nt to sow terror and the fame of their valour throughout
that country, because in all the lands the Spaniards have invaded,
their aim has always been to make themselves feared of those meek
lambs, by a cruel and signal slaughter.
2. To accomplish this, they first sent to summon all the lords and
nobles of the town and of all its dependencies, together with the
principal lord; and when they came, and began to speak to the
captain of the Spaniards, they were promptly captured, without any
one who could give the alarm, noticing it.
3. They had asked for five or six thousand Indians to carry their
baggage, all of whom immediately came and were confined in the
courtyards of the houses. To see these Indians when they prepared
themselves to carry the loads of the Spaniards, was a thing to
excite great compassion for they come naked, with only the private
parts covered, and with some little nets on their shoulders
containing their meagre food; they all sit down on their heels, like
so many meek lambs.
4. Being all collected and assembled in the courtyard, with other
people who were there, some armed Spaniards were stationed at the
gates of the courtyard to guard them: thereupon all the others
seized their swords and lances, and butchered all those lambs, not
even one escaping.
5. Two or three days later, many Indians who had hidden, and saved
themselves under the dead bodies (so many were they) came out alive
covered with blood, and they went before the Spaniards, weeping and
asking for mercy, that they should not kill them: no mercy nor any
compassion was shown them; on the contrary, as they came out, the
Spaniards cut them to pieces.
6. More than one hundred of the lords whom they had bound, the captain
commanded to be burned, and impaled alive on stakes stuck in the
ground. One lord however, perhaps the chief and king of that
country, managed to free himself, and with twenty or thirty or forty
other men, he escaped to the great temple, which was like a fortress
and was called Quu, where they defended themselves during a great
part of the day.
7. But the Spaniards, from whom nothing is safe, especially among these
people destitute of weapons, set fire to the temple and burned them,
they crying out: "wretched men! what have