432 Superstitions of the Muyscas. B. XXI. peculiar, their estates descending to their brothers Ch. 3. in preference to their own sons. * They had some confused belief in the immortality of the soul, the resurrection of the dead, the reward of the good, and the punishment of the wicked, in a future state. They believed in a Creator; but the chief Divinities they worshipped were the Sun and the Moon. They had also Idols who were considered as Saints, and who were to intercede for them with the Sun and the Moon. They worshipped all stones, believing that these stones had formerly been men, and that there would be a resurrection in which these stones would be transformed again into men. They had another superstition of an almost incredible kind. In studying the religions of savages, or of semi-civilized men, so strange are the objects of adoration, that at last the student is scarcely surprised at finding any animate or inanimate object transformed by the power of imagination into a deity. The accomplished Egyptians worshipped as deities, leeks, onions, cats, dogs, worms, and serpents. In eastern India the cow has been held sacred. It has been narrated how in Nicaragua toads were worshipped, and were occasionally punished by their worshippers if the weather was unfavourable. The earth, the elements, the Sun, the Moon, the "No heredaban los Hijos, sino los Hermanos; í si no havia Hermanos, los Hijos de los Hermanos muertos: í á estos, como tampoco los heredaban sus Hijos, sino sus mismos Sobrinos, ó Pri mos, viene á ser todo una cuenta con lo de Castilla: salvo, que van por estos rodéos."-HerRERA, Hist. de las Indias, dec. 6, lib. 5, cap. 6. supersti stars, lightning, thunder, and the rainbow, have B. XXI. Ch. But the 3. been common objects of adoration. Muyscas exceeded in the strangeness of their A strange belief all other nations. They believed in their tion of the own shadows; and considered them to be gods. Muyscas. It was in vain that the Spaniards pointed out to these Indians what was the nature of a shadow, and how trees and stones had shadows. They could only reply that the shadows of the stones were the gods of gods. "Such," adds the Historian, was their stolidity and their misfortune."* They had also sacred lakes and consecrated groves. From the lakes no water might be taken, and in the groves not a tree might be cut down; but thither they went to make their offerings, which were gold and jewels. These they buried in the groves, or cast into the lakes. Their sacrifices were rarely human, ex- Their sacept in the case of certain youths who were set apart in the Temple of the Sun, and who were worshipped and feasted until they arrived at the age of virility, when they were slain as an appointed sacrifice. * "Adoraban tambien á su misma sombra, de suerte que siempre llevaban á su Dios consigo; y viendolo como hiziesse el dia claro, y aunque conocian que la sombra se causaba de la luz, y cuerpo interpuesto, respondian, que aquello lo hazia el Sol para darles Dioses: cosa que no estrañára oy la politica del mundo, sabiendo que los Ministros son las sombras de los Reyes, y que se alçan con la adoracion de Dioses, tanto mas grandes, quanto VOL. IV. por mas retirada la influencia F F crifices. B. XXI. 434 The Human Sacrifices of the Muyscas. The foregoing account of the Muyscas shows Ch. 3. the existence in South America of a considerable people, independent of the Peruvians, and yet having some points of resemblance with them. The Muysca language has perished; and it is very probable that the records of this people, as derived from the Spaniards, do not do justice to their advance in civilization. There can be no doubt from what their Conqueror, Quesada, saw, that they had attained to some knowledge of many of the arts of life. Their laws were good; and their punishments for breaches of the law were well proportioned, and not excessive.* Even with regard to human sacrifices, it is evident that these were comparatively rare: and that, in this respect, the Muyscas must be considered as far more civilized than the cruel Mexicans, with whom, as with the Peruvians, this singular people had some affinity. * The Muyscas had a strange | purpose, was tied to the door of way of collecting debts. If a his house, and he was obliged to debtor did not pay his debts or maintain the animal and his his taxes, a 66 'young tiger," or keeper, until the creditor was other wild beast, bred for the satisfied. CHAPTER IV. THE DISCOVERY AND CONQUEST OF FLORIDA. THE vers Flo HE history of Florida is, for the most part, B. XXI. an account of the misfortunes of individual Ch. 4. commanders of expeditions, much resembling Ponce de those of Ojeda and Nicuesa. Hernan Ponce de Leon discoLeon, in the search after the "Fountain of Per- rida, 1512. petual Youth," first discovered Florida in 1512. He was wounded in an encounter with the natives, and died of his wounds in the Island of Cuba. In the year 1520, an Auditor of St. Domingo, in the Island of Hispaniola, a rich and learned man, formed a company, with six other inhabitants of that island, and went out with two vessels to capture Indian Caribs as slaves to work at the mines. This Auditor's name was Lucas Vazquez de Ayllon. A storm drove the vessels on the east coast of Florida, and Ayllon entered Ayllon disthe Province of Chicora. This part of Florida was governed by a Cacique, named Datha, who was a giant. His gigantic stature had been artificially produced, for it is said that the Indians of those parts had a method of elongating the bones of children when very young, a practice which they applied to those of Royal race.* "Porque, como referia el mismo Lucas de Ayllon, quando están mamando, los que han de Reinar, los Indios Maestros, de covers the east coast of Florida. B. XXI. The treachery of Ayllon. 436 Ayllon's Treachery and second Expedition. The simple Floridians at first fled from the Ch. 4. vessels, thinking that they were new monsters generated by the sea. The Spaniards, however, succeeded in capturing a native; and, treating him well, attracted others to the ships. At last the Cacique himself came, accompanied by numerous attendants. Ayllon allowed one hundred and thirty of them to enter his vessels, and then set sail, carrying them all off to the Island of Hispaniola. In his voyage homewards he came upon those three unfortunate Lucayans who had made their escape from Hispaniola in the trunk of a tree.* The Lucayans had shown the most desperate aversion to servitude; and some had refused all sustenance, choosing death rather than slavery. The captured Floridians were of a similar disposition, and nearly all of them died from sorrow and home-sickness. Such an act of treachery as the above, perpetrated by a man of education and in authority, goes far to justify Las Casas in the defence which he made for the Floridian Indians, in his controversy with Sepulveda, when that learned man referred to the martyrdom of Luis Cancer. second ex Ayllon's In 1524, Ayllon prepared another expedition, pedition. intending to conquer the Province of Chicora, of which he had received a grant. He took with him the same pilot he had before; but this pilot was not able to discover the land where they had disembarked in the previous voyage, a cir tos de ciertas yervas, y los es- GABRIEL DE CARDENAS Y CANO |