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History of the Conquest of Peru

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Title: History of the Conquest of Peru

Author: William Hickling Prescott


        
Release date: May 1, 1998 [eBook #1323]
                Most recently updated: October 29, 2024

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1323


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORY OF THE CONQUEST OF PERU ***

(See also #1209, a slightly different version w/o footnotes)







The Conquest Of Peru

by

William H. Prescott


"Congestae cumulantur opes, orbisque rapinas Accipit."

Claudian, In Ruf., lib. i., v. 194.


"So color de religion
Van a buscar plata y oro
Del encubierto tesoro."
Lope De Vega, El Nuevo Mundo, Jorn. 1.

Preface

The most brilliant passages in the history of Spanish adventure
in the New World are undoubtedly afforded by the conquests of
Mexico and Peru, - the two states which combined with the largest
extent of empire a refined social polity, and considerable
progress in the arts of civilization.  Indeed, so prominently do
they stand out on the great canvas of history, that the name of
the one, notwithstanding the contrast they exhibit in their
respective institutions, most naturally suggests that of the
other; and, when I sent to Spain to collect materials for an
account of the Conquest of Mexico, I included in my researches
those relating to the Conquest of Peru.

The larger part of the documents, in both cases, was obtained
from the same great repository, - the archives of the Royal
Academy of History at Madrid; a body specially intrusted with the
preservation of whatever may serve to illustrate the Spanish
colonial annals.  The richest portion of its collection is
probably that furnished by the papers of Munoz.  This eminent
scholar, the historiographer of the Indies, employed nearly fifty
years of his life in amassing materials for a history of Spanish
discovery and conquest in America.  For this, as he acted under
the authority of the government, every facility was afforded him;
and public offices and private depositories, in all the principal
cities of the empire, both at home and throughout the wide extent
of its colonial possessions, were freely opened to his
inspection.  The result was a magnificent collection of
manuscripts, many of which he patiently transcribed with his own
hand.  But he did not live to reap the fruits of his persevering
industry.  The first volume, relative to the voyages of Columbus,
was scarcely finished when he died; and his manuscripts, at least
that portion of them which have reference to Mexico and Peru,
were destined to serve the uses of another, an inhabitant of that
New World to which they related.

Another scholar, to whose literary stores I am largely indebted,
is Don Martin Fernandez de Navarrete, late Director of the Royal
Academy of History. Through the greater part of his long life he
was employed in assembling original documents to illustrate the
colonial annals.  Many of these have been incorporated in his
great work, "Coleccion de los Viages y Descubrimientos," which,
although far from being completed after the original plan of its
author, is of inestimable service to the historian.  In following
down the track of discovery, Navarrete turned aside from the
conquests of Mexico and Peru, to exhibit the voyages of his
countrymen in the Indian seas. His manuscripts, relating to the
two former countries, he courteously allowed to be copied for me.
Some of them have since appeared in print, under the auspices of
his learned coadjutors, Salva and Baranda, associated with him in
the Academy; but the documents placed in my hands form a most
important contribution to my materials for the present history.

The death of this illustrious man, which occurred some time after
the present work was begun, has left a void in his country not
easy to be filled; for he was zealously devoted to letters, and
few have done more to extend the knowledge of her colonial
history.  Far from an exclusive solicitude for his own literary
projects, he was ever ready to extend his sympathy and assistance
to those of others.  His reputation as a scholar was enhanced by
the higher qualities which he possessed as a man, - by his
benevolence, his simplicity of manners, and unsullied moral
worth.  My own obligations to him are large; for from the
publication of my first historical work, down to the last week of
his life, I have constantly received proofs from him of his
hearty and most efficient interest in the prosecution of my
historical labors; and I now the more willingly pay this
well-merited tribute to his deserts, that it must be exempt from
all suspicion of flattery.

In the list of those to whom I have been indebted for materials,
I must, also, include the name of M. Ternaux-Compans, so well
known by his faithful and elegant French versions of the Munoz
manuscripts; and that of my friend Don Pascual de Gayangos, who,
under the modest dress of translation, has furnished a most acute
and learned commentary on Spanish-Arabian history, - securing for
himself the foremost rank in that difficult department of
letters, which has been illumined by the labors of a Masdeu, a
Casiri, and a Conde.

To the materials derived from these sources, I have added some
manuscripts of an important character from the library of the
Escurial. These, which chiefly relate to the ancient institutions
of Peru, formed part of the splendid collection of Lord
Kingsborough, which has unfortunately shared the lot of most
literary collections, and been dispersed, since the death of its
noble author.  For these I am indebted to that industrious
bibliographer, Mr. O. Rich, now resident in London.  Lastly, I
must not omit to mention my obligations, in another way, to my
friend Charles Folsom, Esq., the learned librarian of the Boston
Athenaeum; whose minute acquaintance with the grammatical
structure and the true idiom of our English tongue has enabled me
to correct many inaccuracies into which I had fallen in the
composition both of this and of my former works.

From these different sources I have accumulated a large amount of
manuscripts, of the most various character, and from the most
authentic sources; royal grants and ordinances, instructions of
the Court, letters of the Emperor to the great colonial officers,
municipal records, personal diaries and memoranda, and a mass of
private correspondence of the principal actors in this turbulent
drama.  Perhaps it was the turbulent state of the country which
led to a more frequent correspondence between the government at
home and the colonial officers.  But, whatever be the cause, the
collection of manuscript materials in reference to Peru is fuller
and more complete than that which relates to Mexico; so that
there is scarcely a nook or corner so obscure, in the path of the
adventurer, that some light has not been thrown on it by the
written correspondence of the period.  The historian has rather
had occasion to complain of the embarras des richesses; for, in
the multiplicity of contradictory testimony, it is not always
easy to detect the truth, as the multiplicity of cross-lights is
apt to dazzle and bewilder the eye of the spectator.

The present History has been conducted on the same general plan
with that of the Conquest of Mexico.  In an Introductory Book, I
have endeavoured to portray the institutions of the Incas, that
the reader may be acquainted with the character and condition of
that extraordinary race, before he enters on the story of their
subjugation.  The remaining books are occupied with the narrative
of the Conquest.  And here, the subject, it must be allowed,
notwithstanding the opportunities it presents for the display of
character, strange, romantic incident, and picturesque scenery,
does not afford so obvious advantages to the historian as the
Conquest of Mexico.  Indeed, few subjects can present a parallel
with that, for the purposes either of the historian or the poet.
The natural development of the story, there, is precisely what
would be prescribed by the severest rules of art.  The conquest
of the country is the great end always in the view of the reader.
From the first landing of the Spaniards on the soil, their
subsequent adventures, their battles and negotiations, their
ruinous retreat, their rally and final siege, all tend to this
grand result, till the long series is closed by the downfall of
the capital.  In the march of events, all moves steadily forward
to this consummation.  It is a magnificent epic, in which the
unity of interest is complete.

In the "Conquest of Peru," the action, so far as it is founded on
the subversion of the Incas, terminates long before the close of
the narrative. The remaining portion is taken up with the fierce
feuds of the Conquerors, which would seem, from their very
nature, to be incapable of being gathered round a central point
of interest.  To secure this, we must look beyond the immediate
overthrow of the Indian empire.  The conquest of the natives is
but the first step, to be followed by the conquest of the
Spaniards, - the rebel Spaniards, themselves, - till the
supremacy of the Crown is permanently established over the
country.  It is not till this period, that the acquisition of
this Transatlantic empire can be said to be completed; and, by
fixing the eye on this remoter point, the successive steps of the
narrative will be found leading to one great result, and that
unity of interest preserved which is scarcely less essential to
historic than dramatic composition.  How far this has been
effected, in the present work, must be left to the judgment of
the reader.

No history of the conquest of Peru, founded on original
documents, and aspiring to the credit of a classic composition,
like the "Conquest of Mexico" by Solis, has been attempted, as
far as I am aware, by the Spaniards. The English possess one of
high value, from the pen of Robertson, whose masterly sketch
occupies its due space in his great work on America.  It has been
my object to exhibit this same story, in all its romantic
details; not merely to portray the characteristic features of the
Conquest, but to fill up the outline with the coloring of life,
so as to present a minute and faithful picture of the times.  For
this purpose, have, in the composition of the work, availed
myself freely of my manuscript materials, allowed the actors to
speak as much as possible for themselves, and especially made
frequent use of their letters; for nowhere is the heart more
likely to disclose itself, than in the freedom of private
correspondence.  I have made liberal extracts from these
authorities in the notes, both to sustain the text, and to put in
a printed form those productions of the eminent captains and
statesmen of the time, which are not very accessible to Spaniards
themselves.

M. Amedee Pichot, in the Preface to the French translation of the
"Conquest of Mexico," infers from the plan of the composition,
that I must have carefully studied the writings of his
countryman, M. de Barante.  The acute critic does me but justice
in supposing me familiar with the principles of that writer's
historical theory, so ably developed in the Preface to his "Ducs
de Bourgogne." And I have had occasion to admire the skillful
manner in which he illustrates this theory himself, by
constructing out of the rude materials of a distant time a
monument of genius that transports us at once into the midst of
the Feudal Ages, - and this without the incongruity which usually
attaches to a modern-antique.  In like manner I have attempted to
seize the characteristic expression of a distant age, and to
exhibit it in the freshness of life.  But in an essential
particular, I have deviated from the plan of the French
historian.  I have suffered the scaffolding to remain after the
building has been completed.  In other words, I have shown to the
reader the steps of the process by which I have come to my
conclusions. Instead of requiring him to take my version of the
story on trust, I have endeavoured to give him a reason for my
faith.  By copious citations from the original authorities, and
by such critical notices of them as would explain to him the
influences to which they were subjected, I have endeavoured to
put him in a position for judging for himself, and thus for
revising, and, if need be reversing, the judgments of the
historian.  He will, at any rate, by this means, be enabled to
estimate the difficulty of arriving at truth amidst the conflict
of testimony; and he will learn to place little reliance on those
writers who pronounce on the mysterious past with what Fontenelle
calls "a frightful degree of certainty," - a spirit the most
opposite to that of the true philosophy of history.

Yet it must be admitted, that the chronicler who records the
events of an earlier age has some obvious advantages in the store
of manuscript materials at his command, - the statements of
friends, rivals, and enemies, furnishing a wholesome counterpoise
to each other; and also, in the general course of events, as they
actually occurred, affording the best commentary on the true
motives of the parties.  The actor, engaged in the heat of the
strife, finds his view bounded by the circle around him, and his
vision blinded by the smoke and dust of the conflict; while the
spectator, whose eyes ranges over the ground from a more distant
and elevated point, though the individual objects may lose
somewhat of their vividness, takes in at a glance all the
operations of the field. Paradoxical as it may appear, truth
founded on contemporary testimony would seem, after all, as
likely to be attained by the writer of a later day, as by
contemporaries themselves.

Before closing these remarks, I may be permitted to add a few of
a personal nature.  In several foreign notices of my writings,
the author has been said to be blind; and more than once I have
had the credit of having lost my sight in the composition of my
first history.  When I have met with such erroneous accounts, I
have hastened to correct them.  But the present occasion affords
me the best means of doing so; and I am the more desirous of
this, as I fear some of my own remarks, in the Prefaces to my
former histories, have led to the mistake.

While at the University, I received an injury in one of my eyes,
which deprived me of the sight of it.  The other, soon after, was
attacked by inflammation so severely, that, for some time, I lost
the sight of that also; and though it was subsequently restored,
the organ was so much disordered as to remain permanently
debilitated, while twice in my life, since, I have been deprived
of the use of it for all purposes of reading and writing, for
several years together.  It was during one of these periods that
I received from Madrid the materials for the "History of
Ferdinand and Isabella," and in my disabled condition, with my
Transatlantic treasures lying around me, I was like one pining
from hunger in the midst of abundance.  In this state, I resolved
to make the ear, if possible, do the work of the eye.  I procured
the services of a secretary, who read to me the various
authorities; and in time I became so far familiar with the sounds
of the different foreign languages (to some of which indeed, I
had been previously accustomed by a residence abroad), that I
could comprehend his reading without much difficulty.  As the
reader proceeded, I dictated copious notes; and, when these had
swelled to a considerable amount, they were read to me
repeatedly, till I had mastered their contents sufficiently for
the purposes of composition.  The same notes furnished an easy
means of reference to sustain the text.

Still another difficulty occurred, in the mechanical labor of
writing, which I found a severe trial to the eye.  This was
remedied by means of a writing-case, such as is used by the
blind, which enabled me to commit my thoughts to paper without
the aid of sight, serving me equally well in the dark as in the
light.  The characters thus formed made a near approach to
hieroglyphics; but my secretary became expert in the art of
deciphering, and a fair copy - with a liberal allowance for
unavoidable blunders - was transcribed for the use of the
printer.  I have described the process with more minuteness, as
some curiosity has been repeatedly expressed in reference to my
modus operandi under my privations, and the knowledge of it may
be of some assistance to others in similar circumstances.

Though I was encouraged by the sensible progress of my work, it
was necessarily slow.  But in time the tendency to inflammation
diminished, and the strength of the eye was confirmed more and
more.  It was at length so far restored, that I could read for
several hours of the day, though my labors in this way
necessarily terminated with the daylight.  Nor could I ever
dispense with the services of a secretary, or with the
writing-case, for, contrary to the usual experience, I have found
writing a severer trial to the eye than reading, - a remark,
however, which does not apply to the reading of manuscript; and
to enable myself, therefore, to revise my composition more
carefully, I caused a copy of the "History of Ferdinand and
Isabella" to be printed for of my own inspection, before it was
sent to the press for the publication.  Such as I have described
the preparation of the "Conquest of Mexico"; and, satisfied with
being raised so nearly to a level with the rest of my species, I
scarcely envied the superior good fortune of those who could
prolong their studies into the evening, and the later hours of
the night.

But a change has again taken place during the last two years.
The sight of my eye has become gradually dimmed, while the
sensibility of the nerve has been so far increased, that for
several weeks of the last year I have not opened a volume, and
through the whole time I have not had the use of it, on an
average, for more than an hour a day.  Nor can I cheer myself
with the delusive expectation, that, impaired as the organ has
become, from having been tasked, probably, beyond its strength,
it can ever renew its youth, or be of much service to me
hereafter in my literary researches.  Whether I shall have the
heart to enter, as I had proposed, on a new and more extensive
field of historical labor, with these impediments, I cannot say.
Perhaps long habit, and a natural desire to follow up the career
which I have so long pursued, may make this, in a manner,
necessary, as my past experience has already proved that it is
practicable.

From this statement - too long, I fear, for his patience - the
reader, who feels any curiosity about the matter, will understand
the real extent of my embarrassments in my historical pursuits.
That they have not been very light will be readily admitted, when
it is considered that I have had but a limited use of my eye, in
its best state, and that much of the time I have been debarred
from the use of it altogether.  Yet the difficulties I have had
to contend with a very far inferior to those which fall to the
lot of a blind man.  I know of no historian, now alive, who can
claim the glory of having overcome such obstacles, but the author
of "La Conquete de l'Angleterre par les Normands" who, to use his
own touching and beautiful language, "has made himself the friend
of darkness"; and who, to a profound philosophy that requires no
light but that from within, unites a capacity for extensive and
various research, that might well demand the severest application
of the student.

The remarks into which I have been led at such length will, I
trust, not be set down by the reader to an unworthy egotism, but
to their true source, a desire to correct a misapprehension to
which I may have unintentionally given rise myself, and which has
gained me the credit with some - far from grateful to my
feelings, since undeserved - of having surmounted the
incalculable obstacles which lie in the path of the blind man.

Boston, April 2 1847




Chapter I

Physical Aspect Of The Country. - Sources Of Peruvian
Civilization. - Empire Of The Incas. - Royal Family. - Nobility.


Of the numerous nations which occupied the great American
continent at the time of its discovery by the Europeans, the two
most advanced in power and refinement were undoubtedly those of
Mexico and Peru.  But, though resembling one another in extent of
civilization, they differed widely as to the nature of it; and
the philosophical student of his species may feel a natural
curiosity to trace the different steps by which these two nations
strove to emerge from the state of barbarism, and place
themselves on a higher point in the scale of humanity. - In a
former work I have endeavoured to exhibit the institutions and
character of the ancient Mexicans, and the story of their
conquest by the Spaniards.  The present will be devoted to the
Peruvians; and, if their history shall be found to present less
strange anomalies and striking contrasts than that of the Aztecs,
it may interest us quite as much by the pleasing picture it
offers of a well-regulated government and sober habits of
industry under the patriarchal sway of the Incas.

The empire of Peru, at the period of the Spanish invasion,
stretched along the Pacific from about the second degree north to
the thirty-seventh degree of south latitude; a line, also, which
describes the western boundaries of the modern republics of
Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and Chili.  Its breadth cannot so easily
be determined; for, though bounded everywhere by the great ocean
on the west, towards the east it spread out, in many parts,
considerably beyond the mountains, to the confines of barbarous
states, whose exact position is undetermined, or whose names are
effaced from the map of history. It is certain, however, that its
breadth was altogether disproportioned to its length. *1


[Footnote 1: Sarmiento, Relacion, Ms., cap. 65. - Cieza de Leon,
Cronica del Peru, (Anvers, 1554,) cap. 41. - Garcilasso de la
Vega, Commentarios Reales, (Lisboa, 1609,) Parte 1, lib. 1, cap.
8.

According to the last authority, the empire, in its greatest
breadth, did not exceed one hundred and twenty leagues.  But
Garcilasso's geography will not bear criticism.]

The topographical aspect of the country is very remarkable.  A
strip of land, rarely exceeding twenty leagues in width, runs
along the coast, and is hemmed in through its whole extent by a
colossal range of mountains, which, advancing from the Straits of
Magellan, reaches its highest elevation - indeed, the highest on
the American continent - about the seventeenth degree south, *2
and, after crossing the line, gradually subsides into hills of
inconsiderable magnitude, as it enters the Isthmus of Panama.
This is the famous Cordillera of the Andes, or "copper
mountains," *3 as termed by the natives, though they might with
more reason have been called "mountains of gold." Arranged
sometimes in a single line, though more frequently in two or
three lines running parallel or obliquely to each other, they
seem to the voyager on the ocean but one continuous chain; while
the huge volcanoes, which to the inhabitants of the table-land
look like solitary and independent masses, appear to him only
like so many peaks of the same vast and magnificent range.  So
immense is the scale on which Nature works in these regions, that
it is only when viewed from a great distance, that the spectator
can, in any degree, comprehend the relation of the several parts
to the stupendous whole. Few of the works of Nature, indeed, are
calculated to produce impressions of higher sublimity than the
aspect of this coast, as it is gradually unfolded to the eye of
the mariner sailing on the distant waters of the Pacific; where
mountain is seen to rise above mountain, and Chimborazo, with its
glorious canopy of snow, glittering far above the clouds, crowns
the whole as with a celestial diadem. *4

[Footnote 2: According to Malte-Brun, it is under the equator
that we meet with the loftiest summits of this chain.  (Universal
Geography, Eng. trans., book 86.) But more recent measurements
have shown this to be between fifteen and seventeen degrees
south, where the Nevado de Sorata rises to the enormous height of
25,250 feet, and the Illimani to 24,300.]

[Footnote 3: At least, the word anta, which has been thought to
furnish the etymology of Andes, in the Peruvian tongue, signified
"copper." Garcilasso, Com. Real., Parte 1, lib. 5, cap. 15.]

[Footnote 4: Humboldt, Vues des Cordilleres et Monumens des
Peuples Indigenes de l'Amerique, (Paris, 1810,) p. 106. -
Malte-Brun, book 88.

The few brief sketches which M. de Humboldt has given of the
scenery of the Cordilleras, showing the hand of a great painter,
as well as of a philosopher, make us regret the more, that he has
not given the results of his observations in this interesting
region as minutely as he has done in respect to Mexico.]

The face of the country would appear to be peculiarly unfavorable
to the purposes both of agriculture and of internal
communication.  The sandy strip along the coast, where rain
rarely falls, is fed only by a few scanty streams, that furnish a
remarkable contrast to the vast volumes of water which roll down
the eastern sides of the Cordilleras into the Atlantic.  The
precipitous steeps of the sierra, with its splintered sides of
porphyry and granite, and its higher regions wrapped in snows
that never melt under the fierce sun of the equator, unless it be
from the desolating action of its own volcanic fires, might seem
equally unpropitious to the labors of the husbandman.  And all
communication between the parts of the long-extended territory
might be thought to be precluded by the savage character of the
region, broken up by precipices, furious torrents, and impassable
quebradas, - those hideous rents in the mountain chain, whose
depths the eye of the terrified traveler, as he winds along his
aerial pathway, vainly endeavours to fathom. *5 Yet the industry,
we might almost say, the genius, of the Indian was sufficient to
overcome all these impediments of Nature.

[Footnote 5: "These crevices are so deep," says M. de Humboldt,
with his usual vivacity of illustration, "that if Vesuvius or the
Puy de Dome were seated in the bottom of them, they would not
rise above the level of the ridges of the neighbouring sierra"
Vues des Cordilleres, p. 9.]

By a judicious system of canals and subterraneous aqueducts, the
waste places on the coast were refreshed by copious streams, that
clothed them in fertility and beauty.  Terraces were raised upon
the steep sides of the Cordillera; and, as the different
elevations had the effect of difference of latitude, they
exhibited in regular gradation every variety of vegetable form,
from the stimulated growth of the tropics, to the temperate
products of a northern clime; while flocks of llamas - the
Peruvian sheep - wandered with their shepherds over the broad,
snow-covered wastes on the crests of the sierra, which rose
beyond the limits of cultivation.  An industrious population
settled along the lofty regions of the plateaus, and towns and
hamlets, clustering amidst orchards and wide-spreading gardens,
seemed suspended in the air far above the ordinary elevation of
the clouds. *6 Intercourse was maintained between these numerous
settlements by means of the great roads which traversed the
mountain passes, and opened an easy communication between the
capital and the remotest extremities of the empire.

[Footnote 6: The plains of Quito are at the height of between
nine and ten thousand feet above the sea.  (See Condamine,
Journal d'un Voyage a l'Equateur, (Paris, 1751,) p. 48.) Other
valleys or plateaus in this vast group of mountains reach a still
higher elevation.]

The source of this civilization is traced to the valley of Cuzco,
the central region of Peru, as its name implies. *7 The origin of
the Peruvian empire, like the origin of all nations, except the
very few which, like our own, have had the good fortune to date
from a civilized period and people, is lost in the mists of
fable, which, in fact, have settled as darkly round its history
as round that of any nation, ancient or modern, in the Old World.
According to the tradition most familiar to the European scholar,
the time was, when the ancient races of the continent were all
plunged in deplorable barbarism; when they worshipped nearly
every object in nature indiscriminately; made war their pastime,
and feasted on the flesh of their slaughtered captives.  The Sun,
the great luminary and parent of mankind, taking compassion on
their degraded condition, sent two of his children, Manco Capac
and Mama Oello Huaco, to gather the natives into communities, and
teach them the arts of civilized life.  The celestial pair,
brother and sister, husband and wife, advanced along the high
plains in the neighbourhood of Lake Titicaca, to about the
sixteenth degree south.  They bore with them a golden wedge, and
were directed to take up their residence on the spot where the
sacred emblem should without effort sink into the ground.  They
proceeded accordingly but a short distance, as far as the valley
of Cuzco, the spot indicated by the performance of the miracle,
since there the wedge speedily sank into the earth and
disappeared for ever.  Here the children of the Sun established
their residence, and soon entered upon their beneficent mission
among the rude inhabitants of the country; Manco Capac teaching
the men the arts of agriculture, and Mama Oello *8 initiating her
own sex in the mysteries of weaving and spinning.  The simple
people lent a willing ear to the messengers of Heaven, and,
gathering together in considerable numbers, laid the foundations
of the city of Cuzco.  The same wise and benevolent maxims, which
regulated the conduct of the first Incas, *9 descended to their
successors, and under their mild sceptre a community gradually
extended itself along the broad surface of the table-land, which
asserted its superiority over the surrounding tribes.  Such is
the pleasing picture of the origin of the Peruvian monarchy, as
portrayed by Garcilasso de la Vega, the descendant of the Incas,
and through him made familiar to the European reader. *10

[Footnote 7: "Cuzco, in the language of the Incas," says
Garcilasso, "signifies navel." Com. Real., Parte 1, lib. 1, cap.
18.]

[Footnote 8: Mama, with the Peruvians, signified "mother."
(Garcilasso, Com. Real., Parte 1, lib. 4, cap. 1.) The identity
of this term with that used by Europeans is a curious
coincidence.  It is scarcely less so, however, than that of the
corresponding word, papa, which with the ancient Mexicans denoted
a priest of high rank; reminding us of the papa, "pope," of the
Italians. With both, the term seems to embrace in its most
comprehensive sense the paternal relation, in which it is more
familiarly employed by most of the nations of Europe.  Nor was
the use of it limited to modern times, being applied in the same
way both by Greeks and Romans.]

[Footnote 9: Inca signified king or lord.  Capac meant great or
powerful. It was applied to several of the successors of Manco,
in the same manner as the epithet Yupanqui, signifying rich in
all virtues, was added to the names of several Incas.  (Cieza de
Leon, Cronica, cap. 41. - Garcilasso, Com. Real., Parte 1, lib.
2, cap. 17.) The good qualities commemorated by the cognomens of
most of the Peruvian princes afford an honorable, though not
altogether unsuspicious, tribute to the excellence of their
characters.]

[Footnote 10: Com. Real., Parte 1, lib. 1, cap. 9 - 16.]

But this tradition is only one of several current among the
Peruvian Indians, and probably not the one most generally
received.  Another legend speaks of certain white and bearded
men, who, advancing from the shores of lake Titicaca, established
an ascendency over the natives, and imparted to them the
blessings of civilization.  It may remind us of the tradition
existing among the Aztecs in respect to Quetzalcoatl, the good
deity, who with a similar garb and aspect came up the great
plateau from the east on a like benevolent mission to the
natives.  The analogy is the more remarkable, as there is no
trace of any communication with, or even knowledge of, each other
to be found in the two nations. *11

[Footnote 11: These several traditions, all of a very puerile
character, are to be found in Ondegardo, Relacion Segunda, Ms., -
Sarmiento, Relacion, Ms., cap. 1, - Cieza de Leon, Cronica, cap.
105, - Conquista i Poblacion del Piru, Ms., - Declaracion de los
Presidente e Oydores de la Audiencia Reale del Peru, Ms., - all
of them authorities contemporary with the Conquest.  The story of
the bearded white men finds its place in most of their legends.]

The date usually assigned for these extraordinary events was
about four hundred years before the coming of the Spaniards, or
early in the twelfth century. *12 But, however pleasing to the
imagination, and however popular, the legend of Manco Capac, it
requires but little reflection to show its improbability, even
when divested of supernatural accompaniments.  On the shores of
Lake Titicaca extensive ruins exist at the present day, which the
Peruvians themselves acknowledge to be of older date than the
pretended advent of the Incas, and to have furnished them with
the models of their architecture. *13 The date of their
appearance, indeed, is manifestly irreconcilable with their
subsequent history.  No account assigns to the Inca dynasty more
than thirteen princes before the Conquest.  But this number is
altogether too small to have spread over four hundred years, and
would not carry back the foundations of the monarchy, on any
probable computation beyond two centuries and a half, - an
antiquity not incredible in itself, and which, it may be
remarked, does not precede by more than half a century the
alleged foundation of the capital of Mexico.  The fiction of
Manco Capac and his sister-wife was devised, no doubt, at a later
period, to gratify the vanity of the Peruvian monarchs, and to
give additional sanction to their authority by deriving it from a
celestial origin.

[Footnote 12: Some writers carry back the date 500, or even 550,
years before the Spanish invasion.  (Balboa, Histoire du Perou,
chap. 1. - Velasco, Histoire du Royaume de Quito, tom. I. p. 81.
- Ambo auct. ap. Relations et Memoires Originaux pour servir a
l'Histoire de la Decouverte de l'Amerique, par Ternaux-Compans,
(Paris, 1840.)) In the Report of the Royal Audience of Peru, the
epoch is more modestly fixed at 200 years before the Conquest.
Dec. de la Aud. Real., Ms.]

[Footnote 13: "Otras cosas ay mas que dezir deste Tiaguanaco, que
passo por no detenerme: concluyedo que yo para mi tengo esta
antigualla por la mas antigua de todo el Peru.  Y assi se tiene
que antes q los Ingas reynassen con muchos tiempos estavan hechos
algunos edificios destos: porque yo he oydo afirmar a Indios, que
los Ingas hizieron los edificios grandes del Cuzco por la forma
que vieron tener la muralla o pared que se vee en este pueblo."
(Cieza de Leon, Cronica, cap. 105.) See also Garcilasso, (Com.
Real., Parte 1, lib. 3, cap. 1,) who gives an account of these
remains, on the authority of a Spanish ecclesiastic, which might
compare, for the marvellous, with any of the legends of his
order.  Other ruins of similar traditional antiquity are noticed
by Herrera, (Historia General de los Hechos de los Castellanos en
las Islas y Tierra Firme del Mar Oceano, (Madrid, 1730,) dec. 6,
lib. 6, cap. 9.) McCulloch, in some sensible reflections on the
origin of the Peruvian civilization, adduces, on the authority of
Garcilasso de la Vega, the famous temple of Pachacamac, not far
from Lima, as an example of architecture more ancient than that
of the Incas.  (Researches, Philosophical and Antiquarian,
concerning the Aboriginal History of America, (Baltimore, 1829,)
p. 405.) This, if true, would do much to confirm the views in our
text.  But McCulloh is led into an error by his blind guide,
Rycaut, the translator of Garcilasso, for the latter does not
speak of the temple as existing before the time of the Incas, but
before the time when the country was conquered by the Incas.
Com. Real., Parte 1, lib. 6, cap. 30.]

We may reasonably conclude that there existed in the country a
race advanced in civilization before the time of the Incas; and,
in conformity with nearly every tradition, we may derive this
race from the neighborhood of Lake Titicaca; *14 a conclusion
strongly confirmed by the imposing architectural remains which
still endure, after the lapse of so many years, on its borders.
Who this race were, and whence they came, may afford a tempting
theme for inquiry to the speculative antiquarian.  But it is a
land of darkness that lies far beyond the domain of history. *15

[See Antiquities: Artistic handicrafts of the ancient people of
Peru]

[Footnote 14: Among other authorities for this tradition, see
Sarmiento, Relacion, Ms., cap. 3, 4, - Herrera, Hist. General,
dec. 5, lib. 3, cap. 6, - Conq. i Pob. del Piru, Ms., - Zarate,
Historia del Descubrimiento y de la Conquista del Peru, lib. 1,
cap. 10, ap. Barcia, Historiadores Primitivos de las Indias
Occidentales, (Madrid, 1749,) tom. 3.

In most, not all, of the traditions, Manco Capac is recognized as
the name of the founder of the Peruvian monarchy, though his
history and character are related with sufficient discrepancy.]

[Footnote 15: Mr. Ranking,
"Who can deep mysteries unriddle,
As easily as thread a needle,"

finds it "highly probable that the first Inca of Peru was a son
of the Grand Khan Kublai"!  (Historical Researches on the
Conquest of Peru, &c., by the Moguls, (London, 1827,) p. 170.)
The coincidences are curious, though we shall hardly jump at the
conclusion of the adventurous author.  Every scholar will agree
with Humboldt, in the wish that "some learned traveller would
visit the borders of the lake of Titicaca, the district of
Callao, and the high plains of Tiahuanaco, the theatre of the
ancient American civilization." (Vues des Cordilleres, p. 199.)
And yet the architectural monuments of the aborigines, hitherto
brought to light, have furnished few materials for a bridge of
communications across the dark gulf that still separates the Old
World from the New.]

The same mists that hang round the origin of the Incas continue
to settle on their subsequent annals; and, so imperfect were the
records employed by the Peruvians, and so confused and
contradictory their traditions, that the historian finds no firm
footing on which to stand till within a century of the Spanish
conquest. *16 At first, the progress of the Peruvians seems to
have been sow, and almost imperceptible.  By their wise and
temperate policy, they gradually won over the neighbouring tribes
to their dominion, as these latter became more and more convinced
of the benefits of a just and well-regulated government.  As they
grew stronger, they were enabled to rely more directly on force;
but, still advancing under cover of the same beneficent pretexts
employed by their predecessors, they proclaimed peace and
civilization at the point of the sword.  The rude nations of the
country, without any principle of cohesion among themselves, fell
one after another before the victorious arm of the Incas.  Yet it
was not till the middle of the fifteenth century that the famous
Topa Inca Yupanqui, grandfather of the monarch who occupied the
throne at the coming of the Spaniards, led his armies across the
terrible desert of Atacama, and, penetrating to the southern
region of Chili, fixed the permanent boundary of his dominions at
the river Maule.  His son, Huayna Capac, possessed of ambition
and military talent fully equal to his father's marched along the
Cordillera towards the north, and, pushing his conquests across
the equator, added the powerful kingdom of Quito to the empire of
Peru. *17

[Footnote 16: A good deal within a century, to say truth.
Garcilasso and Sarmiento, for example, the two ancient
authorities in highest repute, have scarcely a point of contact
in their accounts of the earlier Peruvian princes; the former
representing the sceptre as gliding down in peaceful succession
from hand to hand, through an unbroken dynasty, while the latter
garnishes his tale with as many conspiracies, depositions, and
revolutions, as belong to most barbarous, and, unhappily, most
civilized communities. When to these two are added the various
writers, contemporary and of the succeeding age, who have treated
of the Peruvian annals, we shall find ourselves in such a
conflict of traditions, that criticism is lost in conjecture.
Yet this uncertainty as to historical events fortunately does not
extend to the history of arts and institutions, which were in
existence on the arrival of the Spaniards.]

[Footnote 17: Sarmiento, Relacion, Ms., cap. 57, 64. - Conq. i.
Pob. del Piru, Ms. - Velasco, Hist. de Quito, p. 59. - Dec. de la
Aud. Real., Ms. - Garcilasso, Com. Real., Parte 1, lib. 7, cap.
18, 19; lib. 8, cap. 5-8.

The last historian, and, indeed, some others, refer the conquest
of Chili to Yupanqui, the father of Topa Inca.  The exploits of
the two monarchs are so blended together by the different
annalists, as in a manner to confound their personal identity.]

The ancient city of Cuzco, meanwhile, had been gradually
advancing in wealth and population, till it had become the worthy
metropolis of a great and flourishing monarchy.  It stood in a
beautiful valley on an elevated region of the plateau, which,
among the Alps, would have been buried in eternal snows, but
which within the tropics enjoyed a genial and salubrious
temperature. Towards the north it was defended by a lofty
eminence, a spur of the great Cordillera; and the city was
traversed by a river, or rather a small stream, over which
bridges of timber, covered with heavy slabs of stone, furnished
an easy means of communication with the opposite banks.  The
streets were long and narrow; the houses low, and those of the
poorer sort built of clay and reeds.  But Cuzco was the royal
residence, and was adorned with the ample dwellings of the great
nobility; and the massy fragments still incorporated in many of
the modern edifices bear testimony to the size and solidity of
the ancient. *18

[Footnote 18: Garcilasso, Com. Real., lib. 7, cap. 8-11. - Cieza
de Leon, Cronica, cap. 92.

"El Cuzco tuuo gran manera y calidad, deuio ser fundada por gente
de gran ser.  Auia grandes calles, saluo q era angostas, y las
casas hechas de piedra pura co tan lindas junturas, q illustra el
antiguedad del edificio, pues estauan piedras tan grades muy bien
assentadas." (Ibid., ubi supra.) Compare with this Miller's
account of the city, as existing at the present day.  "The walls
of many of the houses have remained unaltered for centuries. The
great size of the stones, the variety of their shapes, and the
inimitable workmanship they display, give to the city that
interesting air of antiquity and romance, which fills the mind
with pleasing though painful veneration." Memoirs of Gen. Miller
in the Service of the Republic of Peru, (London, 1829, 2d ed.)
vol. II. p. 225.]

The health of the city was promoted by spacious openings and
squares, in which a numerous population from the capital and the
distant country assembled to celebrate the high festivals of
their religion.  For Cuzco was the "Holy City"; *19 and the great
temple of the Sun, to which pilgrims resorted from the furthest
borders of the empire, was the most magnificent structure in the
New World, and unsurpassed, probably, in the costliness of its
decorations by any building in the Old.

[Footnote 19: "La Imperial Ciudad de Cozco, que la adoravan los
Indios, como a Cosa Sagrada." Garcilasso, Com. Real., parte 1,
lib. 3, cap. 20. - Also Ondegardo, Rel. Seg., Ms.]

Towards the north, on the sierra or rugged eminence already
noticed, rose a strong fortress, the remains of which at the
present day, by their vast size, excite the admiration of the
traveller. *20 It was defended by a single wall of great
thickness, and twelve hundred feet long on the side facing the
city, where the precipitous character of the ground was of itself
almost sufficient for its defence.  On the other quarter, where
the approaches were less difficult, it was protected by two other
semicircular walls of the same length as the preceding.  They
were separated, a considerable distance from one another and from
the fortress; and the intervening ground was raised so that the
walls afforded a breastwork for the troops stationed there in
times of assault.  The fortress consisted of three towers,
detached from one another.  One was appropriated to the Inca, and
was garnished with the sumptuous decorations befitting a royal
residence, rather than a military post.  The other two were held
by the garrison, drawn from the Peruvian nobles, and commanded by
an officer of the blood royal; for the position was of too great
importance to be intrusted to inferior hands.  The hill was
excavated below the towers, and several subterraneous galleries
communicated with the city and the palaces of the Inca. *21

[Footnote 20: See, among others, the Memoirs, above cited, of
Gen. Miller, which contain a minute and very interesting notice
of modern Cuzco.  (Vol. II. p. 223, et seq.) Ulloa, who visited
the country in the middle of the last century, is unbounded in
his expressions of admiration.  Voyage to South America, Eng.
trans., (London, 1806,) book VII. ch. 12.]

[Footnote 21: Betanzos, Suma y Narracion de los Yngas, Ms., cap.
12. - Garcilasso, Com Real., Parte 1, iib. 7, cap. 27-29.

The demolition of the fortress, begun immediately after the
Conquest, provoked the remonstrance of more than one enlightened
Spaniard, whose voice, however, was impotent against the spirit
of cupidity and violence.  See Sarmiento, Relacion, Ms., cap.
48.]

The fortress, the walls, and the galleries were all built of
stone, the heavy blocks of which were not laid in regular
courses, but so disposed that the small ones might fill up the
interstices between the great.  They formed a sort of rustic
work, being rough-hewn except towards the edges, which were
finely wrought; and, though no cement was used, the several
blocks were adjusted with so much exactness and united so
closely, that it was impossible to introduce even the blade of
knife between them. *22 Many of these stones were of vast size;
some of them being full thirty-eight feet long, by eighteen
broad, and six feet thick. *23

[Footnote 22: Ibid., ubi supra. - Inscripciones, Medallas,
Templos, Edificios, Antiguedades, y Monumentos del Peru, Ms.
This manuscript, which formerly belonged to Dr. Robertson, and
which is now in the British Museum, is the work of some unknown
author, somewhere probably about the time of Charles III.; a
period when, as the sagacious scholar to whom I am indebted for a
copy of it remarks, a spirit of sounder criticism was visible in
the Castilian historians.]

[Footnote 23: Acosta, Naturall and Morall Historie of the East
and West Indies, Eng. trans., (London, 1604,) lib. 6, cap. 14. -
He measured the stones himself. - See also Garcilasso, Com.
Real., loc. cit.]

We are filled with astonishment, when we consider, that these
enormous masses were hewn from their native bed and fashioned
into shape, by a people ignorant of the use of iron; that they
were brought from quarries, from four to fifteen leagues distant,
*24 without the aid of beasts of burden; were transported across
rivers and ravines, raised to their elevated position on the
sierra, and finally adjusted there with the nicest accuracy,
without the knowledge of tools and machinery familiar to the
European.  Twenty thousand men are said to have been employed on
this great structure, and fifty years consumed in the building.
*25 However this may be, we see in it the workings of a despotism
which had the lives and fortunes of its vassals at its absolute
disposal, and which, however mild in its general character,
esteemed these vassals, when employed in its service, as lightly
as the brute animals for which they served as a substitute.

[Footnote 24: Cieza de Leon, Cronica, cap. 93. - Ondegardo, Rel.
Seg., Ms. Many hundred blocks of granite may still be seen, it is
said, in an unfinished state, in a quarry near Cuzco.]

[Footnote 25: Sarmiento, Relacion, Ms., cap. 48. - Ondegardo,
Rel. Seg., Ms. - Garcilasso, Com. Real., Parte 1, lib. 7, cap.
27, 28.

The Spaniards, puzzled by the execution of so great a work with
such apparently inadequate means, referred it all, in their
summary way, to the Devil; an opinion which Garcilasso seems
willing to indorse.  The author of the Antig y Monumentos del
Peru, Ms., rejects this notion with becoming gravity.]

The fortress of Cuzco was but part of a system of fortifications
established throughout their dominions by the Incas.  This system
formed a prominent feature in their military policy; but before
entering on this latter, it will be proper to give the reader
some view of their civil institutions and scheme of government.

The sceptre of the Incas, if we may credit their historian,
descended in unbroken succession from father to son, through
their whole dynasty. Whatever we may think of this, it appears
probable that the right of inheritance might be claimed by the
eldest son of the Coya, or lawful queen, as she was styled, to
distinguish her from the host of concubines who shared the
affections of the sovereign. *26 The queen was further
distinguished, at least in later reigns, by the circumstance of
being selected from the sisters of the Inca, an arrangement
which, however revolting to the ideas of civilized nations, was
recommended to the Peruvians by its securing an heir to the crown
of the pure heaven-born race, uncontaminated by any mixture of
earthly mould. *27

[Footnote 26: Sarmiento, Relacion, Ms., cap. 7. - Garcilasso,
Com. Real., Parte 1, lib. 1, cap. 26.

Acosta speaks of the eldest brother of the Inca as succeeding in
preference to the son.  (lib. 6, cap. 12.) He may have confounded
the Peruvian with the Aztec usage.  The Report of the Royal
Audience states that a brother succeeded in default of a son.
Dec. de la Aud. Real., Ms.]

[Footnote 27: "Et soror et conjux." - According to Garcilasso the
heir-apparent always married a sister.  (Com. Real., Parte 1,
lib. 4, cap. 9.) Ondegardo notices this as an innovation at the
close of the fifteenth century. (Relacion Primera, Ms.) The
historian of the Incas, however, is confirmed in his
extra-ordinary statement by Sarmiento.  Relacion, Ms., cap. 7.]
In his early years, the royal offspring was intrusted to the care
of the amautas, or "wise men," as the teachers of Peruvian
science were called, who instructed him in such elements of
knowledge as they possessed, and especially in the cumbrous
ceremonial of their religion, in which he was to take a prominent
part.  Great care was also bestowed on his military education, of
the last importance in a state which, with its professions of
peace and good-will, was ever at war for the acquisition of
empire.

In this military school he was educated with such of the Inca
nobles as were nearly of his own age; for the sacred name of Inca
- a fruitful source of obscurity in their annals - was applied
indifferently to all who descended by the male line from the
founder of the monarchy. *28 At the age of sixteen the pupils
underwent a public examination, previous to their admission to
what may be called the order of chivalry.  This examination was
conducted by some of the oldest and most illustrious Incas.  The
candidates were required to show their prowess in the athletic
exercises of the warrior; in wrestling and boxing, in running
such long courses as fully tried their agility and strength, in
severe fasts of several days' duration, and in mimic combats,
which, although the weapons were blunted, were always attended
with wounds, and sometimes with death.  During this trial, which
lasted thirty days, the royal neophyte fared no better than his
comrades, sleeping on the bare ground, going unshod, and wearing
a mean attire, - a mode of life, it was supposed, which might
tend to inspire him with more sympathy with the destitute.  With
all this show of impartiality, however, it will probably be doing
no injustice to the judges to suppose that a politic discretion
may have somewhat quickened their perceptions of the real merits
of the heir-apparent.

[Footnote 28: Garcilasso, Com. Real., Parte 1, lib. 1, cap. 26.]
At the end of the appointed time, the candidates selected as
worthy of the honors of their barbaric chivalry were presented to
the sovereign, who condescended to take a principal part in the
ceremony of inauguration.  He began with a brief discourse, in
which, after congratulating the young aspirants on the
proficiency they had shown in martial exercises, he reminded them
of the responsibilities attached to their birth and station; and,
addressing them affectionately as "children of the Sun," he
exhorted them to imitate their great progenitor in his glorious
career of beneficence to mankind.  The novices then drew near,
and, kneeling one by one before the Inca, he pierced their ears
with a golden bodkin; and this was suffered to remain there till
an opening had been made large enough for the enormous pendants
which were peculiar to their order, and which gave them, with the
Spaniards, the name of orejones. *29 This ornament was so massy
in the ears of the sovereign, that the cartilage was distended by
it nearly to the shoulder, producing what seemed a monstrous
deformity in the eyes of the Europeans, though, under the magical
influence of fashion, it was regarded as a beauty by the natives.

[Footnote 29: From oreja, "ear." - "Los caballeros de la sangre
Real tenian orejas horadadas, y de ellas colgando grandes rodetes
de plata y oro: Ilamaronles por esto los orejones los Castellanos
la primera vez que los vieron." (Montesinos, Memorias Antiguas
Historiales del Peru, Ms., lib. 2, cap. 6.) The ornament, which
was in the form of a wheel, did not depend from the ear, but was
inserted in the gristle of it, and was as large as an orange. "La
hacen tan ancha como una gran rosca de naranja; los Senores i
Principales traian aquellas roscas de oro fino en las orejas."
(Conq. i Pob. del Piru, Ms. - Also Garcilasso, Com. Real., Parte
1, lib. 1, cap. 22.) "The larger the hole," says one of the old
Conquerors, "the more of a gentleman!" Pedro Pizarro, Descub. y
Conq., Ms.]

When this operation was performed, one of the most venerable of
the nobles dressed the feet of the candidates in the sandals worn
by the order, which may remind us of the ceremony of buckling on
the spurs of the Christian knight.  They were then allowed to
assume the girdle or sash around the loins, corresponding with
the toga virilis of the Romans, and intimating that they had
reached the season of manhood.  Their heads were adorned with
garlands of flowers, which, by their various colors, were
emblematic of the clemency and goodness that should grace the
character of every true warrior; and the leaves of an evergreen
plant were mingled with the flowers, to show that these virtues
should endure without end. *30 The prince's head was further
ornamented by a fillet, or tasselled fringe, of a yellow color,
made of the fine threads of the vicuna wool, which encircled the
forehead as the peculiar insignia of the heir-apparent.  The
great body of the Inca nobility next made their appearance, and,
beginning with those nearest of kin, knelt down before the
prince, and did him homage as successor to the crown.  The whole
assembly then moved to the great square of the capital, where
songs, and dances, and other public festivities closed the
important ceremonial of the huaracu. *31

[Footnote 30: Garcilasso, Com. Real., Parte 1, lib. 6, cap. 27.]

[Footnote 31: Ibid. Parte 1, lib. 6, cap. 24 - 28.

According to Fernandez, the candidates wore white shirts, with
something like a cross embroidered in front!  (Historia del Peru,
(Sevilla, 1571,) Parte 2, lib. 3, cap. 6.) We may fancy ourselves
occupied with some chivalrous ceremonial of the Middle Ages.]

The reader will be less surprised by the resemblance which this
ceremonial bears to the inauguration of a Christian knight in the
feudal ages, if he reflects that a similar analogy may be traced
in the institutions of other people more or less civilized; and
that it is natural that nations, occupied with the one great
business of war, should mark the period, when the preparatory
education for it was ended, by similar characteristic ceremonies.
Having thus honorably passed through his ordeal, the
heir-apparent was deemed worthy to sit in the councils of his
father, and was employed in offices of trust at home, or, more
usually, sent on distant expeditions to practice in the field the
lessons which he had hitherto studied only on the mimic theatre
of war.  His first campaigns were conducted under the renowned
commanders who had grown grey in the service of his father;
until, advancing in years and experience, he was placed in
command himself, and, like Huayna Capac, the last and most
illustrious of his line, carried the banner of the rainbow, the
armorial ensign of his house, far over the borders, among the
remotest tribes of the plateau.

The government of Peru was a despotism, mild in its character,
but in its form a pure and unmitigated despotism.  The sovereign
was placed at an immeasurable distance above his subjects.  Even
the proudest of the Inca nobility, claiming a descent from the
same divine original as himself, could not venture into the royal
presence, unless barefoot, and bearing a light burden on his
shoulders in token of homage. *32 As the representative of the
Sun, he stood at the head of the priesthood, and presided at the
most important of the religious festivals. *33 He raised armies,
and usually commanded them in person.  He imposed taxes, made
laws, and provided for their execution by the appointment of
judges, whom he removed at pleasure. He was the source from which
every thing flowed, - all dignity, all power, all emolument.  He
was, in short, in the well-known phrase of the European despot,
"himself the state." *34

[Footnote 32: Zarate, Conq. del Peru, lib. 1, cap. 11. -
Sarmiento, Relacion, Ms., cap. 7.

"Porque verdaderamente a lo que yo he averiguado toda la
pretension de los Ingas fue una subjeccion en toda la gente, qual
yo nunca he oido decir de ninguna otra nacion en tanto grado, que
por muy principal que un Senor fuese, dende que entrava cerca del
Cuzco en cierta senal que estava puesta en cada camino de quatro
que hay, havia dende alli de venir cargado hasta la presencia del
Inga, y alli dejava la carga y hacia su obediencia." Ondegardo,
Rel. Prim., Ms.]

[Footnote 33: It was only at one of these festivals, and hardly
authorizes the sweeping assertion of Carli, that the royal and
sacerdotal authority were blended together in Peru.  We shall
see, hereafter, the important and independent position occupied
by the high-priest.  "La Sacerdoce et l'Empire etoient divises au
Mexique; au lieu qu'i's etoient reunis au Perou, comme au Tibet
et a la Chine, et comme il le fut a Rome, lorsqu' Auguste jetta
les fondemens de l'Empire, en y reunissant le Sacerdoce ou la
dignite de Souverain Pontife." Lettres Americaines, (Paris,
1788,) trad. Franc., tom I. let. 7.]

[Footnote 34: "Porque el Inga dava a entender que era hijo del
Sol, con este titulo se hacia adorar, i governava principalmente
en tanto grado que nadie se le atrevia, i su palabra era ley, i
nadie osaba ir contra su palabra ni voluntad; aunque obiese de
matar cient mill Indios, no havia ninguno en su Reino que le
osase decir que no lo hiciese." Conq. i Pob. del Piru, Ms.]
The Inca asserted his claims as a superior being by assuming a
pomp in his manner of living well calculated to impose on his
people.  His dress was of the finest wool of the vicuna, richly
dyed, and ornamented with a profusion of gold and precious
stones.  Round his head was wreathed a turban of many-colored
folds, called the Ilautu; and a tasselled fringe, like that worn
by the prince, but of a scarlet color, with two feathers of a
rare and curious bird, called the coraquenque, placed upright in
it, were the distinguishing insignia of royalty.  The birds from
which these feathers were obtained were found in a desert country
among the mountains; and it was death to destroy or to take them,
as they were reserved for the exclusive purpose of supplying the
royal head-gear.  Every succeeding monarch was provided with a
new pair of these plumes, and his credulous subjects fondly
believed that only two individuals of the species had ever
existed to furnish the simple ornament for the diadem of the
Incas. *35

[Footnote 35: Cieza de Leon, Cronica, cap. 114. - Garcilasso,
Com. Real., Parte 1, lib. 1, cap. 22; lib. 6, cap. 28. - Acosta,
lib. 6, cap. 12.]
Although the Peruvian monarch was raised so far above the highest
of his subjects, he condescended to mingle occasionally with
them, and took great pains personally to inspect the condition of
the humbler classes.  He presided at some of the religious
celebrations, and on these occasions entertained the great nobles
at his table, when he complimented them, after the fashion of
more civilized nations, by drinking the health of those whom he
most delighted to honor. *36

[Footnote 36: One would hardly expect to find among the American
Indians this social and kindly custom of our Saxon ancestors, -
now fallen somewhat out of use, in the capricious innovations of
modern fashion.  Garcilasso is diffuse in his account of the
forms observed at the royal table.  (Com. Real., Parte 1, lib. 6,
cap. 23.) The only hours of eating were at eight or nine in the
morning, and at sunset, which took place at nearly the same time,
in all seasons, in the latitude of Cuzco.  The historian of the
Incas admits that, though temperate in eating, they indulged
freely in their cups, frequently prolonging their revelry to a
late hour of the night.  Ibid., Parte 1, lib. 6, cap. 1.]

But the most effectual means taken by the Incas for communicating
with their people were their progresses through the empire.
These were conducted, at intervals of several years, with great
state and magnificence.  The sedan, or litter, in which they
travelled, richly emblazoned with gold and emeralds, was guarded
by a numerous escort.  The men who bore it on their shoulders
were provided by two cities, specially appointed for the purpose.
It was a post to be coveted by no one, if, as is asserted, a fall
was punished with death. *37 They travelled with ease and
expedition, halting at the tambos, or inns, erected by government
along the route, and occasionally at the royal palaces, which in
the great towns afforded ample accommodations to the whole of the
monarch's retinue.  The noble loads which traversed the
table-land were lined with people, who swept away the stones and
stubble from their surface, strewing them with sweet-scented
flowers, and vying with each other in carrying forward the
baggage from one village to another.  The monarch halted from
time to time to listen to the grievances of his subjects, or to
settle some points which had been referred to his decision by the
regular tribunals. As the princely train wound its way along the
mountain passes, every place was thronged with spectators eager
to catch a glimpse of their sovereign; and, when he raised the
curtains of his litter, and showed himself to their eyes, the air
was rent with acclamations as they invoked blessings on his head.
*38 Tradition long commemorated the spots at which he halted, and
the simple people of the country held them in reverence as places
consecrated by the presence of an Inca. *39

[Footnote 37: "In lectica, aureo tabulato constrata, humeris
ferebant; in summa, ea erat observantia, vt vultum ejus intueri
maxime incivile putarent, et inter baiulos, quicunque vel leviter
pede offenso haesitaret, e vestigio interficerent." Levinus
Apollonius, De Peruviae Regionis Inventione, et Rebus in eadem
gestis, (Antverpiae, 1567,) fol. 37. - Zarate, Conq. del Peru,
lib. 1, cap. 11.

According to this writer, the litter was carried by the nobles;
one thousand of whom were specially reserved for the humiliating
honor.  Ubi supra.]

[Footnote 38: The acclamations must have been potent indeed, if,
as Sarmiento tells us, they sometimes brought the birds down from
the sky!  "De esta manera eran tan temidos los Reyes que si
salian por el Reyno y permitian alzar algun pano de los que iban
en las andas para dejarse ver de sus vasallos, alzaban tan gran
alarido que hacian caer las aves de lo alto donde iban volando a
ser tomadas a manos." (Relacion, Ms., cap. 10.) The same author
has given in another place a more credible account of the royal
progresses, which the Spanish reader will find extracted in
Appendix, No. 1.]

[Footnote 39: Garcilasso, Com. Real., Parte 1, lib. 3, cap. 14;
lib. 6, cap. 3. - Zarate, Conq. del Peru, lib. 1, cap. 11.]

The royal palaces were on a magnificent scale, and, far from
being confined to the capital or a few principal towns, were
scattered over all the provinces of their vast empire. *40 The
buildings were low, but covered a wide extent of ground.  Some of
the apartments were spacious, but they were generally small, and
had no communication with one another, except that they opened
into a common square or court.  The walls were made of blocks of
stone of various sizes, like those described in the fortress of
Cuzco, rough-hewn, but carefully wrought near the line of
junction, which was scarcely visible to the eye.  The roofs were
of wood or rushes, which have perished under the rude touch of
time, that has shown more respect for the walls of the edifices.
The whole seems to have been characterized by solidity and
strength, rather than by any attempt at architectural elegance.
*41

[Footnote 40: Velasco has given some account of several of these
palaces situated in different places in the kingdom of Quito.
Hist. de Quito, tom. I. pp. 195 - 197.]

[Footnote 41: Cieza de Leon, Cronica, cap. 44. - Antig. y
Monumentos de. Peru, Ms. - See, among others, the description of
the remains still existing of the royal buildings at Callo, about
ten leagues south of Quito, by Ulloa, Voyage to S. America, book
6, ch. 11, and since, more carefully, by Humboldt, Vues des
Cordilleres, p. 197.]

But whatever want of elegance there may have been in the exterior
of the imperial dwellings, it was amply compensated by the
interior, in which all the opulence of the Peruvian princes was
ostentatiously displayed.  The sides of the apartments were
thickly studded with gold and silver ornaments. Niches, prepared
in the walls, were filled with images of animals and plants
curiously wrought of the same costly materials; and even much of
the domestic furniture, including the utensils devoted to the
most ordinary menial services, displayed the like wanton
magnificence! *42 With these gorgeous decorations were mingled
richly colored stuffs of the delicate manufacture of the Peruvian
wool, which were of so beautiful a texture, that the Spanish
sovereigns, with all the luxuries of Europe and Asia at their
command, did not disdain to use them. *43 The royal household
consisted of a throng of menials, supplied by the neighboring
towns and villages, which, as in Mexico, were bound to furnish
the monarch with fuel and other necessaries for the consumption
of the palace.

[Footnote 42: Garcilasso, Com. Real., Parte l, lib. 6, cap. 1.
"Tanto que todo el servicio de la Casa del Rey asi de cantaras
para su vino, como de cozina, todo era oro y plata, y esto no en
un lugar y en una parte lo tenia, sino en muchas." (Sarmiento,
Relacion, Ms., cap. 11.) See also the flaming accounts of the
palaces of Bilcas, to the west of Cuzco, by Cieza de Leon, as
reported to him by Spaniards who had seen them in their glory.
(Cronica, cap. 89.) The niches are still described by modern
travellers as to be found in the walls.  (Humboldt, Vues des
Cordilleres, p. 197.)]

[Footnote 43: "La ropa de la cama toda era de mantas, y frecadas
de lana de Vicuna, que es tan fina, y tan regalada, que entre
otras cosas preciadas de aquellas Tierras, se las han traido para
la cama del Rey Don Phelipe Segundo." Garcilasso, Com. Real.,
Parte 1. lib 6, cap. 1.]

But the favorite residence of the Incas was at Yucay, about four
leagues distant from the capital.  In this delicious valley,
locked up within the friendly arms of the sierra, which sheltered
it from the rude breezes of the east, and refreshed by gushing
fountains and streams of running water, they built the most
beautiful of their palaces.  Here, when wearied with the dust and
toil of the city, they loved to retreat, and solace themselves
with the society of their favorite concubines, wandering amidst
groves and airy gardens, that shed around their soft,
intoxicating odors, and lulled the senses to voluptuous repose.
Here, too, they loved to indulge in the luxury of their baths,
replenished by streams of crystal water which were conducted
through subterraneous silver channels into basins of gold.  The
spacious gardens were stocked with numerous varieties of plants
and flowers that grew without effort in this temperate region of
the tropics, while parterres of a more extraordinary kind were
planted by their side, glowing with the various forms of
vegetable life skilfully imitated in gold and silver!  Among them
the Indian corn, the most beautiful of American grains, is
particularly commemorated, and the curious workmanship is noticed
with which the golden ear was half disclosed amidst the broad
leaves of silver, and the light tassel of the same material that
floated gracefully from its top. *44

[Footnote 44: Garcilasso, Com. Real., Parte 1, lib. 5, cap. 26;
lib. 6, cap. 2 - Sarmiento, Relacion, Ms., cap. 24. - Cieza de
Leon, Cronica, cap. 94.

The last writer speaks of a cement, made in part of liquid gold,
as used in the royal buildings of Tambo, a valley not far from
Yucay!  (Ubi supra.) We may excuse the Spaniards for demolishing
such edifices, - if they ever met with them.]

If this dazzling picture staggers the faith of the reader, he may
reflect that the Peruvian mountains teemed with gold; that the
natives understood the art of working the mines, to a
considerable extent; that none of the ore, as well shall see
hereafter, was converted into coin, and that the whole of it
passed into the hands of the sovereign for his own exclusive
benefit, whether for purposes of utility or ornament.  Certain it
is that no fact is better attested by the Conquerors themselves,
who had ample means of information, and no motive for
misstatement. - The Italian poets, in their gorgeous pictures of
the gardens of Alcina and Morgana, came nearer the truth than
they imagined.
Our surprise, however, may reasonably be excited, when we
consider that the wealth displayed by the Peruvian princes was
only that which each had amassed individually for himself.  He
owed nothing to inheritance from his predecessors.  On the
decease of an Inca, his palaces were abandoned; all his
treasures, except what were employed in his obsequies, his
furniture and apparel, were suffered to remain as he left them,
and his mansions, save one, were closed up for ever.  The new
sovereign was to provide himself with every thing new for his
royal state.  The reason of this was the popular belief, that the
soul of the departed monarch would return after a time to
reanimate his body on earth; and they wished that he should find
every thing to which he had been used in life prepared for his
reception. *45

[Footnote 45: Acosta, lib. 6, cap. 12. - Garcilasso, Com. Real.,
Parte 1, lib. 6, cap. 4.]

When an Inca died, or, to use his own language, "was called home
to the mansions of his father, the Sun," *46 his obsequies were
celebrated with great pomp and solemnity.  The bowels were taken
from the body, and deposited in the temple of Tampu, about five
leagues from the capital.  A quantity of his plate and jewels was
buried with them, and a number of his attendants and favorite
concubines, amounting sometimes, it is said, to a thousand, were
immolated on his tomb. *47 Some of them showed the natural
repugnance to the sacrifice occasionally manifested by the
victims of a similar superstition in India. But these were
probably the menials and more humble attendants; since the women
have been known, in more than one instance, to lay violent hands
on themselves, when restrained from testifying their fidelity by
this act of conjugal martyrdom.  This melancholy ceremony was
followed by a general mourning throughout the empire.  At stated
intervals, for a year, the people assembled to renew the
expressions of their sorrow; processions were made, displaying
the banner of the departed monarch; bards and minstrels were
appointed to chronicle his achievements, and their songs
continued to be rehearsed at high festivals in the presence of
the reigning monarch, - thus stimulating the living by the
glorious example of the dead. *48

[Footnote 46: The Aztecs, also, believed that the soul of the
warrior who fell in battle went to accompany the Sun in his
bright progress through the heavens.  (See Conquest of Mexico,
book 1, chap. 3.)]

[Footnote 47: Conq. i Pob. del Piru, Ms. - Acosta, lib. 5, cap.
6.

Four thousand of these victims, according to Sarmiento, - we may
hope it is an exaggeration, - graced the funeral obsequies of
Huayna Capac, the last of the Incas before the coming of the
Spaniards.  Relacion, Ms., cap. 65.]

[Footnote 48: Cieza de Leon, Cronica, cap. 62. - Garcilasso, Com.
Real., Parte 1, lib. 6, cap. 5. - Sarmiento, Relacion, Ms., cap.
8.]

The body of the deceased Inca was skilfully embalmed, and removed
to the great temple of the Sun at Cuzco.  There the Peruvian
sovereign, on entering the awful sanctuary, might behold the
effigies of his royal ancestors, ranged in opposite files, - the
men on the right, and their queens on the left, of the great
luminary which blazed in refulgent gold on the walls of the
temple. The bodies, clothed in the princely attire which they had
been accustomed to wear, were placed on chairs of gold, and sat
with their heads inclined downward, their hands placidly crossed
over their bosoms, their countenances exhibiting their natural
dusky hue, - less liable to change than the fresher coloring of a
European complexion, - and their hair of raven black, or silvered
over with age, according to the period at which they died!  It
seemed like a company of solemn worshippers fixed in devotion, -
so true were the forms and lineaments to life.  The Peruvians
were as successful as the Egyptians in the miserable attempt to
perpetuate the existence of the body beyond the limits assigned
to it by nature. *49

[Footnote 49: Ondegardo, Rel. Prim., Ms. - Garcilasso, Com.
Real., Parte 1, lib. 5, cap. 29.

The Peruvians secreted these mummies of their sovereigns after
the Conquest, that they might not be profaned by the insults of
the Spaniards. Ondegardo, when corregidor of Cuzco, discovered
five of them, three male and two female.  The former were the
bodies of Viracocha, of the great Tupac Inca Yupanqui, and of his
son Huayna Capac.  Garcilasso saw them in 1560.  They were
dressed in their regal robes, with no insignia but the llautu on
their heads.  They were in a sitting posture, and, to use his own
expression, "perfect as life, without so much as a hair or an
eyebrow wanting." As they were carried through the streets,
decently shrouded with a mantle, the Indians threw themselves on
their knees, in sign of reverence, with many tears and groans,
and were still more touched as they beheld some of the Spaniards
themselves doffing their caps, in token of respect to departed
royalty. (Ibid., ubi supra.) The bodies were subsequently removed
to Lima; and Father Acosta, who saw them there some twenty years
later, speaks of them as still in perfect preservation.]

They cherished a still stranger illusion in the attentions which
they continued to pay to these insensible remains, as if they
were instinct with life.  One of the houses belonging to a
deceased Inca was kept open and occupied by his guard and
attendants, with all the state appropriate to royalty.  On
certain festivals, the revered bodies of the sovereigns were
brought out with great ceremony into the public square of the
capital. Invitations were sent by the captains of the guard of
the respective Incas to the different nobles and officers of the
court; and entertainments were provided in the names of their
masters, which displayed all the profuse magnificence of their
treasures, - and "such a display," says an ancient chronicler,
"was there in the great square of Cuzco, on this occasion, of
gold and silver plate and jewels, as no other city in the world
ever witnessed." *50 The banquet was served by the menials of the
respective households, and the guests partook of the melancholy
cheer in the presence of the royal phantom with the same
attention to the forms of courtly etiquette as if the living
monarch had presided! *51

[Footnote 50: "Tenemos por muy cierto que ni en Jerusalem, Roma,
ni en Persia, ni en ninguna parte del mundo por ninguna Republica
ni Rey de el, se juntaba en un lugar tanta riqueza de Metales de
oro y Plata y Pedreria como en esta Plaza del Cuzco; quando estas
fiestas y otras semejantes se hacian." Sarmiento, Relacion, Ms.,
cap. 27.]

[Footnote 51: Idem, Relacion, Ms., cap. 8, 27. - Ondegardo, Rel.
Seg., Ms.

It was only, however, the great and good princes that were thus
honored, according to Sarmiento, "whose souls the silly people
fondly believed, on account of their virtues, were in heaven,
although, in truth," as the same writer assures us, "they were
all the time burning in the flames of hell"! "Digo los que
haviendo sido en vida buenos y valerosos, generosos con los
Indios en les hacer mercedes, perdonadores de injurias, porque a
estos tales canonizaban en su ceguedad por Santos y honrraban sus
huesos, sin entender que las animas ardian en los Ynfiernos y
creian que estaban en el Cielo." Ibid., ubi supra.]

The nobility of Peru consisted of two orders, the first and by
far the most important of which was that of the Incas, who,
boasting a common descent with their sovereign, lived, as it
were, in the reflected light of his glory. As the Peruvian
monarchs availed themselves of the right of polygamy to a very
liberal extent, leaving behind them families of one or even two
hundred children, *52 the nobles of the blood royal, though
comprehending only their descendants in the male line, came in
the course of years to be very numerous. *53 They were divided
into different lineages, each of which traced its pedigree to a
different member of the royal dynasty, though all terminated in
the divine founder of the empire.

[Footnote 52: Garcilasso says over three hundred!  (Com. Real.,
Parte 1, lib. 3, cap. 19.) The fact, though rather startling, is
not incredible, if, like Huayna Capac, they counted seven hundred
wives in their seraglio.  See Sarmiento, Relacion, Ms., cap. 7.]

[Footnote 53: Garcilasso mentions a class of Incas por
privilegio, who were allowed to possess the name and many of the
immunities of the blood royal, though only descended from the
great vassals that first served under the banner of Manco Capac.
(Com. Real., Parte 1, lib. 1, cap. 22.) This important fact, to
which he often refers, one would be glad to see confirmed by a
single authority.]

They were distinguished by many exclusive and very important
privileges; they wore a peculiar dress; spoke a dialect, if we
may believe the chronicler, peculiar to themselves; *54 and had
the choicest portion of the public domain assigned for their
support.  They lived, most of them, at court, near the person of
the prince, sharing in his counsels, dining at his board, or
supplied from his table.  They alone were admissible to the great
offices in the priesthood.  They were invested with the command
of armies, and of distant garrisons, were placed over the
provinces, and, in short, filled every station of high trust and
emolument. *55 Even the laws, severe in their general tenor, seem
not to have been framed with reference to them; and the people,
investing the whole order with a portion of the sacred character
which belonged to the sovereign, held that an Inca noble was
incapable of crime. *56

[Footnote 54: "Los Incas tuvieron otra Lengua particular, que
hablavan entre ellos, que no la entendian los demas Indios, ni
les era licito aprenderla, como Lenguage Divino.  Esta me
escriven del Peru, que se ha perdido totalmente; porque como
perecio la Republica particular de los Incas, perecio tambien el
Lenguage dellos." Garcilasso, Com. Real., Parte 1, lib. 7, cap.
1]

[Footnote 55: "Una sola gente hallo yo que era exenta, que eran
los Ingas del Cuzco y por alli al rededor de ambas parcialidades,
porque estos no solo no pagavan tributo, pero aun comian de lo
que traian al Inga de todo el reino, y estos eran por la mayor
parte los Governadores en todo el reino, y por donde quiera que
iban se les hacia mucha honrra." Ondegardo, Rel. Prim., Ms.]

[Footnote 56: Garcilasso, Com. Real., Parte I, lib. 2, cap. 15.]
The other order of nobility was the Curacas, the caciques of the
conquered nations, or their descendants.  They were usually
continued by the government in their places, though they were
required to visit the capital occasionally, and to allow their
sons to be educated there as the pledges of their loyalty.  It is
not easy to define the nature or extent of their privileges.
They were possessed of more or less power, according to the
extent of their patrimony, and the number of their vassals.
Their authority was usually transmitted from father to son,
though sometimes the successor was chosen by the people. *57 They
did not occupy the highest posts of state, or those nearest the
person of the sovereign, like the nobles of the blood. Their
authority seems to have been usually local, and always in
subordination to the territorial jurisdiction of the great
provincial governors, who were taken from the Incas. *58

[Footnote 57: In this event, it seems, the successor named was
usually presented to the Inca for confirmation.  (Dec. de la Aud.
Real., Ms.) At other times, the Inca himself selected the heir
from among the children of the deceased Curaca.  "In short," says
Ondegardo, "there was no rule of succession so sure, but it might
be set aside by the supreme will of the sovereign.' Rel. Prim.,
Ms.]

[Footnote 58: Garcilasso, Com. Real., Parte 1, lib. 4, cap. 10. -
Sarmiento, Relacion, Ms., cap. 11 - Dec. de la Aud. Real., Ms. -
Cieza de Leon, Cronica, cap. 93. - Conq. i Pob. del Piru, Ms.]

It was the Inca nobility, indeed, who constituted the real
strength of the Peruvian monarchy.  Attached to their prince by
ties of consanguinity, they had common sympathies and, to a
considerable extent, common interests with him.  Distinguished by
a peculiar dress and insignia, as well as by language and blood,
from the rest of the community, they were never confounded with
the other tribes and nations who were incorporated into the great
Peruvian monarchy.  After the lapse of centuries, they still
retained their individuality as a peculiar people.  They were to
the conquered races of the country what the Romans were to the
barbarous hordes of the Empire, or the Normans to the ancient
inhabitants of the British Isles.  Clustering around the throne,
they formed an invincible phalanx, to shield it alike from secret
conspiracy and open insurrection.  Though living chiefly in the
capital, they were also distributed throughout the country in all
its high stations and strong military posts, thus establishing
lines of communication with the court, which enabled the
sovereign to act simultaneously and with effect on the most
distant quarters of his empire.  They possessed, moreover, an
intellectual preeminence, which, no less than their station, gave
them authority with the people.  Indeed, it may be said to have
been the principal foundation of their authority.  The crania of
the Inca race show a decided superiority over the other races of
the land in intellectual power; *59 and it cannot be denied that
it was the fountain of that peculiar civilization and social
polity, which raised the Peruvian monarchy above every other
state in South America.  Whence this remarkable race came, and
what was its early history, are among those mysteries that meet
us so frequently in the annals of the New World, and which time
and the antiquary have as vet done little to explain.

[Footnote 59: Dr. Morton's valuable work contains several
engravings of both the Inca and the common Peruvian skull,
showing that the facial angle in the former, though by no means
great, was much larger than that in the latter, which was
singularly flat and deficient in intellectual character.  Crania
Americana, (Philadelphia, 1829.)]




Chapter II

Orders Of The State. - Provisions For Justice. - Division Of
Lands. - Revenues And Registers. - Great Roads And Posts. -
Military Tactics And Policy.


If we are surprised at the peculiar and original features of what
may be called the Peruvian aristocracy, we shall be still more so
as we descend to the lower orders of the community, and see the
very artificial character of their institutions, - as artificial
as those of ancient Sparta, and, though in a different way, quite
as repugnant to the essential principles of our nature. The
institutions of Lycurgus, however, were designed for a petty
state, while those of Peru, although originally intended for
such, seemed, like the magic tent in the Arabian tale, to have an
indefinite power of expansion, and were as well suited to the
most flourishing condition of the empire as to its infant
fortunes.  In this remarkable accommodation to change of
circumstances we see the proofs of a contrivance that argues no
slight advance in civilization.

The name of Peru was not known to the natives.  It was given by
the Spaniards, and originated, it is said, in a misapprehension
of the Indian name of "river." *1 However this may be, it is
certain that the natives had no other epithet by which to
designate the large collection of tribes and nations who were
assembled under the sceptre of the Incas, than that of
Tavantinsuyu, or "four quarters of the world." *2 This will not
surprise a citizen of the United States, who has no other name by
which to class himself among nations than what is borrowed from a
quarter of the globe. *3 The kingdom, conformably to its name,
was divided into four parts, distinguished each by a separate
title, and to each of which ran one of the four great roads that
diverged from Cuzco, the capital or navel of the Peruvian
monarchy.  The city was in like manner divided into four
quarters; and the various races, which gathered there from the
distant parts of the empire, lived each in the quarter nearest to
its respective province.  They all continued to wear their
peculiar national costume, so that it was easy to determine their
origin; and the same order and system of arrangement prevailed in
the motley population of the capital, as in the great provinces
of the empire.  The capital, in fact, was a miniature image of
the empire. *4

[Footnote 1: Pelu, according to Garcilasso, was the Indian name
for "river," and was given by one of the natives in answer to a
question put to him by the Spaniards, who conceived it to be the
name of the country.  (Com. Real., Parte 1, lib. 1, cap. 6.) Such
blunders have led to the names of many places both in North and
South America.  Montesinos, however, denies that there is such an
Indian term for "river." (Mem. Antiguas, Ms., lib. 1, cap. 2.)
According to this writer, Peru was the ancient Ophir, whence
Solomon drew such stores of wealth; and which, by a very natural
transition, has in time been corrupted into Phiru, Piru, Peru!
The first book of the Memorias, consisting of thirty-two
chapters, is devoted to this precious discovery.]

[Footnote 2: Ondegardo, Rel. Prim., Ms. - Garcilasso, Com Real.,
Parte 1, lib. 2, cap. 11.]

[Footnote 3: Yet an American may find food for his vanity in the
reflection, that the name of a quarter of the globe, inhabited by
so many civilized nations, has been exclusively conceded to him.
- Was it conceded or assumed?]

[Footnote 4: Ibid., parte 1, cap. 9, 10. - Cieza de Leon,
Cronica, cap. 93.

The capital was further divided into two parts, the Upper and
Lower town, founded, as pretended, on the different origin of the
population; a division recognized also in the inferior cities.
Ondegardo, Rel. Seg., Ms.]
The four great provinces were each placed under a viceroy or
governor, who ruled over them with the assistance of one or more
councils for the different departments.  These viceroys resided,
some portion of their time, at least, in the capital, where they
constituted a sort of council of state to the Inca. *5 The nation
at large was distributed into decades, or small bodies of ten;
and every tenth man, or head of a decade, had supervision of the
rest, - being required to see that they enjoyed the rights and
immunities to which they were entitled, to solicit aid in their
behalf from government, when necessary, and to bring offenders to
justice.  To this last they were stimulated by a law that imposed
on them, in case of neglect, the same penalty that would have
been incurred by the guilty party.  With this law hanging over
his head, the magistrate of Peru, we may well believe, did not
often go to sleep on his post. *6

[Footnote 5: Dec. de la Aud. Real., Ms. - Garcilasso, Com. Real.,
Parte 1, lib. 2, cap. 15.

For this account of the councils I am indebted to Garcilasso, who
frequently fills up gaps that have been left by his
fellow-laborers.  Whether the filling up will, in all cases, bear
the touch of time, as well as the rest of his work, one may
doubt.]

[Footnote 6: Dec. de la Aud. Real., Ms. - Montesinos, Mem.
Antiguas, Ms., lib. 2, cap. 6. - Ondegardo, Rel. Prim., Ms.

How analogous is the Peruvian to the Anglo-Saxon division into
hundreds and tithings!  But the Saxon law was more humane, which
imposed only a fine on the district, in case of a criminal's
escape.]

The people were still further divided into bodies of fifty, one
hundred, five hundred, and a thousand, with each an officer
having general supervision over those beneath, and the higher
ones possessing, to a certain extent, authority in matters of
police.  Lastly, the whole empire was distributed into sections
or departments of ten thousand inhabitants, with a governor over
each, from the Inca nobility, who had control over the curacas
and other territorial officers in the district.  There were,
also, regular tribunals of justice, consisting of magistrates in
each of the towns or small communities, with jurisdiction over
petty offences, while those of a graver character were carried
before superior judges, usually the governors or rulers of the
districts.  These judges all held their authority and received
their support from the Crown, by which they were appointed and
removed at pleasure.  They were obliged to determine every suit
in five days from the time it was brought before them; and there
was no appeal from one tribunal to another.  Yet there were
important provisions for the security of justice. A committee of
visitors patrolled the kingdom at certain times to investigate
the character and conduct of the magistrates; and any neglect or
violation of duty was punished in the most exemplary manner.  The
inferior courts were also required to make monthly returns of
their proceedings to the higher ones, and these made reports in
like manner to the viceroys; so that the monarch, seated in the
centre of his dominions, could look abroad, as it were, to their
most distant extremities, and review and rectify any abuses in
the administration of the law. *7

[Footnote 7: Dec. de la Aud. Real., Ms. - Ondegardo, Rel. Prim.
et Seg., Mss. - Garcilasso, Com. Real., Parte 1, lib. 2, cap.
11-14. - Montesinos, Mem. Antiguas, Ms., lib. 2, cap. 6.

The accounts of the Peruvian tribunals by the early authorities
are very meagre and unsatisfactory.  Even the lively imagination
of Garcilasso has failed to supply the blank.]

The laws were few and exceedingly severe.  They related almost
wholly to criminal matters.  Few other laws were needed by a
people who had no money, little trade, and hardly any thing that
could be called fixed property.  The crimes of theft, adultery,
and murder were all capital; though it was wisely provided that
some extenuating circumstances might be allowed to mitigate the
punishment. *8 Blasphemy against the Sun, and malediction of the
Inca, - offences, indeed, of the same complexion, - were also
punished with death. Removing landmarks, turning the water away
from a neighbour's land into one's own, burning a house, were all
severely punished.  To burn a bridge was death. The Inca allowed
no obstacle to those facilities of communication so essential to
the maintenance of public order.  A rebellious city or province
was laid waste, and its inhabitants exterminated.  Rebellion
against the "Child of the Sun" was the greatest of all crimes. *9

[Footnote 8: Ondegardo, Rel. Prim., Ms. - Herrera, Hist. General,
dec. 5, lib. 4, cap 3.

Theft was punished less severely, if the offender had been really
guilty of it to supply the necessities of life.  It is a singular
circumstance, that the Peruvian law made no distinction between
fornication and adultery, both being equally punished with death.
Yet the law could hardly have been enforced, since prostitutes
were assigned, or at least allowed, a residence in the suburbs of
the cities.  See Garcilasso, Com Real., Parte 1, lib. 4, cap.
34.]

[Footnote 9: Sarmiento, Relacion, Ms., cap. 23.

"I los traidores entre ellos llamava aucaes, i esta palabra es la
mas abiltada de todas quantas pueden decir aun Indio del Piru,
que quiere decir traidor a su Senor." (Cong. i Pob. del Piru,
Ms.) "En las rebeliones y alzamientos se hicieron los castigos
tan asperos, que algunas veces asolaron las provincias de todos
los varones de edad sin quedar ninguno." Ondegardo, Rel. Prim.,
Ms.]

The simplicity and severity of the Peruvian code may be thought
to infer a state of society but little advanced; which had few of
those complex interests and relations that grow up in a civilized
community, and which had not proceeded far enough in the science
of legislation to economize human suffering by proportioning
penalties to crimes.  But the Peruvian institutions must be
regarded from a different point of view from that in which we
study those of other nations.  The laws emanated from the
sovereign, and that sovereign held a divine commission, and was
possessed of a divine nature.  To violate the law was not only to
insult the majesty of the throne, but it was sacrilege.  The
slightest offence, viewed in this light, merited death; and the
gravest could incur no heavier penalty. *10 Yet, in the
infliction of their punishments, they showed no unnecessary
cruelty; and the sufferings of the victim were not prolonged by
the ingenious torments so frequent among barbarous nations. *11

[Footnote 10: "El castigo era riguroso, que por la mayor parte
era de muerte, por liviano que fuese el delito; porque decian,
que no los castigavan por el delito que avian hecho, ni por la
ofensa agena, sino por aver quebrantado el mandamiento, y rompido
la palabra del Inca, que lo respetavan como a Dios." Garcilasso,
Com. Real. Parte 1, lib. 2. cap. 12.]

[Footnote 11: One of the punishments most frequent for minor
offences was to carry a stone on the back.  A punishment attended
with no suffering but what arises from the disgrace attached to
it is very justly characterized by McCulloh as a proof of
sensibility and refinement.  Researches, p. 361.]
These legislative provisions may strike us as very defective,
even as compared with those of the semi-civilized races of
Anahuac, where a gradation of courts, moreover, with the right of
appeal, afforded a tolerable security for justice.  But in a
country like Peru, where few but criminal causes were known, the
right of appeal was of less consequence.  The law was simple, its
application easy; and, where the judge was honest, the case was
as likely to be determined correctly on the first hearing as on
the second.  The inspection of the board of visitors, and the
monthly returns of the tribunals, afforded no slight guaranty for
their integrity.  The law which required a decision within five
days would seem little suited to the complex and embarrassing
litigation of a modern tribunal.  But, in the simple questions
submitted to the Peruvian judge, delay would have been useless;
and the Spaniards, familiar with the evils growing out of
long-protracted suits, where the successful litigant is too often
a ruined man, are loud in their encomiums of this swift-handed
and economical justice. *12

[Footnote 12: The Royal Audience of Peru under Philip II. - there
cannot be a higher authority - bears emphatic testimony to the
cheap and efficient administration of justice under the Incas.
"De suerte que los vicios eran bien castigados y la gente estaba
bien sujeta y obediente; y aunque en las dichas penas havia
esceso, redundaba en buen govierno y policia suya, y mediante
ella eran aumentados. . . . . . Porque los Yndios alababan la
governacion del Ynga, y aun los Espanoles que algo alcanzan de
ella, es porque todas las cosas susodichas se de terminaban sin
hacerles costas" Dec. de la Aud. Real., Ms.]

The fiscal regulations of the Incas, and the laws respecting
property, are the most remarkable features in the Peruvian
polity.  The whole territory of the empire was divided into three
parts, one for the Sun, another for the Inca, and the last for
the people.  Which of the three was the largest is doubtful.  The
proportions differed materially in different provinces.  The
distribution, indeed, was made on the same general principle, as
each new conquest was added to the monarchy; but the proportion
varied according to the amount of population, and the greater or
less amount of land consequently required for the support of the
inhabitants. *13

[Footnote 13: Acosta, lib. 6, cap. 15. - Garcilasso, Com. Real.,
Parte 1, lib. 5, cap. 1.

"Si estas partes fuesen iguales, o qual fuese mayor, yo lo he
procurado averiguar, y en unas es diferente de otras, y finalmte
yo tengo entendido que se hacia conforme a la disposicion de la
tierra y a la calidad de los Indios" Ondegardo, Rel Prim., Ms]

The lands assigned to the Sun furnished a revenue to support the
temples, and maintain the costly ceremonial of the Peruvian
worship and the multitudinous priesthood.  Those reserved for the
Inca went to support the royal state, as well as the numerous
members of his household and his kindred, and supplied the
various exigencies of government.  The remainder of the lands was
divided, per capita, in equal shares among the people.  It was
provided by law, as we shall see hereafter, that every Peruvian
should marry at a certain age.  When this event took place, the
community or district in which he lived furnished him with a
dwelling, which, as it was constructed of humble materials, was
done at little cost.  A lot of land was then assigned to him
sufficient for his own maintenance and that of his wife. An
additional portion was granted for every child, the amount
allowed for a son being the double of that for a daughter.  The
division of the soil was renewed every year, and the possessions
of the tenant were increased or diminished according to the
numbers in his family. *14 The same arrangement was observed with
reference to the curacas, except only that a domain was assigned
to them corresponding with the superior dignity of their stations
*15

[Footnote 14: Ondegardo, Rel. Prim., Ms. - Garcilasso, Com.
Real., Parte 1, lib. 5, cap. 2.

The portion granted to each new-married couple, according to
Garcilasso, was a fanega and a half of land.  A similar quantity
was added for each male child that was born; and half of the
quantity for each female.  The fanega was as much land as could
be planted with a hundred weight of Indian corn. In the fruitful
soil of Peru, this was a liberal allowance for a family.]

[Footnote 15: Ibid., Parte 1, lib. 5, cap. 3.

It is singular, that while so much is said of the Inca sovereign,
so little should be said of the Inca nobility, of their estates,
or the tenure by which they held them.  Their historian tells us,
that they had the best of the lands, wherever they resided,
besides the interest which they had in those of the Sun and the
Inca, as children of the one, and kinsmen of the other.  He
informs us, also, that they were supplied from the royal table,
when living at court.  (lib. 6, cap. 3.) But this is very loose
language. The student of history will learn, on the threshold,
that he is not to expect precise, or even very consistent,
accounts of the institutions of a barbarous age and people from
contemporary annalists.]

A more thorough and effectual agrarian law than this cannot be
imagined. In other countries where such a law has been
introduced, its operation, after a time, has given way to the
natural order of events, and, under the superior intelligence and
thrift of some and the prodigality of others, the usual
vicissitudes of fortune have been allowed to take their course,
and restore things to their natural inequality.  Even the iron
law of Lycurgus ceased to operate after a time, and melted away
before the spirit of luxury and avarice. The nearest approach to
the Peruvian constitution was probably in Judea, where, on the
recurrence of the great national jubilee, at the close of every
half-century, estates reverted to their original proprietors.
There was this important difference in Peru; that not only did
the lease, if we may so call it, terminate with the year, but
during that period the tenant had no power to alienate or to add
to his possessions.  The end of the brief term found him in
precisely the same condition that he was in at the beginning.
Such a state of things might be supposed to be fatal to any thing
like attachment to the soil, or to that desire of improving it,
which is natural to the permanent proprietor, and hardly less so
to the holder of a long lease.  But the practical operation of
the law seems to have been otherwise; and it is probable, that,
under the influence of that love of order and aversion to change
which marked the Peruvian institutions, each new partition of the
soil usually confirmed the occupant in his possession, and the
tenant for a year was converted into a proprietor for life.

The territory was cultivated wholly by the people.  The lands
belonging to the Sun were first attended to.  They next tilled
the lands of the old, of the sick, of the window and the orphan,
and of soldiers engaged in actual service; in short, of all that
part of the community who, from bodily infirmity or any other
cause, were unable to attend to their own concerns. The people
were then allowed to work on their own ground, each man for
himself, but with the general obligation to assist his neighbour,
when any circumstance - the burden of a young and numerous
family, for example - might demand it. *16 Lastly, they
cultivated the lands of the Inca.  This was done, with great
ceremony, by the whole population in a body.  At break of day,
they were summoned together by proclamation from some
neighbouring tower or eminence, and all the inhabitants of the
district, men, women, and children, appeared dressed in their
gayest apparel, bedecked with their little store of finery and
ornaments, as if for some great jubilee.  They went through the
labors of the day with the same joyous spirit, chanting their
popular ballads which commemorated the heroic deeds of the Incas,
regulating their movements by the measure of the chant, and all
mingling in the chorus, of which the word hailli, or "triumph,"
was usually the burden.  These national airs had something soft
and pleasing in their character, that recommended them to the
Spaniards; and many a Peruvian song was set to music by them
after the Conquest, and was listened to by the unfortunate
natives with melancholy satisfaction, as it called up
recollections of the past, when their days glided peacefully away
under the sceptre of the Incas. *17

[Footnote 16: Garcilasso relates that an Indian was hanged by
Huayna Capac for tilling a curaca's ground, his near relation,
before that of the poor. The gallows was erected on the curaca's
own land.  Ibid., Parte 1, lib. 5, cap. 2.]

[Footnote 17: Ibid., Parte 1, lib. 5, cap. 1-3. - Ondegardo, Rel.
Seg., Ms.]

A similar arrangement prevailed with respect to the different
manufactures as to the agricultural products of the country.  The
flocks of llamas, or Peruvian sheep, were appropriated
exclusively to the Sun and to the Inca. *18 Their number was
immense.  They were scattered over the different provinces,
chiefly in the colder regions of the country, where they were
intrusted to the care of experienced shepherds, who conducted
them to different pastures according to the change of season.  A
large number was every year sent to the capital for the
consumption of the Court, and for the religious festivals and
sacrifices.  But these were only the males, as no female was
allowed to be killed.  The regulations for the care and breeding
of these flocks were prescribed with the greatest minuteness, and
with a sagacity which excited the admiration of the Spaniards,
who were familiar with the management of the great migratory
flocks of merinos in their own country. *19

[Footnote 18: Ondegardo, Rel. Prim., Ms.

Yet sometimes the sovereign would recompense some great chief, or
even some one among the people, who had rendered him a service,
by the grant of a small number of llamas, - never many.  These
were not to be disposed of or killed by their owners, but
descended as common property to their heirs. This strange
arrangement proved a fruitful source of litigation after the
Conquest. Ibid., ubi supra.]

[Footnote 19: See especially the account of the Licentiate
Ondegardo, who goes into more detail than any contemporary
writer, concerning the management of the Peruvian flocks.  Rel.
Seg., Ms.]

At the appointed season, they were all sheared, and the wool was
deposited in the public magazines.  It was then dealt out to each
family in such quantities as sufficed for its wants, and was
consigned to the female part of the household, who were well
instructed in the business of spinning and weaving When this
labor was accomplished, and the family was provided with a coarse
but warm covering, suited to the cold climate of the mountains, -
for, in the lower country, cotton, furnished in like manner by
the Crown, took the place, to a certain extent, of wool, - the
people were required to labor for the Inca.  The quantity of the
cloth needed, as well as the peculiar kind and quality of the
fabric, was first determined at Cuzco.  The work was then
apportioned among the different provinces.  Officers, appointed
for the purpose, superintended the distribution of the wool, so
that the manufacture of the different articles should be
intrusted to the most competent hands. *20 They did not leave the
matter here but entered the dwellings, from time to time, and saw
that the work was faithfully executed. This domestic inquisition
was not confined to the labors for the Inca.  It included, also,
those for the several families; and care was taken that each
household should employ the materials furnished for its own use
in the manner that was intended, so that no one should be
unprovided with necessary apparel. *21 In this domestic labor all
the female part of the establishment was expected to join.
Occupation was found for all, from the child five years old to
the aged matron not too infirm to hold a distaff.  No one, at
least none but the decrepit and the sick, was allowed to eat the
bread of idleness in Peru.  Idleness was a crime in the eye of
the law, and, as such, severely punished; while industry was
publicly commended and stimulated by rewards. *22

[Footnote 20: Ondegardo, Rel. Prim. et Seg., Mss.

The manufacture of cloths for the Inca included those for the
numerous persons of the blood royal, who wore garments of a finer
texture than was permitted to any other Peruvian.  Garcilasso,
Com. Real., Parte 1, lib. 5, cap. 6.]

[Footnote 21: Ondegardo, Rel. Seg., Ms - Acosta, lib. 6, cap.
15.]

[Footnote 22: Ondegardo, Rel. Seg., Ms - Garcilasso, Com. Real.,
Parte 1 lib. 5, cap. 11.]

The like course was pursued with reference to the other
requisitions of the government.  All the mines in the kingdom
belonged to the Inca.  They were wrought exclusively for his
benefit, by persons familiar with this service, and selected from
the districts where the mines were situated. *23 Every Peruvian
of the lower class was a husbandman, and, with the exception of
those already specified, was expected to provide for his own
support by the cultivation of his land.  A small portion of the
community, however, was instructed in mechanical arts; some of
them of the more elegant kind, subservient to the purposes of
luxury and ornament.  The demand for these was chiefly limited to
the sovereign and his Court; but the labor of a larger number of
hands was exacted for the execution of the great public works
which covered the land.  The nature and amount of the services
required were all determined at Cuzco by commissioners well
instructed in the resources of the country, and in the character
of the inhabitants of different provinces. *24

[Footnote 23: Garcilasso would have us believe that the Inca was
indebted to the curacas for his gold and silver, which were
furnished by the great vassals as presents.  (Com. Real., Parte
1, lib. 5, cap. 7.) This improbable statement is contradicted by
the Report of the Royal Audience, Ms., by Sarmiento, (Relacion,
Ms., cap. 15,) and by Ondegardo, (Rel. Prim., Ms.) who all speak
of the mines as the property of the government, and wrought
exclusively for its benefit.  From this reservoir the proceeds
were liberally dispensed in the form of presents among the great
lords, and still more for the embellishment of the temples.]

[Footnote 24: Garcilasso, Com. Real., Parte 1, lib. 5, cap. 13 -
16. - Ondegardo, Rel. Prim. et Seg., Mss.]

This information was obtained by an admirable regulation, which
has scarcely a counterpart in the annals of a semi-civilized
people.  A register was kept of all the births and deaths
throughout the country, and exact returns of the actual
population were made to government every year, by means of the
quipus, a curious invention, which will be explained hereafter.
*25 At certain intervals, also, a general survey of the country
was made, exhibiting a complete view of the character of the
soil, its fertility, the nature of its products, both
agricultural and mineral, - in short, of all that constituted the
physical resources of the empire. *26 Furnished with these
statistical details, it was easy for the government, after
determining the amount of requisitions, to distribute the work
among the respective provinces best qualified to execute it.  The
task of apportioning the labor was assigned to the local
authorities, and great care was taken that it should be done in
such a manner, that, while the most competent hands were
selected, it should not fall disproportionately heavy on any. *27

[Footnote 25: Montesinos, Mem. Antiguas, Ms., lib. 2, cap. 6. -
Pedro Pizarro, Relacion del Descubrimiento y Conquista de los
Reynos del Peru, Ms.

"Cada provincia, en fin del ano, mandava asentar en los quipos,
por la cuenta de sus nudos, todos los hombres que habian muerto
en ella en aquel ano, y por el consiguiente los que habian
nacido, y por principio del ano que entraba, venian con los
quipos al Cuzco." Sarmiento, Relacion Ms., cap. 16.]

[Footnote 26: Garcilasso, Com. Real. Parte 1, lib. 2, cap. 14.]

[Footnote 27: Ondegardo, Rel. Prim., Ms. - Sarmiento, Rel., Ms.,
cap. 15.

"Presupuesta y entendida la dicha division que el Inga tenia
hecha de su gente, y orden que tenia puesta en el govierno de
ella, era muy facil haverla en la division y cobranza de los
dichos tributos; porque era claro y cierto lo que a cada uno
cabia sin que hubiese desigualdad ni engano." Dec. de la Aud.
Real., Ms.]

The different provinces of the country furnished persons
peculiarly suited to different employments, which, as we shall
see hereafter, usually descended from father to son.  Thus, one
district supplied those most skilled in working the mines,
another the most curious workers in metals, or in wood, and so
on. *28 The artisan was provided by government with the
materials; and no one was required to give more than a stipulated
portion of his time to the public service.  He was then succeeded
by another for the like term; and it should be observed, that all
who were engaged in the employment of the government - and the
remark applies equally to agricultural labor - were maintained,
for the time, at the public expense. *29 By this constant
rotation of labor, it was intended that no one should be
overburdened, and that each man should have time to provide for
the demands of his own household.  It was impossible - in the
judgment of a high Spanish authority - to improve on the system
of distribution, so carefully was it accommodated to the
condition and comfort of the artisan. *30 The security of the
working classes seems to have been ever kept in view in the
regulations of the government; and these were so discreetly
arranged, that the most wearing and unwholesome labors, as those
of the mines, occasioned no detriment to the health of the
laborer; a striking contrast to his subsequent condition under
the Spanish rule. *31

[Footnote 28: Sarmiento, Relacion, Ms., cap. 15. - Ondegardo,
Rel. Seg., Ms.]

[Footnote 29: Ondegardo, Rel. Prim., Ms. - Garcilasso, Com.
Real., Parte 1, lib. 5, cap. 5.]

[Footnote 30: "Y tambien se tenia cuenta que el trabajo que
pasavan fuese moderado, y con el menos riesgo que fuese posible.
. . . . . . Era tanta la orden que tuvieron estos Indios, que a
mi parecer aunque mucho se piense en ello Seria dificultoso
mejorarla conocida su condicion y costumbres." Ondegardo, Rel.
Prim., Ms.]

[Footnote 31: "The working of the mines," says the President of
the Council of the Indies, "was so regulated that no one felt it
a hardship, much less was his life shortened by it." (Sarmiento,
Relacion, Ms., cap. 15) It is a frank admission for a Spaniard.]

A part of the agricultural produce and manufactures was
transported to Cuzco, to minister to the immediate demands of the
Inca and his Court.  But far the greater part was stored in
magazines scattered over the different provinces.  These spacious
buildings, constructed of stone, were divided between the Sun and
the Inca, though the greater share seems to have been
appropriated by the monarch.  By a wise regulation, any
deficiency in the contributions of the Inca might be supplied
from the granaries of the Sun. *32 But such a necessity could
rarely have happened; and the providence of the government
usually left a large surplus in the royal depositories, which was
removed to a third class of magazines, whose design was to supply
the people in seasons of scarcity, and, occasionally, to furnish
relief to individuals, whom sickness or misfortune had reduced to
poverty; thus, in a manner, justifying the assertion of a
Castilian document, that a large portion of the revenues of the
Inca found its way back again, through one channel or another,
into the hands of the people. *33 These magazines were found by
the Spaniards, on their arrival, stored with all the various
products and manufactures of the country, - with maize, coca,
quinua, woollen and cotton stuffs of the finest quality, with
vases and utensils of gold, silver, and copper, in short, with
every article of luxury or use within the compass of Peruvian
skill. *34 The magazines of grain, in particular, would
frequently have sufficed for the consumption of the adjoining
district for several years. *35 An inventory of the various
products of the country, and the quarters whence they were
obtained, was every year taken by the royal officers, and
recorded by the quipucamayus on their registers, with surprising
regularity and precision. These registers were transmitted to the
capital, and submitted to the Inca, who could thus at a glance,
as it were, embrace the whole results of the national industry,
and see how far they corresponded with the requisitions of
government. *36

[Footnote 32: Garcilasso, Com. Real., Parte 1, lib. 5, cap. 34. -
Ondegardo, Rel. Prim., Ms.

"E asi esta parte del Inga no hay duda sino que de todas tres era
la mayor, y en los depositos se parece bien que yo visite muchos
en diferentes partes, e son mayores e mas largos que no los de su
religion sin comparasion." Idem, Rel. Seg., Ms.]

[Footnote 33: "Todos los dichos tributos y servicios que el Inga
imponia y llevaba como dicho es eran con color y para efecto del
govierno y pro comun de todos asi como lo que se ponia en
depositos todo se combertia y distribuia entre los mismos
naturales." Dec. de la Aud. Real., Ms.]

[Footnote 34: Acosta, lib. 6, cap. 15.

"No podre decir," says one of the Conquerors, "los depositos.
Vide de rropas y de todos generos de rropas y vestidos que en
este reino se hacian y vsavan que faltava tiempo para vello y
entendimiento para comprender tanta cosa, muchos depositos de
barretas de cobre para las minas y de costales y sogas de vasos
de palo y platos del oro y plata que aqui se hallo hera cosa
despanto." Pedro Pizarro, Descub. y Conq., Ms.]

[Footnote 35: For ten years, sometimes, if we may credit
Ondegardo, who had every means of knowing.  "E ansi cuando no era
menester se estaba en los depositos e habia algunas vezes comida
de diez anos. . . . . . Los cuales todos se hallaron Ilenos
cuando Ilegaron los Espanoles desto y de todas las cosas
necesarias para la vida humana" Rel. Seg., Ms.]

[Footnote 36: Ondegardo, Rel. Prim., Ms.

"Por tanta orden e cuenta que seria dificultoso creerlo ni darlo
a entender como ellos lo tienen en su cuenta e por registros e
por menudo lo manifestaron que se pudiera por estenso." Idem,
Rel. Seg., Ms.]
Such are some of the most remarkable features of the Peruvian
institutions relating to property, as delineated by writers who,
however contradictory in the details, have a general conformity
of outline.  These institutions are certainly so remarkable, that
it is hardly credible they should ever have been enforced
throughout a great empire, and for a long period of years.  Yet
we have the most unequivocal testimony to the fact from the
Spaniards, who landed in Peru in time to witness their operation;
some of whom, men of high judicial station and character, were
commissioned by the government to make investigations into the
state of the country under its ancient rulers.

The impositions on the Peruvian people seem to have been
sufficiently heavy.  On them rested the whole burden of
maintaining, not only their own order, but every other order in
the state.  The members of the royal house, the great nobles,
even the public functionaries, and the numerous body of the
priesthood, were all exempt from taxation. *37 The whole duty of
defraying the expenses of the government belonged to the people.
Yet this was not materially different from the condition of
things formerly existing in most parts of Europe, where the
various privileged classes claimed exemption - not always with
success, indeed - from bearing part of the public burdens.  The
great hardship in the case of the Peruvian was, that he could not
better his condition.  His labors were for others, rather than
for himself.  However industrious, he could not add a rood to his
own possessions, nor advance himself one hair's breadth in the
social scale.  The great and universal motive to honest industry,
that of bettering one's lot, was lost upon him. The great law of
human progress was not for him.  As he was born, so he was to
die.  Even his time he could not properly call his own.  Without
money, with little property of any kind, he paid his taxes in
labor. *38 No wonder that the government should have dealt with
sloth as a crime.  It was a crime against the state, and to be
wasteful of time was, in a manner, to rob the exchequer.  The
Peruvian, laboring all his life for others, might be compared to
the convict in a treadmill, going the same dull round of
incessant toil, with the consciousness, that, however profitable
the results to the state, they were nothing to him.

[Footnote 37: Garcilasso. Com. Real., Parte 1, lib. 5, cap. 15.]

[Footnote 38: "Solo el trabajo de las personas era el tributo que
se dava, porque ellos no poseian otra cosa." Ondegardo, Rel.
Prim., Ms.]
But this is the dark side of the picture.  If no man could become
rich in Peru, no man could become poor.  No spendthrift could
waste his substance in riotous luxury.  No adventurous schemer
could impoverish his family by the spirit of speculation.  The
law was constantly directed to enforce a steady industry and a
sober management of his affairs.  No mendicant was tolerated in
Peru.  When a man was reduced by poverty or misfortune, (it could
hardly be by fault,) the arm of the law was stretched out to
minister relief; not the stinted relief of private charity, nor
that which is doled out, drop by drop, as it were, from the
frozen reservoirs of "the parish," but in generous measure,
bringing no humiliation to the object of it, and placing him on a
level with the rest of his countrymen. *39

[Footnote 39: "Era tanta la orden que tenia en todos sus Reinos y
provincias, que no consentia haver ningun Indio pobre ni
menesteroso, porque havia orden i formas para ello sin que los
pueblos reciviesen vexacion ni molestia, porque el Inga lo suplia
de sus tributos." (Conq. i Pob. del Piru, Ms.) The Licentiate
Ondegardo sees only a device of Satan in these provisions of the
Peruvian law, by which the old, the infirm, and the poor were
rendered, in a manner, independent of their children, and those
nearest of kin, on whom they would naturally have leaned for
support; no surer way to harden the heart, he considers, than by
thus disengaging it from the sympathies of humanity; and no
circumstance has done more, he concludes, to counteract the
influence and spread of Christianity among the natives.  (Rel.
Seg., Ms.) The views are ingenious, but, in a country where the
people had no property, as in Peru, there would seem to be no
alternative for the supernumeraries, but to receive support from
government or to starve.]

No man could be rich, no man could be poor, in Peru; but all
might enjoy, and did enjoy, a competence.  Ambition, avarice, the
love of change, the morbid spirit of discontent, those passions
which most agitate the minds of men, found no place in the bosom
of the Peruvian.  The very condition of his being seemed to be at
war with change.  He moved on in the same unbroken circle in
which his fathers had moved before him, and in which his children
were to follow.  It was the object of the Incas to infuse into
their subjects a spirit of passive obedience and tranquillity, -
a perfect acquiescence in the established order of things.  In
this they fully succeeded.  The Spaniards who first visited the
country are emphatic in their testimony, that no government could
have been better suited to the genius of the people; and no
people could have appeared more contented with their lot, or more
devoted to their government. *40

[Footnote 40: Acosta, lib. 6, cap. 12, 15. - Sarmiento, Relacion,
Ms., cap. 10]

Those who may distrust the accounts of Peruvian industry will
find their doubts removed on a visit to the country.  The
traveller still meets, especially in the central regions of the
table-land, with memorials of the past, remains of temples,
palaces, fortresses, terraced mountains, great military roads,
aqueducts, and other public works, which, whatever degree of
science they may display in their execution, astonish him by
their number, the massive character of the materials, and the
grandeur of the design. Among them, perhaps the most remarkable
are the great roads, the broken remains of which are still in
sufficient preservation to attest their former magnificence.
There were many of these roads, traversing different parts of the
kingdom; but the most considerable were the two which extended
from Quito to Cuzco, and, again diverging from the capital,
continued in a southern direction towards Chili.

One of these roads passed over the grand plateau, and the other
along the lowlands on the borders of the ocean.  The former was
much the more difficult achievement, from the character of the
country.  It was conducted over pathless sierras buried in snow;
galleries were cut for leagues through the living rock; rivers
were crossed by means of bridges that swung suspended in the air;
precipices were scaled by stairways hewn out of the native bed;
ravines of hideous depth were filled up with solid masonry; in
short, all the difficulties that beset a wild and mountainous
region, and which might appall the most courageous engineer of
modern times, were encountered and successfully overcome.  The
length of the road, of which scattered fragments only remain, is
variously estimated, from fifteen hundred to two thousand miles;
and stone pillars, in the manner of European milestones, were
erected at stated intervals of somewhat more than a league, all
along the route.  Its breadth scarcely exceeded twenty feet. *41
It was built of heavy flags of freestone, and in some parts, at
least, covered with a bituminous cement, which time has made
harder than the stone itself.  In some places, where the ravines
had been filled up with masonry, the mountain torrents, wearing
on it for ages, have gradually eaten a way through the base, and
left the superincumbent mass - such is the cohesion of the
materials - still spanning the valley like an arch! *42

[Footnote 41: Dec. de la Aud. Real., Ms.

"Este camino hecho por valles ondos y por sierras altas, por
montes de nieve, por tremedales de agua y por pena viva y junto a
rios furiosos por estas partes y ballano y empedrado por las
laderas, bien sacado por las sierras, deshechado, por las penas
socavado, por junto a los Rios sus paredes, entre nieves con
escalones y descanso, por todas partes limpio barrido
descombrado, lleno de aposentos, de depositos de tesoros, de
Templos del Sol, de Postas que havia en este camino." Sarmiento,
Relacion, Ms., cap. 60.]

[Footnote 42: "On avait comble les vides et les ravins par de
grandes masses de maconnerie.  Les torrents qui descendent des
hauteurs apres des pluies abondantes, avaient creuse les endroits
les moins solides, et s'etaient fraye une voie sous le chemin, le
laissant ainsi suspendu en l'air comme un pont fait d'une seule
piece." (Velasco, Hist. de Quito, tom. l. p. 206.) This writer
speaks from personal observation, having examined and measured
different parts of the road, in the latter part of the road, in
the latter part of the last century.  The Spanish scholar will
find in Appendix, No. 2., an animated description of this
magnificent work, and of the obstacles encountered in the
execution of it, in a passage borrowed from Sarmiento, who saw it
in the days of the Incas.]

Over some of the boldest streams it was necessary to construct
suspension bridges, as they are termed, made of the tough fibres
of the maguey, or of the osier of the country, which has an
extraordinary degree of tenacity and strength.  These osiers were
woven into cables of the thickness of a man's body.  The huge
ropes, then stretched across the water, were conducted through
rings or holes cut in immense buttresses of stone raised on the
opposite banks of the river, and there secured to heavy pieces of
timber.  Several of these enormous cables, bound together, formed
a bridge, which, covered with planks, well secured and defended
by a railing of the same osier materials on the sides, afforded a
safe passage for the traveller. The length of this aerial bridge,
sometimes exceeding two hundred feet, caused it, confined, as it
was, only at the extremities, to dip with an alarming inclination
towards the centre, while the motion given to it by the passenger
occasioned an oscillation still more frightful, as his eye
wandered over the dark abyss of waters that foamed and tumbled
many a fathom beneath. Yet these light and fragile fabrics were
crossed without fear by the Peruvians, and are still retained by
the Spaniards over those streams which, from the depth or
impetuosity of the current, would seem impracticable for the
usual modes of conveyance.  The wider and more tranquil waters
were crossed on balsas - a kind of raft still much used by the
natives - to which sails were attached, furnishing the only
instance of this higher kind of navigation among the American
Indians. *43

[Footnote 43: Garcilasso, Com. Real., Parte 1, lib. 3, cap. 7.
A particular account of these bridges, as they are still to be
seen in different parts of Peru, may be found in Humboldt.  (Vues
des Cordilleres, p. 230, et seq.) The balsas are described with
equal minuteness by Stevenson. Residence in America, vol. II. p.
222. et seq.]

The other great road of the Incas lay through the level country
between the Andes and the ocean.  It was constructed in a
different manner, as demanded by the nature of the ground, which
was for the most part low, and much of it sandy.  The causeway
was raised on a high embankment of earth, and defended on either
side by a parapet or wall of clay; and trees and odoriferous
shrubs were planted along the margin, regaling the sense of the
traveller with their perfumes, and refreshing him by their
shades, so grateful under the burning sky of the tropics.  In the
strips of sandy waste, which occasionally intervened, where the
light and volatile soil was incapable of sustaining a road, huge
piles, many of them to be seen at this day, were driven into the
ground to indicate the route to the traveller. *44

[Footnote 44: Cieza de Leon, Cronica, cap. 60. - Relacion del
Primer Descubrimiento de la Costa y Mar del Sur, Ms.

This anonymous document of one of the early Conquerors contains a
minute and probably trustworthy account of both the high roads,
which the writer saw in their glory, and which he ranks among the
greatest wonders of the world.]

All along these highways, caravansaries, or tambos, as they were
called, were erected, at the distance of ten or twelve miles from
each other, for the accommodation, more particularly, of the Inca
and his suite, and those who journeyed on the public business.
There were few other travellers in Peru. Some of these buildings
were on an extensive scale, consisting of a fortress, barracks,
and other military works, surrounded by a parapet of stone, and
covering a large tract of ground.  These were evidently destined
for the accommodation of the imperial armies, when on their march
across the country. - The care of the great roads was committed
to the districts through which they passed, and a large number of
hands was constantly employed under the Incas to keep them in
repair.  This was the more easily done in a country where the
mode of travelling was altogether on foot; though the roads are
said to have been so nicely constructed, that a carriage might
have rolled over them as securely as on any of the great roads of
Europe. *45 Still, in a region where the elements of fire and
water are both actively at work in the business of destruction,
they must, without constant supervision, have gradually gone to
decay.  Such has been their fate under the Spanish conquerors,
who took no care to enforce the admirable system for their
preservation adopted by the Incas.  Yet the broken portions that
still survive, here and there, like the fragments of the great
Roman roads scattered over Europe, bear evidence to their
primitive grandeur, and have drawn forth the eulogium from a
discriminating traveller, usually not too profuse in his
panegyric, that "the roads of the Incas were among the most
useful and stupendous works ever executed by man." *46

[Footnote 45: Relacion del Primer Descub., Ms. - Cieza de Leon,
Cronica, cap. 37. - Zarate, Conq. del Peru, lib. 1, cap. 11. -
Garcilasso, Com. Real., Parte 1, lib. 9, cap. 13.]

[Footnote 46: "Cette chaussee, bordee de grandes pierres de
taille, puet etre comparee aux plus belles routes des Romains que
j'aie vues en Italie, en France et en Espagne . . . . . . Le
grand chemin de l'Inca, un des ouvrages les plus utiles, et en
meme temps des plus gigantesques que les hommes aient execute."
Humboldt, Vues des Cordilleres, p. 294.]

The system of communication through their dominions was still
further improved by the Peruvian sovereigns, by the introduction
of posts, in the same manner as was done by the Aztecs.  The
Peruvian posts, however, established on all the great routes that
conducted to the capital, were on a much more extended plan than
those in Mexico.  All along these routes, small buildings were
erected, at the distance of less than five miles asunder, *47 in
each of which a number of runners, or chasquis, as they were
called, were stationed to carry forward the despatches of
government. *48 These despatches were either verbal, or conveyed
by means of quipus, and sometimes accompanied by a thread of the
crimson fringe worn round the temples of the Inca, which was
regarded with the same implicit deference as the signet ring of
an Oriental despot. *49

[Footnote 47: The distance between the posthouses is variously
stated; most writers not estimating it at more than three fourths
of a league.  I have preferred the authority of Ondegardo, who
usually writes with more conscientiousness and knowledge of his
ground than most of his contemporaries.]

[Footnote 48: The term chasqui, according to Montesinos,
signifies "one that receives a thing." (Me. Antiguas, Ms., cap.
7) But Garcilasso, a better authority for his own tongue, says it
meant "one who makes an exchange." Com. Real., Parte 1, lib. 6,
cap. 8.]

[Footnote 49: "Con vn hilo de esta Borla, entregado a uno de
aquellos Orejones, governaban la Tierra, i proveian lo que
querian con maior obediencia, que en ninguna Provincia del Mundo
se ha visto tener a las Provissiones de su Rei." Zarate, Conq.
del Peru, lib. 1, cap. 9.]

The chasquis were dressed in a peculiar livery, intimating their
profession.  They were all trained to the employment, and
selected for their speed and fidelity.  As the distance each
courier had to perform was small, and as he had ample time to
refresh himself at the stations, they ran over the ground with
great swiftness, and messages were carried through the whole
extent of the long routes, at the rate of a hundred and fifty
miles a day. The office of the chasquis was not limited to
carrying despatches.  They frequently brought various articles
for the use of the Court; and in this way, fish from the distant
ocean, fruits, game, and different commodities from the hot
regions on the coast, were taken to the capital in good
condition, and served fresh at the royal table. *50 It is
remarkable that this important institution should have been known
to both the Mexicans and the Peruvians without any correspondence
with one another; and that it should have been found among two
barbarian nations of the New World, long before it was introduced
among the civilized nations of Europe. *51

[Footnote 50: Sarmiento, Relacion, Ms., cap. 18. - Dec. de la
Aud. Real., Ms.

If we may trust Montesinos, the royal table was served with fish,
taken a hundred leagues from the capital, in twenty-four hours
after it was drawn from the ocean! (Men. Antiguas, Ms., lib. 2,
cap. 7.) This is rather too expeditious for any thing but
rail-cars.]

[Footnote 51: The institution of the Peruvian posts seems to have
made a great impression on the minds of the Spaniards who first
visited the country; and ample notices of it may be found in
Sarmiento, Relacion, Ms., cap. 15. - Dec. de la Aud. Real., Ms. -
Fernandez, Hist. del Peru, Parte 2, lib. 3, cap. 5. - Conq. i
Pob. del Piru, Ms., et auct. plurimis.

The establishment of posts is of old date among the Chinese, and,
probably, still older among the Persians.  (See Herodotus, Hist.,
Urania, sec. 98.) It is singular, that an invention designed for
the uses of a despotic government should have received its full
application only under a free one. For in it we have the germ of
that beautiful system of intercommunication, which binds all the
nations of Christendom together as one vast commonwealth.]
By these wise contrivances of the Incas, the most distant parts
of the long-extended empire of Peru were brought into intimate
relations with each other.  And while the capitals of
Christendom, but a few hundred miles apart, remained as far
asunder as if seas had rolled between them, the great capitals
Cuzco and Quito were placed by the high roads of the Incas in
immediate correspondence.  Intelligence from the numerous
provinces was transmitted on the wings of the wind to the
Peruvian metropolis, the great focus to which all the lines of
communication converged.  Not an insurrectionary movement could
occur, not an invasion on the remotest frontier, before the
tidings were conveyed to the capital, and the imperial armies
were on their march across the magnificent roads of the country
to suppress it.  So admirable was the machinery contrived by the
American despots for maintaining tranquillity throughout their
dominions!  It may remind us of the similar institutions of
ancient Rome, when, under the Caesars, she was mistress of half
the world.

A principal design of the great roads was to serve the purposes
of military communication.  It formed an important item of their
military policy, which is quite as well worth studying as their
municipal.

Notwithstanding the pacific professions of the Incas, and the
pacific tendency, indeed, of their domestic institutions, they
were constantly at war. It was by war that their paltry territory
had been gradually enlarged to a powerful empire.  When this was
achieved, the capital, safe in its central position, was no
longer shaken by these military movements, and the country
enjoyed, in a great degree, the blessings of tranquillity and
order. But, however tranquil at heart, there is not a reign upon
record in which the nation was not engaged in war against the
barbarous nations on the frontier. Religion furnished a plausible
pretext for incessant aggression, and disguised the lust of
conquest in the Incas, probably, from their own eyes, as well as
from those of their subjects.  Like the followers of Mahomet,
bearing the sword in one hand and the Koran in the other, the
Incas of Peru offered no alternative but the worship of the Sun
or war.

It is true, their fanaticism - or their policy - showed itself in
a milder form than was found in the descendants of the Prophet.
Like the great luminary which they adored, they operated by
gentleness more potent than violence. *52 They sought to soften
the hearts of the rude tribes around them, and melt them by acts
of condescension and kindness.  Far from provoking hostilities,
they allowed time for the salutary example of their own
institutions to work its effect, trusting that their less
civilized neighbours would submit to their sceptre, from a
conviction of the blessings it would secure to them.  When this
course failed, they employed other measures, but still of a
pacific character; and endeavoured by negotiation, by
conciliatory treatment, and by presents to the leading men, to
win them over to their dominion.  In short, they practised all
the arts familiar to the most subtle politician of a civilized
land to secure the acquisition of empire.  When all these
expedients failed, they prepared for war.

[Footnote 52: "Mas se hicieron Senores al za." Ondegardo, Rel.
Prim., principio por mana, que por fuer- Ms.]

Their levies were drawn from all the different provinces; though
from some, where the character of the people was particularly
hardy, more than from others. *53 It seems probable that every
Peruvian, who had reached a certain age, might be called to bear
arms.  But the rotation of military service, and the regular
drills, which took place twice or thrice in a month, of the
inhabitants of every village, raised the soldiers generally above
the rank of a raw militia.  The Peruvian army, at first
inconsiderable, came, with the increase of population, in the
latter days of the empire, to be very large, so that their
monarchs could bring into the field, as contemporaries assure us,
a force amounting to two hundred thousand men.  They showed the
same skill and respect for order in their military organization,
as in other things.  The troops were divided into bodies
corresponding with out battalions and companies, led by officers,
that rose, in regular gradation, from the lowest subaltern to the
Inca noble, who was intrusted with the general command. *54

[Footnote 53: Idem, Rel. Prim., Ms. - Dec. de la Aud. Real., Ms.]

[Footnote 54: Gomara, Cronica, cap. 195 - Conq. i Pob. del Piru,
Ms.]

Their arms consisted of the usual weapons employed by nations,
whether civilized or uncivilized, before the invention of powder,
- bows and arrows, lances, darts, a short kind of sword, a
battle-axe or partisan, and slings, with which they were very
expert.  Their spears and arrows were tipped with copper, or,
more commonly, with bone, and the weapons of the Inca lords were
frequently mounted with gold or silver.  Their heads were
protected by casques made either of wood or of the skins of wild
animals, and sometimes richly decorated with metal and with
precious stones, surmounted by the brilliant plumage of the
tropical birds.  These, of course, were the ornaments only of the
higher orders.  The great mass of the soldiery were dressed in
the peculiar costume of their provinces, and their heads were
wreathed with a sort of turban or roll of different-colored
cloths, that produced a gay and animating effect.  Their
defensive armor consisted of a shield or buckler, and a close
tunic of quilted cotton, in the same manner as with the Mexicans.
Each company had its particular banner, and the imperial
standard, high above all, displayed the glittering device of the
rainbow, - the armorial ensign of the Incas, intimating their
claims as children of the skies. *55

[Footnote 55: Gomara, Cronica, ubi supra. - Sarmiento, Relacion,
Ms., cap. 20. - Velasco, Hist. de Quito, tom. I. pp. 176-179.

This last writer gives a minute catalogue of the ancient Peruvian
arms, comprehending nearly every thing familiar to the European
soldier, except fire-arms.  - It was judicious in him to omit
these.]

By means of the thorough system of communication established in
the country, a short time sufficed to draw the levies together
from the most distant quarters.  The army was put under the
direction of some experienced chief, of the blood royal, or, more
frequently, headed by the Inca in person. The march was rapidly
performed, and with little fatigue to the soldier; for, all along
the great routes, quarters were provided for him, at regular
distances, where he could find ample accommodations.  The country
is still covered with the remains of military works, constructed
of porphyry or granite, which tradition assures us were designed
to lodge the Inca and his army. *56

[Footnote 56: Zarate, Conq. del Peru, lib. 1, cap. 11. -
Sarmiento, Relacion, Ms., cap. 60.

Condamine speaks of the great number of these fortified places,
scattered over the country between Quito and Lima, which he saw
in his visit to South America in 1737; some of which he has
described with great minuteness. Memoire sur Quelques Anciens
Monumens du Perou, du Tems des Incas, ap. Histoire de l'Academie
Royale des Sciences et de Belles Lettres, (Berlin, 1748,) tom.
II. p. 438.]

At regular intervals, also, magazines were established, filled
with grain, weapons, and the different munitions of war, with
which the army was supplied on its march.  It was the especial
care of the government to see that these magazines, which were
furnished from the stores of the Incas, were always well filled.
When the Spaniards invaded the country, they supported their own
armies for a long time on the provisions found in them. *57 The
Peruvian soldier was forbidden to commit any trespass on the
property of the inhabitants whose territory lay in the line of
march.  Any violation of this order was punished with death. *58
The soldier was clothed and fed by the industry of the people,
and the Incas rightly resolved that he should not repay this by
violence.  Far from being a tax on the labors of the husbandman,
or even a burden on his hospitality, the imperial armies
traversed the country, from one extremity to the other, with as
little inconvenience to the inhabitants, as would be created by a
procession of peaceful burghers, or a muster of holiday soldiers
for a review.

[Footnote 57: "E ansi cuando," says Ondegardo, speaking from his
own personal knowledge, "el Senor Presidente Gasca passo con la
gente de castigo de Gonzalo Pizarro por el valle de Jauja, estuvo
alli siete semanas a lo que me acuerdo, se hallaron en deposito
maiz de cuatro y de tres y de dos anos mas de 15 hanegas junto al
camino, e alli comio la gente, y se entendio que si fuera
menester muchas mas no faltaran en el valle en aquellos
depositos, conforme a la orden antigua, porque a mi cargo estubo
el repartirlas y hacer la cuenta para pagarlas." Rel. Seg., Ms.]

[Footnote 58: Pedro Pizarro, Descub.  y Conq., Ms. - Cieza de
Leon, Cronica, cap. 44. - Sarmiento, Relacion, Ms., cap. 14.]

From the moment war was proclaimed, the Peruvian monarch used all
possible expedition in assembling his forces, that he might
anticipate the movements of his enemies, and prevent a
combination with their allies.  It was, however, from the neglect
of such a principle of combination, that the several nations of
the country, who might have prevailed by confederated strength,
fell one after another under the imperial yoke.  Yet, once in the
field, the Inca did not usually show any disposition to push his
advantages to the utmost, and urge his foe to extremity.  In
every stage of the war, he was open to propositions for peace;
and although he sought to reduce his enemies by carrying off
their harvests and distressing them by famine, he allowed his
troops to commit no unnecessary outrage on person or property.
"We must spare our enemies," one of the Peruvian princes is
quoted as saying, "or it will be our loss, since they and all
that belongs to them must soon be ours." *59 It was a wise maxim,
and, like most other wise maxims, founded equally on benevolence
and prudence.  The Incas adopted the policy claimed for the
Romans by their countryman, who tells us that they gained more by
clemency to the vanquished than by their victories. *60

[Footnote 59: "Mandabase que en los mantenimientos y casas de los
enemigos se hiciese poco dano, diciendoles el Senor, presto seran
estos nuestros como los que ya lo son; como esto tenian conocido,
procuraban que la guerra fuese la mas liviana que ser pudiese."
Sarmiento, Relacion, Ms., cap. 14.]

[Footnote 60: "Plus pene parcendo victis, quam vincendo imperium
auxisse.' Livy, lib. 30, cap. 42.]

In the same considerate spirit, they were most careful to provide
for the security and comfort of their own troops; and, when a war
was long protracted, or the climate proved unhealthy, they took
care to relieve their men by frequent reinforcements, allowing
the earlier recruits to return to their homes. *61 But while thus
economical of life, both in their own followers and in the enemy,
they did not shrink from sterner measures when provoked by the
ferocious or obstinate character of the resistance; and the
Peruvian annals contain more than one of those sanguinary pages
which cannot be pondered at the present day without a shudder.
It should be added, that the beneficent policy, which I have been
delineating as characteristic of the Incas, did not belong to
all; and that there was more than one of the royal line who
displayed a full measure of the bold and unscrupulous spirit of
the vulgar conqueror.

[Footnote 61: Garcilasso, Com. Real., Parte 1, lib. 6, cap. 18.]
The first step of the government, after the reduction of a
country, was to introduce there the worship of the Sun.  Temples
were erected, and placed under the care of a numerous priesthood,
who expounded to the conquered people the mysteries of their new
faith, and dazzled them by the display of its rich and stately
ceremonial. *62 Yet the religion of the conquered was not treated
with dishonor.  The Sun was to be worshipped above all; but the
images of their gods were removed to Cuzco and established in one
of the temples, to hold their rank among the inferior deities of
the Peruvian Pantheon.  Here they remained as hostages, in some
sort, for the conquered nation, which would be the less inclined
to forsake its allegiance, when by doing so it must leave its own
gods in the hands of its enemies. *63

[Footnote 62: Sarmiento, Relacion, Ms., cap. 14.]

[Footnote 63: Acosta, lib. 5, cap. 12. - Garcilasso, Com. Real.,
Parte 1, lib. 5, cap. 12.]

The Incas provided for the settlement of their new conquests, by
ordering a census to be taken of the population, and a careful
survey to be made of the country, ascertaining its products, and
the character and capacity of its soil. *64 A division of the
territory was then made on the same principle with that adopted
throughout their own kingdom; and their respective portions were
assigned to the Sun, the sovereign, and the people. The amount of
the last was regulated by the amount of the population, but the
share of each individual was uniformly the same.  It may seem
strange, that any people should patiently have acquiesced in an
arrangement which involved such a total surrender of property.
But it was a conquered nation that did so, held in awe, on the
least suspicion of meditating resistance, by armed garrisons, who
were established at various commanding points throughout the
country. *65 It is probable, too, that the Incas made no greater
changes than was essential to the new arrangement, and that they
assigned estates, as far as possible, to their former
proprietors.  The curacas, in particular, were confirmed in their
ancient authority; or, when it was found expedient to depose the
existing curaca, his rightful heir was allowed to succeed him.
*66 Every respect was shown to the ancient usages and laws of the
land, as far as was compatible with the fundamental institutions
of the Incas.  It must also be remembered, that the conquered
tribes were, many of them, too little advanced in civilization to
possess that attachment to the soil which belongs to a cultivated
nation. *67 But, to whatever it be referred, it seems probable
that the extraordinary institutions of the Incas were established
with little opposition in the conquered territories. *68

[Footnote 64: Ibid., Parte 1, lib. 5, cap. 13, 14. - Sarmiento,
Relacion, Ms., cap. 15.]

[Footnote 65: Sarmiento, Relacion, Ms., cap. 19.]

[Footnote 66: Fernandez, Hist. del Peru, Parte 2, lib. 3, cap.
11.]

[Footnote 67: Sarmiento has given a very full and interesting
account of the singularly humane policy observed by the Incas in
their conquests, forming a striking contrast with the usual
course of those scourges of mankind, whom mankind are wise enough
to requite with higher admiration, even, than it bestows on its
benefactors.  As Sarmiento, who was President of the Royal
Council of the Indies, and came into the country soon after the
Conquest, is a high authority, and as his work, lodged in the
dark recesses of the Escurial, is almost unknown, I have
transferred the whole chapter to Appendix, No. 3.]

[Footnote 68: According to Velasco, even the powerful state of
Quito, sufficiently advanced in civilization to have the law of
property well recognized by its people, admitted the institutions
of the Incas "not only without repugnance, but with joy." (Hist.
de Quito, tom. II. p. 183.) But Velasco, a modern authority,
believed easily, - or reckoned on his readers' doing so.]

Yet the Peruvian sovereigns did not trust altogether to this show
of obedience in their new vassals; and, to secure it more
effectually, they adopted some expedients too remarkable to be
passed by in silence. - Immediately after a recent conquest, the
curacas and their families were removed for a time to Cuzco.
Here they learned the language of the capital, became familiar
with the manners and usages of the court, as well as with the
general policy of government, and experienced such marks of favor
from the sovereign as would be most grateful to their feelings,
and might attach them most warmly to his person.  Under the
influence of these sentiments, they were again sent to rule over
their vassals, but still leaving their eldest sons in the
capital, to remain there as a guaranty for their own fidelity, as
well as to grace the court of the Inca. *69


[Footnote 69: Garcilasso, Com. Real., Parte 1, lib. 5, cap. 12;
lib. 7, cap. 2.]

Another expedient was of a bolder and more original character.
This was nothing less than to revolutionize the language of the
country.  South America, like North, was broken up into a great
variety of dialects, or rather languages, having little affinity
with one another.  This circumstance occasioned great
embarrassment to the government in the administration of the
different provinces, with whose idioms they were unacquainted.
It was determined, therefore, to substitute one universal
language, the Quichua, - the language of the court, the capital,
and the surrounding country, - the richest and most comprehensive
of the South American dialects.  Teachers were provided in the
towns and villages throughout the land, who were to give
instruction to all, even the humblest classes; and it was
intimated at the same time, that no one should be raised to any
office of dignity or profit, who was unacquainted with this
tongue.  The curacas and other chiefs, who attended at the
capital, became familiar with this dialect in their intercourse
with the Court, and, on their return home, set the example of
conversing in it among themselves.  This example was imitated by
their followers, and the Quichua gradually became the language of
elegance and fashion, in the same manner as the Norman French was
affected by all those who aspired to any consideration in
England, after the Conquest.  By this means, while each province
retained its peculiar tongue, a beautiful medium of communication
was introduced, which enabled the inhabitants of one part of the
country to hold intercourse with every other, and the Inca and
his deputies to communicate with all.  This was the state of
things on the arrival of the Spaniards.  It must be admitted,
that history furnishes few examples of more absolute authority
than such a revolution in the language of an empire, at the
bidding of a master. *70

[Footnote 70: Ibid., Parte 1, lib. 6, cap. 35; lib. 7, cap. 1, 2.
- Ondegardo, Rel. Seg., Ms. - Sarmiento, Relacion, Ms., cap. 55.

"Aun la Criatura no hubiese dejado el Pecho de su Madre quando le
comenzasen a mostrar la Lengua que havia de saber; y aunque al
principio fue dificultoso, e muchos se pusieron en no quere
deprender mas lenguas de las suyas propias, los Reyes pudieron
tanto que salieron con su intencion y ellos tubieron por bien de
cumplir su mandado y tan de veras se entendio en ello que en
tiempo de pocos anos se savia y usaba una lengua en mas de mil y
doscientas leguas." Ibid., cap. 21.]

Yet little less remarkable was another device of the Incas for
securing the loyalty of their subjects.  When any portion of the
recent conquests showed a pertinacious spirit of disaffection, it
was not uncommon to cause a part of the population, amounting, it
might be, to ten thousand inhabitants or more, to remove to a
distant quarter of the kingdom, occupied by ancient vassals of
undoubted fidelity to the crown.  A like number of these last was
transplanted to the territory left vacant by the emigrants.  By
this exchange, the population was composed of two distinct races,
who regarded each other with an eye of jealousy, that served as
an effectual check on any mutinous proceeding.  In time, the
influence of the well-affected prevailed, supported, as they
were, by royal authority, and by the silent working of the
national institutions, to which the strange races became
gradually accustomed.  A spirit of loyalty sprang up by degrees
in their bosoms, and, before a generation had passed away, the
different tribes mingled in harmony together as members of the
same community. *71 Yet the different races continued to be
distinguished by difference of dress; since, by the law of the
land, every citizen was required to wear the costume of his
native province. *72 Neither could the colonist, who had been
thus unceremoniously transplanted, return to his native district.
For, by another law, it was forbidden to any one to change his
residence without license. *73 He was settled for life.  The
Peruvian government prescribed to every man his local habitation,
his sphere of action, nay, the very nature and quality of that
action.  He ceased to be a free agent; it might be almost said,
that it relieved him of personal responsibility.

[Footnote 71: Ondegardo, Rel. Prim., Ms. - Fernandez, Hist. del
Peru, Parte 2, lib. 3, cap. 11.]

[Footnote 72: "This regulation," says Father Acosta, "the Incas
held to be of great importance to the order and right government
of the realm." lib. 6, cap. 16.]

[Footnote 73: Conq. i Pob. del Piru, Ms.]

In following out this singular arrangement, the Incas showed as
much regard for the comfort and convenience of the colonist as
was compatible with the execution of their design.  They were
careful that the mitimaes, as these emigrants were styled, should
be removed to climates most congenial with their own.  The
inhabitants of the cold countries were not transplanted to the
warm, nor the inhabitants of the warm countries to the cold. *74
Even their habitual occupations were consulted, and the fisherman
was settled in the neighbourhood of the ocean, or the great
lakes; while such lands were assigned to the husbandman as were
best adapted to the culture with which he was most familiar. *75
And, as migration by many, perhaps by most, would be regarded as
a calamity, the government was careful to show particular marks
of favor to the mitimaes, and, by various privileges and
immunities, to ameliorate their condition, and thus to reconcile
them, if possible, to their lot. *76

[Footnote 74: "Trasmutaban de las tales Provincias la cantidad de
gente de que de ella parecia convenir que saliese, a los cuales
mandaban pasar a poblar otra tierra del temple y manera de donde
salian, si fria fria, si caliente caliente, en donde les daban
tierras, y campos, y casas, tanto, y mas como dejaron."
Sarmiento, Relacion, Ms., cap. 19.]

[Footnote 75: Ondegardo, Rel. Prim., Ms.]

[Footnote 76: The descendants of these mitimaes are still to be
found in Quito, or were so at the close of the last century,
according to Velasco, distinguished by this name from the rest of
the population.  Hist. de Quito, tom.l. p. 175.]

The Peruvian institutions, though they may have been modified and
matured under successive sovereigns, all bear the stamp of the
same original, - were all cast in the same mould.  The empire,
strengthening and enlarging at every successive epoch of its
history, was, in its latter days, but the development, on a great
scale, of what it was in miniature at its commencement, as the
infant germ is said to contain within itself all the
ramifications of the future monarch of the forest.  Each
succeeding Inca seemed desirous only to tread in the path, and
carry out the plans, of his predecessor.  Great enterprises,
commenced under one, were continued by another, and completed by
a third.  Thus, while all acted on a regular plan, without any of
the eccentric or retrograde movements which betray the agency of
different individuals, the state seemed to be under the direction
of a single hand, and steadily pursued, as if through one long
reign, its great career of civilization and of conquest.

The ultimate aim of its institutions was domestic quiet.  But it
seemed as if this were to be obtained only by foreign war.
Tranquillity in the heart of the monarchy, and war on its
borders, was the condition of Peru. By this war it gave
occupation to a part of its people, and, by the reduction and
civilization of its barbarous neighbours, gave security to all.
Every Inca sovereign, however mild and benevolent in his domestic
rule, was a warrior, and led his armies in person.  Each
successive reign extended still wider the boundaries of the
empire.  Year after year saw the victorious monarch return laden
with spoils, and followed by a throng of tributary chieftains to
his capital.  His reception there was a Roman triumph.  The whole
of its numerous population poured out to welcome him, dressed in
the gay and picturesque costumes of the different provinces, with
banners waving above their heads, and strewing branches and
flowers along the path of the conqueror.  The Inca, borne aloft
in his golden chair on the shoulders of his nobles, moved in
solemn procession, under the triumphal arches that were thrown
across the way, to the great temple of the Sun.  There, without
attendants, - for all but the monarch were excluded from the
hallowed precincts, - the victorious prince, stripped of his
royal insignia, barefooted, and with all humility, approached the
awful shrine, and offered up sacrifice and thanksgiving to the
glorious Deity who presided over the fortunes of the Incas.  This
ceremony concluded, the whole population gave itself up to
festivity; music, revelry, and dancing were heard in every
quarter of the capital, and illuminations and bonfires
commemorated the victorious campaign of the Inca, and the
accession of a new territory to his empire. *77

[Footnote 77: Sarmiento, Relacion, Ms., Parte 1, lib. 3, cap. 11,
17; lib. 6 cap. 55. - Garcilasso, Com. Real., cap. 16.]

In this celebration we see much of the character of a religious
festival. Indeed, the character of religion was impressed on all
the Peruvian wars.  The life of an Inca was one long crusade
against the infidel, to spread wide the worship of the Sun, to
reclaim the benighted nations from their brutish superstitions,
and impart to them the blessings of a well-regulated government.
This, in the favorite phrase of our day, was the "mission" of the
Inca.  It was also the mission of the Christian conqueror who
invaded the empire of this same Indian potentate.  Which of the
two executed his mission most faithfully, history must decide.

Yet the Peruvian monarchs did not show a childish impatience in
the acquisition of empire.  They paused after a campaign, and
allowed time for the settlement of one conquest before they
undertook another; and, in this interval, occupied themselves
with the quiet administration of their kingdom, and with the long
progresses, which brought them into nearer intercourse with their
people.  During this interval, also, their new vassals had begun
to accommodate themselves to the strange institutions of their
masters.  They learned to appreciate the value of a government
which raised them above the physical evils of a state of
barbarism, secured them protection of person, and a full
participation in all the privileges enjoyed by their conquerors;
and, as they became more familiar with the peculiar institutions
of the country, habit, that second nature, attached them the more
strongly to these institutions, from their very peculiarity.
Thus, by degrees, and without violence, arose the great fabric of
the Peruvian empire, composed of numerous independent and even
hostile tribes, yet, under the influence of a common religion,
common language, and common government, knit together as one
nation, animated by a spirit of love for its institutions and
devoted loyalty to its sovereign.  What a contrast to the
condition of the Aztec monarchy, on the neighbouring continent,
which, composed of the like heterogeneous materials, without any
internal principle of cohesion, was only held together by the
stern pressure, from without, of physical force! - Why the
Peruvian monarchy should have fared no better than its rival, in
its conflict with European civilization, will appear in the
following pages.





Chapter III

Peruvian Religion. - Deities. - Gorgeous Temples. - Festivals. -
Virgins Of The Sun. - Marriage.


It is a remarkable fact, that many, if not most, of the rude
tribes inhabiting the vast American continent, however disfigured
their creeds may have been in other respects by a childish
superstition, had attained to the sublime conception of one Great
Spirit, the Creator of the Universe, who, immaterial in his own
nature, was not to be dishonored by an attempt at visible
representation, and who, pervading all space, was not to be
circumscribed within the walls of a temple.  Yet these elevated
ideas, so far beyond the ordinary range of the untutored
intellect, do not seem to have led to the practical consequences
that might have been expected; and few of the American nations
have shown much solicitude for the maintenance of a religious
worship, or found in their faith a powerful spring of action.
But, with progress in civilization, ideas more akin to those of
civilized communities were gradually unfolded; a liberal
provision was made, and a separate order instituted, for the
services of religion, which were conducted with a minute and
magnificent ceremonial, that challenged comparison, in some
respects, with that of the most polished nations of Christendom.
This was the case with the nations inhabiting the table-land of
North America, and with the natives of Bogota, Quito, Peru, and
the other elevated regions on the great Southern continent.  It
was, above all, the case with the Peruvians, who claimed a divine
original for the founders of their empire, whose laws all rested
on a divine sanction, and whose domestic institutions and foreign
wars were alike directed to preserve and propagate their faith.
Religion was the basis of their polity, the very condition, as it
were, of their social existence.  The government of the Incas, in
its essential principles, was a theocracy.

Yet, though religion entered so largely into the fabric and
conduct of the political institutions of the people, their
mythology, that is, the traditionary legends by which they
affected to unfold the mysteries of the universe, was exceedingly
mean and puerile.  Scarce one of their traditions - except the
beautiful one respecting the founders of their royal dynasty - is
worthy of note, or throws much light on their own antiquities, or
the primitive history of man.  Among the traditions of importance
is one of the deluge, which they held in common with so many of
the nations in all parts of the globe, and which they related
with some particulars that bear resemblance to a Mexican legend.
*1

[Footnote 1: They related, that, after the deluge, seven persons
issued from a cave where they had saved themselves, and by them
the earth was repeopled. One of the traditions of the Mexicans
deduced their descent, and that of the kindred tribes, in like
manner, from seven persons who came from as many caves in Aztlan.
(Conf. Acosta, lib. 6, cap. 19; lib. 7, cap. 2. - Ondegardo, Rel.
Prim., Ms.) The story of the deluge is told by different writers
with many variations, in some of which it is not difficult to
detect the plastic hand of the Christian convert.]

Their ideas in respect to a future state of being deserve more
attention. They admitted the existence of the soul hereafter, and
connected with this a belief in the resurrection of the body.
They assigned two distinct places for the residence of the good
and of the wicked, the latter of which they fixed in the centre
of the earth.  The good they supposed were to pass a luxurious
life of tranquillity and ease, which comprehended their highest
notions of happiness.  The wicked were to expiate their crimes by
ages of wearisome labor.  They associated with these ideas a
belief in an evil principle or spirit, bearing the name of Cupay,
whom they did not attempt to propitiate by sacrifices, and who
seems to have been only a shadowy personification of sin, that
exercised little influence over their conduct. *2

[Footnote 2: Ondegardo, Rel. Seg., Ms. - Gomara, Hist. de las
Ind., cap. 123. - Garcilasso, Com. Real., Parte 1, lib. 2, cap.
2, 7.

One might suppose that the educated Peruvians - if I may so speak
- imagined the common people had no souls, so little is said of
their opinions as to the condition of these latter in a future
life, while they are diffuse on the prospects of the higher
orders, which they fondly believed were to keep pace with their
condition here.]

It was this belief in the resurrection of the body, which led
them to preserve the body with so much solicitude, - by a simple
process, however, that, unlike the elaborate embalming of the
Egyptians, consisted in exposing it to the action of the cold,
exceedingly dry, and highly rarefied atmosphere of the mountains.
*3 As they believed that the occupations in the future world
would have great resemblance to those of the present, they buried
with the deceased noble some of his apparel, his utensils, and,
frequently, his treasures; and completed the gloomy ceremony by
sacrificing his wives and favorite domestics, to bear him company
and do him service in the happy regions beyond the clouds. *4
Vast mounds of an irregular, or, more frequently, oblong shape,
penetrated by galleries running at right angles to each other,
were raised over the dead, whose dried bodies or mummies have
been found in considerable numbers, sometimes erect, but more
often in the sitting posture, common to the Indian tribes of both
continents.  Treasures of great value have also been occasionally
drawn from these monumental deposits, and have stimulated
speculators to repeated excavations with the hope of similar
good-fortune.  It was a lottery like that of searching after
mines, but where the chances have proved still more against the
adventurers. *5

[Footnote 3: Such, indeed, seems to be the opinion of Garcilasso,
though some writers speak of resinous and other applications for
embalming the body.  The appearance of the royal mummies found at
Cuzco, as reported both by Ondegardo and Garcilasso, makes it
probable that no foreign substance was employed for their
preservation.]

[Footnote 4: Ondegardo, Rel. Seg., Ms

The Licentiate says, that this usage continued even after the
Conquest; and that he had saved the life of more than one
favorite domestic, who had fled to him for protection, as they
were about to be sacrificed to the Manes of their deceased lords.
Ibid., ubi supra.]

[Footnote 5: Yet these sepulchral mines have sometimes proved
worth the digging.  Sarmiento speaks of gold to the value of
100,000 castellanos, as occasionally buried with the Indian
lords; (Relacion, Ms., cap. 57;) and Las Casas - not the best
authority in numerical estimates - says that treasures worth more
than half a million of ducats had been found, within twenty years
after the Conquest, in the tombs near Truxillo.  (Oeuvres, ed.
par Llorente, (Paris, 1822,) tom. II. p. 192.) Baron Humboldt
visited the sepulchre of a Peruvian prince in the same quarter of
the country, whence a Spaniard in 1576 drew forth a mass of gold
worth a million of dollars!  Vues des Cordilleres, p. 29.]

The Peruvians, like so may other of the Indian races,
acknowledged a Supreme Being, the Creator and Ruler of the
Universe, whom they adored under the different names of
Pachacamac and Viracocha. *6 No temple was raised to this
invisible Being, save one only in the valley which took its name
from the deity himself, not far from the Spanish city of Lima.
Even this temple had existed there before the country came under
the sway of the Incas, and was the great resort of Indian
pilgrims from remote parts of the land; a circumstance which
suggests the idea, that the worship of this Great Spirit, though
countenanced, perhaps, by their accommodating policy, did not
originate with the Peruvian princes. *7

[Footnote 6: Pachacamac signifies "He who sustains or gives life
to the universe." The name of the great deity is sometimes
expressed by both Pachacamac and Viracocha combined.  (See
Balboa, Hist. du Perou, chap. 6. - Acosta, lib. 6, cap. 21.) An
old Spaniard finds in the popular meaning of Viracocha, "foam of
the sea," an argument for deriving the Peruvian civilization from
some voyager from the Old World.  Conq. i Pob. de. Piru, Ms.]

[Footnote 7: Pedro Pizarro, Descub. y Conq. Ms. - Sarmiento,
Relacion, Ms., cap. 27.

Ulloa notices the extensive ruins of brick, which mark the
probable site of the temple of Pachacamac, attesting by their
present appearance its ancient magnificence and strength.
Memoires Philosophiques, Historiques, Physiques, (Paris, 1787,)
trad. Fr., p. 78.]

The deity whose worship they especially inculcated, and which
they never failed to establish wherever their banners were known
to penetrate, was the Sun.  It was he, who, in a particular
manner, presided over the destinies of man; gave light and warmth
to the nations, and life to the vegetable world; whom they
reverenced as the father of their royal dynasty, the founder of
their empire; and whose temples rose in every city and almost
every village throughout the land, while his altars smoked with
burnt offerings, - a form of sacrifice peculiar to the Peruvians
among the semi-civilized nations of the New World. *8

[Footnote 8: At least, so says Dr. McCulloh; and no better
authority can be required on American antiquities.  (Researches,
p. 392.) Might he not have added barbarous nations. also?]

Besides the Sun, the Incas acknowledged various objects of
worship in some way or other connected with this principal deity.
Such was the Moon, his sister-wife; the Stars, revered as part of
her heavenly train, - though the fairest of them, Venus, known to
the Peruvians by the name of Chasca, or the "youth with the long
and curling locks," was adored as the page of the Sun, whom he
attends so closely in his rising and in his setting.  They
dedicated temples also to the Thunder and Lightning, *9 in whom
they recognized the Sun's dread ministers, and to the Rainbow,
whom they worshipped as a beautiful emanation of their glorious
deity. *10

[Footnote 9: Thunder, Lightning, and Thunderbolt, could be all
expressed by the Peruvians in one word, Illapa.  Hence some
Spaniards have inferred a knowledge of the Trinity in the
natives!  "The Devil stole all he could," exclaims Herrera, with
righteous indignation.  (Hist. General, dec. 5, lib. 4, cap. 5.)
These, and even rasher conclusions, (see Acosta, lib. 5, cap.
28,) are scouted by Garcilasso, as inventions of Indian converts,
willing to please the imaginations of their Christian teachers.
(Com. Real., Parte 1, lib. 2, cap. 5, 6; lib. 3, cap. 21.)
Imposture, on the one hand, and credulity on the other, have
furnished a plentiful harvest of absurdities, which has been
diligently gathered in by the pious antiquary of a later
generation.]

[Footnote 10: Garcilasso's assertion, that these heavenly bodies
were objects of reverence as holy things, but not of worship,
(Com. Real., Parte 1, lib. 2, cap. 1, 23,) is contradicted by
Ondegardo, Rel. Seg., Ms., - Dec. de la Aud. Real., Ms., -
Herrera, Hist. General, dec. 5, lib. 4, cap. 4, - Gomara, Hist.
de las Ind., cap. 121, - and, I might add, by almost every writer
of authority whom I have consulted.  It is contradicted, in a
manner, by the admission of Garcilasso himself, that these
several objects were all personified by the Indians as living
beings, and had temples dedicated to them as such, with their
effigies delineated in the same manner as was that of the Sun in
his dwelling.  Indeed, the effort of the historian to reduce the
worship of the Incas to that of the Sun alone is not very
reconcilable with what he else where says of the homage paid to
Pachacamac, above all, and to Rimac, the great oracle of the
common people.  The Peruvian mythology was, probably, not unlike
that of Hindostan, where, under two, or at most three, principal
deities, were assembled a host of inferior ones, to whom the
nation paid religious homage, as personifications of the
different objects in nature.]
In addition to these, the subjects of the Incas enrolled among
their inferior deities many objects in nature, as the elements,
the winds, the earth, the air, great mountains and rivers, which
impressed them with ideas of sublimity and power, or were
supposed in some way or other to exercise a mysterious influence
over the destinies of man. *11 They adopted also a notion, not
unlike that professed by some of the schools of ancient
philosophy, that every thing on earth had its archetype or idea,
its mother, as they emphatically styled it, which they held
sacred, as, in some sort, its spiritual essence. *12 But their
system, far from being limited even to these multiplied objects
of devotion, embraced within its ample folds the numerous deities
of the conquered nations, whose images were transported to the
capital, where the burdensome charges of their worship were
defrayed by their respective provinces.  It was a rare stroke of
policy in the Incas, who could thus accommodate their religion to
their interests. *13

[Footnote 11: Ondegardo, Rel. Seg., Ms.

These consecrated objects were termed huacas, - a word of most
prolific import; since it signified a temple, a tomb, any natural
object remarkable for its size or shape, in short, a cloud of
meanings, which by their contradictory sense have thrown
incalculable confusion over the writings of historians and
travellers.]

[Footnote 12: "La orden por donde fundavan sus huacas que ellos
llamavan a las Idolatrias hera porque decian que todas criava el
sol i que les dava madre por madre que mostravan a la tierra,
porque decian que tenia madre, i tenian le echo su vulto i sus
adoratorios, i al fuego decian que tambien tenia madre i al mais
i a las otras sementeras i a las ovejas iganado decian que tenian
madre, i a la chocha ques el brevaje que ellos usan decian que el
vinagre della hera la madre i lo reverenciavan i llamavan mama
agua madre del vinagre, i a cada cosa adoravan destas de su
manera." Conq. i Pob. del Piru, Ms.]

[Footnote 13: Pedro Pizarro, Descub. y Conq., Ms.

So it seems to have been regarded by the Licentiate Ondegardo.
"E los Idolos estaban en aq1 galpon grande de la casa del Sol, y
cada Idolo destos tenia su servicio y gastos y mugeres, y en la
casa del Sol le iban a hacer reverencia los que venian de su
provincial para lo qual e sacrificios que se hacian proveian de
su misma tierra ordinaria e muy abundantemente por la misma orden
que lo hacian quando estaba en la misma provincia, que daba gran
autoridad a mi parecer e aun fuerza a estos Ingas que cierto me
causo gran admiracion." Rel. Seg., Ms.]

But the worship of the Sun constituted the peculiar care of the
Incas, and was the object of their lavish expenditure.  The most
ancient of the many temples dedicated to this divinity was in the
Island of Titicaca, whence the royal founders of the Peruvian
line were said to have proceeded.  From this circumstance, this
sanctuary was held in peculiar veneration.  Every thing which
belonged to it, even the broad fields of maize, which surrounded
the temple, and formed part of its domain, imbibed a portion of
its sanctity. The yearly produce was distributed among the
different public magazines, in small quantities to each, as
something that would sanctify the remainder of the store.  Happy
was the man who could secure even an ear of the blessed harvest
for his own granary! *14

[Footnote 14: Garcilasso. Com. Real, Parte 1, lib. 3, cap. 25.]
But the most renowned of the Peruvian temples the pride of the
capital, and the wonder of the empire, was at Cuzco, where, under
the munificence of successive sovereigns, it had become so
enriched, that it received the name of Coricancha, or "the Place
of Gold." It consisted of a principal building and several
chapels and inferior edifices, covering a large extent of ground
in the heart of the city, and completely encompassed by a wall,
which, with the edifices, was all constructed of stone.  The work
was of the kind already described in the other public buildings
of the country, and was so finely executed, that a Spaniard, who
saw it in its glory, assures us, he could call to mind only two
edifices in Spain, which, for their workmanship, were at all to
be compared with it. *15 Yet this substantial, and, in some
respects, magnificent structure, was thatched with straw!

[Footnote 15: "Tenia este Templo en circuito mas de quatro
cientos pasos, todo cercado de una muralla fuerte, labrado todo
el edificio de cantera muy excelente de fina piedra, muy bien
puesta y asentada, y algunas piedras eran muy grandes y
soberbias, no tenian mezcla de tierra ni cal, sino con el betun
que ellos suelen hacer sus edificios, y estan tan bien labradas
estas piedras que no se les parece mezcla ni juntura ninguna.  En
toda Espana no he visto cosa que pueda comparar a estas paredes y
postura de piedra, sino a la torre que llaman la Calahorra que
esta junto con la puente de Cordoba, y a una obra que vi en
Toledo, cuando fui a presentar la primera parte de mi Cronica al
Principe Dn Felipe." Sarmiento, Relacion, Ms., cap. 24]

The interior of the temple was the most worthy of admiration.  It
was literally a mine of gold.  On the western wall was emblazoned
a representation of the deity, consisting of a human countenance,
looking forth from amidst innumerable rays of light, which
emanated from it in every direction, in the same manner as the
sun is often personified with us.  The figure was engraved on a
massive plate of gold of enormous dimensions, thickly powdered
with emeralds and precious stones. *16 It was so situated in
front of the great eastern portal, that the rays of the morning
sun fell directly upon it at its rising, lighting up the whole
apartment with an effulgence that seemed more than natural, and
which was reflected back from the golden ornaments with which the
walls and ceiling were everywhere incrusted.  Gold, in the
figurative language of the people, was "the tears wept by the
sun," *17 and every part of the interior of the temple glowed
with burnished plates and studs of the precious metal.  The
cornices, which surrounded the walls of the sanctuary, were of
the same costly material; and a broad belt or frieze of gold, let
into the stonework, encompassed the whole exterior of the
edifice. *18

[Footnote 16: Conq. i Pob. del Piru, Ms - Cieza de Leon, Cronica,
cap. 44, 92.

"La figura del Sol, muy grande, hecha de oro obrada muy
primamente engastonada en muchas piedras ricas." Sarmiento,
Relacion, Ms., cap. 24.]

[Footnote 17: "I al oro asimismo decian que era lagrimas que el
Sol llorava." Conq. i Pob. del Piru, Ms.]

[Footnote 18: Sarmiento, Relacion, Ms., cap. 24.  - Antig. y
Monumentos del Peru, Ms.

"Cercada junto a la techumbre de una plancha de oro de palmo i
medio de ancho i lo mismo tenian por de dentro en cada bohio o
casa i aposento." (Conq. i Pob. del Piru, Ms.) "Tenia una cinta
de planchas de oro de anchor de mas de un palmo enlazadas en las
piedras." Pedro Pizarro, Descub. y Conq., Ms.]
Adjoining the principal structure were several chapels of smaller
dimensions.  One of them was consecrated to the Moon, the deity
held next in reverence, as the mother of the Incas.  Her effigy
was delineated in the same manner as that of the Sun, on a vast
plate that nearly covered one side of the apartment.  But this
plate, as well as all the decorations of the building, was of
silver, as suited to the pale, silvery light of the beautiful
planet. There were three other chapels, one of which was
dedicated to the host of Stars, who formed the bright court of
the Sister of the Sun; another was consecrated to his dread
ministers of vengeance, the Thunder and the Lightning; and a
third, to the Rainbow, whose many-colored arch spanned the walls
of the edifice with hues almost as radiant as its own.  There
were besides several other buildings, or insulated apartments,
for the accommodation of the numerous priests who officiated in
the services of the temple. *19

[Footnote 19: Sarmiento, Relacion, Ms., cap. 24. - Garcilasso,
Com. Real., Parte 1, lib. 3, cap. 21. - Pedro Pizarro, Descub. y
Conq., Ms.]

All the plate, the ornaments, the utensils of every description,
appropriated to the uses of religion, were of gold or silver.
Twelve immense vases of the latter metal stood on the floor of
the great saloon, filled with grain of the Indian corn; *20 the
censers for the perfumes, the ewers which held the water for
sacrifice, the pipes which conducted it through subterraneous
channels into the buildings, the reservoirs that received it,
even the agricultural implements used in the gardens of the
temple, were all of the same rich materials.  The gardens, like
those described, belonging to the royal palaces, sparkled with
flowers of gold and silver, and various imitations of the
vegetable kingdom.  Animals, also, were to be found there, -
among which the llama, with its golden fleece, was most
conspicuous, - executed in the same style, and with a degree of
skill, which, in this instance, probably, did not surpass the
excellence of the material. *21

[Footnote 20: "El bulto del Sol tenian mui grande de oro, i todo
el servicio desta casa era de plata i oro, i tenian doze horones
de plata blanca que dos hombres no abrazarian cada uno quadrados,
i eran mas altos que una buena pica donde hechavan el maiz que
havian de dar al Sol, segun ellos decian que comiese." Conq. i
Pob. del Piru, Ms.

The original, as the Spanish reader perceives, says each of these
silver vases or bins was as high as a good lance, and so large
that two men with outspread arms could barely encompass them!  As
this might, perhaps, embarrass even the most accommodating faith,
I have preferred not to become responsible for any particular
dimensions.]

[Footnote 21: Levinus Apollonius, fol. 38. - Garcilasso, Com.
Real., Parte 1, lib. 3, cap. 24. - Pedro Pizarro, Descub. y
Conq., Ms.

"Tenian un Jardin que los Terrones eran pedazos de oro fino y
estaban artificiosamente sembrado de maizales los quales eran oro
asi las Canas de ello como las ojas y mazorcas, y estaban tan
bien plantados que aunque hiciesen recios bientos no se
arrancaban.  Sin todo esto tenian hechas mas de veinte obejas de
oro con sus Corderos y los Pastores con sus ondas y cayados que
las guardaban hecho de este metal; havia mucha cantidad de
Tinajas de oro y de Plata y esmeraldas, vasos, ollas y todo
genero de vasijas todo de oro fino; por otras Paredes tenian
esculpidas y pintadas otras mayores cosas, en fin era uno de los
ricos Templos que hubo en el mundo." Sarmiento, Relacion, Ms.,
cap. 24.]

If the reader sees in this fairy picture only the romantic
coloring of some fabulous El Dorado, he must recall what has been
said before in reference to the palaces of the Incas, and
consider that these "Houses of the Sun," as they were styled,
were the common reservoir into which flowed all the streams of
public and private benefaction throughout the empire.  Some of
the statements, through credulity, and others, in the desire of
exciting admiration, may be greatly exaggerated; but, in the
coincidence of contemporary testimony, it is not easy to
determine the exact line which should mark the measure of our
skepticism.  Certain it is, that the glowing picture I have given
is warranted by those who saw these buildings in their pride, or
shortly after they had been despoiled by the cupidity of their
countrymen.  Many of the costly articles were buried by the
natives, or thrown into the waters of the rivers and the lakes;
but enough remained to attest the unprecedented opulence of these
religious establishments.  Such things as were in their nature
portable were speedily removed, to gratify the craving of the
Conquerors, who even tore away the solid cornices and frieze of
gold from the great temple, filling the vacant places with the
cheaper, but - since it affords no temptation to avarice - more
durable, material of plaster.  Yet even thus shorn of their
splendor, the venerable edifices still presented an attraction to
the spoiler, who found in their dilapidated walls an
inexhaustible quarry for the erection of other buildings.  On the
very ground once crowned by the gorgeous Coricancha rose the
stately church of St. Dominic, one of the most magnificent
structures of the New World.  Fields of maize and lucerne now
bloom on the spot which glowed with the golden gardens of the
temple; and the friar chants his orisons within the consecrated
precincts once occupied by the Children of the Sun. *22

[Footnote 22: Miller's Memoirs, vol. II. pp. 223, 224.]

Besides the great temple of the Sun, there was a large number of
inferior temples and religious houses in the Peruvian capital and
its environs, amounting, as is stated, to three or four hundred.
*23 For Cuzco was a sanctified spot, venerated not only as the
abode of the Incas, but of all those deities who presided over
the motley nations of the empire.  It was the city beloved of the
Sun; where his worship was maintained in its splendor; "where
every fountain, pathway, and wall," says an ancient chronicler,
"was regarded as a holy mystery." *24 And unfortunate was the
Indian noble who, at some period or other of his life, had not
made his pilgrimage to the Peruvian Mecca.

[Footnote 23: Herrera, Hist. General, dec 5, lib. 4, cap. 8.
"Havia en aquella ciudad y legua y media de la redonda
quatrocientos y tantos lugares, donde se hacian sacrificious, y
se gastava mucha suma de hacienda en ellos." Ondegardo, Rel.
Prim., Ms.]

[Footnote 24: "Que aquella ciudad del Cuzco era casa y morada de
Dioses, e ansi no habia en toda ella fuente ni paso ni pared que
no dixesen que tenia misterio." Ondegardo, Rel. Seg., Ms.]

Other temples and religious dwellings were scattered over the
provinces; and some of them constructed on a scale of
magnificence, that almost rivalled that of the metropolis.  The
attendants on these composed an army of themselves.  The whole
number of functionaries, including those of the sacerdotal order,
who officiated at the Coricancha alone, was no less than four
thousand. *25

[Footnote 25: Conq. i Pob. del Piru, Ms.

An army, indeed, if, as Cieza de Leon states, the number of
priests and menials employed in the famous temple of Bilcas, on
the route to Chili, amounted to 40,000!  (Cronica, cap. 89.)
Every thing relating to these Houses of the Sun appears to have
been on a grand scale.  But we may easily believe this a clerical
error for 4,000.]

At the head of all, both here and throughout the land, stood the
great High-Priest, or Villac Vmu, as he was called.  He was
second only to the Inca in dignity, and was usually chosen from
his brothers or nearest kindred.  He was appointed by the
monarch, and held his office for life; and he, in turn, appointed
to all the subordinate stations of his own order.  This order was
very numerous.  Those members of it who officiated in the House
of the Sun, in Cuzco, were taken exclusively from the sacred race
of the Incas.  The ministers in the provincial temples were drawn
from the families of the curacas; but the office of high-priest
in each district was reserved for one of the blood royal.  It was
designed by this regulation to preserve the faith in its purity,
and to guard against any departure from the stately ceremonial
which it punctiliously prescribed. *26

[Footnote 26: Sarmiento, Relacion, Ms., cap. 27. - Conq i Pob.
del Piru, Ms.

It was only while the priests were engaged in the service of the
temples, that they were maintained, according to Garcilasso, from
the estates of the Sun.  At other times, they were to get their
support from their own lands, which, if he is correct, were
assigned to them in the same manner as to the other orders of the
nation.  Com Real., Parte 1, lib. 5, cap. 8]

The sacerdotal order, though numerous, was not distinguished by
any peculiar badge or costume from the rest of the nation.
Neither was it the sole depository of the scanty science of the
country, nor was it charged with the business of instruction, nor
with those parochial duties, if they may so be called, which
bring the priest in contact with the great body of the people, -
as was the case in Mexico.  The cause of this peculiarity may
probably be traced to the existence of a superior order, like
that of the Inca nobles, whose sanctity of birth so far
transcended all human appointments, that they in a manner
engrossed whatever there was of religious veneration in the
people.  They were, in fact, the holy order of the state.
Doubtless, any of them might, as very many of them did, take on
themselves the sacerdotal functions; and their own insignia and
peculiar privileges were too well understood to require any
further badge to separate them from the people.
The duties of the priest were confined to ministration in the
temple. Even here his attendance was not constant, as he was
relieved after a stated interval by other brethren of his order,
who succeeded one another in regular rotation.  His science was
limited to an acquaintance with the fasts and festivals of his
religion, and the appropriate ceremonies which distinguished
them.  This, however frivolous might be its character, was no
easy acquisition; for the ritual of the Incas involved a routine
of observances, as complex and elaborate as ever distinguished
that of any nation, whether pagan or Christian.  Each month had
its appropriate festival, or rather festivals.  The four
principal had reference to the Sun, and commemorated the great
periods of his annual progress, the solstices and equinoxes.
Perhaps the most magnificent of all the national solemnities was
the feast of Raymi, held at the period of the summer solstice,
when the Sun, having touched the southern extremity of his
course, retraced his path, as if to gladden the hearts of his
chosen people by his presence.  On this occasion, the Indian
nobles from the different quarters of the country thronged to the
capital to take part in the great religious celebration.

For three days previous, there was a general fast, and no fire
was allowed to be lighted in the dwellings.  When the appointed
day arrived, the Inca and his court, followed by the whole
population of the city, assembled at early dawn in the great
square to greet the rising of the Sun.  They were dressed in
their gayest apparel, and the Indian lords vied with each other
in the display of costly ornaments and jewels on their persons,
while canopies of gaudy feather-work and richly tinted stuffs,
borne by the attendants over their heads, gave to the great
square, and the streets that emptied into it, the appearance of
being spread over with one vast and magnificent awning.  Eagerly
they watched the coming of their deity, and, no sooner did his
first yellow rays strike the turrets and loftiest buildings of
the capital, than a shout of gratulation broke forth from the
assembled multitude, accompanied by songs of triumph, and the
wild melody of barbaric instruments, that swelled louder and
louder as his bright orb, rising above the mountain range towards
the east, shone in full splendor on his votaries. After the usual
ceremonies of adoration, a libation was offered to the great
deity by the Inca, from a huge golden vase, filled with the
fermented liquor of maize or of maguey, which, after the monarch
had tasted it himself, he dispensed among his royal kindred.
These ceremonies completed, the vast assembly was arranged in
order of procession, and took its way towards the Coricancha. *27

[Footnote 27: Dec. de la Aud. Real., Ms. - Sarmiento, Relacion,
Ms., cap. 27.

The reader will find a brilliant, and not very extravagant,
account of the Peruvian festivals in Marmontel's romance of Les
Incas.  The French author saw in their gorgeous ceremonial a
fitting introduction to his own literary pageant Tom. I. chap. 1
- 4.]

As they entered the street of the sacred edifice, all divested
themselves of their sandals, except the Inca and his family, who
did the same on passing through the portals of the temple, where
none but these august personages were admitted. *28 After a
decent time spent in devotion, the sovereign, attended by his
courtly train, again appeared, and preparations were made to
commence the sacrifice.  This, with the Peruvians, consisted of
animals, grain, flowers, and sweet-scented gums; sometimes of
human beings, on which occasions a child or beautiful maiden was
usually selected as the victim.  But such sacrifices were rare,
being reserved to celebrate some great public event, as a
coronation, the birth of a royal heir, or a great victory.  They
were never followed by those cannibal repasts familiar to the
Mexicans, and to many of the fierce tribes conquered by the
Incas.  Indeed, the conquests of these princes might well be
deemed a blessing to the Indian nations, if it were only from
their suppression of cannibalism, and the diminution, under their
rule, of human sacrifices. *29

[Footnote 28: "Ningun Indio comun osaba pasar por la calle del
Sol calzado; ni ninguno, aunque fuese mui grand Senor, entrava en
las casas del Sol con zapatos." Conq. i Pob. del Piru, Ms.]

[Footnote 29: Garcilasso de la Vega flatly denies that the Incas
were guilty of human sacrifices; and maintains, on the other
hand, that they uniformly abolished them in every country they
subdued, where they had previously existed.  (Com. Real., Parte
1, lib. 2, cap. 9, et alibi.) But in this material fact he is
unequivocally contradicted by Sarmiento, Relacion, Ms., cap. 22,
- Dec. de la Aud. Real., Ms., - Montesinos, Mem. Antiguas, Ms.,
lib. 2, cap. 8, - Balboa, Hist. du Perou, chap. 5, 8, - Cieza de
Leon, Cronica, cap. 72, - Ondegardo, Rel. Seg., Ms., - Acosta,
lib. 5, cap. 19, - and I might add, I suspect, were I to pursue
the inquiry, by nearly every ancient writer of authority; some of
whom, having come into the country soon after the Conquest, while
its primitive institutions were in vigor, are entitled to more
deference in a matter of this kind than Garcilasso himself.  It
was natural that the descendant of the Incas should desire to
relieve his race from so odious an imputation; and we must have
charity for him, if he does show himself, on some occasions,
where the honor of his country is a

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