Note 16 — Decade Fourth

Coming to the peculiarities of that coast, we cannot fail to mention one, namely, that there are trees of the hugest size, so tall that one would believe that they are trying to reach up into the clouds. The Indians are wont to make their dwellings in them, specially those Indians called cimarrones.16 They [225] pay no tribute, so that their trees serve them as a fort in which to defend themselves from the Spanish soldiers of the fort of Caragha. The manner of building those dwellings is as follows: They look out a very stout, high tree; they trim off all the branches up to the height where the floor of the house is to be. They put in some cross-bars, which cross on the trimmed-off branches. They fix them with large timbers in the manner of an enclosure, with which the trampling-ground is made. Then they enclose that floor with the same timbers, in the manner of a parapet, and cover it with a little nipa. The branches above are also protected from the rain and inclemencies of the weather. Thus the house is made so strong that it resists any invasion. It has often cost our soldiers considerable trouble to get those people; for those houses have no approach except certain light ladders made from rattans tied together. In those houses they keep all their possessions, and there live their children and wives, who all help to fight. They have made a place by which to retire when pursued closely, preparing a passage from [226] branch to branch in order to escape. Those houses are so capacious that one of our religious lay brothers, who had been a soldier in the presidio of Caragha, said that he had seen one that would hold sixty persons. On climbing into another out of curiosity, he saw three women hanging—a mother and her daughters. As well as could be guessed, the mother had hanged the girls and then herself, in order not to fall into the power of the Castilians.17