The difficulty of a linguistic classification of the tribes of the
Peruvian region is presented in very formidable terms by the old writers.
Cieza de Leon said of this portion of the continent: “They have such a
variety of languages that there is almost a new language at every league
in all parts of the country;”[275] and Garcilasso de la Vega complains of
the “confusion and multitude of languages,” which gave the Incas so much
trouble, and later so much impeded the labors of the missionaries.[276]
An authority is quoted by Bollaert to the effect that in the vice-royalty
of Quito alone there were more than forty distinct tongues, spoken in
upwards of three hundred different dialects.[277]
Like most such statements, these are gross exaggerations. In fact, from
all the evidence which I have been able to find, the tribes in the
inter-Andean valley, and on the coast, all the way from Quito, under the
equator, to the desert of Atacama in 25° south latitude, belonged to
probably four or at most five linguistic stocks. These are the Kechua,
the Aymara, the Puquina, the Yunca, and the Atacameño. Of these, the
first three were known in the early days of the conquest, as “the three
general languages”--_lenguas generales_--of Peru, on account of their
wide distribution. But it is quite likely, as I shall show later, that
the Aymara was a dialect, and not an independent stock.
_1. The Kechuas._
The Kechua in its various dialects, was spoken by an unbroken chain of
tribes for nearly two thousand miles from north to south; that is, from
3° north of the equator to 32° south latitude. Its influence can be
traced over a far wider area. In the dialects of Popayan in Ecuador, in
those on the Rio Putumayo and Rio Napo, in those on the Ucayali and still
further east, on the banks of the Beni and Mamore, in the Moxa of the
Bolivian highlands, and southeast quite to the languages of the Pampas,
do we find numerous words clearly borrowed from this widespread stock.
This dissemination was due much more to culture than to conquest. It
was a tribute to the intellectual superiority, the higher civilization,
of this remarkable people, as is evident by the character of the words
borrowed. It is a historic error to suppose that the extension of the
Kechua was the result of the victories of the Incas. These occurred but
a few centuries before the arrival of the Spaniards, and their influence
was not great on the native tongues, as even the panegyrist of the Incas,
Garcilasso de la Vega, confesses.[278] The opinion of Von Tschudi was so
positive on this point that he says: “With a few unimportant exceptions,
wherever the Kechua was spoken at the time of the conquest, it had
been spoken thousands of years before the Inca dynasty began.”[279] The
assertion of Garcilasso de la Vega, that the Inca gens had a language of
its own, has been shown to be an error.[280]
Where should we look for the starting-point, the “cradle,” of the
far-spread Kechua stock? The traditions of the Incas pointed to the
shores and islands of Lake Titicaca as the birth-place of their remotest
ancestors; but as Markham has abundantly shown, this was a pure myth. He
himself is decidedly of the opinion that we must search for the cradle
of the stock in the district of Cuzco, perhaps not far from Paucartambo,
“The House of the Dawning,” to which other venerable Incarian legends
assigned the scene of the creation of their common ancestors.[281]
But there are many reasons, and to me satisfactory ones, for believing
that the first Kechuas appeared in South America at the extreme north of
the region they later occupied, and that the course of their migration
was constantly from north to south. This was also the opinion of the
learned Von Tschudi. He traces the early wandering of the Kechua tribes
from the vicinity of Quito to the district between the Andes and the
upper Marañon, thence in the direction of Huaraz, and so gradually
southward, following the inter-Andean plateau, to the northern shore
of Lake Titicaca. There they encountered warlike tribes who put a stop
to their further progress in that direction until the rise of the Inca
dynasty, who pushed their conquests toward the south and west.
The grounds for this opinion are largely linguistic.[282] In his
exhaustive analysis of the Kechua language, Von Tschudi found its
most archaic forms in the extreme north, in the dialects of Quito and
Chinchasuyu. This is also my own impression from the comparison of
the northern and southern dialects. For instance, in the Chinchaya
(northern), the word for water is _yacu_, while the southern dialects
employ _yacu_ in the sense of “flowing water,” or river, and for water in
general adopted the word _unu_, apparently from the Arawak stock. Now,
as Karl von den Steinen argues in a similar instance, we can understand
how a river could be called “water,” but not how drinking water could be
called “river;” and therefore we must assume that the original sense of
_yacu_ was simply “water,” and that the tribes who retained this meaning
had the more archaic vocabulary.[283]
Mr. Markham indeed says: “In my opinion there is no sufficient evidence
that the people of Quito did speak Quichua previous to the Inca
conquest;” and he quotes Cieza de Leon to the effect that at the time
of the Spanish conquest they had a tongue of their own.[284] I have,
however, shown how untrustworthy Cieza de Leon’s statements are on such
subjects; and what is conclusive, there were Kechua-speaking tribes
living at the north who never were subjugated by the Incas. Such for
instance were the Malabas, whom Stevenson, when visiting that region in
1815, found living in a wild state on San Miguel river, a branch of the
Esmeraldas.[285] This is also true, according to the observations of
Stübel, of the natives of Tucas de Santiago in the province of Pasto in
Ecuador.[286]
This opinion is further supported by a strong consensus of ancient
tradition, which, in spite of its vagueness, certainly carries some
weight. Many of the southern Kechua tribes referred for their origin to
the extreme northwest as known to them, to the ancient city of Lambayeque
on the Pacific coast, a locality which, according to Bastian,[287] held
a place in their traditions equivalent to that of Culiacan, “the Home of
the Ancestors,” in the legendary lore of the Aztecs.
The legends of the ancient Quitus have been preserved in the work of
Juan de Velasco, and although they are dismissed with small respect
by Markham, I am myself of the opinion that there is both external
and internal evidence to justify us in accepting them as at least
genuine native productions. They relate that at a remote epoch two
Kechua-speaking tribes, the Mantas on the south, and the Caras on the
north, occupied the coast from the Gulf of Guayaquil to the Esmeraldas
River. The Caras were the elder, and its ancestors had reached that part
of the coast in rafts and canoes from some more northern home. For many
generations they remained a maritime people, but at length followed up
the Esmeraldas and its affluents until they reached the vicinity of
Quito, where they developed into a powerful nation under the rule of
their _scyri_, or chiefs. Of these they claimed a dynasty of nineteen
previous to the conquest of their territory by the Inca Huayna Capac.
They inherited in the male line, and were monogamous to the extent
that the issue of only one of their wives could be regarded as legal
heirs.[288] They did not bury their dead, as did the southern Kechuas,
but placed them on the surface of the soil and constructed a stone mound
or tomb, called _tola_, over the remains, resembling in this the Aymaras.
The extent of the Kechua tongue to the north has not been accurately
defined. Under the name _Yumbos_, or _Yumbos de Guerra_, the old
Relations included various tribes in the Quito region who had not been
reduced by the Spanish Conquistadores.[289] A recent traveler, M. André,
states that the Yumbos belong to the family of the Quitus, and include
the tribes of the Cayapas, Colorados and Mangaches.[290] Of these, the
Cayapas and Colorados, as I have shown, belong to the Barbacoa stock,
though the term _Colorados_ “painted,” is applied to so many tribes that
it is not clear which is meant. The geographer Villavicencio observes
that “the Napos, Canelos, Intags, Nanegales and Gualeas, collectively
called Yumbos, all speak dialects of the Kechua.” The modern Canelos he
describes as a cross between the ancient Yumbos and the Jivaros, to whom
they are now neighbors, while the modern Quitos adjoin the Zaparos. Their
language, however, he asserts, has retained its purity.[291]
Whether we should include in this stock the Macas, who dwell on the
eastern slope of the Andes a few degrees south of the equator, is not
clear, as I have found no vocabularies. Velasco refers to them as a
part of the Scyra stock, and they are in the Kechua region. Mr. Buckley,
who visited them a few years ago, describes them as divided into small
tribes, constantly at war with each other. Their weapons are spears and
blow-pipes with poisoned arrows. Hunting is their principal business,
but they also raise some maize, yucca and tobacco. Polygamy prevails
along with the patriarchal system, the son inheriting the property of his
father. Some rude pottery is manufactured, and their huts of palm leaves
are neatly constructed. Like the Jivaros, they prepare the heads of the
dead, and sometimes a man will kill one of his wives if he takes a fancy
that her head would look particularly ornamental thus preserved.[292]
The southern limit of the Kechua tongue, before the Spanish conquest,
has been variously put by different writers; but I think we can safely
adopt Coquimbo, in south latitude 30°, as practically the boundary
of the stock. We are informed that in 1593 the priests addressed
their congregations in Kechua at this place,[293] and in the same
generation the missionary Valdivia names it as the northern limit of the
Araucanian.[294] Doubtless, however, it was spoken by outlying colonies
as far south as the river Maule, in south latitude 35°, which other
writers assign as the limit of the conquests of the Incas.
Cieza de Leon and other early Spanish writers frequently refer to the
general physical sameness of the Peruvian tribes. They found all of them
somewhat undersized, brown in color, beardless, and of but moderate
muscular force.
The craniology of Peru offers peculiar difficulties. It was the policy
of the rulers to remove large numbers of conquered tribes to distant
portions of the realm in order to render the population more homogeneous.
This led to a constant blending of physical traits. Furthermore,
nowhere on the continent do we find skulls presenting more grotesque
artificial deformities, which render it difficult to decide upon their
normal form. When the latter element is carefully excluded, we still
find a conflicting diversity in the results of measurements. Of 245
Peruvian crania in the collection of the Academy of Natural Sciences,
Philadelphia, 168 are brachycephalic, 50 are dolichocephalic, and 27
mesocephalic. Of 13 from near Arica, all but one are dolichocephalic. Of
104 from Pachacamac, 93 are brachycephalic and none dolichocephalic. It
is evident that along the coast there lived tribes of contrasted skull
forms. From the material at hand I should say that the dividing line was
near Pisco, those south of that point having elongated, those north of it
rounded heads. The true Kechuas and Aymaras are meso or brachycephalic.
The crania from the celebrated cemetery of Ancon, which is situated on
the coast near Lima, are mostly deformed, but when obtained in natural
form prove the population to have been mesocephalic, with rounded orbits
(megasemes) and narrow prominent noses (leptorhines). An average of six
specimens yielded a cubical capacity of 1335 cub. cent.[295]
The cubical capacity of the Peruvian skulls from the coast generally
averages remarkably low--lower than that of the Bushmen or Hottentots.
Careful measurements give the capacity at 1230 cubic centimeters.[296]
They almost reach the borders of microcephaly, which Broca placed at 1150
cubic centimeters.
Although the Spanish writers speak of the Inca as an autocratic despot,
a careful analysis of the social organization of ancient Peru places
it in the light of a government by a council of the gentes, quite in
accordance with the system so familiar elsewhere on the continent. The
Inca was a war-chief, elected by the council as an executive officer to
carry out its decision, and had practically no initiative of his own.
Associated with him, and nearly equal in power, was the _huillac huma_,
or “speaking head,” who acted as president of the tribal council, and was
the executive officer in the Inca’s absence. The totemic system still
controlled the social life of the people, although it is evident that the
idea of the family had begun to assert itself. The land continued to be
owned by the gens or _ayllu_, and not by individuals.[297]
Agriculture had reached its highest level in Peru among the native
tribes. The soil was artificially enriched with manure and guano brought
from the islands; extensive systems of irrigation were carried out, and
implements of bronze, as spades and hoes, took the place of the ruder
tools of stone or wood. The crops were maize, potatoes both white and
sweet, yucca, peppers, tobacco and cotton. Of domestic animals the llama
and paco were bred for their hair, for sacrifices and as beasts of
burden, but not for draft, for riding nor for milking.[298] The herds
often numbered many thousands. The Inca dog was a descendant of the
wolf,[299] and monkeys, birds and guinea pigs were common pets.
Cotton and hair of the various species of the llama were spun and woven
into a large variety of fabrics, often ornamented with geometric designs
in color. The pottery was exceedingly varied in forms. Natural objects
were imitated in clay with fidelity and expression, and when a desirable
model was not at hand, the potter was an adept in moulding curious
trick-jars that would not empty their contents in the expected direction,
or would emit a strange note from the gurgling fluid, or such as could
be used as whistles, or he could turn out terra-cotta flutes and the
like. Not less adroit were the artists in metal, especially in bronze
and in gold and silver. The early writers are filled with expressions
of astonishment at the amount, variety and beauty of the Incarian gold
work. Its amount we may well credit when we are told that the value of
the precious metals shipped to Spain within twenty-five years after the
conquest was four hundred million ducats of gold. There are specimens
enough remaining to judge of its artistic designs. They are quite
ingenious and show dexterous manipulation, but rarely hint at a sense of
the beautiful.
Peruvian architecture was peculiar and imposing. It showed no trace of an
inspiration from Yucatan or Mexico. Its special features were cyclopean
walls of huge stones fitted together without mortar; structures of
several stories in height, not erected upon tumuli or pyramids; the doors
narrowing in breadth toward the top; the absence of pillars or arches;
the avoidance of exterior and mural decoration; the artistic disposition
of niches in the walls; and the extreme solidity of the foundations.
These points show that Inca architecture was not derived from that north
of the isthmus of Panama. In the decorative effects of the art they were
deficient; neither their sculpture in stone nor their mural paintings at
all equalled those of Yucatan.
The only plan they had devised to record or to recall ideas was by means
of knotted strings of various colors and sizes, called quipus. These
could have been nothing more than mere mnemonic aids, highly artificial
and limited in their application.
The official religion was a worship of the sun; but along with it were
carried the myths of Viracocha, the national hero-god, whom it is not
difficult to identify with the personifications of light so common in
American religions. The ceremonies of the cult were elaborate, and were
not associated with the bloody sacrifices frequent in Yucatan and Mexico.
Their mythology was rich, and many legends were current of the white and
bearded Viracocha, the culture hero, who gave them their civilization,
and of his emergence from the “house of the dawn.” According to some
authorities which appear to be trustworthy, the more intelligent of the
Kechuas appear to have risen above object-worship, and to have advocated
the belief in a single and incorporeal divinity.
A variety of ancestral worship also prevailed, that of the _pacarina_,
or forefather of the _ayllu_ or gens, idealized as the soul or essence
of his descendants. The emblem worshipped was the actual body, called
_malqui_, which was mummied and preserved with reverential care in sacred
underground temples.
The morality of the Peruvians stood low. Their art relics abound in
obscene devices and the portraiture of unnatural passions. We can
scarcely err in seeing in them a nation which had been deteriorated by a
long indulgence in debasing tastes.
The Kechua language is one of harsh phonetics, especially in the southern
dialects, but of considerable linguistic development. The modifications
of the theme are by means of suffixes, which are so numerous as to give
it a flexibility and power of conveying slight shades of meaning rare
in American tongues, and which Friedrich Müller compares to that of the
Osmanli Turks.[300] Its literature was by no means despicable. In spite
of the absence of a method of writing, there was a large body of songs,
legends and dramas preserved by oral communication and the quipus. A
number of these have been published. Among them the drama of _Ollanta_ is
the most noteworthy. It appears to be a genuine aboriginal production,
committed to writing soon after the conquest, and bears the marks of an
appreciation of literary form higher than we might have expected.[301]
The poems or _yaraveys_, usually turn on love for a theme, and often
contain sentiments of force and delicacy.[302] Several excellent
grammatical studies of the Kechua have appeared in recent years.[303]