History of the Incas

by Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa

IV.

FIRST INHABITANTS OF THE WORLD AND PRINCIPALLY OF THE ATLANTIC ISLAND.

Having described the four parts of the world, for of Catigara, which is the fifth, we shall not speak except in its place which the ancients assigned to it, it will be right to come to the races which peopled them. All of which I have to treat has to be personal and heathen history. The chief value and perfection of history consists in its accuracy, thoroughly sifting each event, verifying the times and periods of what happened so that no doubt may remain of what passed. It is in this way that I desire to write the truth in so far as my ability enables me to do so respecting a thing so ancient as the first peopling of these new lands. I wish, for the better illustration of the present history, to precede it with the foundations that cannot be denied, counting the time in conformity with the chronology of the Hebrews in the days before our Saviour Jesus Christ, and the times after his most holy nativity according to the counting used by our mother the holy church, not making account of the calculations of Chaldean or Egyptian interpreters.

Thus, passing over the first age from Adam to the Deluge, which covers 1656 years, we will begin from the second age, which is that of the patriarch Noah, second universal father of mortals. The divine scriptures show us that eight persons were saved from the flood, in the ark. Noah and his wife Terra or Vesta, named from the first fire lighted by crystal for the first sacrifice as Berosus would have; and his three sons to wit, Cam and his wife Cataflua, Sem and his wife Prusia or Persia, Japhet and his wife Fun a, as we read in the register of the chronicles. The names of some of these people remain, and to this day we can see clearly whence they were derived, as the Hebrews from Heber, the Assyrians from Amur, but most of them have been so changed that human intelligence is insufficient to investigate by this way. Besides the three sons, Noah had others after the flood.

The descendants of these men having multiplied and become very numerous, Noah divided the world among his first sons that they might people it, and then embarked on the Euxine Sea as we gather from Xenophon. The giant Noah then navigated along the Mediterranean Sea, as Filon says and Annius repeats, dividing the whole land among his sons. He gave it in charge to Sem to people Asia from the Nile to the eastern Indies, with some of the sons he got after the flood. To Cam he gave Africa from the Rinocoruras to the straits of Gibraltar with some more of the sons. Europe was chosen for Japhet to people with the rest of the sons begotten after the flood, who were all the sons of Tuscan, whence descend the Tadescos, Alemanes, and the nations adjacent to them.

In this voyage Noah founded some towns and colonies on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea, and remained in them for ten years, until 112 years after the universal deluge. He ordered his daughter Araxa to remain in Armenia where the ark rested, with her husband and children, to people that country. Then he, with the rest of his companions, went to Mesopotamia and settled. There Nembrot was raised up for king, of the descendants of Cam. This Nembrot, says Berosus, built Babylon 130 years after the flood. The sons of Sem elected for their king, Jektan, son of Heber. Those of Japhet chose Fenec for their king, called Assenes by Moses. There were 300,000 men under him only 310 years after the deluge. Each king, with his companions, set out to people the part of the world chosen for them by the patriarch Noah. It is to be noted that, although Noah divided the parts of the world among his three sons and their descendants, many of them did not keep to the boundaries. For some of one lineage settled on the lands of another brother. Nembrot, being of the line of Cam, remained in the parts of Sem, and many others were mixed together in the same way.

Thus the three parts of the world were peopled by these and their descendants, of whom I do not propose to treat in detail, for our plan is to proceed in our narrative until we come to the inhabitants of the Atlantic Island, the subject of this history. This was so near Spain that, according to the common fame, Caliz used to be so close to the main land in the direction of the port of Santa Maria, that a plank would serve as a bridge to pass from the island to Spain. So that no one can doubt that the inhabitants of Spain, Jubal and his descendants, peopled that land, as well as the inhabitants of Africa which was also near. Hence it was called the Atlantic Island from having been peopled by Atlas, the giant and very wise astrologer who first settled Mauritania now called Barbary, as Godefridus and all the chronicles teach us. This Atlas was the son of Japhet by the nymph Asia, and grandson of Noah. For this there is no authority except the above, corroborated by the divine Plato as I began by explaining, and it will be necessary to seek his help to give the reader such evidence as merits belief respecting the inhabitants of this Atlantic Island.