Translated with an
Introduction by
J. M. Cohen
Penguin Books
based on original documents
dated 1556
Page 32...
4. The Inhabitants below the
Equator and other notable matters
The land of Peru, which is the subject of
this book, begins at the Equator and extends southward. Its
inhabitants below the line have a Jewish cast of feature, speak
gutturally and are much given to unnatural vice...
Page 33...
5. The seams of pitch at the
cape Santa Elena, the giants that lived there of old
Near this province, on a promontory, which
the Spaniards called Santa Elena, are some veins from which flows a
bitumen which resembles pitch or tar and can be used for it. Near
this point, according to the Indian inhabitants, there once lived
giants so great that they were four times the height of an average
man. They do not say where they came from, but that they lived on
the same food as themselves, especially fish, for...
Page 34...
...they were great fishermen. They fished
from balsa rafts, each from his own; for though these rafts can
carry three horses, they could take no more than one of these
giants. They could wade into the sea to the depth of two and a half
fathoms; and they greatly enjoyed catching shark or bufoes or
other large fish, because these gave them more to eat. Each one of
them ate more than thirty men today, and they went naked owing to
the difficulty of making themselves clothes. They were so cruel that
they would kill many Indians for no reason at all, and they were
greatly feared.
The Spaniards saw two huge statues of these
giants at Puerto Viejo, one male and one female, and an Indian
tradition, passed from father to son, tells a great deal about them,
in particular the story of their end. They say that a youth shining
like the sun descended from the sky and fought against them,
throwing flames of fire that pierced the rocks which they struck
with holes that are still to be seen. And so the giants retreated to
a valley, where they were all finally killed. These Indian tales
about the giants were never entirely believed however, until Captain
Juan de Olmos of Trujillo, lieutenant to the Governor of Puerto
Viejo in the year 1543, who had heard them, commanded some men to
dig in that valley. Here they found ribs and other bones so huge
that, had it not been for the heads that lay beside them, no one
would have believed that they were human. But with this confirmation
and in view of the marks of thunderbolts in the rocks, the Indian
tradition was accepted as true; and some of the teeth found there,
each have three fingers wide and four fingers long, were sent to
different parts of Peru. These tokens have convinced the Spaniards
that, since this people was much given to unnatural vice, divine
justice removed them from the earth, sending an angel for that
purpose, as at Sodom and other places.
It must be realized that in this case, as
in all others concerning antiquities discovered in Peru,
confirmation is difficult. The natives neither know nor employ any
kind of letters or writing, nor even painting, which takes the place
of books in New Spain, but only memories which are passed from
fathers to sons. Accounts are preserved by means of cotton cords,
which...
Page 35...
...the Indians call quipus, numbers
being denoted by knots of different kinds, spaced in ascending order
from units to tens, and so on upwards, the colour of the cord
conforming to the objects denoted. In each province there are
persons entrusted with recording public matters on these cords, who
are called quipu-camayoc; and governmental houses are found
full of quipus, which are easily read by the person in charge
even though they date from many years before his time...
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