y a colony
from Carnia; with these colonists was brought over the worship of their
Pagan gods of Caria and Phrygia; these two localities were the homes of
the Cybelian priesthood, who dressed in female garb, as did the
sacrificial priests of the Temple of Venus Urania. It is true that the
Java or Floridian priest had nothing in common with the priests of
Cybele or of Venus Urania; but, still, Lafiteau gave as lucid an
explanation for the existence of these conditions as any of his
contemporaries. Charlevoix observed the same practices among the
Illinois, which he attributed as being due to some principle of
religion. The Baron de la Hontan insists that the missionary,
Charlevoix, was mistaken; that the persons whom he saw in female attire,
whom he took to be men, were not men. Hontan asserts that they were
veritable hermaphrodites. The missionaries were, however, correct, as
what has since been observed confirms their opinion. M. du Mont, who
ascended the Mississippi for a distance of nine hundred leagues, also
reported meeting Indians at different places attended by these
petticoated androgynes.[40]

As strange as it may seem, many intelligent men were loth to part with
their belief in the existence of these double-sexed individuals; the
logic used by many of these insisters of hermaphrodism, although now
very ridiculous, was no doubt sensible logic one hundred and fifty years
ago. As a matter of curiosity, some of this reasoning will bear
repeating. It is taken from a Latin edition of an ancient description of
Florida, originally in the English, but translated into the Latin by the
geographer, Mercator. In this book we find the roots of some of the
myths that led Ponce de Leon and his steel-clad warriors to wander
through Florida in a vain search of that spring or fountain of the
waters of perpetual youth and of everlasting life which they were never
to find. We there learn that, in the days of the good old Spanish
knight, the inhabitants of Florida lived to a very old age, and that
they did not marry until very late in life, as before that period it was
very difficult to determine the sex of the individual.

From what has since been seen among the Indians, the probability is that
these were really eunuchs, and probably in slavery, as the result of the
fortunes of war, as their great number and servile condition will hardly
admit of the belief that they belonged to the same tribe as their
masters and oppressors. Ped