I have kept these two acts, so contrary in their effects, in order to present them in one place in this chapter, inasmuch as they are of greater display and magnificence, and in them, in spite of the simplicity of those natives, the serious predominates. In the first, which is practiced with their dead, I know not whether to praise more their piety or their generosity and grandeur, or to which of the two virtues recognition is due; for both are carried to the greatest extreme. For their liberality, the obligations of their piety (which declares itself in those attentions a debtor to nature), passes by and tramples under foot the laws of their poverty and the natural simplicity of these Indians, and makes demonstrations superior to their fortune, clothing their dead with the magnificence of princes. In the shroud alone, they clothe the dead person in a hundred brazas of fine muslin, which serves him as a shirt. Over that they place rich patolas, which are pieces of cloth of gold, or of silk alone, worked very beautifully, and of great value, pious generosity endeavoring to give him the best and to clothe him in the finest and most precious garments. It is a law, established by immemorial custom, that the children and near relatives each clothe the deceased in a piece of gauze or of sinampuli (another fabric of equal estimation) arranging it with such loops and knots that they find space for it all. In regard to the dress, this custom is in force even to this day, and no man who respects himself has ever failed in this law. There is no one so poor and so wretched that he does not own a piece [of cloth] eight brazas long, which is reserved for his burial. They have abandoned other demonstrations, or rather, exchanged them for Christian ones, of which we shall speak at the proper place. In that regard they give oldtime Christians much to emulate. For formerly they buried with their dead most of their treasures--gold, bells, and other things, which are highly esteemed among them. Those things were so sacred to reverence that no one, however abandoned and audacious he might be, had the courage to stretch forth his hand to take them--although he could have done so with great safety to himself, as their dead are buried in caves, islets, or solitary mountains, without other guard than their imaginary religion. On the day on which they buried the deceased, about his sepulcher they planted palms, jasmines, and other flowers peculiar to this region. If the deceased was a king, or a prince of equal nobility, they placed a tent above the grave with four white banners at its sides, while inside it they burned perfumes as long as the time of lamentation or memorial lasted, perhaps setting aside some slaves for that employ, in order to make it more lasting.