gone, but as soon as his quiet, well-behaved wife saw him wavering
she broke out in a torrent of violent denunciation, telling him the
mountain would "eat him up" and that unless he wanted to go to heaven
before his time he had better let well enough alone and stay where he
was. Cieza de Leon, one of the most careful of the early chroniclers
(1550), says that at Coropuna "the devil" talks "more freely" than
usual. "For some secret reason known to God, it is said that devils
walk visibly about in that place, and that the Indians see them and are
much terrified. I have also heard that these devils have appeared to
Christians in the form of Indians." Perhaps the voluble housewife was
herself one of the famous Coropuna devils. She certainly talked "more
freely" than usual. Or possibly she thought that the Coropuna "devils"
were now appearing to Indians "in the form of" Christians! Anyhow the
Indians said that on top of Coropuna there was a delightful, warm
paradise containing beautiful flowers, luscious fruits, parrots of
brilliant plumage, macaws, and even monkeys, those faithful denizens
of hot climates. The souls of the departed stop to rest and enjoy
themselves in this charming spot on their upward flight. Like most
primitive people who live near snow-capped mountains, they had an
abject terror of the forbidding summits and the snowstorms that seem
to come down from them. Probably the Indians hope to propitiate
the demons who dwell on the mountain tops by inventing charming
stories relating to their abode. It is interesting to learn that in
the neighboring hamlet of Pampacolca, the great explorer Raimondi,
in 1865, found the natives "exiled from the civilized world, still
preserving their primitive customs... carrying idols to the slopes
of the great snow mountain Coropuna, and there offering them as a
sacrifice." Apparently the mountain still inspires fear in the hearts
of all those who live near it.