Not surprisingly, later historians, writing after the conquest, told of sinister omens: Pedro Pizarro heard a tale from Peruvians that three dwarfs had come as auguries of the Inca's death; Wamán Poma says the Inca hid himself away to die in a lonely cave; Pachacuti Yamqui (in his Antiquities of Peru, 1613) recounts a most fantastic and eerie story of a dark-clothed supernatural messenger, bearing a box of paper-thin, butterfly-like things, whose escape was the harbinger of doom:

"The Inca went to Quito to rest after battle, and to issue new laws and taxes. Then from Cuzco came the news that there was a pestilence of smallpox. And when he turned towards the sea with his army there was seen at midnight visibly surrounding them a million men, and none knew who they were.

And they say that he (the Inca) said they were living souls which God had shown to them, signifying that so many were about to die of pestilence. And when he sat down to eat there came a messenger with a black cloak, and he gave the Inca a kiss with great reverence, and he gave him a "pputi," a small box with a key. And the Inca told the same Indian to open it, but he asked to be excused saying that the Creator had commanded that only the Inca should open it.

Understanding the reason why, the Inca opened the box, and there came fluttering out things like butterflies or scraps of paper, and they scattered until they vanished. And this was the smallpox plague. Within two days the general Mihicnaca Mayta died, with many other distinguished captains, all their faces all covered with burning scabs. And when the Inca saw this, he ordered a stone house to be prepared for him in which to isolate himself. And there he died."