“They have another custom,very shameful and beyond human belief. For their women, being very lustful, cause the private parts of their husbands to swell up to such a huge size that they appear deformed and disgusting; and this is accomplished by a certain device of theirs, the biting of certain poisonous animals.” pg. 34

Mundus Novus is a writing a letter about what he experiences in the foreign land. Everyone has a culture shock when visiting a new place, but Novus’s description makes it seems like he just discovered another planet. Everything that he has ever known or experienced was not present within the Natives. Men and women alike were naked and walked freely. To the Natives, everything goes. There were no laws, government, or religion to follow. He noticed the sexual liberation here because men had multiple wives and women were extremely lustful. He considered this sexual freedom a part of nature. Novus is not only shocked about the sexual practices and norms in the new land, but is also disgusted by certain behavior. In the first line, he mentions a custom that is beyond “human” belief. This might be an attempt to consider the Natives of a different kind. Novus’s reaction is bewildering, but still intrigued. The Natives had a custom in which where the women would inject poison from poisonous animals into their husband’s genitals in order for it swell up. Women were different here and Novus admitted that they were quite beautiful, but he couldn’t comprehend or accept their customs. The social norms and practices of the Natives were in no way similar to European practices. Sexual behaviors and attitudes were both different in men and women from the Americas and Europe. Novus’s reaction to the “new” world’s social behavior has been both life-changing and in disbelief.