"For display and on gala occasions, they used to scarify themselves with certain small points of stone on the breasts, arms and thighs; they even went so far as to draw blood, and in the wounds they rubbed a black earth or powdered carbon. When they scarified with these knives the scars remained, shaped like Eagles, serpents, birds and animals, and they perforated the nose as well.... The Cupules, who are the people of the territory of the Town of Valladolid, used this practice a great deal. "In the times of their heathenry, as now, they danced and sang after the manner of the Mexicans, and they used to have, as indeed they still do have, a chief Singer (or Chanter) who intones, and who appoints what they shall sing; and him they venerate and reverence, giving him an honorable seat in Church, and at their assemblies and weddings. They call him _Holpop_, and in his charge are the kettle-drums or _Tuncules_ and other musical instruments, such as the flutes, little trumpets, tortoise-shells, and others that they used. The _Tuncul_ is of thick wood, and there are some so large that they can be heard at a distance of two leagues to leeward. To the accompaniment of these instruments they sing their fables and old legends; all this will be reformed, or rather, the Religious have already done so in many places, giving the Indians Histories of Saints and some of the Mysteries of the Faith to sing, at least at public dances, Easter celebrations, and festivities, so that the ancient times will be forgotten. "They have Babblers [Farfante = babbler, boaster; may mean jester, buffoon] who repeat fables and ancient Histories, which I am certain would be well done away with, or at least the costumes in which they are represented, because it appears that they are like those of their Heathen Priests; and when there is no worse harm than the preservation among them of that memory, it appears a very pernicious thing, for it inclines them all the more to the idolatrous practices which they indulge in when wearing the costume; but every one will have his own opinion in this matter, conformable, more or less, to what his observation has taught him. The babblers are apt to be graceful at mottoes and in the witty sayings which they tell to their elders and Judges if they are over-rigourous, ambitious, avaricious, laying before them the events that have taken place and even that which concerns the officer's own duties. They thus speak to the officers' very faces, and sometimes they rebuke them with a single word. But he who would understand them must be a great linguist and must listen well. They are very dangerous, these representations, when they are held at night and in the Indians' own houses, for God knows what goes on there, and at the very least many of them end up in drunkenness. They call these Farfantes _Balzam_, and they apply the word metaphorically to him who is talkative and scurrilous; and in their representations they mimic birds.