Page:History of the Spanish Conquest of Yucatan and of the Itzas.pdf/121

98 willed that we should find some Mopan Indians who understood the Chol language, and by means of these we declared to them the purpose of our journey. This had good results at that time in the case of some adults, who, being dangerously ill, asked for holy baptism, and in the case of some sick children whom their fathers brought and who went to Heaven as the first-fruits among this tribe. Their principal cacique, Taximchan, fled from us, and although we made various endeavors to draw him to us, he always deceived us with false promises. But we made friends with four other caciques of this tribe of the Mopanes Indians, called, in their paganism, the Cacique Zac, the Cacique Tuzben, the Cacique Yahcab, and the Cacique Tezecum. They came to see us with a part of their families, and every day there came many Mopanes Indians to buy knives and many other little trifles which the soldiers sold in exchange for blankets. We presented them with salt, and for this they came to see us and to sell us their fruit, and apparently they were becoming friendly.

The Chols and the Mopanes. “On account of the many Indians who came every day to see us, and of the many farms and farm-buildings which we saw in those highlands, we knew that that tribe of Mopanes was very numerous. They all go naked like the Chols, and differ from them only in their hair, in that they do not wear it of the same length like the Chols, but cut the hair on the front part of the head and only wear it long behind. It is a race more robust and barbarous than the Chols; they have idols of diabolical forms, some of which we found, and they have many other superstitions, about which it would take long to tell. We found very little frankness in their nature and we found that they have relations with the Ahizaes Indians of the Lake; and we even learned that they all were of one Ytza nation, calling themselves Mopan Ytza; Peten Ytza and these Mopanes were subject to the petty King of the Lake, about which and about its Island of Peten and about its caciques they gave us much information, although they always refused to show us the way thither. Nevertheless, we prevailed upon the Cacique Zac to show us the way from Mopan as far as the first plain, and from there forward our guide was the Cacique