PLATEAU CAXAMARCA. 4ll 



traces of blood were still visible on a stone on which the 

 execution had taken place. There appears no reason to 

 question the fact, since it is borne out by the testimony of 

 many eye-witnesses, that the Inca willingly allowed himself 

 to be baptized by his cruel and fanatical persecutor, the 

 Dominican monk, Vicente de Valverde. He received the 

 name of Juan de Atahuallpa, and submitted to the erec- 

 mony of baptism to avoid being burnt alive. He was put 

 to death by strangulation (el garrote), and his execution took 

 place publicly in the open air. Another tradition relates that 

 a chapel was erected above the stone on which Atahuallpa was 

 strangled, and that the remains of the Inca repose beneath 

 that stone. Supposing this to be correct, the alleged spots of 

 blood are not accounted for. The fact is, however, that the 

 body was never deposited under the stone in question. After 

 the performance of a mass for the dead and other solemn 

 funeral ceremonies, at which the brothers Pizarro were 

 present in deep mourning (!), the body was conveyed first to 

 the cemetery of the Convento de San Francisco, and after- 

 wards to Quito, Atahuallpa' s birthplace. This removal to 

 Quito was in compliance with the wish expressed by the 

 Inca prior to his death. His personal enemy, the crafty 

 Ruminavi, from artful political motives, caused the body to 

 be interred in Quito with great solemnity. Ruminavi 

 (literally the stone -eye) received this name from a defect in 

 one of his eyes, occasioned by a wart. (In the Quichua 

 language rumi signifies stone, and navi eye.) 



Descendants of the Inca still dwell in Caxamarca, amidst 

 the dreary architectural ruins of departed splendour. 

 These descendants are the family of the Indian Cacique, 

 or, as he is called in the Quichua language, the Curaca 

 Astorpilca. They live in great poverty, but neverthe- 

 less contented and resigned to their hard and unmerited fate. 

 Their descent from Atahuallpa, through the female line, has 

 never been a doubtful question in Caxamarca ; but traces of 



