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Updated: May 20, 2025
It was also intended to form a station in the territory of Tumanama, of which the capital is twenty leagues distant from that of Pochorrosa. Out of the hundred and fifty men assigned to Ayora, fifty were chosen among the older colonists of Darien, they being persons of large experience who would take charge of the newcomers and serve them as guides.
Tumanama complained, weeping, that his neighbours had invented these falsehoods to destroy him, for they were jealous of him because he was more powerful than they.
Vasco's companions approved this plan, urging him to put it into execution and offering to follow him. They decided to make two marches without stopping, so as to prevent Tumanama from calling together his warriors; and this plan was carried out as soon as decided.
Most of Comogre's servants had been this man's slaves captured in war. As is the case everywhere, these people gauged the power of Tumanama by their own standard, ignorant of the fact that these caciques, if brought face to face with our soldiers commanded by a brave and fortunate leader, were no more to be feared than gnats attacking an elephant.
But to undertake this expedition you need more numerous forces, for you will have to conquer powerful rulers, who will defend their country to the death. More than all others, the King Tumanama will oppose your advance, for his is the richest kingdom of all. They conquered the mountaineers for they coveted the gold mines, and for this reason they abandoned their own country.
I have already said in my First Decade, addressed to Your Holiness, that a peso was worth a castellano of gold. Enchanted with this result, he overwhelmed Tumanama with nattering promises to prevent the cacique from interfering with any of the Spaniards' allies in that neighbourhood. He also besought him to collect a quantity of gold.
Such was his speech, and he added that the cacique Tumanama, and all the mountaineers living on the other slope of the mountain, used kitchen and other common utensils made of gold; "for gold," he said, "has no more value among them than iron among you." From what he had heard from the Spaniards he knew the name of the metal used for swords and other arms.
Vasco gave Pochorroso the usual acceptable articles, and the cacique gave Vasco fifteen pounds of melted gold and some slaves. When they were about to depart, it transpired that it would be necessary to cross the territory of a chief called Tumanama, the same formerly described by the son of Comogre as the most powerful and formidable of those chiefs.
Leaving his sick in charge of the cacique, and summoning sixty companions, all strong and brave men, Vasco explained his purpose to them, saying: "The cacique Tumanama has often boasted that he was the enemy of Vasco and his companions. We are obliged to cross his country, and it is my opinion we should attack him while he is not on his guard."
Vasco consequently deduced, as the neighbouring caciques alleged, that the country was rich, but he could never prevail upon Tumanama to admit it. Some said that Tumanama was indifferent to such unimportant fragments of gold, others claimed that he persisted in denying the wealth of his country for fear the Spaniards, to satisfy their desire for gold, might take possession of the whole of it.
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