[x]

The spanish conqueror Pedro Cieza de Leon wrote they wore woolen clothing and wollen turbans, and described them as “the whitest and most handsome of all the people that I have seen, and their wives were so beautiful that because of their gentleness, many of them deserved to be the Incas’ wives and to also be taken to the Sun Temple.”

Another translation: They are the whitest and most handsome of all the people that I have seen in the Indies, and their wives were so beautiful that because of their gentleness, many of them deserved to be the Incas' wives and to also be taken to the Sun Temple.

That puts a different complexion on the Chachapoyas. For Indians they were light-skinned, but they weren't necessarily so by European standards.

[muawiyah]

Yes, and we are dealing with Spanish of the 1500s, not modern Spanish, so we can't be certain that he is saying "white" or "shiny".

Oh, and that Spanish was filled with all sorts of unassimilated words ~ from French, Breton, English, Arabic, Berber, Basque ~ and Italian. That was one of the reasons for the establishment of the SpanishAademy ~ to make the language standardized, and to regularize Spanish spelling conventions.