XI. The Tupinamba of Brazil: fierce cannibals who believe soul-immortality; Lery on virtue, paradise, and Aygnan
XI. THE TUPINAMBA, Brazilians, believe the immortality of souls, being fierce and cannibals. For concerning them Jean de Lery, who spent a year among them, that he does not believe there is any nation in the whole globe of lands more alien from all religion: if nevertheless, by his own witness, they not only believed the immortality of souls, but also held it for certain that after death the souls of those who had cultivated virtue (but they define virtue in their own way — namely to take vengeance on enemies and to devour as many as possible), flying past the highest mountains, are gathered to the souls of their fathers and grandfathers, and there in most pleasant gardens spend a joyful age in perpetual delights and dances: but on the contrary the shades of the cowardly, who have lived without any care of defending the fatherland and ingloriously, are snatched away to Aygnan (so they call the evil demon) and live with him amid everlasting torments.
Latin
XI. TououPINAMBAULTII, Brasilenses, feri & anthropophagi, immortalitatem animarum credunt. Nam de his Johannes Lerius annum inter eos versatus cap. 16. scribit, se non credere, gentem ullam in toto terrarum orbe esse, quae ab omni religione sit magis aliena: si tamen, ipso teste, non modo immortalitatem animarum credebant, sed pro certo quoque habebant, post mortem eorum animas, qui virtutem coluerint (Virtutem autem illi definiunt suo more, nempe ultionem sumere de hostibus, & quam plurimos devorare) post altissimos montes evolantes patrum & avorum suorum animis aggregari, ibique in amoenissimis hortis perpetuis deliciis ac tripudiis laetum aevum agere: ignavorum contra manes, qui sine ulla propugnandae patriae cura inglorii vixerint, abripi ad Aygnan (sic cacodaemonem vocant) & cum eo sempiternos inter cruciatus vivere.