Education--Quipus-Astronomy-Agriculture--Aqueducts-Guano--
Important Esculents
"Science was not intended for the people; but for those of generous
blood. Persons of low degree are only puffed up by it, and rendered
vain and arrogant. Neither should such meddle with the affairs of
government; for this would bring high offices into disrepute, and cause
detriment to the state.1 Such was the favorite maxim, often repeated, of
Tupac Inca Yupanqui, one of the most renowned of the Peruvian
sovereigns. It may seem strange that such a maxim should ever have
been proclaimed in the New World, where popular institutions have been
established on a more extensive scale than was ever before witnessed;
where government rests wholly on the people; and education--at least, in
the great northern division of the continent--is mainly directed to qualify
the people for the duties of government. Yet this maxim was strictly
conformable to the genius of the Peruvian monarchy, and may serve as a
key to its habitual policy; since, while it watched with unwearied
solicitude over its subjects, provided for their physical necessities, was
mindful of their morals, and showed, throughout, the affectionate
concern of a parent for his children, it yet regarded them only as
children, who were never to emerge from the state of pupilage, to act or
to think for themselves, but whose whole duty was comprehended in the
obligation of implicit obedience.
Such was the humiliating condition of the people under the Incas: while
the numerous families of the blood royal enjoyed the benefit of all the
light of education, which the civilization of the country could afford;
and, long after the Conquest, the spots continued to be pointed out where
the seminaries had existed for their instruction. These were placed
under the care of the amautas, or "wise men," who engrossed the scanty
stock of science--if science it could be called--possessed by the
Peruvians, and who were the sole teachers of youth. It was natural that
the monarch should take a lively interest in the instruction of the young
nobility, his own kindred. Several of the Peruvian princes are said to
have built their palaces in the neighborhood of the schools, in order that
they might the more easily visit them and listen to the lectures of the
amautas, which they occasionally reinforced by a homily of their own.2
In these schools, the royal pupils were instructed in all the different kinds
of knowledge in which their teachers were versed, with especial
reference to the stations they were to occupy in after-life. They studied
the laws, and the principles of administering the government, in which
many of them were to take part. They were initiated in the peculiar rites
of their religion, most necessary to those who were to assume the
sacerdotal functions. They learned also to emulate the achievements of
their royal ancestors by listening to the chronicles compiled by the
amautas. They were taught to speak their own dialect with purity and
elegance; and they became acquainted with the mysterious science of the
quipus, which supplied the Peruvians with the means of communicating
their ideas to one another, and of transmitting them to future
generations.3
The quipu was a cord about two feet long, composed of different colored
threads tightly twisted together, from which a quantity of smaller threads
were suspended in the manner of a fringe. The threads were of different
colors and were tied into knots. The word quipu, indeed, signifies a
knot. The colors denoted sensible objects; as, for instance, white
represented silver, and yellow, gold. They sometimes also stood for
abstract ideas. Thus, white signified peace, and red, war. But the
quipus were chiefly used for arithmetical purposes. The knots served
instead of ciphers, and could be combined in such a manner as to
represent numbers to any amount they required. By means of these they
went through their calculations with great rapidity, and the Spaniards
who first visited the country bear testimony to their accuracy.4
Officers were established in each of the districts, who, under the title of
quipucamayus, Or "keepers of the quipus," were required to furnish the
government with information on various important matters. One had
charge of the revenues, reported the quantity of raw material distributed
among the laborers, the quality and quantity of the fabrics made from it,
and the amount of stores, of various kinds, paid into the royal magazines.
Another exhibited the register of births and deaths, the marriages, the
number of those qualified to bear arms, and the like details in reference
to the population of the kingdom. These returns were annually
forwarded to the capital, where they were submitted to the inspection of
officers acquainted with the art of deciphering these mystic records.
The government was thus provided with a valuable mass of statistical
information, and the skeins of many-colored threads, collected and
carefully preserved, constituted what might be called the national
archives.5
But, although the quipus sufficed for all the purposes of arithmetical
computation demanded by the Peruvians, they were incompetent to
represent the manifold ideas and images which are expressed by writing,
Even here, however, the invention was not without its use. For,
independently of the direct representation of simple objects, and even of
abstract ideas, to a very limited extent, as above noticed, it afforded great
help to the memory by way of association. The peculiar knot or color,
in this way, suggested what it could not venture to represent; in the same
manner-to borrow the homely illustration of an old writer--as the number
of the Commandment calls to mind the Commandment itself. The
quipus, thus used, might be regarded as the Peruvian system of
mnemonics.
Annalists were appointed in each of the principal communities, whose
business it was to record the most important events which occurred in
them. Other functionaries of a higher character, usually the amautas,
were intrusted with the history of the empire, and were selected to
chronicle the great deeds of the reigning Inca, or of his ancestors.6 The
narrative, thus concocted, could be communicated only by oral tradition;
but the quipus served the chronicler to arrange the incidents with
method, and to refresh his memory. The story, once treasured up in the
mind, was indelibly impressed there by frequent repetition. It was
repeated by the amauta to his pupils, and in this way history, conveyed
partly by oral tradition, and partly by arbitrary signs, was handed down
from generation to generation, with sufficient discrepancy of details, but
with a general conformity of outline to the truth.
The Peruvian quipus were, doubtless, a wretched substitute for that
beautiful contrivance, the alphabet, which, employing a few simple
characters as the representatives of sounds, instead of ideas, is able to
convey the most delicate shades of thought that ever passed through the
mind of man. The Peruvian invention, indeed, was far below that of the
hieroglyphics, even below the rude picture-writing of the Aztecs; for the
latter art, however incompetent to convey abstract ideas, could depict
sensible objects with tolerable accuracy. It is evidence of the total
ignorance in which the two nations remained of each other, that the
Peruvians should have borrowed nothing of the hieroglyphical system of
the Mexicans, and this, notwithstanding that the existence of the maguey
plant agave, in South America might have furnished them with the very
material used by the Aztecs for the construction of their maps.7
It is impossible to contemplate without interest the struggles made by
different nations, as they emerge from barbarism, to supply themselves
with some visible symbols of thought,--that mysterious agency by which
the mind of the individual may be put in communication with the minds
of a whole community. The want of such a symbol is itself the greatest
impediment to the progress of civilization. For what is it but to
imprison the thought, which has the elements of immortality, within the
bosom of its author, or of the small circle who come in contact with him,
instead of sending it abroad to give light to thousands, and to generations
yet unborn! Not only is such a symbol an essential element of
civilization, but it may be assumed as the very criterion of civilization;
for the intellectual advancement of a people will keep pace pretty nearly
with its facilities for intellectual communication.
Yet we must be careful not to underrate the real value of the Peruvian
system; nor to suppose that the quipus were as awkward an instrument, in
the hand of a practised native, as they would be in ours. We know the
effect of habit in all mechanical operations, and the Spaniards bear
constant testimony to the adroitness and accuracy of the Peruvians in
this. Their skill is not more surprising than the facility with which habit
enables us to master the contents of a printed page, comprehending
thousands of separate characters, by a single glance, as it were, though
each character must require a distinct recognition by the eye, and that,
too, without breaking the chain of thought in the reader's mind. We
must not hold the invention of the quipus too lightly, when we reflect
that they supplied the means of calculation demanded for the affairs of a
great nation, and that, however insufficient, they afforded no little help to
what aspired to the credit of literary composition.
The office of recording the national annals was not wholly confined to
the amautas. It was assumed in part by the haravecs, or poets, who
selected the most brilliant incidents for their songs or ballads, which
were chanted at the royal festivals and at the table of the Inca.8 In this
manner, a body of traditional minstrelsy grew up, like the British and
Spanish ballad poetry, by means of which the name of many a rude
chieftain, that might have perished for want of a chronicler, has been
borne down the tide of rustic melody to later generations.
Yet history may be thought not to gain much by this alliance with poetry;
for the domain of the poet extends over an ideal realm peopled with the
shadowy forms of fancy, that bear little resemblance to the rude realities
of life. The Peruvian annals may be deemed to show somewhat of the
effects of this union, since there is a tinge of the marvellous spread over
them down to the very latest period, which, like a mist before the reader's
eye, makes it difficult to distinguish between fact and fiction.
The poet found a convenient instrument for his purposes in the beautiful
Quichua dialect. We have already seen the extraordinary measures
taken by the Incas for propagating their language throughout their
empire. Thus naturalized in the remotest provinces, it became enriched
by a variety of exotic words and idioms, which, under the influence of
the Court and of poetic culture, if I may so express myself, was gradually
blended, like some finished mosaic made up of coarse and disjointed
materials, into one harmonious whole. The Quichua became the most
comprehensive and various, as well as the most elegant, of the South
American dialects.9
Besides the compositions already noticed, the Peruvians, it is said,
showed some talent for theatrical exhibitions; not those barren
pantomimes which, addressed simply to the eye, have formed the
amusement of more than one rude nation. The Peruvian pieces aspired
to the rank of dramatic compositions, sustained by character and
dialogue, founded sometimes on themes of tragic interest, and at others
on such as, from their light and social character, belong to comedy.10
Of the execution of these pieces we have now no means of judging. It
was probably rude enough, as befitted an unformed people. But,
whatever may have been the execution, the mere conception of such an
amusement is a proof of refinement that honorably distinguishes the
Peruvian from the other American races, whose pastime was war, or the
ferocious sports that reflect the image of it.
The intellectual character of the Peruvians, indeed, seems to have been
marked rather by a tendency to refinement than by those hardier qualities
which insure success in the severer walks of science. In these they were
behind several of the semi-civilized nations of the New World. They
had some acquaintance with geography, so far as related to their own
empire, which was indeed extensive; and they constructed maps with
lines raised on them to denote the boundaries and localities, on a similar
principle with those formerly used by the blind. In astronomy, they
appear to have made but moderate proficiency. They divided the year
into twelve lunar months, each of which, having its own name, was
distinguished by its appropriate festival.11 They had, also, weeks; but of
what length, whether of seven, nine, or ten days, is uncertain. As their
lunar year would necessarily fall short of the true time, they rectified
their calendar by solar observations made by means of a number of
cylindrical columns raised on the high lands round Cuzco, which served
them for taking azimuths; and, by measuring their shadows, they
ascertained the exact times of the solstices. The period of the equinoxes
they determined by the help of a solitary pillar, or gnomon, placed in the
centre of a circle, which was described in the area of the great temple,
and traversed by a diameter that was drawn from east to west. When the
shadows were scarcely visible under the noontide rays of the sun, they
said that "the god sat with all his light upon the column." 12 Quito
which lay immediately under the equator, where the vertical rays of the
sun threw no shadow at noon, was held in especial veneration as the
favored abode of the great deity. The period of the equinoxes was
celebrated by public rejoicings. The pillar was crowned by the golden
chair of the Sun, and, both then and at the solstices, the columns were
hung with garlands, and offerings of flowers and fruits were made, while
high festival was kept throughout the empire. By these periods the
Peruvians regulated their religious rites and ceremonial, and prescribed
the nature of their agricultural labors. The year itself took its departure
from the date of the winter solstice.13
This meagre account embraces nearly all that has come down to us of
Peruvian astronomy. It may seem strange that a nation, which had
proceeded thus far in its observations, should have gone no farther; and
that, notwithstanding its general advance in civilization, it should in this
science have fallen so far short, not only of the Mexicans, but of the
Muyscas, inhabiting the same elevated regions of the great southern
plateau with themselves. These latter regulated their calendar on the
same general plan of cycles and periodical series as the Aztecs,
approaching yet nearer to the system pursued by the people of Asia.14
It might have been expected that the Incas, the boasted children of the
Sun, would have made a particular study of the phenomena of the
heavens, and have constructed a calendar on principles as scientific as
that of their semi-civilized neighbors. One historian, indeed, assures us
that they threw their years into cycles of ten, a hundred, and a thousand
years, and that by these cycles they regulated their chronology.15 But
this assertion--not improbable in itself--rests on a writer but little gifted
with the spirit of criticism, and is counter-balanced by the silence of
every higher and earlier authority, as well as by the absence of any
monument, like those found among other American nations, to attest the
existence of such a calendar. The inferiority of the Peruvians may be,
perhaps, in part explained by the fact of their priesthood being drawn
exclusively from the body of the Incas, a privileged order of nobility,
who had no need, by the assumption of superior learning, to fence
themselves round from the approaches of the vulgar. The little true
science possessed by the Aztec priest supplied him with a key to unlock
the mysteries of the heavens, and the false system of astrology which he
built upon it gave him credit as a being who had something of divinity in
his own nature. But the Inca noble was divine by birth. The illusory
study of astrology, so captivating to the unenlightened mind, engaged no
share of his attention. The only persons in Peru, who claimed the power
of reading the mysterious future, were the diviners, men who, combining
with their pretensions some skill in the healing art, resembled the
conjurors found among many of the Indian tribes. But the office was
held in little repute, except among the lower classes, and was abandoned
to those whose age and infirmity disqualified them for the real business
of life.16
The Peruvians had knowledge of one or two constellations, and watched
the motions of the planet Venus, to which, as we have seen, they
dedicated altars. But their ignorance of the first principles of
astronomical science is shown by their ideas of eclipses, which, they
supposed, denoted some great derangement of the planet; and when the
moon labored under one of these mysterious infirmities, they sounded
their instruments, and filled the air with shouts and lamentations, to rouse
her from her lethargy. Such puerile conceits as these form a striking
contrast with the real knowledge of the Mexicans, as displayed in their
hieroglyphical maps, in which the true cause of this phenomenon is
plainly depicted.17
But, if less successful in exploring the heavens, the Incas must be
admitted to have surpassed every other American race in their dominion
over the earth. Husbandry was pursued by them on principles that may
be truly called scientific. It was the basis of their political institutions.
Having no foreign commerce, it was agriculture that furnished them with
the means of their internal exchanges, their subsistence, and their
revenues. We have seen their remarkable provisions for distributing the
land in equal shares among the people, while they required every man,
except the privileged orders, to assist in its cultivation. The Inca himself
did not disdain to set the example. On one of the great annual festivals,
he proceeded to the environs of Cuzco, attended by his Court, and, in the
presence of all the people, turned up the earth with a golden plough,--or
an instrument that served as such,--thus consecrating the occupation of
the husbandman as one worthy to be followed by the Children of the
Sun.18
The patronage of the government did not stop with this cheap display of
royal condescension, but was shown in the most efficient measures for
facilitating the labors of the husbandman. Much of the country along the
sea-coast suffered from want of water, as little or no rain fell there, and
the few streams, in their short and hurried course from the mountains,
exerted only a very limited influence on the wide extent of territory. The
soil, it is true, was, for the most part, sandy and sterile; but many places
were capable of being reclaimed, and, indeed, needed only to be
properly irrigated to be susceptible of extraordinary production. To
these spots water was conveyed by means of canals and subterraneous
aqueducts, executed on a noble scale. They consisted of large slabs of
freestone nicely fitted together without cement, and discharged a volume
of water sufficient, by means of latent ducts or sluices, to moisten the
lands in the lower level, through which they passed. Some of these
aqueducts were of great length. One that traversed the district of
Condesuyu measured between four and five hundred miles. They were
brought from some elevated lake or natural reservoir in the heart of the
mountains, and were fed at intervals by other basins which lay in their
route along the slopes of the sierra. In this descent, a passage was
sometimes to be opened through rocks,--and this without the aid of iron
tools; impracticable mountains were to be turned; rivers and marshes to
be crossed; in short, the same obstacles were to be encountered as in the
construction of their mighty roads. But the Peruvians seemed to take
pleasure in wrestling with the difficulties of nature. Near Caxamarca, a
tunnel is still visible, which they excavated in the mountains, to give an
outlet to the waters of a lake, when these rose to a height in the rainy
season that threatened the country with inundation.19
Most of these beneficent works of the Incas were suffered to go to decay
by their Spanish conquerors. In some spots, the waters are still left to
flow in their silent, subterraneous channels, whose windings and whose
sources have been alike unexplored. Others, though partially
dilapidated, and closed up with rubbish and the rank vegetation of the
soil, still betray their course by occasional patches of fertility. Such are
the remains in the valley of Nasca, a fruitful spot that lies between long
tracts of desert; where the ancient water-courses of the Incas, measuring
four or five feet in depth by three in width, and formed of large blocks of
uncemented masonry, are conducted from an unknown distance.
The greatest care was taken that every occupant of the land through
which these streams passed should enjoy the benefit of them. The
quantity of water alloted to each was prescribed by law; and royal
overseers superintended the distribution, and saw that it was faithfully
applied to the irrigation of the ground.20
The Peruvians showed a similar spirit of enterprise in their schemes for
introducing cultivation into the mountainous parts of their domain.
Many of the hills, though covered with a strong soil, were too precipitous
to be tilled. These they cut into terraces, faced with rough stone,
diminishing in regular gradation towards the summit; so that, while the
lower strip, or anden, as it was called by the Spaniards, that belted round
the base of the mountain, might comprehend hundreds of acres, the
upper-most was only large enough to accommodate a few rows of Indian
corn.21 Some of the eminences presented such a mess of solid rock,
that, after being hewn into terraces, they were obliged to be covered deep
with earth, before they could serve the purpose of the husbandman. With
such patient toil did the Peruvians combat the formidable obstacles
presented by the face of their country! Without the use of tools or the
machinery familiar to the European, each individual could have done
little; but acting in large masses, and under a common direction, they
were enabled by indefatigable perseverance to achieve results, to have
attempted which might have filled even the European with dismay.22
In the same spirit of economical husbandry which redeemed the rocky
sierra from the curse of sterility, they dug below the arid soil of the
valleys, and sought for a stratum where some natural moisture might be
found. These excavations, called by the Spaniards hoyas, or "pits," were
made on a great scale, comprehending frequently more than an acre,
sunk to the depth of fifteen or twenty feet, and fenced round within by a
wall of adobes, or bricks baked in the sun. The bottom of the
excavation, well prepared by a rich manure of the sardines,--a small fish
obtained in vast quantities along the coast,--was planted with some kind
or grain or vegetable.23
The Peruvian farmers were well acquainted with the different kinds of
manures, and made large use of them; a circumstance rare in the rich
lands of the tropics, and probably not elsewhere practised by the rude
tribes of America. They made great use of guano, the valuable deposit
of sea-fowl, that has attracted so much attention, of late, from the
agriculturists both of Europe and of our own country, and the stimulating
and nutritious properties of which the Indians perfectly appreciated.
This was found in such immense quantities on many of the little islands
along the coast, as to have the appeaarnce of lofty hills, which, covered
with a white saline incrustation, led the Conquerors to give them the
name of the sierra nevada, or "snowy mountains."
The Incas took their usual precautions for securing the benefits of this
important article to the husbandman. They assigned the small islands on
the coast to the use of the respective districts which lay adjacent to them.
When the island was large, it was distributed among several districts, and
the boundaries for each were clearly defined. All encroachment on the
rights of another was severely punished. And they secured the
preservation of the fowl by penalties as stern as those by which the
Norman tyrants of England protected their own game. No one was
allowed to set foot on the island during the season for breeding, under
pain of death; and to kill the birds at any time was punished in the like
manner.24
With this advancement in agricultural science, the Peruvians might be
supposed to have had some knowledge of the plough, in such general use
among the primitive nations of the eastern continent. But they had
neither the iron ploughshare of the Old World, nor had they animals for
draught, which, indeed, were nowhere found in the New. The
instrument which they used was a strong, sharp-pointed stake, traversed
by a horizontal piece, ten or twelve inches from the point, on which the
ploughman might set his foot and force it into the ground. Six or eight
strong men were attached by ropes to the stake, and dragged it forcibly
along, --pulling together, and keeping time as they moved by chanting
their national songs, in which they were accompanied by the women who
followed in their-train, to break up the sods with their rakes. The mellow
soil offered slight resistance; and the laborer., by long practice, acquired
a dexterity which enabled him to turn up the ground to the requisite
depth with astonishing facility. This substitute for the plough was but a
clumsy contrivance; yet it is curious as the only specimen of the kind
among the American aborigines, and was perhaps not much inferior to
the wooden instrument introduced in its stead by the European
conquerors .25
It was frequently the policy of the Incas, after providing a deserted tract
with the means for irrigation, and thus fitting it for the labors of the
husbandman, to transplant there a colony of mitimaes, who brought it
under cultivation by raising the crops best suited to the soil. While the
peculiar character and capacity of the lands were thus consulted, a means
of exchange of the different products was afforded to the neighboring
provinces, which, from the formation of the country, varied much more
than usual within the same limits. To facilitate these agricultural
exchanges, fairs were instituted, which took place three times a month in
some of the most populous places, where, as money was unknown, a
rude kind of commerce was kept up by the barter of their respective
products. These fairs afforded so many holidays for the relaxation of the
industrious laborer.26
Such were the expedients adopted by the Incas for the improvement of
their territory; and, although imperfect, they must be allowed to show an
acquaintance with the principles of agricultural science, that gives them
some claim to the rank of a civilized people. Under their patient and
discriminating culture, every inch of good soil was tasked to its greatest
power of production; while the most-unpromising spots were compelled
to contribute something to the subsistence of the people. Everywhere the
land teemed with evidence of agricultural wealth, from the smiling
valleys along the coast to the terraced steeps of the sierra, which, rising
into pyramids of verdure, glowed with all the splendors of tropical
vegetation.
The formation of the country was particularly favorable, as already
remarked, to an infinite variety of products, not so much from its extent
as from its various elevations, which, more remarkable, even, than those
in Mexico, comprehend every degree of latitude from the equator to the
polar regions. Yet, though the temperature changes in this region with
the degree of elevation, it remains nearly the same in the same spots
throughout the year; and the inhabitant feels none of those grateful
vicissitudes of season which belong to the temperate latitudes of the
globe. Thus, while the summer lies in full power on the burning regions
of the palm and the cocoa-tree that fringe the borders of the ocean, the
broad surface of the table-land blooms with the freshness of perpetual
spring, and the higher summits of the Cordilleras are white with
everlasting winter.
The Peruvians turned this fixed variety of climate, if I may so say, to the
best account by cultivating the productions appropriate to each; and they
particularly directed their attention to those which afforded the most
nutriment to man. Thus, in the lower level were to be found the
cassavatree and the banana, that bountiful plant, which seems to have
relieved man from the primeval curse--if it were not rather a blessing--of
toiling for his sustenance.27 As the banana faded from the landscape, a
good substitute was found in the maize, the great agricultural staple of
both the northern and southern divisions of the American continent; and
which, after its exportation to the Old World, spread so rapidly there, as
to suggest the idea of its being indigenous to it.28 The Peruvians were
well acquainted with the different modes of preparing this useful
vegetable, though it seems they did not use it for bread, except at
festivals; and they extracted a sort of honey from the stalk, and made an
intoxicating liquor from the fermented grain, to which, like the Aztecs,
they were immoderately addicted.29
The temperate climate of the table-land furnished them with the maguey,
agave Americana, many of the extraordinary qualities of which they
comprehended, though not its most important one of affording a material
for paper. Tobacco, too, was among the products of this elevated region.
Yet the Peruvians differed from every other Indian nation to whom it was
known, by using it only for medicinal purposes, in the form of snuff.30
They may have found a substitute for its narcotic qualities in the coco
(Erythroxylum Peruvianurn), or cuca, as called by the natives. This is a
shrub which grows to the height of a man. The leaves when gathered are
dried in the sun, and, being mixed with a little lime, form a preparation
for chewing, much like the betel-leaf of the East.31 With a small supply
of this cuca in his pouch, and a handful of roasted maize, the Peruvian
Indian of our time performs his wearisome journeys, day ,after day,
without fatigue, or, at least, without complaint. Even food the most
invigorating is less grateful to him than his loved narcotic. Under the
Incas, it is said to have been exclusively reserved for the noble orders. If
so, the people gained one luxury by the Conquest; and, after that period,
it was so extensively used by them, that this article constituted a most
important item of the colonial revenue of Spain.32 Yet, with the
soothing charms of an opiate, this weed so much vaunted by the natives,
when used to excess, is said to be attended with all the mischievous
effects of habitual intoxication.33
Higher up on the slopes of the Cordilleras, beyond the limits of the maize
and of the quinoa,--a grain bearing some resemblance to rice, and largely
cultivated by the Indians,--was to be found the potato, the introduction of
which into Europe has made an era in the history of agriculture.
Whether indigenous to Peru, or imported from the neighboring country
of Chili, it formed the great staple of the more elevated plains, under the
Incas, and its culture was continued to a height in the equatorial regions
which reached many thousand feet above the limits of perpetual snow in
the temperate latitudes of Europe.34 Wild specimens of the vegetable
might be seen still higher, springing up spontaneously amidst the stunted
shrubs that clothed the lofty sides of the Cordilleras till these gradually
subsided into the mosses and the short yellow grass: pajonal, which, like
a golden carpet, was unrolled around the base of the mighty cones, that
rose far into the regions of eternal silence, covered with the snows of
centuries.35