Lecture VI Peruvian Cultus and Festivals — Morals and the Future Life — Conclusions
Ladies and Gentlemen,
To complete my account of the native religion of Peru, I have still to speak of the cultus, the festivals, the religious ethics, and the ideas of a future life.
I
The Peruvian cultus had given birth to the temple; and, indeed, it is highly interesting to witness what one may call the “genesis of the temple” on this soil, so different from those of the Old World. There were temples, indeed, before the Incas, but they differed both in style and in signification from those reared under their patronage. In Peru, as in Mexico, the temples were originally neither more nor less than extremely lofty altars; that is to say, artificial elevations, on the summit of which the sacrifices were presented, while a little chapel served to contain the image of the god or gods adored. Round this great altar were grouped other chapels, galleries and columns, as though to accompany the great central altar formed by the eminence itself. Under the Incas, the crowning chapel increased so enormously that it encircled the altar and became the essential part of the sacred structure. The Inca temples were veritable palaces, destined as abodes for the gods. None of them remain; but their ruins attest the fact that the architects aimed rather at colossal than at beautiful effects. They contained gigantic stone statues, gates cut out of monoliths, and the well-known pyramidal structures of which we have spoken already. The most imposing of the temples was the one at Cuzco, which consisted in a vast central edifice, flanked with a number of adjacent buildings. Gold was so prodigally lavished on its interior that it bore the name of Coricancha, that is to say, “the place of gold.” The roof was formed by timber-work of precious woods plated with gold, but was covered, as in the case of all the houses of the land, with a simple thatch of maize straw. The doors opened to the East, and at the far end, above the altar, was the golden disk of the Sun, placed so as to reflect the first rays of the morning on its brilliant surface, and, as it were, reproduce the great luminary. And note that the mummies of the departed Incas, children of the Sun, were ranged in a semicircle round the sacred disk on golden thrones, so that the morning rays came day by day to shine on their august remains. The adjacent buildings were abodes of the deities who formed the retinue of the Sun. The principal one was sacred to the Moon, his consort, who had her disk of silver, and ranged around her the ancient queens, the departed Coyas. Others served as the abodes of Chaska, our planet Venus, the Pleiades, the Thunder, the Rainbow, and finally the officiating priests of the temple. In the provinces, the Incas reared a number of temples of the Sun on the model of that at Cuzco, but on a smaller scale.97
The Incas, however, had been anticipated in this striking development of the temple by the religions anterior or adjacent to their own. Witness the great temple of Pachacamac, which they left standing in the valley of Lurin, and the remarkable ruins of another great temple situated at some miles distance from Lake Titicaca, which has quite recently been made the subject of a careful reconstructive study by your compatriot Mr. Inwards.98
The offerings presented to the gods were very varied in kind. Flowers, fragrant incense, especially from preparations of coca, vegetables, fruits, maize, prepared drinks offered in cups of gold. At some of the feasts the officiating priest moistened the tips of his fingers in the cup and flung the drops towards the Sun. We also find in Peru a very special form of that remnant of self-immolation which enters, in more or less reduced and restricted shape, into the devotions of so many peoples and assumes such varied forms. The Red-skin offers his sweat; the Black offers his saliva or his teeth; the more poetical Greek, a lock of his hair, or even all of it. The Peruvian pulled out a hair from his eyebrow and blew it towards the idol!99
But there were also sacrifices of blood. A llama was sacrificed every day at Cuzco. Before setting out on war, the Peruvians sacrificed a black llama that they had previously kept fasting, that the heart of their enemies might fail as did his. This was the Peruvian application of the principle that lies at the base of all those superstitious ceremonies intended to provoke or stimulate a desired effect by reproducing its analogue in advance. Small birds, rabbits, and, for the health of the Inca, black dogs, were also sacrificed frequently. All these offerings were as a rule burned, that they might so be transmitted to the gods.100 It should be noted that they only sacrificed edible animals,101 which is a clear proof that the intention was to feed the gods. The sacrificing priest turned the animal’s eyes towards the Sun, and opened its body to take out its heart, lungs and viscera, and offer them to the idols. It is a characteristic fact that when the victim was not burned, its flesh was divided amongst the sacrificers and eaten raw. The Peruvians had long learned to cook their meat, but this rite carries us back to a high antiquity, when cooking food was still an innovation which the power of tradition excluded from the ritual. It is to analogous causes that we must attribute the continued use of stone instruments in the religious ceremonies of peoples who are acquainted with iron and use it in ordinary life. In conclusion, they smeared the idols and the doors of the temples with the blood of the victims in order to appease the gods.102
All this is sufficiently crude and material, and rests upon the same premisses as those which drove the Mexicans to the frightful excesses which I have previously described. But humanity was far less outraged in the Peruvian than in the Mexican religion. Garcilasso deceives himself, or is attempting to deceive his readers, when he gives his ancestors, the Incas, the honour of having put an end to human sacrifices.103 It is certain that in the religion of Pachacamac more especially this kind of sacrifice was frequent, and for that matter we know that it was universal in the primitive epochs. All that we can allow to the descendant of the Incas is, that they did not encourage, and were rather disposed to restrain, human sacrifice. But for all that, when the reigning Inca was ill, they sacrificed one of his sons to the Sun, and prayed him to accept the substitution of the son for the father. At certain feasts a young infant was immolated. Others were sacrificed to the subterranean spirits when a new Inca was enthroned. To the same category we must attach the custom which enjoined upon wives, especially those of the Incas, the duty of burying themselves alive on the death of their husbands. It is asserted that when Huayna Capac died, a thousand members of his household incurred a voluntary death that they might go with him to serve him. The widows, however, were not compelled to take this step, and we know that the Incas had organized the support of widows without resources. But public opinion was not favourable to those who refused to follow their husbands to the tomb. It was regarded as a species of infidelity.104 We see, however, from other well-established facts, that the Peruvian religion had been gradually softened. In Peru, as in China, instead of the living beings that they used formerly to bury with the dead, they now placed statuettes of men and women with him in his tomb to represent his wives and his servants.105
We must also mention those “columns of the Sun” which appear never to have been absent in countries dominated by a solar worship. We have already seen them in Central America and in Mexico, and we also find them in Egypt, in Syria, in Asia Minor, in Palestine, at Carthage and elsewhere. In these columns the idea of fertilization is associated with that of the pleasure the Sun must feel in tracing out their shadows as he caresses their faces and summits with his rays. The earliest quadrants were traced at the foot of these columns. In Peru, they were levelled at the top, and were regarded as “seats of the Sun,” who loved to rest upon them. At the equinoxes and solstices they placed golden thrones upon them for him to sit upon. Those nearest to the equator were held in greatest veneration, because the shadows were shorter there than elsewhere, and the Sun appeared to rest vertically upon them.106
Prayer, in the proper sense of the word, asserted its place but feebly in the Peruvian religion. But hymns to the Sun were chanted at the great festivals and by the people as they went to cultivate the lands of the Sun. Every strophe ended with the cry, Hailly, or “triumph.” It was the Peruvian Io Pæan. These chants, as far as they are still known to us, have something soft and sad about them. The rule of the Incas, paternal indeed, but monotonous in the extreme, must have tended to produce melancholy. In 1555, a Spanish composer wrote a mass upon the themes of these indigenous airs. It was sung in chorus, and it is chiefly to it that we owe the preservation of these chants.107
But the grand form of religious demonstration among the Peruvians was the dance. They were very assiduous in this form of devotion, and indeed we know what a large place the earliest of the arts occupied in the primitive religions generally. The dance was the first and chief means adopted by pre-historic humanity of entering into active union with the deity adored. The first idea was to imitate the measured movements of the god, or at any rate what were supposed to be such. Afterwards, this fundamental motive was more or less forgotten; but the rite remained in force, like so many other religious forms which tradition and habit sustained even when the spirit was gone. In Peru, this tradition was still full of life. The name of the principal Peruvian festivals, Raymi, signifies “dance.” The performances were so animated, that the dancers seemed to the Europeans to be out of their senses. It is noteworthy that the Incas themselves took no part in these violent dances, but had an “Incas’ dance” of their own, which was grave and measured.108
There were four great official festivals in the year, coinciding with the equinoxes and the solstices. The first was the festival of the Winter solstice, which fell in June. It was the Raymi, or festival par excellence, the Citoc Raymi, the feast of the diminished and (henceforth) growing Sun. It lasted nine days, the first three of which were given up to fasting. On the morning of the great day, a grand procession, led by the reigning Inca and his family, followed by the nobles and the people, proceeded, with insignia, banners and symbolic masks, towards the place of the dawn and the rising Sun. When the luminary appeared, the crowd fell to the earth and threw him kisses. The Inca presented the sacred beverage to the Sun, drank some of it himself, and passed it on to his suite. This was a sort of solar communion. Then they went to the temple of the Sun to sacrifice a black llama there. After this, they kindled the new fire by means of the concave mirror, and slaughtered a number of llamas, representing the Sun’s present to the people. The pieces were distributed to the families, where they were eaten with the sacred cakes prepared by the Virgins of the Sun. This was the second act of communion with the luminary to whom the day was sacred. The remaining days of the festival were passed in rejoicings, when the people seem to have made themselves ample amends for the fast with which they had begun.109
The second great festival, that of Spring, which fell in September, was the Citua Raymi, the feast of Purification. But do not attach any essentially moral significance to the idea of purification. The object in view was to purify the territory from all influences hostile to the health, security and prosperity of the inhabitants. Ball-shaped cakes were eaten on this occasion, in which was mixed the blood of victims or of young children, who were not slaughtered however, but bled above the nose, which is evidence of a previous custom of far greater ferocity, and of the gradual softening of the Peruvian ritual. With this bread the people rubbed their bodies all over, and the doors of their houses likewise. Then, a little before sunset, a very strange ceremony was performed. An Inca, clad in precious armour and lance in hand, descended from the fortress of Cuzco, followed by four relatives whom the Sun had specially charged with the task of chasing away by open force all the maladies from the city and its environs. They traversed the chief streets of Cuzco at full speed, amid the acclamations of the inhabitants, and then surrendered their lances to others, who were relieved in their turn, till the limits of the ancient state of Cuzco were reached. There the lances were fixed in the ground, as so many talismans against evil influences. At night there was a great torch-light procession, at the close of which the torches were hurled into the river, and thus the evil spirits of the night were expelled, as those of the day had been by the lancers of the Sun.110 Observe that in Africa, amongst the Blacks, a kind of “chase of the evil spirits” is practised (though accompanied with far fewer ceremonies than in Peru), in which the inhabitants of a village, armed with sticks and uttering formulæ of exorcism, expel the evil spirits from their houses and from their streets, and pursue them into the desert or the interior of a forest. But notice here, again, with what art the Incas had contrived to turn an old superstition to account in the interests of their own prestige. If maladies did not decimate the people of Cuzco, it was to their Incas that they owed their safety.
The third great festival, the Aymorai, which fell in May, celebrated the Harvest. A statue was constructed out of grains of corn glued together, and was adored under the name of Pirrhua, which in this case may well be a contraction of Viracocha, the god of fertilizing moisture. On this occasion a number of sacrifices were made at home by the householders.111
The fourth great feast fell in December. It was the Capac Raymi, the festival of Power, in which the god of thunder was the object of a special worship by the side of the Sun. On this occasion the young Incas, after fasts, tournaments and other tests, received the investiture of manhood by having their ears pierced, and receiving a scarf, an axe and a crown of flowers. The young Curacas of the same age were also admitted to the privileges and duties of their rank, and shared with the Inca the sacred bread in token of indissoluble communion with him.112
There were also a number of other and less important feasts. Each month had one of its own. Then there were occasional feasts, to celebrate the triumphal return of a victorious Inca for example, or when the tournaments of the young nobles, to which a religious value was attached, took place, or when silent processions lasting a day and night, and followed by dances, were instituted to avert threatening calamities, and so forth.113 In Peru, as in so many other regions, eclipses were the subject of great terror. The eclipses of the Sun were attributed to his own anger, those of the Moon to an illness caused by the attack of an evil spirit, to frighten which away and put it to flight a hideous yelling was raised.114
There were sorcerers in Peru as everywhere else; but in Peru too, as everywhere else where a priesthood has acquired a regular organization and made its authority respected, sorcery was hardly resorted to save by the lower classes.115 In fact, the sorcerer is the priest of backward tribes, and the priest is the developed sorcerer. By his superior knowledge, by the more stable guarantees which he can give as the member of an imposing organization, by the nature of the religion of which he is the organ, and which raises him above the incoherent puerilities of animism, the priest eclipses the sorcerer and relegates him to the lower strata of society, which is just where his own titles to superiority are least appreciated. The sorcerer sinks in proportion as the priest rises.116 For the rest, the official priesthood had its own diviners, who could foretel the future, the Huacarimachi, or “they who make the gods speak.” The oracles of the valley of Rimac or Lima were much frequented; and, moreover, the Peruvians, like so many peoples of the Old World, thought that they could read the future in the entrails of the victims offered in sacrifice.117 This wide-spread belief rests on the idea that immolation unites the victim so closely to the deity that it enters into communion with his thoughts and intentions, so that its heart, liver, and all other organs supposed to be affected by mental and moral dispositions, receive the impress of the divine prevision. Is it not passing strange, Gentlemen, that this mode of divination, which appears so absurd to us, which has no rational basis whatever, which rests on a singularly subtle conception of the relations between the creature sacrificed and the being to whom it is offered, has secured the prolonged confidence of the peoples of the Old World, and appears again in Peru, where it cannot have been imitated from any one?
II
It has been asked whether the native religion of Peru rested any system of elevated morals on its fundamental principles. Gentlemen, I am persuaded that religion and morals unite together and interpenetrate each other in the higher regions of thought and life. Perhaps the most distinct result of our Christian education is the full comprehension of the fact that what is moral is religious, and that immorality cannot on any pretext be allowed as legitimately religious. But we must certainly yield to the overwhelming evidence that in the lower stages of religion this union of the two sisters is present only in germ. Religion, still quite selfish in its character, pursues its own way and seeks its own satisfactions independently of all moral considerations, and almost always lives in a state of separation from morality. We ought therefore to expect that in systems such as that of Peru—which have already risen much above the low level of the primitive religions, but are still far below that of the higher ones—we should find a certain religious ethic, a certain moral tendency in religion, but likewise all kinds of inconsistencies, and constant relapses towards the ancient separation of the two sisters. As a general rule, we may say that even where the Peruvian religion seems to undertake the elevation and protection of morals, it does so rather with a utilitarian and selfish view, than with any real purpose of sanctifying the heart and will.
Thus we have noted ceremonies which forcibly recal the Communion. But the great object in view was to secure to the communicants the safety and well-being that would result from their union with the Sun or his representatives. The moral idea occupies but a small place in this communion, though it is but right to add that the great social laws were placed under the patronage and sanction of the Sun, whose legislation the Incas were held responsible for enforcing. In the same way we find in Peru something that closely resembles baptism. From fifteen to twenty days after birth the child received its first name, after being plunged into water. But this purification had nothing to do with the ideas of sin and regeneration. It was but a form of exorcism, destined to secure the child from the evil spirits and their malign influences. Between the ages of ten and twelve, the child’s definitive name was conferred. On this occasion his hair and nails were cut off, and offered to the Sun and the guardian spirits.118 This represented the consecration of his person, but its main object was to secure him the protection of the divine power.
There was likewise a sacerdotal confession, but it was an institution of state and of police rather than a sacrament with a moral purpose. The great object was to discover all actions, whether voluntary or not, which might bring misfortune upon the state if not expiated by the appropriate penances and rites. The father confessors of Peru were inquisitors charged with the searching out of secret faults and the exaction of their avowal. A refusal to confess might provoke severe measures. A proof of the small influence of the moral element in the whole system of inquisition may be found in the fact that the priest relied on purely fortuitous tests in deciding whether or not to give absolution. For instance, he would take a pinch of maize grains, and if the number turned out to be even, he would declare the confession good, and give absolution, otherwise he would say the penitent must have concealed something, and would make him confess again.119
Our conviction that the Peruvian religion had but a very elementary moral significance, receives a final confirmation from the beliefs concerning the future life.
It is clear that no very definite ideas on this point had become generally established. In fact, we find amongst the Peruvians at the time of the conquest the underlying conceptions of the most widely severed peoples, all mingled together. Thus the common people of Peru, like all savages, thought of the future life as a continuation, pure and simple, of the present life. This explains the custom of burying all kinds of useful and desirable objects with the dead—giving him an emigrant’s outfit, in short. The worship of ancestors is easily grafted upon this conception of the life beyond the grave. These ancestors may still succour, protect and inspire their descendants. I am assured at first hand that to this very day, and in spite of the efforts of the Catholic clergy, the worship of ancestors is still widely practised by the native population. There was not the least idea of a resurrection of the body. If the corpse was preserved, especially in the case of departed Incas, it was because the Peruvians believed that the soul which had left it still retained a marked predilection for its ancient abode and liked to return to it from time to time; and also because they attributed magic virtues to the remains thus preserved. No idea of recompense is as yet associated with this purely animistic and primitive conception of the life beyond the tomb.120
Amongst the higher classes, the ideas entertained on this same subject had become a little less naive. The Incas were supposed to be transported to the mansion of the Sun, their father, where they still lived together as his family. The Curacas or nobles would either follow them there, or would still live under the earth beneath the sceptre of the god of the dead, Supay, the Hades or Pluto of the Peruvian mythology. Do not identify this deity with a Satan or Ahriman of any kind. He was not a wicked, but rather a sinister god, the conception of whom could wake no joyous or even serene emotions. He was a voracious deity, of insatiable appetite. At Quito, at any rate before the conquest of the country by the Incas, a hundred children were sacrificed to him every year. There is no idea of positive suffering inflicted on the wicked under his direction. But the subterranean abode is gloomy and dismal, like the place of shades in the Odyssey. Exceptional considerations of birth, rank or valour in war, determine the passage of chosen souls to heaven, where their lot will of course be far more brilliant and happy than that of the souls that remain in the subterranean regions. Thus the aristocratic point of view, barely modified by the high importance attributed to the warlike virtues, still dominates the ideas of a future life in ancient Peru, as in Mexico, in Polynesia and in Africa. This is a final proof that the moral element was but feebly present in the ancient Peruvian religion. For wherever a clear and definite belief in a conscious life beyond the grave is united to a sense of the religious character of morality, it is likewise held, by an obvious connection of ideas, that the lot of departed souls will depend completely upon their moral condition, without distinction of birth or rank.121
This Peruvian religion, then, in spite of its elevation and refinement in some respects, forcibly reminds us of the walls of its own temples, all plated with gold, but covered in with straw, and poor and unvaried in architecture. A monotonous, unformed, gloomy spirit seems to pervade the whole institution, in spite of its brilliant exterior. The air of the convent broods over it. Those thousands of functionaries who spent their lives in superintending the furniture, the dress, the work, the very cookery, of the families under their charge, and inflicting corporal chastisement on those whom they surprised in a fault, might succeed in forming a correct and regular society, drilled like the bees in a hive, might form a nation of submissive slaves, but could never make a nation of men; and this is the deep cause that explains the irremediable collapse of this Peruvian society under the vigorous blows of a handful of unscrupulous Spaniards. It was a skilfully constructed machine, which worked like a chronometer; but when once the mainspring was broken, all was over.
It is no part of our task to tell the story of the conversion of the natives to Roman Catholic Christianity. It was comparatively easily effected. The fall of the Incas was a mortal blow to the religious, no less than to the political, edifice in which they were the key-stone of the arch. It was evident that the Sun had been unable or unwilling to protect his children. The conqueror imposed his religion on Peru, as on Mexico, by open force; and the Spanish Inquisition, though not giving rise to such numerous and terrible spectacles in the former as in the latter country, yet carried out its work of terror and oppression there too. The result was that peculiar character of the Catholicism of the natives of Peru which strikes every traveller, and consists in a kind of timid and superstitious submission, without confidence and without zeal, associated with the obstinate preservation of customs which mount back to the former religious régime, and with memories of the golden age of the Inca rule under which their ancestors were privileged to live, but which has gone to return no more.
III
And now it only remains for us to draw the inferences and conclusions suggested by our examination of the ancient religions of Mexico and Peru, so closely associated with the remarkable though imperfect civilizations to which the two nations had attained.
We have not stayed to discuss the hypotheses that have so often been put forward, to attach these religions and civilizations to some immigration from the Old World. The fact is that all these attempts rest on the arbitrary selection of some few traits of resemblance, on which exclusive stress is laid, to the neglect of still more characteristic differences. The best proof that the work of affiliation has been abortive, in spite of the high authority of some of the names that have been lent to it, may be found in the fact that every possible nation of the Old World has in its turn been selected as the true parent of the Peruvians and Mexicans. The Carthaginians, the Greeks, the Chinese, the Hindus, the Buddhists of India and China, the Romans, even the Celts and the Chaldeans, have been put forward one after the other. Nay, the English themselves have been tried! There is a gratifying legend which brings the story of Manco Capac and Mama Ogllo into connection with the results of the shipwreck of an Englishman, whose national name was transformed into Inga Man, which again, in conjunction with Cocapac, the name of the father of the native wife whom the Englishman had taken to himself, made Inca Manco Capac! The sequel is obvious. The two fair-skinned children that sprang from this union were of course the founders of the Inca family and the state of Cuzco.122 I need not tell you that all this will not bear a moment’s examination. Everything shows that the civilizations and religions of Mexico and Peru are autochthonous, springing from the soil itself.
There is surely something very strange in this passion for localizing all origins at some single point of the globe. Why not admit that what took place there may have taken place elsewhere also, that the same concourse of events which called forth such and such a result in a certain given place may have been reproduced somewhere else, and consequently given rise to identical or closely analogous results there too? Does not our own experience teach us that the contact of a civilized with an uncivilized people is not enough in itself to ensure the adoption by the latter of the civilization that is brought to it? It is the exception, not the rule, for the Red-skin, the Kafir, the Australian or the Papuan, to become civilized. Civilization can only be handed on if the invaded race possesses a special disposition and aptitude for civilized life; and this aptitude may have existed to such a degree as to be capable of independent development in the New-World as we know it did in the Old; and if there were centres of such nascent civilization in Central America, in Mexico and in Peru, it is absolutely superfluous to search elsewhere than in America itself for the origins of American civilization.
But the mistake into which so many historians and travellers have fallen is explained, to a certain extent, by the fact that, in examining the beliefs, the monuments and the customs of Peru and Mexico, we come upon phenomena at every moment which are identical with or analogous to something we have observed in the Old World. The temples, with their successive terraces, remind us of ancient Chaldea, and the hieroglyphics of ancient Egypt. The convents recal the Indian and Chinese Buddhism. The cruel and bloody sacrifices and the preponderance of the Sun-worship have a Semitic tinge. There are myths and curious resemblances of words which wake thoughts of Hellenic civilization; and sacerdotal castes and sacrificial rites which bring us round to the Celts! Nay, are there not even beliefs as to the arrival or return of a deity who will restore order and avenge outraged justice, round which there breathes a kind of Messianic air? So much so, indeed, that I must add to the list of supposed ancestors of American civilization the ten lost tribes of Israel, who must have fled from the yoke of their Ninevite oppressors right across Asia into America! The partizans of this ingenious hypothesis have, it is true, forgotten to inquire how far these Israelites of the North, whose enthusiasm for the house of Judah was, to say the least of it, decidedly subdued, had ever heard of the Messianic hopes at all!
The real result of all these wild speculations, however, is to bring out the fact very clearly, that in the native religions of Mexico, of Central America and of Peru, we find a number of traits united which are scattered amongst the most celebrated religions of our own ancient world; so that this new and well-defined region gives us a precious opportunity of testing the value of the explanations of religious ideas and practices deduced from the comparative study of religions.
Let us take the question of sacrifice, for instance. In both religions sacrifice is frequent, often cruel,—in Mexico even frightful. But it is easy to trace the original idea that inspired it. It is by no means the sense of guilt, or the idea that the culprit, terrified by the account that he must render to the divine justice, can transfer to a victim the penalty he has himself incurred. It is simply the idea that by offering the gods the things they like—that is to say, whatever will satisfy and gratify their senses—it is possible to secure their goodwill, their protection and their favour, while at the same time disarming their wrath, if need be, and appeasing their dangerous appetites. It is only at a later stage that the extreme importance attributed to this rite, the very essence of the worship rendered to the gods, leads to the association of mystic and ultimately of moral ideas with the circumstance of the pain inseparably connected with sacrifice. And when this stage is reached, men will either refine upon the suffering with frantic intensity, as they did in Mexico, or, if the sentiment of humanity has made itself felt in religion, as was the case in Peru and in the special worship of Quetzalcoatl, they will try to restrain the number and mitigate the horror of the human sacrifices, while still inflexibly maintaining the principle they involve.
Again: there is not the smallest trace of an earlier monotheism preceding the polytheism of either the one or the other nation. On the other hand, we may trace in both alike three stages of religious faith superimposed, so to speak, one upon the other. At the bottom of all still lies the religion that we find to-day amongst peoples that are strangers to all civilization. It is an incoherent and confused jumble of nature-worship and of animism or the worship of spirits, but especially the latter; for the primitive nature-worship has been developed, enlarged and more or less organized, on a higher level, whereas animism has remained what it was. The spirits of nature, which may often be anonymous—spirits of forests, of plants, of rocks, of waters, of animals, generally with the addition of the spirits of ancestors—make up a confused and inorganic mass that may assume almost any form. Fetichism is not the base, as it has been called, but the consequence and application of this animistic view. It is enough to secure adoration for any worthless object, natural or artificial, if it strikes the ignorant imagination forcibly enough to induce the belief that it is the residence of a spirit. Magic, founded on the pretension of certain individuals to stand in special relations with the spirits, equips the priesthood of this lowest stage. But above this, through the action of the higher minds amongst the people, nature-worship develops itself into the adoration of the most important, most general and most imposing phenomena of nature. In the tropical countries, at once warm and fertile, it is the Sun that reigns supreme, though not without leaving a very exalted place to other phenomena, such as wind, rain, vegetation and so on, personified as so many special deities. But in all this there is no indication of an antecedent and primitive monotheism. It is quite true that each one of these deities receives in his turn epithets which seem to attribute omnipotence to him and to make him the sole creator. But this is the case in all polytheistic systems, whether in Greece, Persia, and India, or in Mexico and Peru. It only proves that when man worships, he never limits the homage he renders to the object of his adoration; but if he is a polytheist, he has no scruple in attributing the same omnipotence to each of his gods in turn. It is much the same with the worthy curés in our rural districts, whose sermons systematically exalt the saint of the day, whoever he may be, to the chief place in Paradise! And here in Mexico and in Peru, as in Greece and in India, we observe the ever growing tendency towards anthropomorphism, transforming into men, of enormous strength, stature and power, those natural phenomena which at the earlier stage were rather assimilated to animals. Uitzilopochtli still bears the traces of his ancient nature as a humming-bird, and Tezcatlipoca of the time when he was no more than a celestial tapir. Their cultus, like their functions in the order of nature, must be regular and subject to fixed rules. And thus the priesthood, organized and regulated in its turn, emerges from the earlier stage of sorcery, and becomes a great institution to protect and foster the nascent civilization. The third stage was not actually reached in ancient Mexico and Peru. One can but divine its beginnings in the mysterious priesthood of Quetzalcoatl, or trace it in the traditions of the philosopher king of Tezcuco, and the sceptical Incas of whom Garcilasso and others tell us. In such traits as these we may discover a certain dissatisfaction with the established polytheism, striving to raise itself higher in the direction of a spiritual monotheism. But this tendency is obviously the last term of the evolution, and in no sense its first.
The history of the temple in Mexico and Peru suggests similar reflections. Its point of departure is the altar, and not the tomb,—the altar on which, as on a sacred table, the flesh destined for their food was placed before the gods. Little by little, as the developed and organized nature-worship substitutes gods of imposing might and greatness for the contemptible deities of the period when nature-worship and animism were confounded together, these altars assumed huge and at last gigantic proportions; and in Mexico, except in the case of Quetzalcoatl, there the development stopped, save that a little chapel, destined to serve as the abode of the national gods, was reared on the summit. Peru passes through the same phases, but goes further. There the surmounting chapel grows, assumes vast dimensions, and ends by embracing the altar itself, of which at first it was but an adjunct.
The two religions alike exhibit an initial penetration of religion by the moral idea. They are at bottom two theocracies, the laws and institutions of which rest upon the gods themselves, though the theocratic form is far more prominent in Peru than in Mexico. They share the advantages of a theocracy for a nascent civilization, and its disadvantages for one that has already reached a certain development. It was the theocratic and sacerdotal conception that maintained and enforced the religious butchery of which you have heard in Mexico, and which transformed Peru into one enormous convent, where no one had any will or any initiative of his own. For the same reason, asceticism, the principle that confuses, through an illusion we can easily understand, the moral act itself with the suffering that accompanies it, shows itself in both religions, but especially in that of Mexico; and convents that startle us by their resemblance to those of Buddhism and Christianity rise in either realm. But this mutual interpenetration of the religious and moral ideas is still quite rudimentary. The prevailing tone of the religion is given by the self-seeking and purely calculating principle, aiming no doubt at a certain mystic satisfaction (for at every stage of religion this moving principle has been most powerful and fruitful), but likewise seeking material advantages without any scruple as to the means; and those monstrous forms of transubstantiation which the Mexican thought he was bringing about when he ate of the same human flesh which he offered to his gods, are typical of the period in which religion pursued its purpose of union with the deity, regardless of the protests of the moral sense and of humanity.
It was reserved for the higher religions, and especially for that of which our Bible is the monument, to realize the intimate alliance of the religious and moral sentiments,—that priceless alliance, without which morals remain for the most part almost barren, and religion falls into monstrous aberrations. That the roots of religion pierce to the very cradles of humanity, may now be taken as demonstrated. Its principle is found in the necessity we feel of surmounting the uncertainties and the limitations of destiny, by attaching ourselves individually to the loftier Spirit revealed by nature outside us and within; and this principle has always remained the same; nor am I one of those who hold that we must now renounce it in the name of philosophy and science. For neither philosophy nor science can make us other than the poor creatures we are, with an unquenchable thirst for blessedness and life, yet constantly broken, crushed at every moment, by the very elements on the bosom of which we are forced to live. Philosophy and science may guide religion, may reveal its true object in ever-growing purity, may cleanse it from the pollutions in which ignorance and sin still plunge it, but they cannot replace and they cannot destroy it. There is a Dutch proverb, the profundity of which it would be difficult to exaggerate, “De natuur gaat boven de leer”—Nature is too strong for doctrine. The evolutions of philosophy may seem to make the heavens void, and inspire man with the idea that all is over with the poetic or terrific visions that rocked the cradle of his infancy. But stay! Nature, human nature, is still there; and under the impulse of the indestructible thirst for religion, human nature renews her efforts, looks deeper and looks higher, and finds her God once more.
Jérusalem renait plus brillante et plus belle.
But let not this conclusion, confirmed as it seems to me by the whole history of religion, prevent our boldly declaring how much that is small, puerile, often even immoral and deplorable, there is in the religious past of humanity. It is no otherwise with art, with legislation, with science herself, with all that constitutes the privilege, the power, the joy of our race. It is just the knowledge of these aberrations which should serve to keep us from falling back into the errors and false principles of which they were the consequence. And in this respect the study of the religions of ancient Mexico and Peru is profoundly instructive. It teaches us that there is a principle, bordering closely upon that of religion itself, which must serve as the torch to guide the religious idea in its development—not to supplant it, but to direct it to the true path. It is the principle of humanity. The truer a religion is, the more absolute the homage it will render to the principle of humanity, and the more will he who lives by its light feel himself impelled to goodness, loving and loved, trustful and free. The last word of religious history is, that there exists an affinity, a mysterious relationship, between our spirit and the Spirit of the universe; that this nobility of human nature embraces in itself all the promises, all the hopes, all the latent perfections, all the infinite ideals of the future; that, in spite of all appearances to the contrary, the Supreme Will is good to each one of the beings which it summons and draws to itself; and that man, in spite of his errors, his failures, his corruptions, his miseries, was never wrong in following the sacred instinct that raised him slowly from the mire, was always right in renewing his efforts, so constant, so toilsome—often, too, so woful—to mount the rounds
De cette échelle d’or qui va se perdre en Dieu.
And now, Ladies and Gentlemen, it only remains for me to bid you farewell, while giving you my warmest thanks for the perseverance, the encouragement and the sympathy, with which you have supported me. The reception you have given me has touched me deeply, and my stay in 1884 in your imposing and splendid capital will always remain amongst the most prized and the pleasantest recollections of my life. You have been good enough to pardon my linguistic infirmity. You have spared from your business or pleasure the time needed to listen to a stranger, who has come to speak to you of matters having no direct utility, and of purely historical and theoretical interest. This is far more to your honour than to mine. I thank you, but at the same time I congratulate you; for it is a trait in the nobleness in our human nature to be able thus to snatch ourselves from the vulgar pre-occupations of life, to contemplate the truth on those serene heights where it reveals itself to all who seek it with an upright heart. Cease not to love these noble studies, which touch upon all that is most exalted and most precious in us! If we search history for light in politics and the higher interests of our fatherlands, and learn thereby to understand, to appreciate, to love them more, let us turn to history no less for light on the path which we must tread in that order of sublime realities, necessities and aspirations, in which the soul of each one of us becomes a temple and a sanctuary, lying open to the Eternal Spirit that fills the universe.
And now to the Eternal, the Invisible, to Him whose name we can but stammer, whose infinite perfections we can but feel after, be rendered all our homage and our hearts!
Footnotes
1 The second, third and fourth despatches (the first is lost) from Fernando Cortes to Charles V., written in 1520, 1522 and 1524 respectively. Original editions as follows: “Carta de relacion embiada a su S. majestad del emperador nuestro señor... por el capitan general de la nueva spaña: Llamado fernando cortes,” &c.: Seville, 1522. “Carta tercera de relacion: embiada por Fernando cortes,” &c.: Seville, 1523. “La quarta relacion que Fernando cortes gouernador y capitan general... embio al muy alto... rey de España,” &c.: Toledo, 1525. Recent edition, with notes, &c.: “Cartas y Relaciones de Hernan Cortés al Emperador Carlos V. colegidas é ilustradas por Don Pascual de Gayangos,” &c.: Paris, 1866. English translation: “The Despatches of Hernando Cortes,” &c., translated by George Folsom: New York and London, 1843.—Francisco Lopez de Gómara (Cortes’ chaplain): “Hispania Victrix. Primera y segunda parte de la historia general de las Indias con todo el descubrimiento, y cosas notables que han acaescido dende que se ganaron hasta el año de 1551. Con la conquista de Mexico y dela nueva España:” Modina del Campo, 1553. Also printed in Vol. XXII. of the “Biblioteca de Autores Españoles:” Madrid, 1852 (to the pagination of which references in future notes will be made). There is an old English translation of Part II. of this work, entitled, “The Pleasant Historie of the Conquest of the Weast India, now called new Spayne, Atchieved by the worthy Prince Hernando Cortes, Marques of the Valley of Huaxacac, most delectable to Reade: Translated out of the Spanishe tongue by T. N. [Thomas Nicholas], Anno 1578:” London.—Bernal Diaz: “Historia Verdadera de la Nueva España escrita por el Capitan Bernal Diaz del Castillo, Uno de sus Conquistadores. Sacada a luz por el P. M. Fr. Alonso Remon,” &c.: Madrid, 1632. English translation: “The Memoirs of the Conquistador Bernal Diaz del Castillo, written by Himself,” &c.: translated by John Ingram Lockhart, F.R.A.S. 2 vols.: London, 1844. There is also a good French translation: “Histoire Véridique de la conquête... par le Capitaine Bernal Diaz del Castillo,” &c., by Dr. Jourdanet. Second edition: Paris, 1877.—Las Casas. Numerous works collected by Llorente: “Collecion de las obras del Venerable Obispo de Chiapa, Don Bartolomé de las Casas, Defensor de la Libertad de los Americanos.” 2 vols.: Paris, 1822. Also translated into French, with some additional matter, by the same Llorente, and published in the same year at Paris. His “Historia de las Crueldades de los Españoles,” &c., was translated into English in 1655 by J. Phillips, under the title of “The Tears of the Indians,” &c., and dedicated to Oliver Cromwell. [N.B. Translations in full or epitomized of several of the above works, together with others, may be found in Vols. III. and IV. of “Purchas his Pilgimes,” &c.: London, 1625-26.]—Sahagun’s history of New Spain, a work of the utmost importance for the religious history of Mexico, remained unpublished till the present century, and appeared almost simultaneously in Mexico and London: “Historia General de las Cosas de Nueva España... escribió el R. P. Fr. Bernardino de Sahagun... uno de los primeros predicadores del santo evangelio en aquellas regiones,” &c. 3 vols.: Mexico, 1829-30. The same work appeared in Vols. V. and VII. of Lord Kingsborough’s collection. Vid. infr. A French translation by Jourdanet appeared in 1880.—Acosta: “Historia Natural y Moral de las Indias... compuesta por el Padre Joseph de Acosta Religioso de la Campañia de Jesus,” &c.: Seville, 1590. English translation: “The Naturall and Morall Historie of the East and West Indies,” &c.: translated by E. G.: London, 1604. E[dward] G[rimstone]’s translation was edited, with notes, for the Hakluyt Society, by Clements R. Markham, in 1880.—Torquemada: “Los veynte y un libros Rituales y Monarchia Yndiana... Compuesto por Fray Ivan de Torquemada,” &c. 3 vols.: Seville, 1615. Printed again at Madrid in 1723.—Herrera (official historiographer of Philip II.): “Historia General de los Hechos de los Castellanos en las Islas i Tierra Firme del mar Oceano,” &c., by Antonio de Herrera; to which is prefixed, “Descripcion de las Indias Ocidentales,” &c., by the same. 4 vols.: Madrid, 1601. English translation in epitome by Capt. John Stevens, “The General History of the vast Continent and Islands of America,” &c. 6 vols.: London, 1725-26.
The following native writers may also be consulted. Ixlilxochitl (Fernando de Alva): “Historia Chichimeca” and “Relaciones,” in Lord Kingsborough’s “Mexican Antiquities,” Vol. IX. (vid. infr.). French translations in Vols. VIII. XII. and XIII. of H. Ternaux-Compans’ collection: “Voyages, Relations et Memoires originaux pour servir a l’histoire de la Découverte de l’Amérique:” Paris, 1837-41.—Camargo: “Histoire de la République de Tlaxcallan, par Domingo Muñoz Camargo, Indien, natif de cette ville,” translated from the Spanish MS. in Vols. XCVIII. and XCIX. of the “Nouvelles Annales des Voyages,” &c.: Paris, 1843.—Pomar (J. B. de): “Relacion de las Antiquedades de los Indios.” Pomar was a descendant of the royal house of Tezcuco, and his memoirs were made use of in MS. by Torquemada.
Amongst later authorities may be mentioned (in addition to Prescott’s well-known work, and those cited in the following notes): W. Robertson: “History of America.”—Alx. von Humboldt: “Vues des Cordillières et Monuments des peuples de l’Amérique:” Paris, 1810; forming the “Atlas Pittoresque” of Part III. of “Voyage de Humboldt et Bonpland.”—Francesco Saverio Clavigero: “Storia antica del Messico,” &c. 4 vols.: Cesena, 1780-81. English translation by Charles Cullen: “The History of Mexico,” &c. 2 vols.: London, 1787.—Th. Waitz: “Anthropologie der Naturvölker,” Vol. IV.: Leipzig, 1864.—Brasseur de Bourbourg: “Histoire des Nations civilisées du Mexique et de L’Amérique-centrale,” &c. 4 vols: Paris, 1857-59.—Müller (Joh. George), Professor at Bâle: “Geschichte der Amerikanischen Urreligionen.” Second edition: Basel, 1867.—To these should be added the narratives and works of M. D. Charnay, still in the course of publication.
References will be given to the originals, but in such a form, wherever possible, as to serve equally well for the English and French translations. Where, as is not unfrequently the case, the chapters or sections of the translations do not correspond to the originals, a note of the vol. and page of the former will generally be added.
2 The original collection is in seven magnificent folio volumes. “Antiquities of Mexico: comprising Facsimiles of Ancient Mexican Paintings and Hieroglyphics... together with The Monuments of New Spain, by M. Dupaix... the whole illustrated by many valuable inedited Manuscripts by Augustine Aglio:” London, 1830. Two supplementary volumes, on the title-page of which Lord Kingsborough’s own name appears, were added in 1848, and a tenth volume was projected, but only a small portion of it (appended to Vol. IX.) was printed.
3 Five volumes: New York, 1875-76.
4 See Bancroft, Vol. II. pp. 311, 312.
5 See Sahagun, Tom. I. p. 201, Appendix to Lib. ii. (Vol. II. p. 174, in Jourdanet’s translation).
6 The story is given by Bancroft, Vol. III. p. 471, on the authority of Lopez Medel.
7 See Torquemada, Lib. viii. cap. xx. at the end. On the Mexican temples in general, see Müller, pp. 644-646.
8 On the great temple of Mexico and its annexes, see Waitz, IV. 148 sqq., where the scattered data of Sahagun, Acosta, Gomara, Bernal Diaz, Ixtlilxochitl, Clavigero, &c., are drawn together. See also Bancroft, II. 577-587, III. 430 sq.
9 Op. cit. cap. xcii.
10 Compare the German “Schlangenberg” and the old French “Guivremont.”
11 See the legend in Clavigero, Lib. vi. § 6.
12 See Müller, pp. 602 sqq., and Sahagun, Tom. I. pp. 1, 237, sqq., Lib. i. cap. i., and Lib. iii. cap. i., &c.
13 See Clavigero, Lib. vi. § 2. Acosta, pp. 324 sqq., Lib. v. cap. ix. (pp. 353 sq. in E. G.’s translation); Sahagun, Tom. I. pp. 2 sq., 241 sq., Lib. i. cap. iii., Lib. iii. cap. ii. See also Ternaux-Compans, Vol. XII. p. 18.
14 On Quetzalcoatl, see Müller, pp. 577-590; Bancroft, Vol. III. pp. 239-287; Torquemada, Lib. vi. cap. xxiv., Lib. iii. cap. vii.; Clavigero, Lib. vi. § 4; Ixtlilxochitl in Ternaux-Compans, Vol. XII. pp. 5-8 (further, pp. 9-27 of the same volume on the Toltecs); Prescott, Bk. i. chap, iii., Bk. iv. chap, v., and elsewhere; Sahagun, Tom. I. pp. 3-4, 245-6, 255-259, Lib. i, cap. v., Lib. iii. cap p. iv. xii.-xiv.
15 See Clavigero, Lib. iv. §§ 4, 15, Lib. vii. § 42; Humboldt, pp. 319-20, cf. p. 95; Prescott, Bk. i. chap. i. and elsewhere; Bancroft, Vol. V. pp. 427-429; Müller, pp. 526 sq.
16 Clavigero, Lib. vi. §§ 5, 15, 34; Sahagun, Tom. I. pp. 16-19, Lib. i. cap. xiii.; Bancroft, Vol. III. p. 385.
17 See Sahagun, Tom. I. pp. 10-16, Lib. i. cap. xii.
18 See Boturini, “Idea de una nueva historia general de la America Septentrional,” &c.: Madrid, 1746, pp. 63-65.
19 Bancroft, Vol. III. pp. 403-417; Sahagun, Tom. I. pp. 22-25, 29-33, Lib. i. capp. xv. xvi. xix.
20 Bancroft, Vol. III. pp. 396-402; Clavigero, Lib. vi. §§ 1, 5.
21 Sahagun, Tom. I. p. 86 (cf. p. 88), Lib. ii. cap. xx.
22 Sahagun, Tom. I. p. 50, Lib. ii. cap. i.
23 Compare the detailed description of the festivals of the ancient religion of Mexico in Bancroft, Vol. II. pp. 302-341, Vol. III. pp. 297-300, 330-348, 354-362, 385-396.
24 Amongst all the indigenous races of North America, prolonged fasting is regarded as the means par excellence of securing supernatural inspiration. The Red-skin to become a sorcerer or to secure a revelation from his totem, or the Eskimo to become Angekok, will endure the most appalling fasts.
25 Torquemada, Lib. vi. cap. xxxviii.; cf. Sahagun, Tom. I. p. 174, Lib. ii. cap. xxiv.
26 Sahagun, Tom. I. pp. 35—39, Lib. i. cap. xxi.
27 Sahagun, Tom. I. pp. 11-16, Tom. II. pp. 57-64, Lib. i. cap. xii., Lib. vi. cap. vii.
28 Elements were not wanting for the formation of a dualistic system analogous to Mazdeism. The Tzitzimitles nearly corresponded to the Iranian Devas. They were a kind of demon servants of Mictlan, who delighted in springing upon men to devour them, and the protection of the celestial gods was needed to escape from their attacks. Sahagun, Tom. II. p. 67, Lib. vi. cap. viii. (in the middle of a prayer to Tlaloc). Cf. also Tom. II. pp. 14 sqq., Lib. v. capp. xi.-xiii.
29 On the Mexican priesthood, see Bancroft, Vol. II. pp. 200-207, Vol. III. pp. 430-441; Clavigero, Lib. vi. §§ 13—17; cf. Lib. iv. § 4; Humboldt, pp. 98, 194, 290; Prescott, Bk. i. chap. iii.; Torquemada, Lib. ix. capp. i.-xxxiv.
30 Camargo (in Nouv. An. d. Voy. xcix.), pp. 134-5.
31 Bancroft, Vol. II. pp. 204-206, Vol. III. pp. 435-436; Torquemada, Lib. ix. capp. xiv. xv.; Sahagun, Tom. I. pp. 227-8 (last section of Appendix to Lib. ii.); Acosta, Lib. v. cap. xvi.; Clavigero, Lib. vi. capp. xvi. xxii.
32 See the “Cuadro historico-geroglifico,” &c., contributed by Don José Fernando Ramirez (curator of the national Museum at Mexico) to Garcia y Cubas, “Altas geographico, estadistico e historico de la Republica Mexicana,” Entrega 29a (1858).
33 On all that concerns the Mexican cosmogonies, see Müller, pp. 477 sq., 509—519; Bancroft, Vol. III. pp. 57—65; Ixtlilxochitl, “Historia Chichimeca,” capp. i. ii.; Kingsborough, “Mexican Antiquities,” Vol. V. pp. 164-167; Humboldt, pp. 202—211.
34 See Sahagun, Tom. II. pp. 281—283, Lib. viii. cap. vi.
35 The sacerdotal year was lunar. The civil year, which was doubtless of later origin, and had been adopted as better suited to the purposes of agriculture, was solar. Every thirteenth year the two coincided. The number four, which plays an important part in Mexican symbolism (cf. the Mexican cross) gave a kind of cosmic significance to 13 × 4 = 52.
36 See Bancroft, Vol. III. pp. 393-396.
37 Compare the Appendix to Jourdanet’s translation of Bernal Diaz, pp. 912 sqq.
38 On the conversion of the Mexicans, &c., compare the anonymous treatise at the end of Kingsborough’s “Mexican Antiquities,” Vol. IX. Cf. also Torquemada, Lib. xvii. cap. xx., Lib. xix. cap. xxix.
39 See P. Pauke, “Reise in d. Missionen von Paraguay:” Vienna, 1829, p. 111.
40 In addition to the works of Acosta, Gomara, Herrera, Humboldt, Waitz and Müller, already cited in connection with Mexico, and Prescott’s “Conquest of Peru,” we may mention the following authorities for the political and religious history of Peru:
Xeres (Pizarro’s secretary): “Verdadera relacion de la conquista del Peru y provincia del Cuzco llamada la nueva Castilla... por Francisco de Xeres,” &c.: Seville, 1534. English translation by Markham in “Reports on the Discovery of Peru:” printed for the Hakluyt Society, London, 1872.—Zarate (official Spanish “auditor” in Peru): “Historia del descubrimiento y conquista del Peru.... La qual escriua Augustin de Çarate,” &c.: Antwerp, 1555. English translation: “The strange and delectable History, &c.: translated out of the Spanish Tongue by T. Nicholas:” London, 1581.—Cieza de Leon (served in Peru for seventeen years): “Parte Primera Dela chronica del Peru,” &c.: Seville, 1553. The second and third Parts have never been printed. English translation by Markham: Hakluyt Society, 1864. [N. B. Xeres (or Jeres), Cieza de Leon and Zarate, are all contained in Tom. XXVI. of Aribau’s “Biblioteca de autores Españoles.”]—Diego Fernandez of Palencia (historiographer of Peru under the vice-royalty of Mendoza): “Primera, y Segunda Parte, de la Historia del Peru,” &c.: Seville, 1571.—Miguel Cavello Balboa: “Histoire du Pérou,” in Ternaux-Compans, Vol. XV.—Arriaga: “Extirpacion de la Idolatria del Piru... Por el Padre Pablo Joseph de Arriaga de la Compañia de Jesus:” Lima, 1621. Extracts are given in Ternaux-Compans, Vol. XVII.—Fernando Montesinos: “Memoires historiques sur l’Ancien Pérou:” translated from the Spanish MS. in Ternaux-Compans, Vol. XVII. Montesinos rectifies Garcilasso de la Vega on more points than one.—Johannes de Laet: “Novus Orbis,” &c.: Leiden, 1633.—Velasco: “Historia del Reino de Quito,” &c.: Quito, 1844. This work is in three Parts, the second of which, the “Historia Antigua,” is the one referred to in future notes. This second Part is translated in Ternaux-Compans, Vols. XVIII. XIX.
The Abbé Raynal’s “Histoire philosophique et politique des établissements... des Européens dans les deux Indes” (10 vols.: Geneva, 1770) made a great stir in its time, the English translation by Justamond reaching a third edition in 1777; but it is now completely forgotten, and has no real value for our purposes. I cannot refrain from a passing notice of a romance which is now almost as completely forgotten as the Abbé Raynal’s History, in spite of its long popularity: I mean Marmontel’s “Les Incas et la Destruction de l’empire du Pérou:” Paris, 1777. The author derived his materials from Garcilasso de la Vega. In spite of the florid style and innumerable offences against historical and psychological fact which characterize this work, it cannot be denied that Marmontel has disengaged with great skill the profound causes of the irremediable ruin of the Peruvian state.
Lacroix: “Pérou,” in Vol. IV. of “L’Amérique” in “L’Univers Pittoresque.”—Paul Chaix: “Histoire de l’Amerique méridionale au XVI^e siècle,” Part I.: Geneva, 1853.—Wuttke: “Geschichte des Heidenthums,” Theil I., 1852.—J. J. von Tschudi: “Peru. Reiseskizzen aus den Jahren 1838-1842:” St. Gallen, 1846.—Thos. J. Hutchinson: “Two Years in Peru, with explorations of its Antiquities:” London, 1873. Hutchinson had good reason to point out the exaggerations in which Garcilasso indulges with reference to his ancestors the Incas, but he himself speaks too slightingly of their government. Had it not been in the main beneficent and popular, it could not have left such affectionate and enduring memories in the minds of the native population.
For the method of citation, see end of note on p. 18.
41 This work is in two Parts, the first of which (Lisbon, 1609) gives an account of the native traditions, customs and history prior to the Spanish conquest, while the second (published under the separate title of Historia General del Peru: Cordova, 1617) deals with the Spanish conquest, &c. English translation by Sir Paul Rycaut: London, 1688, not at all to be trusted; both imperfect (omitting and condensing in an arbitrary fashion) and incorrect. As it may be in the possession of some of my readers, however, reference will be made to it in future notes. The earlier and more important part of Garcilasso’s work has recently been translated for the Hakluyt Society by Clements R. Markham, 2 vols.: London, 1869, 1871. References are to the Commentarios reales (Part I.), unless otherwise stated.
42 Herrera, Decada v. Libro iv. cap. ii. (Vol. IV. p. 335, in Stevens’s epitomized translation).
43 Garcilasso, Lib. iv. cap. viii., Lib. v. capp. vi. vii. viii. xiii.; Acosta, Lib. vi. capp. xiii. xvi.; Montesinos, p. 57.
44 Garcilasso, Lib. vi. cap. xxxv.
45 Garcilasso, Lib. v. cap. xii.; Herrera, Dec. v. Lib. iv. cap. iv. (Vol. IV. p. 344, in Stevens’s translation). See also Hazart, “Historie van Peru,” Part II. chap. iv.; in his “Kerckelijcke Historie van de Gheheele Wereldt,” Vol. I. p. 315: Antwerp, 1682.
46 See Gomara (in Vol. XXII. of the Bibliotheca de Autores Españoles), p. 228a; Garcillasso, “Historia General,” &c., Lib. i. cap. xviii.; cf. Prescott, Bk. iii. chaps. v. vi., and Appendices viii. ix.
47 Gomara, p. 232 a.
48 Cf. Waitz, Theil IV. S. 411, 418.
49 Cf. Garcilasso, Lib. v. cap. xiii.; Prescott, Bk. i. chap. ii.
50 Müller, p. 406.
51 See Herrera, Dec. v. Lib. iv. cap. iii. (Vol. IV. pp. 337 sqq. in Stevens’s translation); Garcilasso, Lib. ii. capp. xii. xiii. xiv. (p. 35 of Rycaut’s translation, in which the passage is much shortened), Lib. v. cap. xi.; Velasco, Lib. ii. § 6.
52 Acosta, Lib. vi. cap. xviii.; Herrera, Dec. v. Lib. iv. cap. i. and end of cap. iii. (Vol. IV. pp. 329 sq., 342, in Stevens’s translation).
53 Garcilasso, Lib. iv. cap. vii.; Herrera, Dec. v. Lib. iv. capp. ii. iii. (Vol. IV. pp. 334, 341, in Stevens’s translation); cf. Montesinos, p. 56.
54 Garcilasso, Lib. iv. cap. xix.; cf. Lib. viii. cap. viii. (ad fin.).
55 Cf. Tschudi, Vol. II. p. 387; Hutchinson, Vol. II. pp. 175-6.
56 Montesinos, p. 119, cf. pp. 33, 108.
57 Garcilasso, Lib. v. cap. iii.
58 Humboldt, pp. 108, 294.
59 Gomara, p. 277 b.
60 Prescott, Bk. iii. chap. viii.
61 Cf. Garcilasso, Lib. vi. cap. iv.
62 Garcilasso, Lib. i. capp. ix.-xvii.; cf. Lib. ii. cap. ix., Lib. iii. cap. xxv.
63 Such at least is the etymology proposed by Garcilasso (Lib. i. cap. xviii.). Modern Peruvian scholars rather incline to refer Cuzco to the same root as cuzcani (“to clear the ground”).
64 See the critical summary of the history of the Incas in Waitz, Theil. IV. S. 396 sq. The following table of the successive Incas follows Garcilasso:
| Manco Capac, | died about | 1000 | ||
| Sinchi Roca, | ″ | 1091 | ||
| Lloque Yupanqui, | ″ | 1126 | ||
| Mayta Capac, | ″ | 1156 | ||
| Capac Yupanqui, | ″ | 1197 | ||
| Inca Roca, | ″ | 1249 | ||
| Yahuar Huacac, | ″ | 1289 | ||
| Viracocha Inca Ripac, | ″ | 1340 | ||
| [Inca Urco, who only reigned 11 days, is omitted by Garcilasso] | ||||
| Tito Manco Capac Pachacutec, | ″ | 1400 | ||
| Yupanqui, | ″ | 1438 | ||
| Tupac Yupanqui, | ″ | 1475 | ||
| Huayna Capac, | ″ | 1525 | ||
| Huascar, | } | ″ | { | 1532 |
| Atahualpa, | } | ″ | { | 1533 |
65 Garcilasso, Lib. viii. cap. viii. Garcilasso says that he translates this passage, word for word, from the Latin MS. of the Jesuit Father, Blas Valera.
66 Herrera, Dec. v. Lib. iv. cap. iv. (Vol. IV. p. 346, in Stevens’s translation).
67 Lib. ix. cap. x.
68 Herrera, Dec. v. Lib. i. capp. ii. iii., Lib. iii. cap. xvii. (Vol. IV. pp. 240 sqq., 325 sqq., in Stevens’s translation).
69 Herrera, Dec. v. Lib. iii. cap. ii. (Vol. IV. p. 266, in Stevens’s translation); Gomara, p. 231 a.
70 In the course of a few months, Pizarro amassed such immense wealth that, after deducting the fifth for the king and a large sum for the reinforcements brought him by Almagro, he was still able to give £4000 to each of his foot-soldiers, and double that sum to each horseman. The calculation is made by Robertson, who estimates the peso at a pound sterling. To obtain the equivalent purchasing power in our own times, these sums would have to be more than quadrupled!
71 Herrera, Dec. v. Lib. viii. capp. i. sqq. (Vol. V. pp. 23 sqq. in Stevens’s translation).
72 See Alcedo, “Diccionario Geográfico-Historico de las Indias Occidentales,” &c.: Madrid, 1786-9: article Chunchos.
73 See Waitz, Vol. IV. pp. 477-497; Tschudi, Vol. II. pp. 346-351; cf. Castelnau, “Expedition dans les Parties centrales de l’Amerique du Sud,” &c.: Paris, 1850, &c., Part I. Vol. III. p. 282.
74 Tschudi, ibid.
75 Cf. Spanish MS. cited by Prescott, Bk. i. chap. iii.; Velasco, Lib. ii. § 4, sec. 15.
76 Prescott, Bk. i. chap. iii.
77 Cf. Garcilasso, Lib. v. cap. xxi., where the current etymology of the word is rejected.
78 See Müller, pp. 313 sqq., where all the views concerning him are collected and discussed.
79 This hymn was found by Garcilasso (see Lib. ii. cap. xvii., pp. 50, 51, in Rycaut’s translation) among the papers of Father Blas Valera, and has been freed by Tschudi from the misprints, &c., that disfigured it in the printed editions of Garcilasso and all subsequent reproductions. See Tschudi, Vol. II. p. 381.
80 Johannes de Laet, Lib. x. cap. i. (p. 398, ll. 51, 52).
81 Prescott, Bk. i. chap. i.; Garcilasso, Lib. vi. cap. xxx.
82 Gomara, p. 233a; Velasco, Lib. ii. § 2, sec. 4.
83 Garcilasso, Lib. ii. capp. ii. iii.
84 See Montesinos, pp. 3 sqq., whose version of the legend has been mainly followed in the text. Cf. however, for some of the details, Garcilasso, Lib. i. cap. xviii. (omitted by Rycaut); Acosta, Lib. i. cap. xxv.; Balboa, pp. 4 sqq., &c.
85 Velasco, Lib. ii. § 4, sec. 17; Ph. H. Külb in Widenmann and Hauff’s “Reisen u. Länderbeshreibungen,” Lief, xxvii.: Stuttgart, 1843, pp. 186-7.
86 Acosta, Lib. v. cap. iv.; Velasco, Lib. ii. § 4, sec. 16; Prescott, Bk. i. chap. iii.; Külb, ibid.
87 Prescott, ibid. In cloudy weather they had recourse to the method of friction.
88 Prescott, ibid.
89 Arriaga, pp. 17, 32; Külb, ibid.
90 Cf. Arriaga, pp. 10-17, &c. (cf. Ternaux-Compans, Vol. XVII. pp. 13, 14).
91 Acosta, Lib. v. cap. v.; Velasco, Lib. ii. § 3, sec. 2; Arriaga, ibid.
92 Tschudi, Vol. II. pp. 396-7.
93 Arriaga, p. 18 (cf. Ternaux-Compans, Vol. XVII. p. 15).
94 Cf. Arriaga, pp. 10-17 (cf. Ternaux-Compans, Vol. XVII. pp. 13, 14); Acosta, Lib. v; cap. v.; Montesinos, pp. 161-2; Velasco, Lib. ii. § 3, sec. 1.
95 On the priesthood, cf. Arriaga, pp. 17 sqq. (cf. Ternaux-Compans, Vol. XVII. p. 15); Prescott, Bk. i. chap. iii.; Balboa, p. 29; Velasco, Lib. ii. § 3, sec. 8; Garcilasso, Lib. v. capp. viii. (ad fin.) xii. xiii.; Müller, p. 387; Külb, l.c. p. 187.
96 Cf. Acosta, Lib. v. cap. xv.; Montesinos, p. 56; Velasco, Lib. ii. § 3, sec. 12, § 9, sec. 10; Prescott, Bk. i. chap. iii. and elsewhere.
97 Cf. Prescott, Bk. i. chap. iii.; Garcilasso, Lib. iii. capp. xx.-xxiv.; Paul Chaix, Vol. I. pp. 249 sqq. On the temples of Pachacamac, which must have attained gigantic proportions before the time of the Incas, see Hutchinson, Vol. I. pp. 147-176.
98 Richard Inwards, “The Temple of the Andes:” London, 1884.
99 Acosta, Lib, v. cap. xviii.; Garcilasso, Lib. ii. cap. viii. (p. 31 in Rycaut), Lib. vi. cap. xxi.; Arriaga, p. 77.
100 Acosta, ibid.; Arriaga, pp. 24-27 (cf. Ternaux-Compans, Vol. XVII. pp. 15, 16); Prescott, Bk. i. chap. iii.
101 Velasco, Lib. ii. § 4, sec. 20.
102 Acosta, ibid.; Arriaga, ibid.
103 Garcilasso, Lib. i. cap. xi., Lib. ii. cap. xviii., Lib. iv. cap. xv., and elsewhere (pp. 6, &c., in Rycaut, who omits some of the passages).
104 Montesinos, p. 121; Acosta, Lib. v. capp. v. xix., Lib. vi. cap. xxii.; Prescott, Bk. i. chaps, i. ii.; Garcilasso, Lib. vi. cap. v.; Acosta, Lib. v. cap. vii.; Velasco, Lib. iii. § 1, sec. 1.
105 Gomara, p. 234 a. Cf. Montesinos, p. 68, and Pöppig in Ersch u. Gruber’s “Encyklopädie,” art. Incas, p. 287 b, note 35.
106 Garcilasso, Lib. ii. capp. xxii, xxiii. (pp. 43, 44, in Rycaut); Prescott, Bk. i. chap. iv.; Acosta, Lib. vi. cap. iii.
107 Garcilasso, Lib. v. cap. ii.; Tschudi, Vol. II. p. 382; Rivero y Tschudi: Antigüedades Peruanas: Viena, 1851. pp. 135-141. N. B. An English translation of this work by F. L. Hawks appeared at New York in 1853.
108 Velasco, Lib. ii. § 5, secc. 4, 17 (Ternaux-Compans, Vol. XVIII. pp. 137, 148-9); Külb, l.c. p. 190.
109 Garcilasso, Lib. vi. capp. xx.-xxii.; Prescott, Bk. i. chap. iii.
110 Acosta, Lib. v. cap. xxviii. [wrongly numbered xxvii. in the original edition]; Garcilasso, Lib. vii. capp. vi. vii.
111 Acosta, ibid.
112 Acosta, ibid.; Garcilasso, Lib. vi. capp. xxiv.-xxvii.
113 Cf. Acosta, ibid.; Velasco, Lib. ii. § 5.
114 Gomara, p. 233 b; Garcilasso, Lib. ii. cap. xxiii.; cf. Montesinos, pp. 67, 68.
115 Balboa, pp. 29, 30.
116 Cf. Arriaga, pp. 17-23, and passim (Ternaux-Compans, Vol. XVII. p. 15).
117 See Prescott, ibid.
118 Cf. Velasco, Lib. ii. § 3, secc. 4, 5.
119 Balboa, p. 3; Velasco, Lib. ii. § 3, sec. 6; Arriaga, pp. 28, 29 (Ternaux-Compans, Vol. XVII. pp. 16, 17).
120 Cf. Tschudi, Vol. II. pp. 355-6, 397-8.
121 Acosta, Lib. v. capp. vi. vii.; Velasco, Lib. ii. § 3, sec. 3; Arriaga, p. 15 (cf. Ternaux-Compans, Vol. XVII. p. 14); Garcilasso, Lib. ii. capp. ii. (Supay), vii. (omitted by Rycaut); Prescott, Bk. i. chap. iii.
122 Compare W. B. Stevenson, “A Historical and Descriptive Narrative of Twenty Years’ Residence in South America:” London, 1825, Vol. I. pp. 394 sqq.