s, like those in Hispaniola, who
pretended to have communication with the devil, and to obtain answers from
him to their questions. To obtain this favour, they fasted three or four
months, using only the juice of herbs; and when reduced to extreme
weakness, they were worthy of inspiration, and to be informed whether the
seasons of the year would be favourable or otherwise; what children were
to be born, and whether those born were to live, and such like questions.
These conjurors, who were called _behiques_, were the oracles of the
natives, whom they led into many superstitions and absurdities; pretending
to cure the sick by blowing on them, and other mummeries, muttering some
unintelligible words between their teeth. The natives of Cuba acknowledged
that the heavens and earth, and all things contained in these, had been
created. They are even said to have had traditions concerning the flood,
and the destruction of the world by water, occasioned by three persons who
came three several ways. The old men reported, that a sage who knew the
approaching deluge, built a great ship, into which he went with his family,
and many animals. That he sent out a crow, which remained a long while out,
feeding on the dead bodies, and afterwards returned with a green branch.
They added many other particulars respecting the deluge, even to two of
Noah's sons covering him when drunk, while the third scoffed him; adding
that the Indians were descended from the latter, and therefore had no
clothes, whereas the Spaniards descended from the other sons, and had
therefore clothes and horses. As they lived in towns under the authority
of caciques, it is probable that the will of these chiefs served as law.

Some time before the expedition of Velasquez to Cuba, a cacique of the
province of _Guatiba_, in Hispaniola, named _Hatuey_, to escape from the
tyranny of the Spaniards, went over to the eastern end of Cuba with as
many of his people as he could induce to accompany him; the distance
between the two islands being only eighteen leagues. He settled with his
followers in the nearest district of Cuba, called _Mayci_, reducing the
inhabitants of that place to subjection, but not to slavery. In fact
slavery does not appear to have been practised in any part of the West
Indies, no difference being made even by the caciques between their people
and their children; except in New Spain and other provinces of the
continent, where they used to sacrifice pris