The Spaniards appeared to be much delighted, they seized upon the gold like monkeys, their faces flushed. For clearly their thirst for gold was insatiable; they starved for it; they lusted for it; they wanted to stuff themselves with it as if they were pigs. They went about fingering, handling the streamers of gold, passing them back and forth, grabbing them one to the other babbling, talking gibberish among themselves.

— Fray Bernardino de Sahagún, General History of the Things of New Spain