Note 143 — Chapter IV

The island of Santa Clara is also called the Isla del Muerto; Pizarro landed on it during his first voyage to Tumbez, and his people found a few pieces of gold there. The man who attends the lighthouse on the island, recently opened a huaca, and found in it a quantity of gold ornaments, which he sold to the Prussian Consul at Guayaquil. Mr. Spruce tells me that they are the most interesting and perfect specimens of Peruvian art he has seen. One of the objects was a small statue, six to eight inches high, of very creditable sculpture. More curious still were several thin plates, almost like a lady’s muslin collar in size and shape, covered with figures. One of them has perhaps a hundred figures of pelicans (the sacred bird of the people of Puna). Every figure represents the bird in a different attitude, and as they have been stamped, not engraved, a separate die must have been used for each figure.