[538] This is a very curious account of the ceremony at harvest time, in use among the ancient inhabitants of the Collao.
[539] Umu is the correct word for priest in Quichua, and huillac-umu for high priest. Huaca-camayoc was a person having charge of the huacas, or tombs and holy places.
[540] This is the Mexican name for turkey buzzards.
[541] All this sounds very like a spirit-rapping and table-turning piece of business.
“Pues Señor Gobernador
Mirelo bien por entero
Que allá va el Recogedor
Y acá queda el Carnicero.”
The above is Mr. Prescott’s version of these famous lines. Mr. Helps translates them thus:—
“My good lord Governor,
Have pity on our woes;
For here remains the butcher,
To Panama the salesman goes.”
[543] Of the famous thirteen only four ever appear again in the history of the times. These are Pedro de Candia (see note, p. 193); Juan de la Torre (see note, p. 221); Nicholas de Ribera, who is mentioned as having deserted from Gonzalo Pizarro to Gasca, as having been afterwards appointed captain of the guard of the royal seal by the Royal Audience of Lima in 1554, and as having lived quietly on a repartimiento granted to him near Cuzco, and left children to inherit it; and Alonzo de Molina. When Pizarro finally left the desert island, and continued his voyage of discovery, he first touched at Tumbez, on the northern boundary of Peru, and then sailed some distance down the coast. Alonzo de Molina was sent on shore at one place, and, the sea running high, he was left there until the return of the ship. The natives treated him with great kindness, and when Pizarro’s ship came back, three more of the thirteen, Nicolas de Ribera, Francisco de Cuellar, and Pedro Alcon were sent ashore, the latter being very gaily dressed. This Alcon fell madly in love with an Indian lady at first sight, and was so furious at not being allowed to stay behind, that he drew his sword on his own shipmates, and the pilot Ruiz was obliged to knock him down with an oar. He was afterwards kept chained on the lower deck. When Pizarro finally sailed for Panama again, on his way to Spain, Alonzo de Molina was allowed to remain behind at Tumbez until the Spaniards should come back, the Indians promising to use him well. But he died before Pizarro returned, and the Indians gave various conflicting accounts of the manner of his death. Herrera, dec. iii, lib. iii, cap. 3, and lib. iv, cap. 1.
The most authentic and only complete list of the thirteen is given by Prescott, from a manuscript copy of “the Capitulation made by Pizarro with Queen Juana on July 26th, 1529,” which he obtained from Navarrete. The original is at Seville. In this document all those, among the thirteen, who were not already hidalgos, were created so.