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The Easter Island Tablets: Decipherments

A. Carroll


Journal of the Polynesian Society, Vol.1 (1892)

252

Snakes of the Apechique tribe (the mountaineers) and the Huama took many of them captives to the coasts.
   "From the old land of Tolan had come the ancestors of the rulers of the Chincha, and the foremost master among the rulers of Runahuanac. Some of their women had come from the mountaineers, overthrown later by the Incas, and some from the Huallmi, who in later times were found among the Tschimu. From the old land of Tolan had come the Vestals of the Sun; these were of the ancient Tolan people. The barbarians coming to the coast gorged themselves with the holy men found near the coast for six years, those who were under the rulers of Quito, or under the chiefs of the Eagle's tribesmen. The women of the Rapa, the mothers of this clan of the Sun's people, and the Vestals of the Sun of this free and loved tribe were captured. The rulers of the Chincha, the clan, and the chiefs of Liribamba, and those of the town of Lican, whose ancestors lighted the fires of the Sun, among this Sun's people. These chiefs of men, their heads were turned from their Prince Ata, and he only reigned as their chief for eight years. Long before this the chief Hualla and his clansmen had migrated under the guidance of the Spirits, taking their women and the women of the sacred chief with all his men, and, on a two-sailed vessel, sailed away. This chief's ancestors were the Eagle chiefs and the Cha-Rapa, the Eagle chief of the Puruha. Others were among the dead Chimbu-razu. The Luan ancestors who lighted the Sun-fires among the Sun's people, the descendents of the Chincha. In the songs and chants of the women they sing of these things, as do the women of the region of waters, and of the Yañahuara. It was the ancestors of those who in the town of Lican lighted the fires of the Sun for the Sun's people, the Chincha, and kept it burning there for six years, even when opposed by the rulers of the Huaman, as the women sing in their chants. Then many of the people from Yañahuara, after these six years with the sacred chief in a two-sailed vessel went off to the island of Puna. After this the fires of the Sun went out in Lican, and the days of our ancestors in various parts of Quito were ended, and these free, Sun's children of the Chincha, the Golden Sun's people, those sacred, free, and beloved tribes, are remembered in the chants of the women of the Cha-Rapa.
   "The women of the Picu tribe had to change to the Chincha their fires of the Sun from their sacred and loved clan home. Their women had been punished and overwhelmed, and the tribal fires extinguished by the Huarcas after five years' fightings. Near the Sun-fires of the ancestors of the Sun's people and the town of Lican were branches of the Ticu tribe, also the chiefs of the Intaga, the Changes, and various people of the Sun's clans. Three of these united, and these three joined the clan of the chief Hualla, thus adding to this clan these

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