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Menasseh ben Israel’s Mission to Oliver Cromwell

by Lucien Wolf

10 of 55 · Contents · Download EPUB

Sect. 5

That seemes to be to the purpose which Garcillassos de la Voga saith in his Comment. on Peru, lib. 3. c. 1. That in Tiahuanacu a Province of Collai, among other Antiquities, this is worthy of memory, (being scituated at the Lake which the Spaniards call Chutuytu) That among the great buildings which are there, one was to be seene of a very great pile, which hath a Court 15. fathoms broad; a wall that compasseth it, 2 furlongs high; on one side of the Court is a Chamber 45 foot long, and 22 broad; and the Court, the Wall, the Pavement, the Chamber, the Roofe of it, the entrance, the posts of the 2 gates of the Chamber, and of the entrance, are made only of one stone; the three sides of the Wall are an ell thick; the Indians say, that that House is dedicated to the Maker of the World. I conjecture that building to be a Synagogue, built by the Israelites; for the Authors who writ about the Indies, tell us, that the Indians never use Iron, or Iron weapons. Also the Indians were Idolaters, and therefore it could not be that they should build an house to God. P. Acosta in lib. 6. Ind. histor. c. 14. mentions such buildings as are in that place; and he reports that he measured a stone which was 38. foot long, 18 foot broad, and sixe foot thick. Petrus Cieza in his first part of his Chronicles of Peru, c. 87. relates, That in the City Guamanga, which is scituated by the river Vinaque, there is a vast building, which because then it seemed almost ruined by time, it therefore had lasted many yeares. He asking the neighbouring Indians, Who built that great Pile? He learnt, that it was made by a people (who were bearded, and white as the Spaniards) who came thither a long time before (and staid some time after) the Indians raigned there; and the Indians said, that they had received it from their Fathers by Tradition. The same Cieza, cap. 10. 5. of the Antiquity of Tiguanac, saith, that what the Indians boast to be very ancient, can by no meanes be compared with that Ancient building, and other things. From all which you may well gather, that the first Inhabitants of that place were the Israelites of the ten Tribes, because they were white, and bearded.

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