The Amazon River
The great river of South America, which the Spaniards also called the Marañón. Pedro de Ursúa led an expedition down it in 1560, and the Jesuit Cristóbal de Acuña traveled it from Quito to Pará in 1639, describing the farming of its floodplain.
Today: The middle Amazon, Brazil
The Gilded Chief of Lake Guatavita
Juan Rodríguez Freyle, Conquest and Discovery of the New Kingdom of Granada (El Carnero), 1636, chapter 2: the ceremony at Guatavita · written in 1636 (describes a Muisca rite of before 1537, as told to the writer decades later)
Mis padres fueron de los primeros conquistadores i pobladores de este Nuevo Reino. Fué mi padre soldado de Pedro Ursua, aquel a quien Lope de Aguirre mató despues en el Marañon, aunque no se halló con él en este Reino sino mucho ántes, en las jornadas de Tairona, Valle de Upar i Rio del Hacha, Pamplona i otras partes. Yo, en mi mocedad, pasé de este Reino a los de Castilla, a donde estuve seis años. Volví a él i he corrido mucha parte de él, i entre los muchos amigos que tuve, fué uno Don Juan, Cacique i señor de Guatavita, sobrino de aquel que hallaron los conquistadores en la silla al tiempo que conquistaron este Reino; el cual sucedió luego a su tio, i me contó estas antigüedades i las siguientes.
My parents were among the first conquerors and settlers of this New Kingdom. My father was a soldier of Pedro Ursúa, the man Lope de Aguirre later killed on the Marañón. But my father was not with him then. He served with him much earlier, in this kingdom, on the campaigns to Tairona, Valle de Upar, Río del Hacha, Pamplona, and other places. In my youth I went from this kingdom to Castile and stayed there six years. I came back, and I have traveled over much of this land. Among my many friends was one Don Juan, cacique and lord of Guatavita. He was the nephew of the lord the conquerors found on the throne when they conquered this kingdom, and he succeeded his uncle soon after. He told me about these old times, and about what follows.