NO. 1817 INDIANS OF PERU — EBERHARDT 193 



are most always disposed of in this manner, amid great festivity, 

 the prisoner always having been allowed for days previous all the 

 food and delicacies of the village that he can consume, in order that 

 he may become properly fattened. The indifference which these 

 prisoners display toward the fate that awaits them, even when they 

 know the exact time of their doom, is remarkable. They eat great 

 quantities of all that is given them, that they may make the better 

 feast for their captors, perform duties as slaves, often going unac- 

 companied for considerable distances from the place of captivity and 

 returning without attempting to escape. When the day for the feast 

 arrives the victim is brought to the center of the village, tied to a 

 beam, and some one of the tribe who may have lost a relative in a 

 war with the tribe of which the victim is a member, or perhaps had 

 a brother eaten by them, is allowed to perform the execution. With 

 a stone axe in his hand he addresses his victim, reminding him that 

 his (the executioner's) brother was sacrificed in a similar manner 

 by the tribe of the victim, that he died without a moan or sign of 

 pain, that he was therefore one of the most valiant of his tribe, that 

 the assembled relatives and friends of the dead warrior would now 

 have the opportunity of seeing if the victim could die as bravely and 

 unflinchingly. After this address the victim's skull is crushed with 

 the axe, sometimes the unfortunate showing marvelous strength and 

 determination in receiving several blows without a groan before he 

 falls. Immediately after the execution the body is cut up and the 

 feast indulged in. Among the Amahuacas the custom of burning 

 the bodies is said to exist, and the charred bones are crushed or 

 ground and afterward used as a flavor for their meals. 



Slavery 



.In various works written on Francisco Pizarro's conquest of Peru 

 we read that in character the Indians at that time were not at all 

 warlike, that their natural tendencies were toward husbandry and 

 agriculture rather than war, which rendered Pizarro's advance much 

 less perilous, and with a few notable exceptions their complete sub- 

 mission was comparatively easily brought about, nothing like such 

 difficulties having been experienced by the Spaniards as was the case 

 with Cortes in Mexico. This same trait of character is discernible 

 in their descendants, who seem to expect no better fate than to be- 

 come the servants of some padron, whom they serve submissively, 

 with but little complaint. Their songs, so characteristic, are indeed 

 well named tristes (literally "sadnesses"), and when heard on a dark 

 night about a campfire in the stillness of an Amazonian forest, their 



