prevailed tribe and kinship restraints. Later we were to find that
a great network of "thou shalt" and "thou shalt not" ran through their
total society, wherever or to what members it might extend. Common good,
or what was supposed to be common good, was the master here as it is
everywhere! The women worked the gardens, the men hunted; both men and
women fished. Women might be caciques. There were women caciques, they
said, farther on in their land. And it seemed to us that name and family
were counted from the mother's side.

The Admiral had solemnly laid it upon us to discover the polity of
this new world. If they held fief from fief, then at last we must come
through however many overlords to the seigneur of them all, Grand Khan
or Emperor. We applied ourselves to cacique and butio, but we found no
Grand Seigneur. There were other caciques. When the Caribs descended
they banded together. They had dimly, we thought, the idea of a
war-lord. But it ended there, when the war ended. Tribute: He found
they had no idea of tribute. Cotton grew everywhere! Cotton, cassava,
calabashes, all things! When they visited a cacique they took him gifts,
and at parting he gave them gifts. That was all.

Gold? They knew of it. When they found a bit they kept it for ornament.
The cacique possessed a piece the size of a ducat, suspended by a string
of cotton. It had been given to him by a cacique who lived on the great
water. Perhaps he took it from the Caribs. But it was in the mountains,
too. He indicated the heights beyond. Sometimes they scraped it from
sand under the stream. He seemed indifferent to it. But Diego Colon,
coming in, said that it was much prized in heaven, being used for high
magic, and that we would give heavenly gifts for it. Resulted from that
the production in an hour of every shining flake and grain and button
piece the village owned. We carried from this place to the Admiral a
small gourd filled with gold. But it was not greatly plentiful; that was
evident to any thinking man! But we had so many who were not thinking
men. And the Admiral had to appease with his reports gold-thirsty great
folk in Spain.

We spent three days in this village and they were days for gods and
Indians of happy wonder and learning. They would have us describe
heaven. Luis and I told them of Europe. We pointed to the east. They
said that they knew that heaven rested there upon the great water.
The town of the sun was over there. Had we