Page:Narrative of the Proceedings of Pedrarias Davila (Haklyut, 34).djvu/116

 . After eating, I gave them to understand that on that day they had merited to be changed from beasts to sons of God and heirs of his kingdom. I ordered a tournament, and a great festival to be celebrated, and they held it to be very grand; and after four or five days there were three hundred more, for whom the same festival was celebrated.

Having done this, I set out for the province of the Jitirigites, which was four leagues off. Here three conversions were made in three different parts, and four or five thousand persons were converted. At one of the conversions, an Indian turned to a captain, who was his master, when they were learning the sixth commandment, and said, "Well! how is it that you have three wives?" The master, wishing to dissimulate, did not answer, that I might not understand; and when at last he said that they were not his wives, but his servants; the Indian replied, "Then how is it that you have them all with child?" After the Indians were converted, the marriage state was treated of, and all the chiefs were married according to law, and with a blessing. There was a woman, who had been three days married, from whom a Spaniard solicited favours, which she would have freely granted before her conversion. But she replied, almost rebuking him, "Mana Señor que soy casada, y terna Santa Maria ternan ancha pina;" which means, "do not speak to me of such a thing, for I am married, and St. Mary would be much offended." In these provinces they worshipped the cross; and the lords ordered that any Indian who passed by a cross should kiss and worship it, on pain of punishment. In one of these provinces, called Aisquis, in the house of a chief named Jangono, on the day of