CHAPTER XII - CONCERNING THE MODE OF LIFE AND GOVERNMENT OF THE ANCIENT PEOPLE, AND OF THE THINGS THEY ATE

Summary

These gentiles were as barbarous in the manner of building their houses and villages, as in their gods and sacrifices. The most civilised had their villages without plazas or order in their streets and houses, but rather with the appearance of a lair of wild beasts. Others, by reason of the wars that they waged against each other, lived on the tops of high rocks, in the manner of fortresses, where they were less molested by their enemies. Others lived in huts scattered over the fields, valleys, and ravines, each one where its owners could best secure their food. Others lived in caves under the ground, in crevices of the rocks, or in hollow trees, each one finding his house ready built, as he was not capable of building one. Some such people are still to be met with near the Cape of Pasau, and in the country of the Chirihuanas, and other nations which were not conquered by the Kings Yncas, and are still in the ancient condition of barbarism. These are the people who are most difficult to convert to the service of the Spaniards, and to the Christian religion; for as they never had any religion, they are irrational, and scarcely have any words to make themselves intelligible to each other. So they live like animals of different species, without joining or communicating with each other.

In these houses and villages he who had most audacity governed the others, and as soon as he became their lord he treated his vassals with tyranny and cruelty, using them as slaves, taking their wives and daughters at will, and making them fight one with another.