234 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [boll. 73 
being careful to put up their tents or lodgings apart from the Indians so that the latter 
could not commit any treachery if they so intended. One day, after they had all left 
Coza at a distance of about eight leagues, eight Indians, who appeared to he chiefs, 
entered the camp of the Spaniards, running and without uttering a word; they also 
passed the Indian camp and, arriving at the rear guard where their cacique was, took 
him down from his horse, and the one who seemed to be the highest in rank among the 
eight, put him on his shoulders, and the others caught him, both by his feet and arms, 
and they ran with great impetuosity back the same way they had come. These runners 
emitted very loud howlings, continuing them as long as their breath lasted, and when 
their wind gave out they barked like big dogs until they had recovered it in order to 
continue the howls and prolonged shouts. The Spaniards, though tired from the sun 
and hungry, observing the ceremonious superstitions of the Indians, upon seeing and 
hearing the mad music with which they honored their lord, could not contain their 
laughter in spite of their sufferings. The Indians continued their run to a distance 
of about half a league from where the camp was, until they arrived on a little plain near 
the road which had been carefully swept and cleaned for the purpose. There had been 
constructed in the center of that plain a shed or theatre nine cubits in height with a 
few rough steps to mount. Upon arriving near the theatre the Indians first carried their 
lord around the plain once on their shoulders, then they lowered him at the foot of the 
steps, which he mounted alone. He remained standing while all the Indians were 
seated on the plain, waiting to see what their master would do. The Spaniards were 
on their guard about these wonderful and quite new ceremonies and desirous to know 
their mysteries and understand their object and meaning. The cacique began to 
promenade with great majesty on the theatre, looking with severity over the world. 
Then they gave him a most beautiful fly flap which they had ready, made of showy 
birds' plumes of great value. As soon as he held it in his hand he pointed it towards 
the land of the Napochies in the same fashion as would the astrologer the alidade 
[cross-staff], or the pilot the sextant in order to take the altitude at sea. After having 
done this three or four times they gave him some little seeds like fern seeds, and he 
put them into his mouth and began to grind and pulverize them with his teeth and 
molars, pointing again three or four times towards the land of the Napochies as he had 
done before. When the seeds were all ground he began to throw them from his mouth 
around the plain in very small pieces. Then he turned towards his captains with a 
glad countenance and he said to them: "Console yourselves, my friends; our journey 
will have a prosperous outcome; our enemies will be conquered and their strength 
broken, like those seeds which I ground between my teeth." After pronouncing 
these few words, he descended from the scaffold and mounted his horse, continuing 
his way, as he had done hitherto. The Spaniards were discussing what they had seen, 
and laughing about this grotesque ceremony, but the blessed father, Fray Domingo 
de la Anunciacion, mourned over it, for it seemed sacrilege to him and a pact with 
the demon, those ceremonials which those poor people used in their blind idolatry. 
They all arrived, already late, at the banks of a river, and they decided to rest there 
in order to enjoy the coolness of the water to relieve the heat of the earth. When the 
Spaniards wanted to prepare something to eat they did not find anything. There had 
been a mistake, greatly to the detriment of all. The Indians had understood that the 
Spaniards carried food for being so much more dainty and delicate people, and the 
Spaniards thought the Indians had provided it, since they (the Spaniards) had gone 
along for their benefit. Both were to blame, and they all suffered the penalty. They 
remained without eating a mouthful that night and until the following one, putting 
down that privation more on the list of those of the past. They put up the two camps 
at a stone's throw, being thus always on guard by this division, for, although the 
Indians were at present very much their friends, they are people who make the laws 
of friendship doubtful and they had once been greatly offended with the Spaniards, 
and were now their reconciled friends. 
