WHOLE VOL. THE WEST INDIES VAZQUEZ DE ESPINOSA 565 



cares, in spinning and weaving the raiment worn by the Inca. This 

 was all in fine vicufia and malton wool. The shirt came down to 

 his ankles, after their custom ; this was called uncu in the classical 

 language, cusma in the corrupt. For a cape they wore a square, 

 two-breadth blanket ; some were plain and others richly embroidered 

 in colors ; they called these yacolla. He wore also a large purse, 

 like a muleteer's wallet, passing under the arm like a sword belt, in 

 which he carried his cuca leaves, or coca, as the Spaniards call it. 

 They also made the llautu, which was a sort of narrow rectangular 

 belt like a thick rope, and which he passed four or five times around 

 his head ; it had a red tassel and constituted his crown, extending 

 from one temple to the other. 



They likewise made the garments worn by the Coya, or Queen, 

 and her daughters, and everything which was offered to the Sun 

 as a sacrifice, and many other remarkable things woven from finest 

 cumbi, but it is not necessary to enumerate them. 



1524. At the start of this passageway referred to, where the main 

 door stood for the service personnel of the house and the workrooms, 

 there were 20 porters to look after it and take and carry consign- 

 ments to the second door, where they were received by the serving 

 women, damozels, or ladies in waiting to the consorts of the Sun. 

 Among these were 500 daughters of nobles or Incas of the charter 

 given by the first Inca, Mango, to his first collaborators in the con- 

 quest. These damozels had another system of lodgment or segrega- 

 tion of their own ; they likewise had their Mamacuna, who governed 

 them like a Mother Superior ; they were chosen from the oldest and 

 most experienced of those who had grown up in that same ministry. 

 This must suffice as an account of the House of the Chosen Virgins, 

 consorts of the Sun. 



Chapter LXXVHI [81] {yy) 



Of the Cuzco Fortress and Its Incredibly Huge Stone Blocks. 



1525. Among the marvelous works which were created by the Inca 

 kings to immortalize their names were not only those in their imperial 

 city, with so many royal palaces of admirable architecture and the 

 Temple of the Sun with its gardens, but other works, forts, and 

 temples in all the provinces of their far-flung empire, as e.g., those 

 in Quito, Latacunga, Tomebamba, Cochabamba on the Rio de Las 

 Balsas, in Huanuco, Tiahuanaco, the Pucara, Tampu, and many 

 others, whose ruins and remains I saw and contemplated when I 

 was in that Kingdom. But the greatest, proudest, and most sump- 



