People
Columbus thought the Lucayans resembled the Guanche of the Canary Islands (in part because they were intermediate in skin color between Europeans and Africans). The Lucayans were described as handsome, graceful, well-proportioned, gentle, generous and peaceful, and customarily going almost completely naked. Peter Martyr d'Anghiera said that the Lucayan women were so beautiful that men from "other countries" moved to the islands to be near them. Women past puberty wore a small skirt of cotton, and the men might wear a loincloth made of plaited leaves or cotton. Some people wore head bands, waist bands, feathers, bones and ear and nose jewelry on occasion. They were often tattooed and usually applied paint to their bodies and/or faces. They also practiced head flattening. Their hair was black and straight, and they kept it cut short except for a few hairs in back which were never cut. Columbus reported seeing scars on the bodies of some of the men, which were explained to him as resulting from attempts by men from other islands to capture them.
Read more about this topic: Lucayan People
Famous quotes containing the word people:
“All our civilization had meant nothing. The same culture that had nurtured the kindly enlightened people among whom I had been brought up, carried around with it war. Why should I not have known this? I did know it, but I did not believe it. I believed it as we believe we are going to die. Something that is to happen in some remote time.”
—Mary Heaton Vorse (1874–1966)
“The people are the government, administering it by their agents; they are the government, the sovereign power.”
—Andrew Jackson (1767–1845)
“Rich fellas come up and they die, and their kids ain’t no good, and they die out. But we keep a-comin’. We’re the people that live. They can’t wipe us out. They can’t lick us. And we’ll go on forever, Pa, ‘cause we’re the people.”
—Nunnally Johnson (1897–1977)