Their food was herbs or grass, roots of trees, wild fruits, and human flesh; and all the covering they had, consisted of the leaves or bark of trees, and the skins of beasts.
“ ‘And now, I pray that you listen with due attention, for I would not be troubled to repeat what I am to say. Our Father, the Sun, beholding these Indians as they existed in the state that I have just related, took compassion on them, and sent a son and a daughter of his own from heaven to earth, to instruct our people in his knowledge, so that they might worship and adore him, and esteem him as their God, giving them laws and precepts, unto which they might conform their lives like men of reason and refinement of manners, that they might live in houses and society, learn to till the earth, cultivate trees, plants, and corn, feed their flocks, and enjoy them as rational men, and not as brutes. With these orders and instructions, our Father, the Sun, placed his two children by the Lake Titicaca, giving them liberty to go which way they pleased, and that, in what place soever they stopped to eat, or sleep, they should strike a little wedge of gold into the ground, which was about half a yard long, and two fingers thick, and where, with one stroke this wedge should sink into the earth, there should be the place of their abode, and the court unto which all people should come. Lastly, he ordered that when they should have subjected these people to the rules of obedience, they should maintain them with reason, justice, piety, clemency, and gentleness, performing all the good offices of indulgent parents towards the children they love; and that in imitation of him, and by his example who doeth good to all the world, by affording them light to perform their work, and the actions of life; warming them when they are cold; making their pastures and their seeds to grow, their trees to fructify, and their flocks to increase; and watering their lands with timely dews. And in order to manifest his earthly care, he said,
