of these lands, whence and
how they came, whether they were Carthaginians, Jews, Spaniards,
Phoenicians, Greeks, Chinese, Tartars, etc., is reserved for God,
who knows everything; and this task exceeds all human endeavor. And
if such study obtain anything, it will amount only to a few fallible
conjectures--with danger of the judgment, and without any advance of
the truth or of reputation. And such is the notion (omitting many
other absurdities that have been written), that the Indians were
produced ex putre like unclean animals, or like the wild plants of the
field. Others showing them great favor, assign the sun as their father,
which produced them from some noble material. Others say [that they
were produced] by the ingenious art of chemists or magicians; others
that there were two Adams in the world, one in Asia, and another in
the Western Indias, and that our Indians proceeded from one of them;
others, that there were already people in the world before the creation
of Adam; and that from them came the heathen, and from Adam, the
Hebrews. All of the above, being so erroneous nonsense, and blindness
from the devil, is already refuted, and is well refuted with contempt.

385. The only conjecture that can be made with some more visible
foundation is the origin of our Indians, considering those who were
found in these islands at the time of the conquest by the Spanish
arms. In accordance with this, I shall relate what written records
I have found (which is very little), and what I have carefully
investigated, which will not be much, for the natives are not very
capable of forming adequate accounts of this subject, and what we
Europeans are reducing to treatises.

386. Father Colin (both learned and curious in the investigation of the
matter which we are treating) reduces the people found in this land
by our first conquistadors into three different classes. The first
class consisted of those who ruled and governed as absolute masters;
and these were civilized after their own fashion. The second consisted
of black and barbarous mountaineers who inhabited the tops of the
mountains, like brutes. The third consisted of men neither so barbaric
nor so civilized as the other two classes; for, although they lived
in retirement, they did not hate civilization and human intercourse.

387. This third class still remains in the same ancient condition. They
live, as a rule, on the plateaus of the mountains, and at the
mouths of ri