The development of civilization in Peru was very different from that in
Mexico and Central America. In both regions the people were
sun-worshipers, but their religious organizations, as well as their
methods of building temples, were unlike. Neither of these peoples seems
to have borrowed from the other. It may be that all the old American
civilizations had a common origin in South America, and that all the
ancient Americans whose civilization can be traced in remains found
north of the Isthmus came originally from that part of the continent.
This hypothesis appears to me more probable than any other I have heard
suggested. But, assuming this to be true, the first migration of
civilized people from South America must have taken place at a very
distant period in the past, for it preceded not only the history
indicated by the existing antiquities, but also an earlier history,
during which the Peruvians and Central Americans grew to be as different
from their ancestors as from each other. In each case, the development
of civilization represented by existing monuments, so far as we can
study it, appears to have been original.
In some respects the Peruvian civilization was developed to such a
degree as challenged admiration. The Peruvians were highly skilled in
agriculture and in some kinds of manufactures. No people ever had a more
efficient system of industry. This created their wealth and made
possible their great public works. All accounts of the country at the
time of the Conquest agree in the statement that they cultivated the
soil in a very admirable way and with remarkable success, using
aqueducts for irrigation, and employing guano as one of their most
important fertilizers. Europeans learned from them the value of this
fertilizer, and its name, _guano_, is Peruvian. The remains of their
works show what they were as builders. Their skill in cutting stone and
their wonderful masonry can be seen and admired by modern builders in
what is left of their aqueducts, their roads, their temples, and their
other great edifices.
They had great proficiency in the arts of spinning, weaving, and dyeing.
For their cloth they used cotton and the wool of four varieties of the
llama, that of the vicuna being the finest. Some of their cloth had
interwoven designs and ornaments very skillfully executed. Many of their
fabrics had rare excellence in the eyes of the Spaniards. Garcilasso
says, "The coverings of the beds were blankets and friezes of the wool
of the vicuna, which is so fine and so much prized that, among other
precious things from that land, they have been brought for the bed of
Don Philip II." Of their dyes, this account is given in the work of
Rivero and Von Tschudi:
"They possessed the secret of fixing the dye of all colors,
flesh-color, yellow, gray, blue, green, black, etc., so firmly in the
thread, or in the cloth already woven, that they never faded during the
lapse of ages, even when exposed to the air or buried (in tombs) under
ground. Only the cotton became slightly discolored, while the woolen
fabrics preserved their primitive lustre. It is a circumstance worth
remarking that chemical analyses made of pieces of cloth of all the
different dyes prove that the Peruvians extracted all their colors from
the vegetable and none from the mineral kingdom. In fact, the natives of
the Peruvian mountains now use plants unknown to Europeans, producing
from them bright and lasting colors."
They had great skill in the art of working metals, especially gold and
silver. Besides these precious metals, they had copper, tin, lead, and
quicksilver. Figures 65 and 66 show some of the implements used by the
Peruvians. Iron was unknown to them in the time of the Incas, although
some maintain that they had it in the previous ages, to which belong the
ruins at Lake Titicaca. Iron ore was and still is very abundant in Peru.
It is impossible to conceive how the Peruvians were able to cut and work
stone in such a masterly way, or to construct their great roads and
aqueducts without the use of iron tools. Some of the languages of the
country, and perhaps all, had names for iron; in official Peruvian it
was called _quillay_, and in the old Chilian tongue _panilic_. "It is
remarkable," observes Molina, "that iron, which has been thought unknown
to the ancient Americans, has particular names in some of their
tongues." It is not easy to understand why they had names for this
metal, if they never at any time had knowledge of the metal itself. In
the Mercurio Peruano, tome i., p. 201, 1791, it is stated that,
anciently, the Peruvian sovereigns "worked magnificent iron mines at
Ancoriames, on the west shore of Lake Titicaca;" but I can not give the
evidence used in support of this statement.
[Illustration: Fig. 65.--Copper Knives.]
[Illustration: Fig. 66.--Copper Tweezers.]
Their goldsmiths and silversmiths had attained very great proficiency.
They could melt the metals in furnaces, cast them in moulds made of clay
and gypsum, hammer their work with remarkable dexterity, inlay it, and
solder it with great perfection. The gold and silver work of these
artists was extremely abundant in the country at the time of the
Conquest, but Spanish greed had it all melted for coinage. It was with
articles of this gold-work that the Inca Atahuallpa filled a room in
his vain endeavor to purchase release from captivity. One of the old
chroniclers mentions "statuary, jars, vases, and every species of
vessels, all of fine gold." Describing one of the palaces, he said:
"They had an artificial garden, the soil of which was made of small
pieces of fine gold, and this was artificially sowed with different
kinds of maize which were of gold, their stems, leaves, and ears.
Besides this, they had more than twenty sheep (llamas), with their
lambs, attended by shepherds, all made of gold." This may be the same
artificial garden which was mentioned by Francisco Lopez de Gomara, who
places it on "an island near Puna." Similar gardens of gold are
mentioned by others. It is believed that a large quantity of Peruvian
gold-work was thrown into Lake Titicaca to keep it from the Spanish
robbers. In a description of one lot of golden articles sent to Spain in
1534 by Pizarro, there is mention of "four llamas, ten statues of women
of full size, and a cistern of gold so curious that it incited the
wonder of all."
Nothing is more constantly mentioned by the old Spanish chroniclers than
the vast abundance of gold in Peru. It was more common than any other
metal. Temples and palaces were covered with it, and it was very
beautifully wrought into ornaments, temple furniture, articles for
household use, and imitations of almost every object in nature. In the
course of twenty-five years after the Conquest, the Spaniards sent from
Peru to Spain more than four hundred million ducats (800,000,000
dollars) worth of gold, all or nearly all of it having been taken from
the subjugated Peruvians as "booty."
Figures 67 and 68 show a golden and a silver vase, reduced from the
actual size. Figures 69 and 70 represent various articles of pottery;
all these illustrations are copies from articles taken from old Peruvian
tombs.
[Illustration: Fig. 67.--Golden Vase.]
[Illustration: Fig. 68.--Silver Vase.]
The most perfectly manufactured articles of Peruvian pottery were used
in the tombs. Some of those made for other uses were very curious. A
considerable number of articles made for common use have been preserved.
Mariano Rivero, a Peruvian, says: "At this day there exist in many
houses pitchers, large jars, and earthen pots of this manufacture, which
are preferred for their solidity to those manufactured by our own
potters." The ancient Peruvians were inferior to the Central Americans
in the arts of ornamentation and sculpture.
[Illustration: Fig. 69.--Articles of Pottery.]
[Illustration: Fig. 70.--Articles of Pottery.]
Science among the Peruvians was not very highly developed, but
engineering skill of some kind is indicated by the great roads and
aqueducts. Their knowledge of the art of preparing colors and certain
useful medicines implied a study of plants. Their progress in astronomy
was not equal to that found in Central America; nevertheless, they had
an accurate measure of the solar year, but, unlike the Central
Americans, they divided the year into twelve months, and they used
mechanical contrivances successfully to fix the times of the solstices
and equinoxes. A class of men called _amautas_ was trained to preserve
and teach whatever knowledge existed in the country. It was their
business to understand the _quippus_, keep in memory the historical
poems, give attention to the science and practice of medicine, and train
their pupils in knowledge. These were not priests; they were the
"learned men" of Peru, and the government allowed them every facility
for study and for communicating instruction. How much they knew of
astronomy it is not easy to say. They had knowledge of some of the
planets, and it is claimed that there is some reason to believe they
used aids to eyesight in studying the heavens, such as some suppose
were used by our Mound-Builders. A discovery made in Bolivia a few years
since is cited in support of this belief. It is the figure of a man in
the act of using a tube to aid vision, which was taken from an ancient
tomb. Mr. David Forbes, an English chemist and geologist, obtained it in
Bolivia, and carried it to England in 1864. William Bollaert describes
it as follows in a paper read to the London Anthropological Society:
"It is a nude figure, of silver, two inches and a half in height, on a
flat, pointed pedestal. In the right hand it has the mask of a human
face, but in the left a tube over half an inch in length, the narrow
part placed to the left eye in a diagonal position, as if observing some
celestial object. This is the first specimen of a figure in the act of
looking through a hollow tube directed to the heavens that has been
found in the New World. We can not suppose the Peruvians had any thing
that more nearly resembled a telescope. It was found in a chulpa, or
ancient Indian tomb, at Caquingora, near Corocoro (lat. 17 deg. 15' S.,
and long. 68 deg. 35' W.), in Bolivia." He forgets the astronomical
monument described by Captain Dupaix.
The art of writing in alphabetical characters, so far as appears, was
unknown to the Peruvians in the time of the Incas. No Peruvian books
existed at that time, and no inscriptions have been found in any of the
ruins. They had a method of recording events, keeping accounts, and
making reports to the government by means of the _quippu_. This was made
of cords of twisted wool fastened to a base prepared for the purpose.
These cords were of various sizes and colors, and every size and color
had its meaning. The record was made by means of an elaborate system of
knots and artificial intertwinings. The _amautas_ were carefully
educated to the business of understanding and using the _quippus_, and
"this science was so much perfected that those skilled in it attained
the art of recording historical events, laws, and decrees, so as to
transmit to their descendants the most striking events of the empire;
thus the _quippus_ could supply the place of documents." Each _quippu_
was a book full of information for those who could read it.
Among the _amautas_ memory was educated to retain and transmit to
posterity songs, historical narratives, and long historical poems. It is
said, also, that tragedies and comedies were composed and preserved in
this way, and that dramatic performances were among the regular
entertainments encouraged and supported by the Incas. Whether the art of
writing ever existed in the country can not now be determined. Some of
the Peruvian tongues had names for paper; the people knew that a kind of
paper or parchment could be made of plantain leaves, and, according to
Montesinos, writing and books were common in the older times, that is to
say, in ages long previous to the Incas. He explains how the art was
lost, as I shall presently show.
It is not improbable that a kind of hieroglyphical writing existed in
some of the Peruvian communities, especially among the Aymaraes.
Humboldt mentions books of hieroglyphical writing found among the
Panoes, on the River Ucayali, which were "bundles of their paper
resembling our volumes in quarto." A Franciscan missionary found an old
man sitting at the foot of a palm-tree and reading one of these books to
several young persons. The Franciscan was told that the writing
"contained hidden things which no stranger ought to know." It was seen
that the pages of the book were "covered with figures of men, animals,
and isolated characters, deemed hieroglyphical, and arranged in lines
with order and symmetry." The Panoes said these books "were transmitted
to them by their ancestors, and had relation to wanderings and ancient
wars." There is similar writing on a prepared llama skin found among
other antiquities on a peninsula in Lake Titicaca, which is now in the
museum at La Paz, Bolivia. It appears to be a record of atrocities
perpetrated by the Spaniards at the time of the Conquest, and shows that
some of the Aymaraes could at that time write hieroglyphics.