the natives call Aiti, but the other islanders call them Bouchi. When Guagugiana went away with the women, he carried with him the wives of the cacique, named Anacacugia; and being followed by a kinsman, he threw him into the sea by a stratagem, and so kept all the caciques wives to himself. And it is said that ever since there are only women at Matinino.

6. Guagugiana being full of these blotches which we call the French pox, was put by a woman named Guabonito into a guanara, or bye-place, and there cured. He was afterwards named Biberoci Guahagiona, and the women gave him abundance of guanine and cibe to wear upon his arms. The cibe or colecibi are made of a stone like marble, and are worn round the wrists and neck, but the guanine are worn in their ears, and they sound like fine metal. They say that Guabonito, Albeboreal, Guahagiona, and the father of Albeboreal were the first of these Guaninis. Guahagiona remained with the father called Hiauna; his son from the father took the name of Hia Guaill Guanin, which signifies the son of Hiauna, and thence the island whether Guahagiona went is called Guanin to this day.

7. The men who had been left without women were anxious to procure some, and one day saw the shape of human beings sliding down the trees, whom they could not catch. But by employing four men who had rough hands from a disease like the itch, these four strange beings were caught.

8. Finding those beings wanted the parts of women, they caught certain birds named turiri cahuvaial, resembling woodpeckers, and by their means fashioned them to their purpose.

9. There was once a man named Giaia, who had a son named Giaiael, which signifies the son of Giaia; and who, intending to kill his father was banished and afterwards killed by his father, and his bones hung up in a calabash. Afterwards going to examine the bones, he found them all changed into a vast number of great and small fishes.

10. There were four brothers, the sons of a woman named Itiba Tahuvava, all born at one birth, for the woman dying in labour they cut her open. The first they cut out was named Diminan, and was a caracaracol, or afflicted with a disease like the itch, the others had no names. One day while Giaia was at his conichi or lands, these brothers came to his house and took down the calabash to eat the fish; but not hanging it up properly, there ran out so much water as drowned the whole country, and with it great quantities of fish: And in this manner they believe the sea had its original.

11. After a long story of a live tortoise being cut out from the shoulder of Diminan Caracaracol, quite away from the purpose, F. Roman proceeds to say that the sun and moon came out of a grotto called Giovovava, in the country of a cacique named Maucia Tiuvel. This grotto is much venerated, and is all painted over with the representation of leaves and other things. It contained two cemis made of stone, about a quarter of a yard long, having their hands bound, and which looked as if they sweated. These were called Boinaiel and Maroio, and were much visited and honoured, especially when they wanted rain.