Of the customs of these Indians, of their arms, and of the ceremonies they perform; and who the founder of the city of Antioquia was.
The inhabitants of these valleys are brave amongst themselves, and much feared by their neighbours. The men go naked and barefooted, and merely wear a narrow band fastened to a girdle round the waist. Their hair is worn very long. Their arms are darts, long lances of black palm, slings, and two-handed clubs, called _Macanas_.[205] The women wear a mantle from the waist downwards of bright coloured cotton cloth. The lords, when they marry, make a sort of sacrifice to their gods. They assemble in a house to the number of about twelve, where the prettiest girls have already been assembled, and choose those they desire most. The son of the chosen woman inherits the lordship, and if there is no son, the son of the lord’s sister inherits. These people border on a province called Tatabe, which is thickly inhabited by rich and warlike Indians, whose customs are the same as those of their neighbours. Their houses are built over very large trees, and are made of many stout poles, each house having more than two hundred of them, and the coverings of these great houses consist of palm leaves. Many Indians live in one house, with their wives and children. These nations extend to the westward as far as the South Sea, and to the east they border on the great river of Darien. All their country is mountainous, very rugged, and fearful to pass through. Near this country they say there is that grandeur and wealth of the Dabaybe which is so celebrated in Terra Firme.[206] In another part of the country, over which Nutibara is lord, there are some Indians living in a certain valley called Nore, which is very fertile. Near this valley is now built the city of Antioquia. In ancient times there was a large population in these valleys, as we judged from the edifices and burial places, of which there are many well worth seeing, being so large as to appear like small hills.
These Indians, though they speak the same language as those of Guaca, were always engaged in wars with them, so that the number of both nations has greatly diminished, for they eat all those that are captured, and place their heads before the doors of their houses. They go naked like the others, except that the chiefs sometimes cover themselves with a long mantle of coloured cotton. The women are covered with small mantles of the same material. Before passing on, I wish to relate a truly strange and wondrous thing. The second time that we returned through these valleys, when the city of Antioquia was founded near the hills which overhang them, I heard it said that the lords or caciques of the valley of Nore collected all the women they could find from the land of their enemies, took them home, and used them as if they had been their own. If any children were born, they were reared with much care until they reached the age of twelve or thirteen, and, being then plump and healthy, these caciques ate them with much appetite, not considering that they were of their own flesh and blood. In this way they had many women solely to bring forth children, which were afterwards to be eaten: and this is the greatest of all the sins that these people commit. I saw myself what occurred between one of these chiefs and the licentiate Juan de Vadillo, who is now in Spain, and if he is asked respecting what I now write, he will say that it is true. It is that, when I and my comrades entered these valleys, a chief named Nabonuco came to us peaceably, and brought with him three women. When night came on, two of them laid down on a mat, and the other across it to serve as a pillow. The Indian then made his bed on the bodies of these women, and took another pretty woman by the hand. When the licentiate Juan de Vadillo saw this proceeding, he asked the Indian chief why he had brought that other woman whom he held by the hand. The chief replied, in a gentle voice, looking him in the face, that he was going to eat her. On hearing this, Vadillo was astonished, and said, “What! are you going to eat your own wife?” The chief, raising his voice, replied, “Yes, truly; and I will also eat the child she bears me.” This happened in the valley of Nore. I have heard this licentiate Juan de Vadillo sometimes say, that he had heard from some old Indians, that when the natives of Nore go to war, they make slaves of their prisoners, and marry them to their own relations and neighbours, and that the children thus born are eaten; and that afterwards, when these slaves are too old to have any more children, they eat them also. In truth, as these Indians have no faith, I am not astonished at this.