When Mase Escasi and Xicotenga the elder, and the greater number of the Caciques of the capital of Tlaxcala sent four times to tell their captain not to attack us but to go and treat for peace, he was very close to our camp, and they sent to the other captains who were with him and told them not to follow him unless it was to accompany him when he went to see us peacefully.

As Xicotenga was bad tempered and obstinate and proud, he decided to send forty Indians with food, poultry, bread and fruit and four miserable looking old Indian women, and much copal and many parrots' feathers. From their appearance we thought that the Indians who brought this present came with peaceful intentions, and when they reached our camp they fumigated Cortés with incense without doing him reverence, as was usually their custom. They said: “The Captain Xicotenga sends you all this so that you can eat.