Brazil

Apres cela & pour l'apprester ces femmes Bresiliennes ayans de grandes & fort larges poesles de terre, contenant chacune plus d'un boisseau, qu'elles font elles-mesmes assez proprement pour cest usage, les mettans sur le feu, & quantité de ceste farine dedans : pendant que elle cuict elles ne cessent de la remuer avec des courges mi parties, desquelles elles se servent ainsi que nous faisons d'escuelles. Ceste farine cuisant de ceste facon, se forme comme petite grelace, ou dragee d'apoticaire.

Next, to prepare the flour, these Brazilian women use large, very wide pans of clay, each holding more than a bushel. They make the pans themselves, quite neatly, for this purpose. They set them on the fire with a quantity of flour inside. While it cooks they keep stirring it with half gourds, which they use as we use bowls. Cooked this way, the flour forms little pellets, like fine hail or an apothecary's sugar pills.

Au reste les plantes ou tiges de toutes les deux, differentes bien peu l'une de l'autre quant à la forme, croissent de la hauteur des petits genevriers : & ont les fueilles assez semblables à l'herbe de peonia, ou piuoine en francois. Mais ce qui est admirable & digne de grande consideration en ces racines d'Aypi & de Maniot de nostre terre du Bresil gist en la multiplication d'icelles. Car comme ainsi soit que les branches soyent presque aussi tendres & aisées à rompre que chenevotes, si est ce neantmoins qu'autant qu'on en peut rompre & ficher le plus avant qu'on peut dans terre, sans autrement les cultiver, autant a on de grosses racines au bout de deux ou trois mois.

The plants or stems of both kinds look very much alike. They grow as tall as small junipers, and their leaves are rather like those of the peonia, or peony as we say in French. But what is wonderful and well worth noticing about these Aypi and Maniot roots of our land of Brazil is how they multiply. The branches are almost as soft and easy to break as hemp stalks. Yet you can break off pieces and push them as deep as you can into the ground. Without any other tending, each one gives you a big root in two or three months.

Cogen la yuca, que son vnas rayces, de que se haze el cazabe, pan ordinario en todas aquellas Costas del Brasil, y cabando en la tierra vnas cueuas, ó silos hondos, las sepultan en ellos, dexándolos muy bien tapados todo el tiempo que duren las crecientes, las quales pasadas, las sacan y benefician para su sustento, sin que por eso pierdan vn punto de su valor. Y si la naturaleza enseñó á la hormiga á guardar como en trojes en las entrañas de la tierra el grano, que ha de ser alimento suyo todo el año, qué mucho diese traça al Indio, por más bárbaro que sea, para prevenir su daño, y guardar su sustento; pues es cierto que la Diuina Prouidencia más cuida de los hombres que de los animales brutos.

They gather the yuca, which is a root. Cazabe is made from it, the everyday bread all along those coasts of Brazil. They dig deep holes or pits in the ground and bury the roots in them. They leave them well covered for as long as the floods last. When the water has gone, they take the roots out and prepare them to eat, and the roots have lost none of their value. Nature taught the ant to store the grain it will eat all year in the depths of the earth, as if in barns. So it is no wonder that nature gave the Indian, however barbarous, a way to prevent his loss and keep his food. For it is certain that Divine Providence cares more for human beings than for brute animals.