Spain; how we abolished these, and introduced the
holy Christian faith into the country._

After thus describing our glorious deeds of arms, I will show how
advantageous they proved in the service of God and of our emperor. These
advantages were purchased with the lives of most of my companions in
arms, for very few had the good fortune to escape being captured and
sacrificed by the Indians.

I will commence with the human sacrifices and the other abominations
which were practised throughout the whole of the provinces we subdued.
According to the computations of the Franciscan monks, who arrived in
New Spain subsequent to father Olmedo, above 2500 persons were annually
sacrificed to the idols in Mexico, and some of the towns lying on the
lake.[60] As this barbarous custom was also prevalent in all the other
provinces, the number, of course, is much greater. But these human
sacrifices were not the only abominations that were practised by the
inhabitants; I should, however, scarcely know where to end, if I were to
enumerate them all. I will, therefore, only relate what I witnessed with
my own eyes, and heard with my own ears. Of the victims that were
sacrificed, the faces, ears, tongues, lips, the breast, the arms and
legs, were brought as a burnt-offering to the idols.

In some provinces circumcision took place, which was effected by means
of sharp knives made of flint. The cursed idol temples were called cues,
and were as numerous as the churches, chapels, and monasteries in Spain.
Every township had its own temples, and these infernal buildings were
filled with demons and diabolical-looking figures. Besides these, every
Indian man and woman had two altars, one near to where they slept, and
the other near the door of the house. In these were placed several
wooden boxes, which they termed petacas, full of small and large idols,
flint knives used in the sacrifices, and books made of the bark of
trees, which they call amatl, containing their signs to denote the
seasons, and things that have happened. Most of the Indians,
particularly those living on the coasts and in the hotter climates, were
given to unnatural lusts. To such a dreadful degree was this practised,
that men even went about in female garments, and made a livelihood by
their diabolical and cursed lewdness.

The Indians ate human flesh in the same way we do that of oxen, and
there were large wooden cages in every township, in which men, women,
and ch