How we impressed very good and holy doctrines on the Indians of New Spain, and about their conversion, and how they were baptised and turned to our holy faith, and how we taught them the Offices in use in Castile, and to comprehend and secure justice.

After getting rid of the idolatries and all the evil vices they practised, it pleased our Lord God that with his holy aid and with the good fortunes and the holy Christianity of our most Christian Emperor Don Carlos of Glorious Memory, and of our King and Lord the felicitous and invincible King of Spain, our Lord Don Felipe, his much loved and cherished son (May God grant him many years to live with an increase of more kingdoms, so that he may enjoy them in this his holy and happy [life-]time), there were baptised, after we conquered the country, all, both men and women, and children who have since been born, whose souls formerly went, lost, to the Infernal regions. Now there are many and good monks of [the order of] Señor San Francisco and of Santo Domingo and of other Orders, who go among the pueblos preaching, and, when a child is of the age our holy Mother Church of Rome ordains, they baptise it. Furthermore, through the holy sermons preached, the Holy Gospel is firmly planted in their hearts, and they go to Confession every year, and some of them, who have most knowledge of our holy faith, receive the Sacrament. In addition to this they have their Churches richly adorned with altars and all pertaining to the holy divine worship, with crosses and candlesticks and wax tapers and chalice and patens and silver plates, some large and some small, and censers all worked in silver. Then, in rich pueblos, they have copes, chasubles, and frontals, and often in moderate [sized] pueblos they are of velvet, damask and satin, and of taffeta of various colours and workmanship, and the arms of the crosses are elaborately embroidered with gold and silk ¹ , and the crosses of the dead are of black satin, and figured on them is a death’s head with its ugly likeness and the bones, and the pall of the bier itself is sometimes good and at other times not so good. Then the necessary bells [vary] with the rank of each pueblo. There is no lack of choir singers with well harmonised voices such as tenors, trebles, contraltos, and basses, and in some pueblos there are organs, and nearly all of them have flutes, oboes, sackbuts and lutes. As for trumpets, shrill and deafening, there are not as many in my country, which is Old Castile, as there are in this province of Guatemala. It is a thing to be grateful for to God, and for profound consideration, to see how the natives assist in celebrating a holy Mass, especially when it is chanted by the Franciscans and Dominicans who have charge of the curacy of the pueblo where it is celebrated. There is another good thing they do [namely] that both men women and children, who are of the age to learn them, know all the holy prayers in their own languages and are obliged to know them. They have other good customs about their holy Christianity, that when they pass near a sacred altar or Cross they bow their heads with humility, bend their knees, and say the prayer “ Our Father,” which we Conquistadores have taught them, and they place lighted wax candles before the holy altars and crosses, for formerly they did not know how to use wax in making candles. In addition to what I have said, we taught them to show great reverence and obedience to all the monks and priests, and, when these went to their pueblos, to sally forth to receive them with lighted wax candles and to ring the bells, and to feed them very well. This they do with the monks, and they paid the same attentions to the priests, but after they had seen and known some of these and the covetousness of the rest, and that they committed irregularities in the pueblos, they took no [further] notice of them and did not want them as Curas in their pueblos, but Franciscans and Dominicans. It does not mend matters that the poor Indians say to a prelate that they do not hear him or …. but what more there is to be said about this subject had better remain in the inkpot, and I will return to my story. Besides the good customs reported by me they have others both holy and good, for when the day of Corpus Christi comes, or that of Our Lady, or other solemn festivals when among us we form processions, most of the pueblos in the neighbourhood of this city of Guatemala come out in procession with their crosses and lighted wax tapers, and carry on their shoulders, on a litter, the image of the saint who is the patron of the pueblo, as richly [adorned] as they are able, and they come chanting litanies and other prayers and playing on their flutes and trumpets. The same thing they do in their own pueblos when the day comes for these solemn festivals. They have the custom of making offerings, on Sundays and at Easter ¹ and especially on All Saints Day, and about this custom of making offerings the secular priests hurry them up in their parishes by such means that the Indians cannot possibly forget, for two or three days before the festival takes place they order them to prepare for the offering. The Monks also [seek] offerings, but not with so great solicitude.