And haven't there been nations, even the most civilized ones, where abandoning children to starve to death or be devoured by beasts wasn't common and accepted practice? In some regions, isn't it still used to bury newborn babies alive along with their mothers who died in childbirth? Or aren't they killed because some astrologer declared them to have been born under bad stars? And aren't there other places where children abandon or kill their parents whom age has rendered useless, without any remorse?

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In a certain part of Asia, when the sick are considered incurable, they are abandoned in the ground until they die, exposed to the cold and rain, without any assistance. Among the Mingrelians, a people who profess Christianity, it is common to bury children alive without any scruples. There are places where they eat their own children. The Caribs even castrated them to make them fatter, then devoured them. And Garcilaso de La Vega tells us that the men of a Peruvian tribe took as concubines the women of the enemy tribes they imprisoned, in order to beget children in them whom they devoured once they were well fattened; the same fate befell the mothers when they were no longer fit for procreation. The Tupinambas knew no more virtuous way to Paradise than to take revenge on their enemies by eating them. Those who were considered saints among the Turks led a life that cannot be described without offending modesty.