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.

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.