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Page 40
They go entirely naked after the manner of the first we saw. The women
are drest with deer skin, and some few men, mostly the aged, who are
incapable of fighting. The country is very populous. We asked how it
was they did not plant maize. They answered it was that they might not
lose what they should put in the ground; that the rains had failed for
two years in succession, and the seasons were so dry the seed had
everywhere been taken by the moles, and they could not venture to
plant again until after water had fallen copiously. They begged us to
tell the sky to rain, and to pray for it, and we said we would do so.
We also desired to know whence they got the maize, and they told us
from where the sun goes down; there it grew throughout the region, and
the nearest was by that path....
Two days being spent while we tarried, we resolved to go in search of
the maize. We did not wish to follow the path leading to where the
cattle are, because it is toward the north, and for us very
circuitous, since we ever held it certain that going toward the sunset
we must find what we desired.
Thus we took our way, and traversed all the country until coming out
at the South Sea. Nor was the dread we had of the sharp hunger through
which we should have to pass (as in verity we did, throughout the
seventeen days' journey of which the natives spoke) sufficient to
hinder us. During all that time, in ascending by the river, they gave
us many coverings of cowhide; but we did not eat of the fruit. Our
sustenance each day was about a handful of deer-suet, which we had a
long time been used to saving for such trials. Thus we passed the
entire journey of seventeen days.
As the sun went down, upon some plains that lie between chains of very
great mountains, we found a people who for the third part of the year
eat nothing but the powder of straw, and, that being the season when
we passed, we also had to eat of it, until reaching permanent
habitations, where was abundance of maize brought together. They gave
us a large quantity in grain and flour, pumpkins, beans, and shawls of
cotton. With all these we loaded our guides, who went back the
happiest creatures on earth. We gave thanks to God, our Lord, for
having brought us where we had found so much food.
Some houses are of earth, the rest all of cane mats. From this point
we marched through more than a hundred leagues of country, and
continually found settled domicils, with plenty of maize and beans.
The people gave us many deer and cotton shawls better than those of
New Spain, many beads and certain corals found on the South Sea, and
fine turquoises that come from the North. Indeed, they gave us
everything they had. To me they gave five emeralds made into arrow
heads, which they use at their singing and dancing. They appeared to
be very precious. I asked whence they got these; and they said the
stones were brought from some lofty mountains that stand toward the
north, where were populous towns and very large houses, and that they
were purchased with plumes and the feathers of parrots.
Among this people the women are treated with more decorum than in any
part of the Indias we had visited. They wear a shirt of cotton that
falls as low as the knee, and over it half sleeves with skirts
reaching to the ground, made of drest deerskin. It opens in front, and
is brought close with straps of leather. They soap this with a certain
root that cleanses well, by which they are enabled to keep it
becomingly. Shoes are worn. The people all came to us that we should
touch and bless them, they being very urgent, which we could
accomplish only with great labor, for sick and well all wished to go
with a benediction.
These Indians ever accompanied us until they delivered us to others;
and all held full faith in our coming from heaven. While traveling, we
went without food all day until night, and we ate so little as to
astonish them. We never felt exhaustion, neither were we in fact at
all weary, so inured were we to hardship. We possest great influence
and authority: to preserve both, we seldom talked with them. The negro
was in constant conversation; he informed himself about the ways we
wished to take, of the towns there were, and the matters we desired to
know.
We passed through many and dissimilar tongues. Our Lord granted us
favor with the people who spoke them, for they always understood us,
and we them. We questioned them, and received their answers by signs,
just as if they spoke our language and we theirs; for, altho we knew
six languages, we could not everywhere avail ourselves of them, there
being a thousand differences.
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