HISTORY OF THE SPANISH CONQUEST OF YUCATAN AND OF THE ITZAS

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buffoon] who repeat fables and ancient Histories, which I am certain
would be well done away with, or at least the costumes in which they
are represented, because it appears that they are like those of their
Heathen Priests; and when there is no worse harm than the preservation
among them of that memory, it appears a very pernicious thing, for it
inclines them all the more to the idolatrous practices which they
indulge in when wearing the costume; but every one will have his own
opinion in this matter, conformable, more or less, to what his
observation has taught him. The babblers are apt to be graceful at
mottoes and in the witty sayings which they tell to their elders and
Judges if they are over-rigourous, ambitious, avaricious, laying before
them the events that have taken place and even that which concerns the
officer's own duties. They thus speak to the officers' very faces, and
sometimes they rebuke them with a single word. But he who would
understand them must be a great linguist and must listen well. They are
very dangerous, these representations, when they are held at night and
in the Indians' own houses, for God knows what goes on there, and at