Some of those present later claim that Atahualpa had commanded his warriors to attack.

Others believe that Valverde to Pizarro had screamed: DID YOU SEE WHAT HAPPENED? DID YOU SEE IT? Why stay polite and submissive to this boastful dog when the area is packed with Indians? Attack them! I forgive you!

With a scarf, Pizarro signals to the man with the cannons. One bullet get stuck in the cannon tube, the other streaks towards the Inca, PSSSBOING, the horses jump with bell-kling, klingeling, klingeling, passing through the doorways, men swarm out, trumpets resounds, trutterut, and in anxiety is again and again shouted SANTIAGO!, the Spanish yell of attack, Saint James is with them against the heathens.

Spaniards fear the worst while the Inca sees his warriors panic. The stormy Spanish soldiers slaughter terror-stricken Indian warriors who like insane crawl on each other, and there is no hope of escape. Their beautifully decorated ceremony axes hanging ineffective. Spaniards attacking high from horseback, riding in armour into Incas with lances, sticking with rapier, and shooting few shots, horses trampling to death. The Incas 80 blue-clad officers who have carried the Atahualpas litter lie mutilated in anxiety, blood, screams and last sighs.

Pizarro. Protected by a thick cotton doublet. Takes course. Directly towards Atahualpa. Climbing. Over heaps. Mutilized and bodies. Grips the arm of the Inca. Tears it. In vain. Yells. Again SANTIAGO! Then LET NO ONE WHO VALUES HIS LIFE STRIKE AT THE INCA!

Indian warriors, several with hands cut off, bleeding, stumbling or tottering desperately ahead with their impotent bodies to protect their Sapa Inca. Miguel de Astete, one of the conquistadors, tears the royal headband of Atahualpas head.

A Spaniard attempts to stab Atahualpa with a dagger, but Pizarro wards off. Thereby, Pizarro gets wounded, gets a wound on the hand. The dagger, to hell!

Seven-eight Spanish horseriders arrive, grab the edge of the litter, tilt it further. Atahualpa is ripped out and Pizarro immediately leads Atahualpa away, in protection in the citys heavily guarded Sun Temple.

Those who carried the litter and those who accompanied the Inca did not leave him: they died around him, Hernándo Pizarro wrote.

Without Sapa Inca, everything looks hopeless for the Incas, so now his warriors try to save their own lives. The slaughter continues for two hours until the sun has set. 106 Spanish infantrymen, 62 cavalrists and their heavy horses, four cannons and 12 guns have defeated the Incas army with thousands of warriors. Some write of 2,000 dead Inca warriors, others of 10,000.

The Spanish victory is total. Some sources mention one wounded Spaniard – it’s the wound on the hand of Pizarro.

Atahualpa gets plain clothes instead of his ruined Inca suit. Betanzos later can quote Atahualpas widow:

While Atahualpa was a prisoner in Cajamarca, the marquis held him in his own lodgings, and there Atahualpa slept. The marquis always tried to do everything to please him and bring him pleasure because Atahualpa was a great lord. He saw Atahualpas power over the entire realm of Peru when he placed it under the rule of the king of Spain.

Betanzos wrote that there had been a good mood between hostagetaker Pizarro, referred to as marquis, and Atahualpa: Is it an indispensable syndrome or was it tactic of the hostagetaker?

Atahualpa is allowed to sleep in the same room as Pizarro and eat at the same table. Pizarro brings Atahualpa pleasures. Could it be that young queen Cuxirimay comes on a loving visit?

About Pizarro, Betanzos wrote:

He continued to ask Atahualpa questions. Likewise Atahualpa enjoyed the company of the marquis an that of the rest of the Spaniards in such measure that the Spaniards loved him and he, them.

During a meal, Pizarro notes that Atahualpa seems sad. You shouldn’t be, Pizarro claims, because in all the countries Christians have come and met great rulers, the Christians peacefully have made these to their friends and vassals of the emperor – not by war. Atahualpa should not be shocked over having been captured. It was because he came with so great an army, despite he had been urged to come peacefully, and because he had thrown the book on the ground in which were written the word of God.

Not a word Pizarro says about the atrocities of Spaniards over the past forty years since they first set boots in the for them New World.

Atahualpa probably thinks most about what soon will come, wants probably to know if the Spaniards will kill him. But Pizarro rejects it firmly and claims that Christians killed with impetuosity but not afterwards.

In Atahualpas mind and body, thoughts must circle, that it is only two days since he fasted for celebrating the announcement that his half-brother, Huáscar, had been captured and sent to Cajamarca.

Two safe days, he, Atahualpa, had had as the 13th Sapa Inca,

and now he expects to be killed and annihilated by some strangers, by the Christians. He has seen how his people have been trampled and cut down. Its whirling for him.

And Pizarro must be thinking why Atahualpa, with his incomparable military superiority, has gone straight into his trap. He had feared the opposite. Atahualpa may not have been prepared to that Spaniards high on horseback are fighting from above, must have been surprised by Spanish cannons and guns, having underestimated the weight of the horses and the protection of the iron armour. And first and foremost, he must pompously have overesteemed the sight of himself, must have expected that Spaniards would be intimidated by a Sapa Inka, the Son of the Sun with red headband, sitting in a litter.

At Pizarros question, what Atahualpa had planned, he responds:

He had intended to capture Pizarro, to take and breed the horses and to sacrifice some of the Spaniards to the Sun and castrate others for guarding his women.

Sunday, the morning after much of the Incas procession has been wiped out, Hernándo de Soto is leading 30 cavalrists into Atahualpas camp. He states that it is completly manned, that not a single warrior is absent in front of the tents, that not a single one is opposing, but that the captains – contrary – make the sign of the cross, as to signal surrender, quite as Pizarro had ordered Atahualpa to instruct his chiefs.

When Soto returns to the other Spaniards, Atahualpa expe-riences how crazy they are with gold, yes disrespectful. Soto has found huge masses of gold in Atahualpas camp and it triggers wild joy. Gold and silver in such large quantities and of such quality, large figures and plates, jugs and mugs. Atahualpa admits that the gold is his but just a bit of his kitchen equipment, and remarks that those of his people who have fled must have taken most of it.

Just a bit of kitchen equipment, spaniards mumbles.

Do the Spaniards want more? Atahualpas question is easy to answer though he can not know that for the Spaniards gold is a mean of payment. Spontaneously, Atahualpa grabs the idea that he can buy his freedom. For the Incas, gold is the color of the sun as well as silver is the moons color and as such actually impossible to valuate.

Do the Spaniards want more?

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(pp. 334-338 in volume 2, reproduced without notes and illustrations):

THE WORLD ACCORDING TO AZTECS AND INCAS: MYTHS AND STORIES FROM MEXICO AND PERU. Edited, translated, retold and commented by Mikael Witte. Volume 1 + Volume 2

476 pages + 540 pages. Richly illustrated in colors

Published by Selskabet for smukkere Byfornyelse