History of the Conquest of Peru
Edited by: Robert Guisepi
2002
View Of The Civilization Of The Incas.
Author: Prescott, William H.
Part III
The sacerdotal order, though numerous, was not distinguished by any
peculiar badge or costume from the rest of the nation. Neither was it the
sole depository of the scanty science of the country, nor was it charged with
the business of instruction, nor with those parochial duties, if they may so
be called, which bring the priest in contact with the great body of the
people, - as was the case in Mexico. The cause of this peculiarity may
probably be traced to the existence of a superior order, like that of the Inca
nobles, whose sanctity of birth so far transcended all human appointments,
that they in a manner engrossed whatever there was of religious veneration in
the people. They were, in fact, the holy order of the state. Doubtless, any
of them might, as very many of them did, take on themselves the sacerdotal
functions; and their own insignia and peculiar privileges were too well
understood to require any further badge to separate them from the people.
The duties of the priest were confined to ministration in the temple.
Even here his attendance was not constant, as he was relieved after a stated
interval by other brethren of his order, who succeeded one another in regular
rotation. His science was limited to an acquaintance with the fasts and
festivals of his religion, and the appropriate ceremonies which distinguished
them. This, however frivolous might be its character, was no easy
acquisition; for the ritual of the Incas involved a routine of observances,
as complex and elaborate as ever distinguished that of any nation, whether
pagan or Christian. Each month had its appropriate festival, or rather
festivals. The four principal had reference to the Sun, and commemorated the
great periods of his annual progress, the solstices and equinoxes. Perhaps
the most magnificent of all the national solemnities was the feast of Raymi,
held at the period of the summer solstice, when the Sun, having touched the
southern extremity of his course, retraced his path, as if to gladden the
hearts of his chosen people by his presence. On this occasion, the Indian
nobles from the different quarters of the country thronged to the capital to
take part in the great religious celebration.
For three days previous, there was a general fast, and no fire was
allowed to be lighted in the dwellings. When the appointed day arrived, the
Inca and his court, followed by the whole population of the city, assembled
at early dawn in the great square to greet the rising of the Sun. They were
dressed in their gayest apparel, and the Indian lords vied with each other
in the display of costly ornaments and jewels on their persons, while
canopies of gaudy feather-work and richly tinted stuffs, borne by the
attendants over their heads, gave to the great square, and the streets that
emptied into it, the appearance of being spread over with one vast and
magnificent awning. Eagerly they watched the coming of their deity, and, no
sooner did his first yellow rays strike the turrets and loftiest buildings
of the capital, than a shout of gratulation broke forth from the assembled
multitude, accompanied by songs of triumph, and the wild melody of barbaric
instruments, that swelled louder and louder as his bright orb, rising above
the mountain range towards the east, shone in full splendor on his votaries.
After the usual ceremonies of adoration, a libation was offered to the great
deity by the Inca, from a huge golden vase, filled with the fermented liquor
of maize or of maguey, which, after the monarch had tasted it himself, he
dispensed among his royal kindred. These ceremonies completed, the vast
assembly was arranged in order of procession, and took its way towards the
Coricancha. ^27
[Footnote 27: Dec. de la Aud. Real., Ms. - Sarmiento, Relacion, Ms., cap. 27.
The reader will find a brilliant, and not very extravagant, account of
the Peruvian festivals in Marmontel's romance of Les Incas. The French
author saw in their gorgeous ceremonial a fitting introduction to his own
literary pageant Tom. I. chap. 1 - 4.]
As they entered the street of the sacred edifice, all divested themselves
of their sandals, except the Inca and his family, who did the same on passing
through the portals of the temple, where none but these august personages were
admitted. ^28 After a decent time spent in devotion, the sovereign, attended
by his courtly train, again appeared, and preparations were made to commence
the sacrifice. This, with the Peruvians, consisted of animals, grain,
flowers, and sweet-scented gums; sometimes of human beings, on which occasions
a child or beautiful maiden was usually selected as the victim. But such
sacrifices were rare, being reserved to celebrate some great public event, as
a coronation, the birth of a royal heir, or a great victory. They were never
followed by those cannibal repasts familiar to the Mexicans, and to many of
the fierce tribes conquered by the Incas. Indeed, the conquests of these
princes might well be deemed a blessing to the Indian nations, if it were only
from their suppression of cannibalism, and the diminution, under their rule,
of human sacrifices. ^29
[Footnote 28: "Ningun Indio comun osaba pasar por la calle del Sol calzado; ni
ninguno, aunque fuese mui grand Senor, entrava en las casas del Sol con
zapatos." Conq. i Pob. del Piru, Ms.]
[Footnote 29: Garcilasso de la Vega flatly denies that the Incas were guilty
of human sacrifices; and maintains, on the other hand, that they uniformly
abolished them in every country they subdued, where they had previously
existed. (Com. Real., Parte 1, lib. 2, cap. 9, et alibi.) But in this
material fact he is unequivocally contradicted by Sarmiento, Relacion, Ms.,
cap. 22, - Dec. de la Aud. Real., Ms., - Montesinos, Mem. Antiguas, Ms., lib.
2, cap. 8, - Balboa, Hist. du Perou, chap. 5, 8, - Cieza de Leon, Cronica,
cap. 72, - Ondegardo, Rel. Seg., Ms., - Acosta, lib. 5, cap. 19, - and I might
add, I suspect, were I to pursue the inquiry, by nearly every ancient writer
of authority; some of whom, having come into the country soon after the
Conquest, while its primitive institutions were in vigor, are entitled to more
deference in a matter of this kind than Garcilasso himself. It was natural
that the descendant of the Incas should desire to relieve his race from so
odious an imputation; and we must have charity for him, if he does show
himself, on some occasions, where the honor of his country is at stake, "high
gravel blind." It should be added, in justice to the Peruvian government, that
the best authorities concur in the admission, that the sacrifices were few,
both in number and in magnitude, being reserved for such extraordinary
occasions as those mentioned in the text.]
At the feast of Raymi, the sacrifice usually offered was that of the
llama; and the priest, after opening the body of his victim, sought in the
appearances which it exhibited to read the lesson of the mysterious future. If
the auguries were unpropitious, a second victim was slaughtered, in the hope
of receiving some more comfortable assurance. The Peruvian augur might have
learned a good lesson of the Roman, - to consider every omen as favorable,
which served the interests of his country. ^30
[Footnote 30: "Augurque cum esset, dicere ausus est, optimis auspiciis ea
geri, quae pro reipublicae salute gererentur." Cicero, De Senectute.
This inspection of the entrails of animals for the purposes of divination
is worthy of note, as a most rare, if not a solitary, instance of the kind
among the nations of the New World, though so familiar in the ceremonial of
sacrifice among the pagan nations of the Old.]
A fire was then kindled by means of a concave mirror of polished metal,
which, collecting the rays of the sun into a focus upon a quantity of dried
cotton, speedily set it on fire. It was the expedient used on the like
occasions in ancient Rome, at least under the reign of the pious Numa. When
the sky was overcast, and the face of the good deity was hidden from his
worshippers, which was esteemed a bad omen, fire was obtained by means of
friction. The sacred flame was intrusted to the care of the Virgins of the
Sun, and if, by any neglect, it was suffered to go out in the course of the
year, the event was regarded as a calamity that boded some strange disaster to
the monarchy. ^31 A burnt offering of the victims was then made on the altars
of the deity. This sacrifice was but the prelude to the slaughter of a great
number of llamas, part of the flocks of the Sun, which furnished a banquet not
only for the Inca and his Court, but for the people, who made amends at these
festivals for the frugal fare to which they were usually condemned. A fine
bread or cake, kneaded of maize flour by the fair hands of the Virgins of the
Sun, was also placed on the royal board, where the Inca, presiding over the
feast, pledged his great nobles in generous goblets of the fermented liquor of
the country, and the long revelry of the day was closed at night by music and
dancing. Dancing and drinking were the favorite pastimes of the Peruvians.
These amusements continued for several days, though the sacrifices terminated
on the first. - Such was the great festival of Raymi; and the recurrence of
this and similar festivities gave relief to the monotonous routine of toil
prescribed to the lower orders of the community. ^32
[Footnote 31: "Vigilemque sacraverat ignem, Excubias divum aeternas."
Plutarch, in his life of Numa, describes the reflectors used by the
Romans for kindling the sacred fire, as concave instruments of brass, though
not spherical like the Peruvian, but of a triangular form.]
[Footnote 32: Acosta, lib. 5, cap. 28, 29. - Garcilasso, Com. Real., Parte 1,
lib. 6, cap. 23.]
In the distribution of bread and wine at this high festival, the orthodox
Spaniards, who first came into the country, saw a striking resemblance to the
Christian communion; ^33 as in the practice of confession and penance, which,
in a most irregular form, indeed, seems to have been used by the Peruvians,
they discerned a coincidence with another of the sacraments of the Church. ^34
The good fathers were fond of tracing such coincidences, which they considered
as the contrivance of Satan, who thus endeavoured to delude his victims by
counterfeiting the blessed rites of Christianity. ^35 Others, in a different
vein, imagined that they saw in such analogies the evidence, that some of the
primitive teachers of the Gospel, perhaps an apostle himself, had paid a visit
to these distant regions, and scattered over them the seeds of religious
truth. ^36 But it seems hardly necessary to invoke the Prince of Darkness, or
the intervention of the blessed saints, to account for coincidences which have
existed in countries far removed from the light of Christianity and in ages,
indeed, when its light had not yet risen on the world. It is much more
reasonable to refer such casual points of resemblance to the general
constitution of man, and the necessities of his moral nature. ^37
[Footnote 33: "That which is most admirable in the hatred and presumption of
Sathan is, that he not onely counterfeited in idolatry and sacrifices, but
also in certain ceremonies, our sacraments, which Jesus Christ our Lord
instituted, and the holy Church uses, having especially pretended to imitate,
in some sort, the sacrament of the communion, which is the most high and
divine of all others." Acosta, lib. 5, cap. 23.]
[Footnote 34: Herrera, Hist. General, dec. 5, lib. 4, cap. 4. - Ondegardo,
Rel. Prim., Ms.
"The father of lies would likewise counterfeit the sacrament of
Confession, and in his idolatries sought to be honored with ceremonies very
like to the manner of Christians." Acosta, lib. 5, cap. 25.]
[Footnote 35: Cieza de Leon, not content with many marvellous accounts of the
influence and real apparition of Satan in the Indian ceremonies, has garnished
his volume with numerous wood-cuts representing the Prince of Evil in bodily
presence with the usual accompaniments of tail, claws, &c., as if to reenforce
the homilies in his text! The Peruvian saw in his idol a god. His Christian
conqueror saw in it the Devil. One may be puzzled to decide which of the two
might lay claim to the grossest superstition.]
[Footnote 36: Piedrahita, the historian of the Muyscas, is satisfied that
this apostle must have been St. Bartholomew, whose travels were known to have
been extensive. (Conq. de Granada, Parte 1, lib. 1, cap. 3.) The Mexican
antiquaries consider St. Thomas as having had charge of the mission to the
people of Anahuac. These two apostles, then, would seem to have divided the
New World, at least the civilized portions of it, between them. How they
came, whether by Behring's Straits, or directly across the Atlantic, we are
not informed. Velasco - a writer of the eighteenth century! - has little
doubt that they did really come. Hist. de Quito, tom. I. pp. 89, 90.]
[Footnote 37: The subject is illustrated by some examples in the "History of
the Conquest of Mexico," vol. III., Appendix, No. 1.; since the same usages
in that country led to precisely the same rash conclusions among the
Conquerors.]
Another singular analogy with Roman Catholic institutions is presented
by the Virgins of the Sun, the "elect," as they were called, ^38 to whom I
have already had occasion to refer. These were young maidens, dedicated to
the service of the deity, who, at a tender age, were taken from their homes,
and introduced into convents, where they were placed under the care of
certain elderly matrons, mamaconas, who had grown grey within their walls. ^39
Under these venerable guides, the holy virgins were instructed in the nature
of their religious duties. They were employed in spinning and embroidery,
and, with the fine hair of the vicuna, wove the hangings for the temples, and
the apparel for the Inca and his household. ^40 It was their duty, above all,
to watch over the sacred fire obtained at the festival of Raymi. From the
moment they entered the establishment, they were cut off from all connection
with the world, even with their own family and friends. No one but the Inca,
and the Coya or queen, might enter the consecrated precincts. The greatest
attention was paid to their morals, and visitors were sent every year to
inspect the institutions, and to report on the state of their discipline. ^41
Woe to the unhappy maiden who was detected in an intrigue! By the stern law
of the Incas, she was to be buried alive, her lover was to be strangled, and
the town or village to which he belonged was to be razed to the ground, and
"sowed with stones," as if to efface every memorial of his existence. ^42 One
is astonished to find so close a resemblance between the institutions to find
so close a resemblance between the institutions of the American Indian, the
ancient Roman, and the modern Catholic! Chastity and purity of life are
virtues in woman, that would seem to be of equal estimation with the
barbarian and with the civilized. - Yet the ultimate destination of the
inmates of these religious houses was materially different.
[Footnote 38: Llamavase Casa de Escogidas; porque las escogian. o por Linage,
o por Hermosura." Garcilasso, Com. Real., Parte 1, lib. 4, cap. 1.]
[Footnote 39: Ondegardo, Rel. Prim., Ms.
The word mamacona signified "matron"; mama, the first half of this
compound word, as already noticed, meaning "mother." See Garcilasso, Com.
Real., Parte 1, lib. 4, cap. 1.]
[Footnote 40: Pedro Pizarro, Descub. y Conq., Ms.]
[Footnote 41: Dec. de la Aud. Real., Ms.]
[Footnote 42: Balboa, Hist. du Perou, chap. 9. - Fernandez, Hist. del Peru,
Parte 2, lib. 3, cap. 11. - Garcilasso, Com. Real., Parte 1, lib. 4, cap. 3.
According to the historian of the Incas, the terrible penalty was never
incurred by a single lapse on the part of the fair sisterhood; though, if it
had been, the sovereign, he assures us, would have "exacted it to the letter,
with as little compunction as he would have drowned a puppy." (Com. Real.,
Parte 1, lib. 4, cap. 3.) Other writers contend, on the contrary, that these
Virgins had very little claim to the reputation of Vestals. (See Pedro
Pizarro, Descub. y Conq., Ms. - Gomara, Hist. de las Ind., cap. 121.) Such
imputations are common enough on the inhabitants of religious houses, whether
pagan or Christian. They are contradicted in the present instance by the
concurrent testimony of most of those who had the best opportunity of arriving
at truth, and are made particularly improbable by the superstitious reverence
entertained for the Incas.]
The great establishment at Cuzco consisted wholly of maidens of the royal
blood, who amounted, it is said, to no less than fifteen hundred. The
provincial convents were supplied from the daughters of the curacas and
inferior nobles, and, occasionally, where a girl was recommended by great
personal attractions, from the lower classes of the people. ^43 The "Houses of
the Virgins of the Sun" consisted of low ranges of stone buildings, covering a
large extent of ground, surrounded by high walls, which excluded those within
entirely from observation. They were provided with every accommodation for
the fair inmates, and were embellished in the same sumptuous and costly manner
as the palaces of the Incas, and the temples; for they received the particular
care of government, as an important part of the religious establishment. ^44
[Footnote 43: Pedro Pizarro, Descub. y Conq., Ms. - Garcilasso, Com. Real.,
Parte 1, lib. 4, cap. 1.]
[Footnote 44: Ibid., Parte 1, lib. 4, cap. 5. - Cieza de Leon, Cronica, cap.
44.]
Yet the career of all the inhabitants of these cloisters was not confined
within their narrow walls. Though Virgins of the Sun, they were brides of the
Inca, and, at a marriageable age, the most beautiful among them were selected
for the honors of his bed, and transferred to the royal seraglio. The full
complement of this amounted in time not only to hundreds, but thousands, who
all found accommodations in his different palaces throughout the country.
When the monarch was disposed to lessen the number of his establishment, the
concubine with whose society he was willing to dispense returned, not to her
former monastic residence, but to her own home; where, however humble might be
her original condition, she was maintained in great state, and, far from being
dishonored by the situation she had filled, was held in universal reverence as
the Inca's bride. ^45
[Footnote 45: Dec. de la Aud. Real., Ms. - Garcilasso, Com. Real., Parte 1,
lib. 4, cap.4. - Montesinos, Mem Antiguas, Ms., lib 2, cap. 19.]
The great nobles of Peru were allowed, like their sovereign, a plurality
of wives. The people, generally, whether by law, or by necessity stronger
than law, were more happily limited to one. Marriage was conducted in a
manner that gave it quite as original a character as belonged to the other
institutions of the country. On an appointed day of the year, all those of a
marriageable age - which, having reference to their ability to take charge of
a family, in the males was fixed at not less than twenty-four years, and in
the women at eighteen or twenty - were called together in the great squares of
their respective towns and villages, throughout the empire. The Inca presided
in person over the assembly of his own kindred, and taking the hands of the
different couples who were to be united, he placed them within each other,
declaring the parties man and wife. The same was done by the curacas towards
all persons of their own or inferior degree in their several districts. This
was the simple form of marriage in Peru. No one was allowed to select a wife
beyond the community to which he belonged, which generally comprehended all
his own kindred; ^46 nor was any but the sovereign authorized to dispense with
the law of nature - or at least, the usual law of nations - so far as to marry
his own sister. ^47 No marriage was esteemed valid without the consent of the
parents; and the preference of the parties, it is said, was also to be
consulted; though, considering the barriers imposed by the prescribed age of
the candidates, this must have been within rather narrow and whimsical limits.
A dwelling was got ready for the new-married pair at the charge of the
district, and the prescribed portion of land assigned for their maintenance.
The law of Peru provided for the future, as well as for the present. It left
nothing to chance. - The simple ceremony of marriage was followed by general
festivities among the friends of the parties, which lasted several days; and
as every wedding took place on the same day, and as there were few families
who had not some one of their members or their kindred personally interested,
there was one universal bridal jubilee throughout the empire. ^48
[Footnote 46: By the strict letter of the law, according to Garcilasso, no one
was to marry out of his own lineage. But this narrow rule had a most liberal
interpretation, since all of the same town, and even province, he assures us,
were reckoned of kin to one another. Com. Real., Parte 1, lib. 4, cap. 8.]
[Footnote 47: Fernandez, Hist. del Peru, Parte 2, lib. 3, cap. 9.
This practice, so revolting to our feelings that it might well be deemed
to violate the law of nature, must not, however, be regarded as altogether
peculiar to the Incas, since it was countenanced by some of the most polished
nations of antiquity.]
[Footnote 48: Ondegardo, Rel. Seg., Ms - Garcilasso, Com. Real., Parte lib. 6,
cap. 36. - Dec. de la Aud Real., Ms. - Montesinos, Mem Antiguas, Ms., lib. 2,
cap. 6.]
The extraordinary regulations respecting marriage under the Incas are
eminently characteristic of the genius of the government; which, far from
limiting itself to matters of public concern, penetrated into the most private
recesses of domestic life, allowing no man, however humble, to act for
himself, even in those personal matters in which none but himself, or his
family at most, might be supposed to be interested. No Peruvian was too low
for the fostering vigilance of government. None was so high that he was not
made to feel his dependence upon it in every act of his life. His very
existence as an individual was absorbed in that of the community. His hopes
and his fears, his joys and his sorrows, the tenderest sympathies of his
nature, which would most naturally shrink from observation, were all to be
regulated by law. He was not allowed even to be happy in his own way. The
government of the Incas was the mildest, - but the most searching of
despotisms.
