La Relación - page 90

La Relación - page 90

Throughout these lands those who were at war with one another made peace to come to greet us and give us all they owned. In this way we left the whole country in peace. We told them in sign language which they understood that in heaven there was a man whom we called God, who had created heaven and earth, and that we worshipped him and considered him our Lord and did everything that he commanded. We said that all good things came from his hand and that if they did the same, things would go very well for them. We found that they were so well disposed for it that, if we could have communicated perfectly in a common language, we could have converted them all to Christianity. We tried to communicate these things to them the best we could. From then on at sunrise, with a great shout they would stretch their hands towards heaven and run them over their entire bodies. They did the same thing at sunset. They are affable and resourceful people and capable of pursuing anything.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
How They Gave Us the Deer Hearts

In the village where they gave us the emeralds, they gave Dorantes more than six hundred opened deer hearts which they store in abundance for food. For this reason we called the place the Village of Hearts. Through it one enters many provinces that are on the South Sea. Anyone who does not set out for the sea through this place will perish because there is no corn along the coast. There the people eat ground rushes, straw and fish caught in the sea in rafts, for they have no canoes. The women cover their private parts with grass and straw. These people are very shy and sad. We believe that near the coast on the way that we took to those villages there are more than a thousand leagues of inhabited land, with a great deal of food because they plant beans and corn three times a year.

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