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Preparing for a Feast

There is a time of the year when the natives feast each other. For this purpose they choose special cooks. These cooks take a great round earthenware pot (which they bake so well that water can be boiled therein as easily as in our own kettles) and put it over a large wood fire. The place where the cooking is done swarms with activity. The head cook empties the raw food into the large pot; another keeps the fire going with a small hand fan; still others pour water into a hole in the ground; women bring water in large vessels; herbs to be used for seasoning are ground on a stone.

Although they give big feasts, they never overeat, and therefore usually live to a great age. One of the their chiefs swore that he was three hundred years old and that his father, whom he pointed out to me was fifty years older than himself--and indeed he looked to be nothing but skin and bones. Such facts might well make us Christians ashamed, for we are so immoderate in both our eating and our drinking habits that we shorted our lives thereby. We might easily learn sobriety and wisdom from these men whom we consider only as savages and beasts.

Monday, 15-May-95 14:17:42 PDT