82 



According to their theory, the soul, notwithstand- 

 ing its new condition of life, never loses its original 

 attachments, and when the spirits of their country- 

 men return, as they frequently do, they fight furious- 

 ly with those of their enemies, whenever they meet 

 with them in the air, and these combats are the 

 origin of tempests, thunder and lightning. Not a 

 storm happens upon the Andes or the ocean,^ which 

 they do not ascribe to a battle between the souls of 

 their fellow countrymen and those of the Spaniards ; 

 they say that the roaring of the wind is the trampling 

 of their horses, the noise of the thunder that of their 

 drums, and the flashes of lightning the fire of the ar- 

 tillery. If the storm takes its course towards the 

 Spanish territory, they aflirm that their^ spirits have 

 put to flight those of the Spaniards, and exclaim, tri- 

 umphantly, Inavimen, inavimen, pue?2, laguvimen ! 

 Pursue them, friends, pursue them, kill them ! If 

 the contrary happens, they are greatly afllicted, and 

 call out in consternation, Yaviilumen, puen^ namun- 

 turnen ! Courage, friends, be firm i 



Their ideas respecting the origin of creation* arc 

 so crude and ridiculous that to relate them could 

 serve for little else than to show the weakness of 

 human reason when left to itself. They have among 

 them a tradition of a great deluge, in which only a 

 few persons were saved, who took refuge upon a 

 high mountain called Thegtheg, the thundering, or 

 the sparkling, which had three points, and possessed 

 the property of moving upon the w^ater. From 

 hence it is inferrible that this deluge was in conse- 

 quence of some volcanic eruption, accompanied by 



