when they think it is to their advantage. When we approached the dwellings, all the people came out to greet us with considerable pleasure and festivity. Two of their medicine men gave us, among other things, two gourds. From here on we began to carry the gourds with us, and added to our authority with this bit of ceremony, which is very important to them. Those who had accompanied us looted their lodges, but since there were many people in that village and there were only a few of them, they could not carry all that they took and had to leave more than half.
From here we began penetrating the land for more than fifty leagues along the slope of the mountains. At the end our journey we found forty dwellings. Among the things the people there gave us was a thick rattle, large and made of copper, with a face on it. They let us know that they regarded it highly, and told us that they had gotten it from others who were their neighbors. When we asked them where the neighbors had gotten it, they said that they had brought it from the North, where there was much wealth, and it was greatly valued. We realized that wherever the object had come from there was smelting and metal casting.
With this we departed the following day and crossed a mountain range seven leagues in length, where the rocks were iron slags. At nightfall we reached a large number of dwellings on the bank of a beautiful river. The inhabitants came out to welcome us carrying their children. They gave us many small bags of mica and powdered antimony. They rub this on their faces. They also gave us many beads and many buffalo-skin blankets and loaded all of us with everything they had. They eat prickly pears and pine nuts. In that land there are small pine trees, with cones the size of small eggs. Their seeds are better than the pine nuts from Castile because their husks are thinner. They grind them when they are green and make pellets out of them and eat them that way. If they are dry they grind them with husks and eat the powder.
All those who greeted us there ran back to their lodges once they had touched us