384. Now, then, I have said as much as there is to say of the origin of the Indians, if we speak of the first and most remote. For to endeavor to determine the first settlers 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.