NOTICES OF PERU. 



429 



A mestizo or negro was generally the conductor, who rode the 

 animal 



On the slightest provocation, the Indian was forced to lie 

 flat upon the ground, and count the stripes on his bare back, 

 given as a punishment. When he arose, he was taught to kneel 

 before whoever had beaten him, and, kissing his hand, say, 

 *'Dios se lo pague" — May God reward you ! It was not only 

 in the workshops that they were thus punished, but private 

 individuals, and the curates, often scourged them in the same 

 manner ! 



This was the ordinary castigation. When the ire of the en- 

 raged master was not satisfied, a more horrible mode of tor- 

 ment was resorted to. Two pieces of light wood were set on 

 fire, and rubbed together so as to cause the sparks to fall in a 

 shower on the bare back of the Indian, while he was receiving 

 the stripes! Starvation, imprisonment, and blows, were the 

 corporeal pains inflicted ; but greater than all, was cutting off 

 the hair, which was to degrade the Indian to the basest in- 

 famy ! In short, no species of torment, that unbridled ven- 

 geance could suggest, was left unpractised by the Spaniards. 



It was a common saying, among the judicious and com- 

 passionate of that time, that their continued fasts, perpetual 

 nakedness, constant misery, and immense punishment, suffer- 

 ed from the day of their birth till that of their death, was a 

 sufficient atonement for all the sins that could be attributed to 

 them, and rendered them worthy of canonization, as saints in 

 the church. "t 



So horrible was the name of Spaniard, or Viracocha, (which 

 term comprehends all who are not Indians,) that parents si- 

 lenced their children by threatening that the Viracocha would 

 catch them ! 



Ulloa states, that while travelling in Peru, when he wished 

 to inquire his road, that it was almost impossible to come up 

 with an Indian, for if his approach was perceived, the Indian 



* Indians were dragged two hundred leagues, as mitayos, to toil in the mines 

 of Potosi I MS. Report of the Governor of Azangaro. 

 ^ Noticias Secretas. 



