The History Of The Conquest Of Peru

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[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