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 50,000 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.
Holding these opinions for certain, they buried with dead men their most
beloved wives and most trusted servants, together with all their arms,
treasures, plumes, and other personal ornaments. Many of the companions
of a dead chief, for whom there was no room in the tomb, would make
holes in the fields belonging to him, or in the places where he used
generally to hold festivals, and there be buried, thinking that his soul
would pass by these places and take them in his company to do him
service. And some of the women, in order that their faithful service
might be held in more esteem, finding that there was delay in completing
the tomb, would hang themselves up by their own hair, and so kill
themselves.
We believe that all these things are done, because the accounts of the
Indians concerning them are confirmed by the contents of the tombs, and
because, in many parts, the Indians believe in and retain their accursed
customs. I recollect, when I was in the government of Carthagena, more
than twelve or thirteen years ago, the licentiate Juan de Vadillo being
then governor and judge, that a boy came from a village called Pirina,
and fled to the place where Vadillo then was, because they wanted to
bury him alive with the chief of the village, who died at that time.
Alaya, who was lord of the greater part of the valley of Xauxa, died
about two years ago, and they say that a great number of women and
servants were buried alive with him. If I am not deceived, they told
this to the president Gasca, and though he gave the other chiefs to
understand that they had committed a great sin, his discourse was
without fruit.
All over Peru they call the devil _Supay_.[326] I have heard that he has
been seen by them many times. They even affirm that in the valley of
Lile he entered the bodies stuffed with cinders that are there, saying
many things to the people.
Friar Domingo, who is (as I have already said) a notable searcher into
these secrets, relates that when a certain person was sent to call Don
Paullu,[327] the son of Huayna Ccapac, whom the people received as Ynca,
he heard a servant say that, near the fortress of Cuzco, there were loud
voices crying with a great noise, “Why, Ynca, dost thou not observe the
customs that thou art bound to observe. Eat and drink, for soon thou
must cease to eat and drink.” These voices were heard by him who was
sent to Don Paullu, during five or six nights. Such are the wiles of the
devil, and the nooses with which he arms himself, to catch the souls of
those who esteem sorcerers so highly.
All the chiefs and Indians of the coast valleys have peculiar
head-dresses, by which one tribe is known from another....[328] In our
time they are abandoning their old rites, and the devil has neither
influence, nor temple, nor public oracle among them, for they are
finding out his deceitfulness; so that they are not now so bad as they
were before they heard the word of the holy gospel. But this will not
avail if the grace of God does not lessen their eating, drinking, and
lasciviousness, in which they are engaged day and night without tiring.