History of the Conquest of Peru Part 7

[Footnote 2: Ondegardo, Rel. Seg., Ms. - Gomara, Hist. de las Ind., cap. 123. - Garcila.s.so, 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 n.o.ble 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 Garcila.s.so, 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 Garcila.s.so, 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 ma.s.s 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 circ.u.mstance 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 princ.i.p.al 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 Garcila.s.so, 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: Garcila.s.so's a.s.sertion, 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 Garcila.s.so 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, princ.i.p.al deities, were a.s.sembled 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 s.e.m.e.nteras 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 const.i.tuted 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 t.i.ticaca, whence the royal founders of the Peruvian line were said to have proceeded. From this circ.u.mstance, 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 sanct.i.ty. The yearly produce was distributed among the different public magazines, in small quant.i.ties 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: Garcila.s.so. 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 princ.i.p.al building and several chapels and inferior edifices, covering a large extent of ground in the heart of the city, and completely encompa.s.sed 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, a.s.sures 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 ma.s.sive 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, encompa.s.sed 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 princ.i.p.al 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. - Garcila.s.so, 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 surpa.s.s 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 encompa.s.s them! As this might, perhaps, embarra.s.s even the most accommodating faith, I have preferred not to become responsible for any particular dimensions.]

[Footnote 21: Levinus Apollonius, fol. 38. - Garcila.s.so, 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 n.o.ble 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.]