BEFORE I proceed to describe the valleys of the coast, and the founding of the three cities, of the Kings, of Truxillo, and of Arequipa, I will here recount a few things, that I may not have to repeat them over again, both those I saw myself, and those which I learned from Fray Domingo de Santo Tomas. This friar is one of those who understand the language well, and he has been a long time among the Indians, teaching them the truths of our holy catholic faith. Thus, my account of these coast valleys will be founded on what I saw and learned when I travelled through them myself, and on the information given me by Fray Domingo.[324]
The native lords of these valleys were, in ancient times, feared and obeyed by their subjects, who served them with much ceremony, according to their usage. These lords were attended by buffoons and dancers, who were always jesting, while others played and sang. They had many wives, taking care that they should be the prettiest that could be found. Each lord had a great building in his valley, with many adobe pillars, extensive terraces, and doorways hung with matting. Round the building there was an open space where they had their dances. When the lord ate, a great concourse of people assembled, and drank their beverage made from maize or from roots.
In these buildings there were porters, whose duty it was to guard the doors and see who entered or came out. All were clothed in cotton shirts and long mantles, the women as well as the men, except that the dress of the women was large and broad like a morning gown, with openings at the sides for the arms. Some of the lords waged war upon each other, and in some parts the people were never able to learn the language of Cuzco. Although there were three or four tribes of these Yuncas, they all had the same rites and customs. They spent many days and nights at their banquets and drinking bouts; and certainly it is marvellous the quantity of chicha that these Indians drink, indeed the glass is scarcely ever out of their hands. They used to receive the Spaniards with great hospitality when they passed near their dwellings, and to treat them honourably. Now they do not do so, because, when the Spaniards broke the peace, and contended with each other in civil wars, they were detested by the Indians on account of the cruel way in which they treated them, and also because some of the governors have been guilty of such meanness, that the Indians no longer treat those well who pass near their dwellings, pretending to think that those are servants whom they used to treat as lords. The fault lies in those who have been sent here to govern, some of whom have considered that the old order of things was bad, and that it was wrong to keep the natives under their ancient polity, which, if it had been preserved, would neither have destroyed their liberties, nor failed to bring them nearer to the way of good living and conversion; for it appears to me that few nations in the world had a better government than these Yncas. I approve of nothing in the present rule, but rather deplore the extortion, cruel treatment, and violent deaths with which the Spaniards have visited these Indians, without considering the nobility and great virtue of their nation.
Nearly all the rest of these valleys are now almost deserted, having once been so densely peopled, as is well known to many persons.
CHAPTER LXII.
How the Indians of these valleys and of other parts of the country believe that souls leave the bodies, and do not die: and why they desired their wives to be buried with them.
MANY times in this history I have said that, in the greater part of the kingdom of Peru, it is a custom much used and observed by all the Indians to inter, with their dead, all their precious things, and some of the most beautiful and best-beloved of their wives. It appears that this custom was observed in other parts of the Indies, from which it may be inferred that the devil manages to deceive one set of people in the same way as he does another. I was in Cenu, which falls within the province of Carthagena, in the year 1535, when so vast a quantity of burial places were found on a level plain, near a temple raised in honour of the accursed devil, that it was a thing worthy of admiration. Some of them were so ancient, that there were tall trees growing on them, and they got more than a million from these sepulchres, besides what the Indians took, and what was lost in the ground. In other parts great treasure has been, and is every day, found in the tombs. It is not many years since Juan de la Torre, who was Gonzalo Pizarro’s captain in the valley of Yca, which is one of the Peruvian coast valleys, found one of these tombs, from which those who entered it affirm that he took more than 50,00 dollars.[325]
The custom of these Indians, in ordering magnificent and lofty tombs to be made, adorned with tiles and vaulted roofs, and in burying with the dead all his goods, his wives, great store of victuals, and no small quantity of chicha (or wine used by them), with their arms and ornaments, leads us to believe that they had some knowledge of the immortality of the soul, and of there being more in man than his mortal body. Deceived by the devil, they obey his commands, and he (according to their own account) gives them to understand that, after death, they will be brought to life in another place which is prepared for them, where they will eat and drink at their pleasure, as they did before they died. In order that they may believe that what he tells them is true, and not false and deceitful, he sometimes, when the will of God is served by giving him the power and permitting it, takes the form of some one of the dead chiefs, and, showing himself in the chief’s proper shape and figure, such as he had when in this world, gives them to understand that the said chief is in another pleasant world in the form in which they there see him. Owing to these sayings and illusions of the devil, certain of these Indians, holding all these false appearances to be realities, take more pains in adorning their sepulchres or tombs than in any other thing.
When a chief dies, they bury him with his treasure; and his wives, youths, and persons with whom he had much friendship when alive, are also buried. From what I have said, it seems that it was the general opinion of all these Indians Yuncas, and even of those in the territory of this kingdom of Peru, that the souls of the dead did not die, but lived for ever, and that they would all meet each other, and eat and drink, which is their chief delight.