The islands of Titicaca and Koati, illustrated . vil conceals himself there and speaks tothem, or because it is an ancient custom as it is, or for someother reason that has never been found out, they of thewhole province hold in great esteem and offer to it gold andsilver. There are [on this Island] more than six hundredIndian attendants of this place, and more than a thousandwomen, who manufacture Chicca [chicha] to throw it onthis rock. ^ After this first hasty visit by the Spaniards (either latein December, 1533, or in the first days of January, 1534), itis not impossible that Titicaca as w
The islands of Titicaca and Koati, illustrated . vil conceals himself there and speaks tothem, or because it is an ancient custom as it is, or for someother reason that has never been found out, they of thewhole province hold in great esteem and offer to it gold andsilver. There are [on this Island] more than six hundredIndian attendants of this place, and more than a thousandwomen, who manufacture Chicca [chicha] to throw it onthis rock. ^ After this first hasty visit by the Spaniards (either latein December, 1533, or in the first days of January, 1534), itis not impossible that Titicaca as well as Koati were aban-doned by the Indians of Inca descent.^ Cieza states: * Onlarge islands that are in the lake they (the Indians livingon the shore) plant their crops and keep their valuables,holding them to be safer there than in the villages along theroad. This was in 1549, fifteen years after the first visit.* What transpired during these fifteen years is vaguely in-dicated by various sources. Thus the name of the first •73 c6 M w PI 3. THE INDIANS OF THE ISLAND OF TITICACA 63 Spaniard who visited the Island is given as Illescas, anofficer of Pizarro.^ It is not clear, however, if Illescas wasone of the first two explorers or whether he commanded alarger party sent afterward to seize the gold and silver sup-posed to have accumulated on the Island/ A modernsource, claiming to base on the earliest manuscript informa-tion, asserts that a visit to Copacavana was made by Gon-zalo Pizarro in 1536, and that, on that occasion, the Indianswere apportioned according to the system of *Enco-miendas.^ If any reliance could be placed on the sourcealluded to, Diego de Illescas would have been at Copacavanain 1536, in company with Belalcazar and Pedro Anzurez deCampo-redondo, but it is well known that Belalcazar was inEcuador at the time, and that Anzurez returned to SouthAmerica in 1538!^ In 1536 the Spaniards were blockaded at Cuzco by theIndians for ten months. Hence, while it migh
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