Note 997 — Chapter VII · WILD TRIBES OF CENTRAL AMERICA.

Esquemelin relates that the natives on the Belize coast and adjacent islands carried the new-born infant to the temple, where it was placed naked in a hole filled with ashes, exposed to the wild beasts, and left there until the track of some animal was noticed in the ashes. This became patron to the child who was taught to offer it incense and to invoke it for protection. Zee-Roovers, pp. 64-9, 149. The genitals are pierced as a proof of constancy and affection for a woman. Id., pp. 151-3. Compare Herrera, Hist. Gen., dec. iv., lib. i., cap. vi., lib. viii., cap. iii.-vi.; Young's Narrative, pp. 73, 75, 123, 125; Bell, in Lond. Geog. Soc., Jour., vol. xxxii., pp. 251, 254-5, 257-8; Pim and Seemann's Dottings, pp. 249, 306-8; Torquemada, Monarq. Ind., tom. i., p. 335; Delaporte, Reisen, tom. x., p. 409; Crowe's Cent. Amer., pp. 49, 245-7.