PERUVIAN RITUAL AND WORSHIP
With the Peruvians, as with the Mexicans, paradise was a preserve of the
aristocrats. The poor might languish in the gloomy shades of the Hades
presided over by Supay, Lord of the Dead, but for the Incas and their
immediate relatives, by whom was embraced the entire nobility, the
Mansions of the Sun were retained, where they might dwell with the Sun,
their father, in undisturbed felicity. In a community where everything
was ordered with military exactitude, sin meant disobedience, and
consequently death. Indeed it took the form of direct blasphemy against
the Inca, and was thus stripped of the purely ethical sense it holds for
a free population. The sinner expiated his crime at once, and was
consigned to the grey shades of the underworld, there to pass the same
nebulous existence as his more meritorious companions. Some writers upon
Peru refer to a belief on the part of the people in a place of
retribution where the wicked would expiate their offences by ages of
arduous toil. But there is little ground for the acceptance of these
statements.
Strictly speaking, there was no priesthood in Peru. The ecclesiastical
caste consisted of the Inca and his relatives, who were also known as
Incas. These assumed all the principal positions in the national
religion, but were unable, of course, to fill all the lesser provincial
posts. These were undertaken by the priests of the local deities, who
were at the same time priests of the imperial deities, a policy which
permitted the conquered peoples to retain their own form of worship, and
at the same time led them to recognise the paramountcy of the religion
of the Incas. Nothing could be more intense than the devotion shown by
all ranks of the population to the person of the Inca. He was the sun
incarnate upon earth, and his presence must be entered with humble mien
and beggarly apparel, and a further show of humility must also be made
by carrying a bundle upon the back.
The High Priest, who has been already alluded to as holding the title of
Huacapvillac, or 'He who converses with divine beings!' also held the
more general one of Villac Oumau, or 'Chief Sacrificer.' He derived his
position solely from the Inca, but made all inferior appointments, and
was answerable to the monarch alone. He was invariably an Inca of
exalted rank, as were all the priests who officiated at Cuzco, the
capital. Only those ecclesiastics of the higher grades wore any
distinguishing garb, the lower order dressing in the same manner as the
people.
The existence of a Peruvian priest was an arduous one. It was necessary
for him to master a ritual as complex as any ever evolved by a
hierarchy. At regular intervals he was relieved by his fellow-priests,
who were organised in companies, each of which took duty for a specified
period of the day or night. The duties of the Peruvian priesthood,
whilst even more exacting than that of the Mexican, did not appear to
have been lightened in a similar manner by the acquirement of knowledge,
or by mental exercise of any description, and this may be partly
accounted for by the fact that the art of writing was discouraged among
them, probably on the assumption that the whole duty of man culminated
in unfailing obedience to the Inca and his representatives, and that the
acquirement of further knowledge was the work of supererogation.
It is deeply interesting to notice (isolated as was everything Peruvian)
that it was in this far corner of America that the native evolution of
the temple took place, as distinguished from the altar or teocalli.
Originally the Peruvian priesthood had adopted that pyramidal form of
structure now familiar to us as that in use by the Mexicans, but as time
went on they began to roof over these high altars, and this practice at
length culminated in the erection of huge temples like that at Cuzco.
The great temple of Cuzco, known as _Coricancha_, or 'The Place of
Gold,' was the greatest and most magnificent example of Peruvian
ecclesiastical architecture. The exterior gave an impression of
massiveness and solidity rather than of grace. Round the outer
circumference of the building ran a frieze of the purest gold, and the
interior was profusely ornamented with plates of the same metal. The
doorways were formed from huge monoliths, and the whole aspect of the
building was Cyclopean. In the dressing of stone and the fitting of
masonry the Peruvians were expert, and the placing of immense blocks of
stone appears to have had no difficulties for them. So accurately indeed
were these fitted that the blade of a knife could not be inserted
between them. Inside the Temple of the Sun was placed a great plate of
gold, upon which was engraved the features of the god of the luminary,
and this was so placed that the rays of the rising sun fell full upon
it, and bathed it in a flood of radiance. The scintillations from a
thousand gems, with which its surface was enriched, lent to it a
brilliance which eye-witnesses declare to have been almost
insupportable. Enthroned around this dazzling object were the mummified
bodies of the monarchs of the Inca dynasty, giving to the place an air
of holy mystery which must have deeply impressed the pious and simple
people. The roof was composed of rafters of choice woods, but was merely
covered in by a thatching of maize straw. The principle of the arch had
never been thoroughly grasped by the Peruvians, and that of adequate
roofing appears to have been equally unknown to them.
Surrounding this, the principal temple, were others dedicated to the
moon; Cuycha, the rainbow; Chasca, the planet Venus; the Pleiades; and
Catequil, the thunder-god. In that of the moon, the mother of the Incas,
a plate of silver, similar to that which represented the face of the sun
in his own sanctuary, was placed, and was surrounded by the mummified
forms of the dead queens of the Incas. In that of Cuycha, the rainbow,
as already explained, a golden representation of the arch of heaven was
to be found, and the remaining buildings in the precincts of the great
temple were set apart for the residences of the priests.
The most ancient of the temples of Peru was that on the island of
Titicaca, to which extraordinary veneration was paid. Everything in
connection with it was sacred in the extreme, and in the surrounding
maize-fields was annually raised a crop which was distributed among the
various public granaries, in order to leaven the entire crop of the
country with sanctity.
All the utensils in use in these temples were of solid gold and silver.
In that of Cuzco twelve large jars of silver held the sacred grain, and
censers, ewers, and even the pipes which conducted the water-supply
through the earth to the temple, were of silver. In the surrounding
gardens, the hoes, spades, and other implements in use were also of
silver, and hundreds of representations of plants and animals executed
in the precious metals were to be found in them. These facts are vouched
for by numerous eye-witnesses, among whom was Pedro Pizarro himself, and
subsequent historians have seen no reason to regard their descriptions
as in any way untrustworthy.
As in Mexico, so in Peru, the Spanish conquerors were astonished to find
among the religious customs of the people practices which appeared to
them identical with some of the sacraments of the Roman Catholic faith.
Among these were confession, communion, and baptism. Confession appears
to have been practised in a somewhat loose and irregular manner, but
penance for ill-doing was apportioned, and absolution granted. At the
festival of Raymi, which we will later examine, bread and wine were
distributed in much the same manner as that prescribed in Christian
communities. Baptism also was practised. Some three months after birth
the child was plunged into water after having received its name. The
ceremony, however, appears to have partaken more of the nature of an
exorcism of evil spirits than of a cleansing from original sin.
Like the ancient Egyptians, the Peruvians practised the art of embalming
the dead, but it does not appear that they did so with any idea in view
of corporeal resurrection as did the former. As to the method by which
they preserved the remains of the dead, authorities are not agreed,
some believing that the cold of the mountains to which the corpses were
subjected was sufficient to produce a state of mummification, and others
that a process akin to that of the Ancient Egyptians was gone through.
Burnt offerings were very popular among the Peruvians. They were chiefly
made to the sun, and were, in general, not unlike those made by the
Semites.
As with the Mexicans, the sacred dance was a striking feature of the
Peruvian religion. These choral dances were brought to a very high state
of perfection, and in the case of the common people were often wild and
full of the fire of abandoned fanaticism. The Incas, however, possessed
a dance of their own, which was sufficiently grave and stately. At great
festivals two choral dances and hymns were rendered to the sun, each
strophe of which ended with the cry of _Hailly_, or 'triumph.' Some of
those Peruvian hymns were preserved in the work of a Spanish composer,
who in 1555 wrote a mass, into the body of which he introduced these
curious waifs of American melody. That choral dances are still in favour
with the aborigines of Peru is proved by the evidence of Baron Eland
Nordenskjoeld, who arrived (August 1907) from an eight months'
ethnological expedition to some of the Andes tribes. He states that the
'so-called civilised Indians--the Quichuas and Aymaras--living around
Titicaca ... have retained many customs unaltered or but slightly
modified since the time of the Incas.... Thus it was found that the
Indians often worship Christ and the Virgin Mary by dances, in which the
sun is used as the symbol for Christ, and the moon for the Virgin Mary.'
With the Peruvians each month had its appropriate festival. The
solstices and equinoxes were of course the occasions of the most
remarkable of these, and four times a year the feast of Raymi or the
dance was celebrated with all the pomp and circumstance of which this
strange and bizarre civilisation was capable. The most important of
these was held in June, when nine days were given up to the celebration
of the Citoc Raymi, or gradually increasing sun. For three days previous
to this event all fasted, and no fire might be kindled in any house. On
the fourth great day the Inca, accompanied in procession by his court
and the people, who followed _en masse_, proceeded to the great square
to hail the rising sun. The scene must have been one of intense
brilliance. Clad in their most costly robes, and sheltered beneath
canopies of cunning feather-work in which the gay plumage of tropical
birds was aesthetically arranged, the vast crowd awaited the rising of
the sun in eager silence. When he came, shouts of joy and triumph broke
from the multitude, and the cries of delight were swelled by the crash
of wild melody from a thousand instruments. Louder and louder arose the
joyous tumult, until topping the eastern mountains the luminary shone in
full splendour on his worshippers. The riot of sound culminated in a
mighty paean of thanksgiving. Libations of maguey, or maize-spirit, were
made to the deity, after first having touched the sacred lips of the
Inca. Then marshalling itself once more in order of procession, all
pressed with one accord to the golden Temple of the Sun, where black
llamas were sacrificed, and a new fire kindled by means of a concave
mirror. Divested of their sandals the Inca and his suite spent some time
in prayer. Occasionally a human victim--a maiden or a beautiful
child--was offered up in sacrifice, but happily this was a rare
occurrence, and only took place on great public occasions, such as a
coronation, or the celebration of a national victory. These sacrifices
never ended in cannibal feasts, as did those of the Aztecs. Grain,
flowers, animals, and aromatic gums were the usual sacrificial offerings
of the Peruvians.
The Citua Raymi was the festival of the spring, and fell in September.
It was known as the Feast of Purification. The country must be purified
from pestilence, and to secure this, round cakes, kneaded in the blood
of children, were eaten. To secure this blood the children were merely
bled above the nose, and not slaughtered, as with the more ferocious
Aztecs--almost an example of the substitution of the part for the whole.
These cakes were also rubbed upon the doorways, and the people smeared
them all over their bodies as a preventive against disease. The circuit
of the state of Cuzco was then made by relays of armed Incas, who
planted their spears on the boundaries as talismans against evil. A
torchlight procession followed, after which the torches were cast into
the river as symbolic of the destruction of evil spirits.
The festival of the Aymorai, or harvest, fell in May, when a statue made
of corn was worshipped under the name of Pirrhua, who seems to be an
admixture of Manco Capac and Viracocha in his role of fertiliser. The
fourth great festival, Capac Raymi, fell in December, when the
thunder-god shared the honours paid to the Sun. It was then that the
younger generation of Incas after a vigorous training received an honour
equivalent to that of knighthood.
The Peruvians possessed a fully developed conventual system. A number of
maidens, selected for their beauty and their birth, were dedicated to
the deity as 'Virgins of the Sun.' Under the guidance of _mamacones_, or
matrons, these maidens were instructed in the nature of their religious
duties, which chiefly consisted in the weaving of priestly garments and
temple-hangings. They also watched over the sacred fire which had been
kindled at the feast of Raymi. No communication with the outside world
was permitted to them, and detection in a love-affair meant living
burial, the execution of the lover, and the entire destruction of the
place of his birth. In the convent of Cuzco were lodged between one and
two thousand maidens of the royal blood, and at a marriageable age these
became brides of the Sun in his incarnate shape of the Inca, the most
beautiful being selected for the harem of the monarch.
Sorcery and divination were frequently employed by the Peruvians, and
the _Huacarimachi_, 'They who make the gods speak,' were held in great
veneration by the ignorant masses. The oracles in the valleys of Lima
and Rimac were much resorted to, and auguries of all descriptions were
in popular favour.
The Peruvians were ignorant of morality as we appreciate the term. That
they were, however, a most moral people there is every evidence. But as
has been before pointed out, all crime was a direct offence against the
majesty of the Inca, who, as viceroy of the Sun on earth, had been
blasphemed by the breaking of his law. Under such a regime the true
significance of sin was bound to be obscured, if not altogether lost.
Terror took the place of conscience, and the necessity for implicit
obedience gave no scope to the true moral sense--probably to the
detriment of the entire community.
The political and religious history of Peru is unique in the annals of
mankind, and its study offers a startling instance of what prolonged
isolation may work in the mind of man. That the Peruvian mind, isolated
in a remote part of the world as it was, was never wholly blind to the
existence of a great and beneficent creative Power, the degradation of a
cramping theocracy notwithstanding, is triumphant proof that the
knowledge of that Power is a thing inalienable from the mind of man.