a village of some twenty lodges, where they welcomed us weeping very sadly because they knew that wherever we had gone the people with us looted and robbed. When they saw that we were alone they lost their fear and gave us prickly pears and nothing else. We spent the night there and at dawn the Indians we had left the previous day came upon their lodges. Since they caught them off guard, they took everything they had without giving them an opportunity to hide anything, which caused them to weep a great deal. In order to console them, the robbers told them that we were children of the sun, that we had the power to heal the sick or to kill them, and many lies bigger than these, since they know best how to spin lies when they think it would be to their advantage to do so. They told them that they should treat us with much deference and take care not to anger us in any way. They also told them to give us everything they had and to take us to a place where there were many people, and to plunder and rob everything where they took us, for that was the custom.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

How They Stole from One Another

After having informed them and told them clearly what they should do, they returned and left us with those Indians, who, keeping in mind what the others had said, began to treat us with the same fear and reverence as the others. They took us on a three-day journey to a place where there were many people. Before we arrived, they sent word saying that we were coming, repeating everything about us that the other Indians had told them and adding much more, because all these Indians are great storytellers and big liars, especially