Of the province of the Collao and of the qualities and customs of
its people, and of the rich gold mines that are found there.
The two Christians who were sent to see the province of the Collao were
forty days upon their journey, and, as soon as they had returned to
Cuzco where the governor was, they gave him news and a report of all
that they had seen and learned, which is set forth below. The land of
the Collao is far off and a long way from the sea, so much so that the
natives who inhabit it, have no knowledge of it. The sierra is very high
and rather broad, and with all this, it is excessively cold. There are
in the region no groves or woods, nor is there any wood for burning, and
what little there is in use there comes from trade, in exchange for
merchandise, with those who live near the sea and are called Ingres,
and also with those who live below near the rivers, for these people
have fire-wood and they exchange it for sheep[112] and other animals and
vegetables, since, for the most part, the land is sterile, and all the
people live on roots, herbs, maize and sometimes flesh, not because
there is not, in that province of the Collao, a good quantity of sheep,
but because the people are so much the subjects of the lord to whom they
are bound to give obedience that, without his licence or that of the
chief or governor who, by his command, is in the country, they do not
kill one [llama], nor do even the lords and caciques dare to kill any
without such permission. The land is well populated because wars have
not destroyed it as they have other provinces. The villages are of
ordinary size and their houses are small, with walls of stone and adobe
mixed and covered with roofs of straw. The grass which grows in this
land is short and sparse. There are some rivers, although of small
volume. In the middle of the province there is a great lake, in length
almost one hundred leagues, and the most thickly peopled land is around
its shore; in the middle of the lake there are two islets, and on one of
them is a mosque and house of the sun which is held in great veneration,
and to it they come to make their offerings and sacrifices on a great
stone on the island which they call Tichicasa[113] which either because
the devil hides himself there and speaks to them or because of an
ancient custom, or on account of some other cause that has never been
made clear, all the people of that province hold in great esteem, and
they offer there gold, silver and other things. There are more than six
hundred Indians serving in this place, and more than a thousand women
who make chicha in order to throw it upon that stone Tichicasa.[114] The
rich mines of that province of the Collao are beyond this lake [in a
region] called Chuchiabo.[115] The mines are in the gorge [caja-chiusa]
of a river, about half-way up the sides. They are made like caves, by
whose mouths they enter to scrape the earth, and they scrape it with
the horns of deer and they carry it outside in certain hides sewn into
the form of sacks or of wine-skins of sheep-hide. The manner in which
they wash it is that they take from the river a [jet?][116] of water,
and on the bank they set up certain very smooth flag-stones on which
they throw the water, after which they draw off by a duct the water of
the [jet?] which has just fallen down [upon the gold-earth?], and the
water carries off the earth little by little so that the gold is left
upon the flag-stones themselves, and in this manner they collect it. The
mines go far into the earth, one ten brazas, another twenty, and the
greatest mine, which is called Guarnacabo[117] goes into the earth some
forty brazas.[118] They have no light, nor are they broader than is
necessary for one person to enter crouching down, and until the man who
is in the mine comes out, no other can go in. The people who get out the
gold here are as many as fifty,[119] counting men and women, and these
are all of this land, and from one cacique come twenty, from another
fifty, from another thirty, and from others more or less according to
the number that they have, and they take out gold for the chief lord,
and they have taken such precautions in the matter that in nowise can
any of what is taken out be stolen, because they have placed guards
around the mines so that none of those who take out the gold can get
away without being seen. At night, when they return to their houses in
the village, they enter by a gate where the overseers are who have the
gold in their charge, and from each person they receive the gold that he
has got. There are other mines beyond these, and there are still others
scattered about through the land which are like wells a man's height in
depth, so that the worker can just throw the earth from below on top of
the ground. And when they dig them so deep that they cannot throw the
earth out on top, they leave them and make new wells.[120] But the
richest mines, and the ones from which the most gold is got, are the
first, which do not have the inconvenience of washing the earth, and,
because of the cold, they do not work those mines more than four months
of the year, [and then only] from the hour of noon to nearly
sunset.[121] The people are very mild, and so accustomed to serve, that
all that has to be done in the land they do themselves, and so it is, in
the roads and in the houses which the chief lord commands them to build,
and they continually offer themselves for work and for carrying the
burdens of the warriors when the lord goes to some place [in the
region]. The Spaniards took from those mines a load of earth and carried
it to Cuzco without doing anything else. It was washed by the hand of
the Governor after the Spaniards had sworn that they had not placed the
gold in it or done anything to it save take it from the mine as the
Indians did who washed it, and from it three pesos of gold was got. All
those who understand mines and the getting of gold, being informed of
the manner in which it is got in this land, say that all the [country
is full of mines], and that if the Spaniards gave implements and skill
[in using them] to the Indians so that it might be got out, much gold
would be taken from the earth, and it is believed that when this time
has arrived, a year will not go by in which a million of gold is not
got. The people of this province, as well men as women, are very filthy,
and they have large hands, and the province is very large.