Mode of Taking Turtle.
There are three kinds of turtle inhabiting these seas: the first and
most valuable are the hawk-bill, they are caught for the beauty of their
shell, which contains thirteen pieces, covering the thick callipach of
the turtle, which is from two to four feet long. The outer shell is
taken from the carcase by setting it up before a warm fire, when it
peels off. The second is called loggerhead turtle, having a shell much
resembling the hawk-bill, but not worth anything for manufacturing. The
third is the green turtle, whose flesh is very delicious, and so well
known that I consider any description unnecessary. The Indians take them
by what they call striking, having a pole about the size of a fishing
rod, with a small spear, two or three inches long, well barbed at the
point, to which one end of a small cord, about sixty feet long, is made
fast and wound round a piece of cork-wood, resembling a weavers spool.
He then stands up in his canoe, and by taking aim hits his mark and
secures his prey.
Another mode of taking turtle is by making set nets, about thirty feet
square, from large twine, they then carve imitation turtle out of soft,
light wood, which are smoked over the fire to give them a turtle color,
and then attached to the upper side of the net, where they float on the
surface of the water as buoys, while the bottom is anchored with stones.
The turtle resort to the nets to play with the wooden decoys, and during
their sport generally get one of their flippers entangled, and by
struggling to extricate themselves get into the net and are easily
taken.
The next operation of catching them is performed by three or four
Indians going to the resort of the turtles, where they build a temporary
hut to live in, each takes possession of his ground, say one quarter or
half a mile; on which he walks backwards and forwards like a sentry on
guard during the night, watching the movements of his game; and when the
turtles crawl up the beach to deposit their eggs, during the laying
season, he turns them over on their backs, where they remain until he
wants to take possession. When ready, he removes them at pleasure.
The turtle generally crawls up about ten rods from the sea-shore on the
soft beach-sand, making a large track with its flippers, and digging a
hole in the sand about two feet deep, lays forty eggs, and returns to
the sea again the same night. About fifteen nights after, the identical
turtle returns to the same nest and lays forty more eggs, then retreats
into the sea again and returns there no more during that season.
The manatee, or sea-cow, is from ten to fourteen feet long, and has a
head much resembling our common cow without horns. They often get asleep
on the surface of the water, when the Indians very carefully paddle
their canoes to them, and by throwing their small spears into them,
capture them in the same manner they do the turtle. The beef when cut up
is twelve or fourteen inches thick, having a strip of fat and lean
intermixed about every inch, being the handsomest beef I ever beheld or
tasted, and having no kind of fish taste or smell.
The coast here abounds with a variety of good fish; the larger ones are
mostly taken by spearing.
The Indians have often brought me beef of the mountain-cow, which I
found of a very good flavor. I never saw but one young one of that
species, and cannot give a very good description of them. The young one
I saw, much resembled a young fawn. They are killed by shooting.
Parrots, when cooked, taste much like our wild pigeons, and are taken in
abundance by shooting. A few tame ones are kept about the houses, which
fly into the shade-trees near the premises, and serve as stool-pigeons
to call down the wild flocks that are daily passing over the villages.
The armadilla also inhabits this country, and is considered very
palatable food. The guana, resembles the common lizard in shape and
color, and is from two to four feet in length, in this country its flesh
is considered delicious meat.
The cattle are much larger than those of the United States. They seldom
milk the cows, which run in herds, and are not domesticated. Each
inhabitant marks his calves when young; and when he wants to kill a beef
he shoots one of his own mark. They domesticate but few horses, having
scarcely any roads, the country being cut up with lakes, rivers, and
creeks, without bridges. The principal travel is performed in canoes.
The horses are well formed, but a kind of tick eats the gristle out of
their ears, which causes them to fall down on their head, giving them
the appearance of lopped eared hogs.
They have abundance of hogs and poultry, which are cheaply fed on
cocoa-nuts that grow wild along the sea-coast, and are gathered in large
quantities. The first work of the morning, performed by the Indian
women, is breaking cocoa-nuts for the hogs, and cracking some for the
dogs, then cutting up fine for the poultry. They grate up a large
quantity with tin graters, put it in pots and extract the oil, which
makes good lard for frying fish; and when it turns rancid becomes very
fair lamp oil. Forty cocoa-nuts will produce one gallon of it.
The forests abound with wild hogs of two different species, called Warry
and Pecara, having a small tit or navel on their backs. When they are
shot the Indians immediately cut out the tit to prevent its scenting the
meat. I have ate the flesh of it often, and found it equal to other meat
of the pork kind.
Plantain is the principal bread food of the country, and easily
cultivated. It also produces yams, cassauder, sweet potatoes or eddies,
and many other vegetables; but the natives are too indolent to cultivate
them. I lived seven months among them without tasting a mouthful of
bread, or even craving it.
I will now give a small extract of Musquitto laws, viz: If a man commits
adultery with his neighbor's wife, and it comes to the knowledge of her
husband, he takes his gun and goes to the forest where he finds a herd
of cattle belonging to the neighborhood; he shoots a good fat bullock
and calls on the neighbors to assist him to dress it and convey it home,
where he makes a great feast, inviting the man who committed the
offence, and all the neighbors to partake with him, when the offender,
who is bound by law, pays for the bullock and all is amicably settled.
If a man prevails on another man's wife to leave her husband and live
with him, the law compels him to pay a fine of four backs of
tortoise-shell, worth six dollars each, amounting to twenty-four
dollars, and a receipt in full is verbally acknowledged, without any
hard feelings between the parties.
I once witnessed a settlement between two men in a cause of this kind,
both parties appeared well satisfied, and parted on the most friendly
terms.
They have a singular law for the collection of debts. If I trust an
Indian goods, he belonging to another town or settlement, and he
neglects to pay me, and I find another Indian belonging to the same
town, having tortoise-shell or other produce in his canoe, I can take it
away from him for the debt, and he must look to the man who was indebted
to me, for remuneration.
Marriage contracts are made by parents while the children are infants.
Two families living in one neighborhood, one of them having a son and
the other a daughter, enter into a contract that they shall be
considered man and wife. When they are of a proper age to be joined
together, all the inhabitants of the place assemble together, build them
a house, help them to a hammock to sleep in, and a dinner-pot for
cooking, and they commence as house keepers. After living together for
some years as man and wife, the husband receives a present of a female
child from _its_ parents, which he carries home, and calls it his _young
wife_, the first wife taking the same care of it she would of her own
children until it becomes of proper age, when the husband builds a new
house for the first wife to live in, and takes the young wife for a
house-keeper. I have often been invited into Indian houses and
introduced to the family in this manner: "This is my old wife," pointing
to an elderly woman, and "This is my young wife," pointing to a girl
from six to ten years old. The old wife would smooth her hair and
appear to feel a great deal of pride in being presented to me.
On the day a woman is delivered of a child she goes to the sea-side,
wades into the water knee depth, washes herself and infant, and the next
day slings the child on her back, gets into a canoe and paddles two or
three miles to visit her friends.
I here take my leave of Musquitto laws and customs for the present.
As the plan of cutting a canal from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean,
by the way of the River St. Johns, which leads from the Atlantic into
the Lakes Nicaragua and Leon, has so much engaged the attention of the
public latterly, my thoughts have been carried back to a conversation I
had with an old Musquitto Indian about thirty-five years since.
He said, "The Indians frequently paddled their canoes up the St. John's
River, through Nicaragua Lake into Lake Leon, where they found a small
river, and proceeded to the head of it, which brought them so near the
head of another river which led into the Pacific, that they hauled their
canoes over by land from the head of one river to the other, and then
passed through into the Pacific Ocean."