How they buried their dead, and how they mourned for them, at the
performance of their obsequies.
In the previous chapter I recounted all there is to be said concerning
the belief of these Indians in the immortality of the soul, and what the
enemy of the human race makes them think concerning it. It now seems
good to me that in this place I should give some account of their mode
of burying their dead.
In this there are great differences, for in some parts they make holes,
in others they place their dead on heights, in others on level ground,
and each nation seeks some new way of making tombs. Certain it is that,
though I have made many inquiries, and talked with learned and curious
men, I have not been able to ascertain the origin of these Indians, nor
of their customs.
These Indians, then, have various ways of constructing their tombs. In
the Collao[329] (as I shall relate in its place) they make them in the
cultivated land in the form of towers, some large and others small, and
some built with great skill. These towers have their doors opening
towards the rising sun, and near them (as I will also relate presently)
they were accustomed to make sacrifices and to burn certain things,
sprinkling the towers with the blood of lambs and of other animals.
In the district round Cuzco they bury their dead in a sitting posture,
on certain seats called _duhos_, dressed and adorned with their most
precious ornaments.[330]
In the province of Xauxa, which is a very important part of these
kingdoms of Peru, they sew their dead up in fresh sheep skins, with the
face exposed, and thus they are kept in their own houses. The bodies of
chiefs and principal men are, at certain seasons of the year, taken out
by their sons, and carried to the cultivated fields and homesteads in a
litter with great ceremony, and sacrifices of sheep and lambs, and even
of women and boys, are offered up. When the archbishop Don Hieronymo de
Loaysa[331] heard of this, he sent strict orders to the Indians of the
district, and to the clergy who were there teaching the doctrine of the
church, that all the bodies were to be immediately buried.
In many other provinces, through which I have passed, they bury their
dead in very deep holes, while in others, as those within the
jurisdiction of the city of Antioquia, they pile up such masses of earth
in making their tombs, that they look like small hills. A door is left
through which they pass in the body, the live women, and all the things
that are buried with it. In Cenu many of the tombs are level and large,
with courtyards, and others are like rocks or small hills.
In the province of Chincha, which is one of the coast valleys of Peru,
they bury their dead on beds made of canes.[332] In another of these
valleys, called Runa-huanac,[333] they bury their dead sitting. These
Indians also differ in the way they inter the bodies, some of them
putting them feet first, and others in a sitting posture.
The Indians of many of these coast valleys have great walls made, where
the rocks and barren mountains commence, in the way from the valleys to
the _Sierra_. In these places each family has its established place for
burying its dead, where they dig great holes and excavations, with
closed doors before them. It is certainly a marvellous thing to see the
great quantity of dead bodies that there are in these sandy and barren
mountains, with their clothes now worn out and mouldering away with
time. They call these places, which they hold to be sacred,
_Huaca_,[334] a mournful name. Many have been opened, and the
Spaniards, when they conquered the country, found a great quantity of
gold and silver in them. In these valleys the custom is very general of
burying precious things with the dead, as well as many women and the
most confidential servants possessed by the chief when alive. In former
times they used to open the tombs, and renew the clothes and food which
were placed in them; and when a chief died the principal people of the
valley assembled, and made great lamentations. Many women cut off their
hair until none was left, and came forth with drums and flutes, making
mournful sounds, and singing in those places where the dead chief used
to make merry, so as to make the hearers weep. Having made their
lamentations, they offered up more sacrifices, and had superstitious
communion with the devil. Having done this, and killed some of the
women, they put them in the tomb, with the treasure and no small
quantity of food; holding it for certain that they would go to that
country concerning which the devil had told them. They had, and still
have, the custom of mourning for the dead before the body is placed in
the tomb, during four, five, or six days, or ten, according to the
importance of the deceased, for the greater the lord the more honour do
they show him, lamenting with much sighing and groaning, and playing sad
music. They also repeat all that the dead man had done while living, in
their songs; and if he was valiant they recount his deeds in the midst
of their lamentations. When they put the body into the tomb, they burn
some ornaments and cloths near it, and put others with the body.
Many of these ceremonies are now given up, because God no longer permits
it, and because by degrees these people are finding out the errors of
their fathers, and how little these vain pomps and honours serve them.
They are learning that it suffices to inter the bodies in common graves,
as Christians are interred, without taking anything with them other
than good works. In truth, all other things but serve to please the
devil, and to send the soul down to hell more heavily weighted.
Nevertheless, most of the old chiefs order that their bodies are to be
buried in the manner above described, in secret and hidden places, that
they may not be seen by the Christians; and that they do this is known
to us from the talk of the younger men.