Juan RodrIguez Freile, who was born in Bogota, New Granada, in 1566, wrote a history of the first 100 years of New Spain. In the following excerpt, Rodriguez Freile describes the coronation ceremonies of the Chibcha Indians, who lived in the area around Bogota.
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It was the custom among these Indians for the successor and heir to the. . . lordship. . . to fast for six years, living in a cave that was designated for this purpose, and in all this time he must [not] . . . eat meat, salt, or hot peppers, or do other things that were forbidden. Among these were that during the fast he must never see the sun; only at night he was permitted to emerge from the cave and see the moon and stars, but he had to return to the cave before the sun should see him. When this fast and ceremonies were over he took possession of the. . . lordship, and the first trip he had to make was to the great lake of Guatavita to make offerings and sacrifice to . their god and master.
The ceremony consisted in making a great raft of reeds, which they prepared and decked out as beautifully as they knew how. They set upon it four lighted braziers [torches] in which they burned. incense . . . and many other different perfumes.
On this occasion the lake, which was very large and deep enough so seagoing ships could sail upon it, was completely surrounded by Indians, men and women, decked out in feathers, and breastplates and crowns of gold, and with bonfires burning all around it. At the same time that the fuming [of the torches and incense] began on the raft, they lighted the fires on land, and so dense was the smoke that it clouded the light of day.
Thereupon they . . . smeared him [the heir] over with sticky mud, and then they dredged [covered] him with gold dust and ground gold so that he was completely covered with this metal. They put him on the raft, standing erect, and at his feet they placed a great heap of gold and emeralds as an offering to their god. Four chieftains, his most important vassals [subjects], got on the raft with him. adorned with feathers, gold coronets [crowns], bracelets, breastplate and earrings of gold, each with his offering.
As the raft moved away from the land the instruments began to resound, horns, conch-shell trumpets, and other instruments, and along with these such yells and cries as deafened the hills and valleys and continued until the raft reached the middle of the lake, when a flag was hoisted as a signal for silence.
The gold-covered Indian made his offering, throwing all the gold in the pile at his feet into the middle of the lake, and the other chieftain~ who accompanied him did the same. When this was concluded they lowered the flag that had been flying all during the ceremony, and as the raft started back toward land, the shouting, the trumpets, the horns, began again with dances such as they used. In this fashion they received the newly elected and recognized him as their prince and sovereign [ruler].
This is the ceremony that gave rise to that celebrated name of El Dorado [“The Golden One”], which has cost so many lives and fortunes. It was in Peru that the word was first heard. It fell out that after [the city of] Quito had been conquered, [the conquistador] Sebastian de Benalcazar. . . met an Indian of these of the kingdom of Bogota, who told him that when they chose a king in his country, they took him to a great lake and covered him all over with gold, and with great ceremonies made him king. As a result of this Don Sebastian said: “Let us go find this golden Indian.”
