The Story of Extinct Civilizations of the West Part 13

4. _Sculpture._--The Maya race of Yucatan and Central America were much superior to the prehistoric Peruvians in stone sculpture. Except those examples already referred to under 1, their artists have apparently produced nothing to show skill in workmanship, much less fertility of imagination. That is largely explained by their lack of suitable tools.

5. _Goldsmith's Work._--In this branch of art the ancient Peruvians greatly excelled, especially in inlaying and gilding. Gold-beating and gilding had been prosecuted to remarkable delicacy, and the very thin layers of gold-leaf on many articles led the Spaniards at first to believe they were of the solid metal. These delicate layers showed ornamental designs, including birds, b.u.t.terflies, and the like.

6. _Pottery._--In this department of industrial art the prehistoric Peruvians showed much apt.i.tude both "in regard to variety of design and technical skill in preparing the material. Vases with pointed bottoms and painted sides recalling those of ancient Greece and Etruria are often disinterred along the coast." The merit of those artists lay in perfect imitation of natural objects, such as birds, fishes, fruits, plants, skulls, persons in various positions, faces (often with graphic individuality). Some jars exactly resembled the "magic vases" which are still found in Hindustan, and can be emptied only when held at a certain angle.

7. Though ignorant of perspective and the rules of light and shade, these ancient Peruvians had an accurate eye for color. "Spinning, weaving, and dyeing," to quote Sir C. R. Markham, "were arts which were sources of employment to a great number, owing to the quant.i.ty and variety of the fabrics.... There were rich dresses interwoven with gold or made of gold thread; fine woolen mantles ornamented with borders of small square plates of gold and silver; colored cotton cloths worked in complicated patterns; and fabrics of aloe fiber and sheep's sinews for breeches. Coa.r.s.er cloths of llama wool were also made in vast quant.i.ties."

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Quipu.]

8. The _quipu_ (i e., "knot").--Without writing or even any of the simpler forms of pictographs which some Indian races inferior to them in refinement had invented, the Peruvians had no means of sending a message relating to tribute or the number of warriors in an army, or a date, except the _quipu_. It consisted of one princ.i.p.al cord about two feet long held horizontally, to which other cords of various colors and lengths were attached, hanging vertically. The knots on the vertical cords, and their various lengths served by means of an arranged code to convey certain words and phrases. Each color and each knot had so many conventional significations; thus _white_ = silver, _green_ = corn, _yellow_ = gold; but in another quipu, _white_ = peace, _red_ = war, soldiers, etc. The quipu was originally only a means of numeration and keeping accounts, thus:

a single knot = 10 a double knot = 100 a triple knot = 1,000 two singles = 20 two doubles = 200 etc.

9. The great stone monuments described in our first section belonged, according to some writers, to a dynasty called Pirua, who ruled over the highlands of Peru and Bolivia long before the times of the Incas. That early race had as the center of their civilization the sh.o.r.es of Lake t.i.ticaca.

10. _The Ancient Capital._--Cuzco, the center of government till the time of the conquest by the Spaniards, and for a long time the only city in the Peruvian empire, deserves a paragraph under the head archeology.

Its wonderful fortress has already been referred to, and there are other Cyclopean remains, such as the great wall which contains the "stone of twelve corners." Some monuments of the Inca period also attract much attention, such as the Curi-cancha temple, 296 feet long, the palace of Amaru-cancha (i. e., "place of serpents"), so called from the serpents sculptured in relief on the exterior. Of these and other buildings Squier remarks that the "joints are of a precision unknown in our architecture; the world has nothing to show in the way of stone-cutting and fitting to surpa.s.s the skill and accuracy displayed in the Inca structures of Cuzco." To obtain the site for their capital the Incas had to carry out a great engineering work, by confining two mountain torrents between walls of substantial masonry so solid as to serve even to modern times. The Valley of Cuzco was the source of the Peruvian civilization, center and origin of the empire. Hence the name, Cuzco = "navel," just as the ancient Greeks called Athens _umbilicus terrae_, and our New England cousins fondly refer to Boston, Ma.s.s., as "the hub of the universe"!

[Ill.u.s.tration: Gold Ornament (? Zodiac) from a Tomb at Cuzco.]

-- (B) _Peru before the Arrival of the Spaniards_

The "national myth" of the Peruvians was that at Lake t.i.ticaca two supernatural beings appeared, both children of the Sun. One was Manco Capac, the first Inca, who taught the people agriculture; the other was his wife, who taught the women to spin and weave. From them were lineally derived all the Incas. As representing the Sun, the Inca was high priest and head of the hierarchy, and therefore presided at the great religious festivals. He was the source from which everything flowed--all dignity, all power, all emolument. Louis le Magnifique when at the height of his power might be taken as a type of the emperor Inca: both could literally use the phrase, _L'etat c'est Moi,_ "The State! I am the State!"

In the royal palaces and dress great barbaric pomp was a.s.sumed. All the apartments were studded with gold and silver ornaments.

The worship of the Sun, representing the Creator, the Dweller in s.p.a.ce, the Teacher and Ruler of the Universe,[25] was the religion of the Incas inherited from their distant ancestry. The great temple at Cuzco, with its gorgeous display of riches, was called "the place of gold, the abode of the Teacher of the Universe." An elliptical plate of gold was fixed on the wall to represent the Deity.

[Footnote 25: According to Sir C. R. Markham, F. R. S.]

Sufficient evidence is still visible of the engineering industry evinced by the natives before the arrival of Pizarro. We give some particulars of the two princ.i.p.al highways, both joining Quito to Cuzco, then pa.s.sing south to Chile. First, the high level road, 1,600 miles in length, crossing the great Peruvian table-land, and conducted over pathless sierras buried in snow; with galleries cut for leagues through the living rock, rivers crossed by means of bridges, and ravines of hideous depth filled up with solid masonry. The roadway consisted of heavy flags of freestone. Secondly, the low level highway along the coast country between the Andes and the Pacific. The prehistoric engineers had here to encounter quite a different task. The causeway was raised on a high embankment of earth, with trees planted along the margin. In the strips of sandy waste, huge piles (many of them to be seen to this day) were driven into the ground to indicate the route.

Another colossal effort was the conveyance of water to the rainless country by the seacoast, especially to certain parts capable of being reclaimed and made fertile. Some of the aqueducts were of great length--one measuring between 400 and 500 miles.

The following table gives the Peruvian calendar for a year:

I. Raymi, the _Festival of the Winter Solstice_, in honor of the Sun June 22d.

Season of plowing July 22d.

Season of sowing August 22d.

II. _Festival of the Spring Equinox_ September 22d.

Season of brewing October 22d.

Commemoration of the Dead November 22d.

III. _Festival of the Summer Solstice_ December 22d.

Season of exercises January 22d.

Season of ripening February 22d.

IV. _Festival of Autumn Equinox_ March 22d.

Beginning of harvest April 22d.

Harvesting month May 22d.

Since Quito is exactly on the equator, the vertical rays of the sun at noon during the equinox cast no shadow. That northern capital, therefore, was "held in especial veneration as the favored abode of the great deity."

At the feast of Raymi, or New Year's day, the sacrifice usually offered was that of the llama, a fire being kindled by means of a concave mirror of polished metal collecting the rays of the sun into a focus upon a quant.i.ty of dried cotton.

The national festival of the Aztecs we compared to the secular celebration of the Romans; so now the Raymi of the Peruvians may be likened to the Panathenaea of ancient Athens, when the people of Attica ascended in splendid procession to the shrine on the Acropolis.

In Mexico the Spanish travelers often experienced severe famines; and in India, even at the present day (to the disgrace perhaps of our management) nearly every year many thousands die of hunger. It was very different under the ancient Peruvians, because by law "the product of the lands consecrated to the Sun, as well as those set apart for the Incas, was deposited in the _Tambos_, or public storehouses, as a stated provision for times of scarcity."

The Spaniards found those prehistoric agriculturists utilizing the inexhaustible supply of guano found on all the islands of the Pacific.

It was not till the middle of the nineteenth century that the British farmer found the value of this fertilizer.

CHAPTER X

PIZARRO AND THE INCAS

When stout-hearted Balboa first reached the summit of the isthmus range and looked south over the Bay of Panama, he might have seen the "Silver Bell," which forms the summit of the mighty volcano Chimborazo. Still farther south in the same direction lay the "land of gold," of which he had heard.

Balboa was unjustly prevented from exploring that unknown country, but among the Spanish soldiers in Panama there were two who determined to carry out Balboa's scheme. The younger, Pizarro, was destined to rival Cortes as explorer and conqueror; Almagro, his companion in the expedition, was less crafty and cruel. Sailing from Panama, the Spanish first landed on the coast below Quito, and found the natives wearing gold and silver trinkets. On a second voyage, with more men, they explored the coast of Peru and visited Tumbez, a town with a lofty temple and a palace for the Incas.

They beheld a country fully peopled and cultivated; the natives were decently clothed, and possessed of ingenuity so far surpa.s.sing the other inhabitants of the New World as to have the use of tame domestic animals. But what chiefly attracted the notice of the visitors was such a show of gold and silver, not only in ornaments, but in several vessels and utensils for common use, formed of those precious metals as left no room to doubt that they abounded with profusion in the country.

After his return Pizarro visited Spain and secured the patronage of Charles V, who appointed him Governor and Captain-General of the newly discovered country. In the next voyage from Panama, Pizarro set sail with 180 soldiers in three small ships--"a contemptible force surely to invade the great empire of Peru."

Pizarro was very fortunate in the time of his arrival, because two brothers were fiercely contending in civil war to obtain the sovereignty. Their father, Huana Capac, the twelfth Inca in succession from Manco Capac, had recently died after annexing the kingdom of Quito, and thus doubling the power of the empire. Pizarro made friends with Atahualpa, who had become Inca by the defeat and death of his brother, and a friendly meeting was arranged between them. The Peruvians are thus described by a Spanish onlooker:

First of all there arrived 400 men in uniform; the Inca himself, on a couch adorned with plumes, and almost covered with plates of gold and silver, enriched with precious stones, was carried on the shoulders of his princ.i.p.al attendants. Several bands of singers and dancers accompanied the procession; and the whole plain was covered with troops, more than 30,000 men.

After engaging in a religious dispute with the Inca, who refused to acknowledge the authority of the Pope and threw the breviary on the ground, the Spanish chaplain exclaimed indignantly that the Word of G.o.d had been insulted by a heathen.

Pizarro instantly gave the signal of a.s.sault: the martial music struck up, the cannon and muskets began to fire, the horse rallied out fiercely to the charge, the infantry rushed on sword in hand.

The Peruvians, astonished at the suddenness of the attack, dismayed with the effect of the firearms and the irresistible impression of the cavalry, fled with universal consternation on every side.

Pizarro, at the head of his chosen band, soon penetrated to the royal seat, and seizing the Inca by the arm, carried him as a prisoner to the Spanish quarters.

For his ransom Atahualpa agreed to pay a weight of gold amounting to more than five millions sterling.

Instead of keeping faith with the Inca by restoring him to liberty, Pizarro basely allowed him to be tried on several false charges and condemned to be burned alive.

After hearing of the enormous ransom many Spaniards hurried from Guatemala, Panama, and Nicaragua to share in the newly discovered booty of Peru, the "land of gold." Pizarro, therefore, being now greatly reenforced with soldiers, forced his way to Cuzco, the capital. The riches found there exceeded in value what had been received as Atahualpa's ransom.

As Governor of Peru, Pizarro chose a new site for his capital, nearer the coast than Cuzco, and there founded Lima. It is now a great center of trade. Pizarro lived here in great state till the year 1542, when his fate reached him by means of a party of conspirators seeking to avenge the death of Almagro, his former rival, whom he had cruelly executed as a traitor. On Sunday, June 26th, at midday, while all Lima was quiet under the siesta, the conspirators pa.s.sed un.o.bserved through the two outer courts of the palace, and speedily despatched the soldier-adventurer, intrepidly defending himself with a sword and buckler. "A deadly thrust full in the throat," and the tale of daring Pizarro was told.

_Raro antecedentem scelestum_ _Deseruit pede Poena claudo._

When Did Doom, though lame, not bide its time, To clutch the nape of skulking Crime?