CHAPTER VII

THE ANDEAN SOUTH

I. THE EMPIRE OF THE INCAS[123]

"In this land of Peru," wrote Cieza de León,[124] "are three desert

ranges where men can in no wise exist. One of these comprises the

_montaña_ (forests) of the Andes, full of dense wildernesses where

men cannot live, nor ever have lived. The second is the mountainous

region, extending the whole length of the Cordillera of the Andes,

which is intensely cold, and its summits are covered with eternal snow,

so that in no way can people live in this region owing to the snow and

the cold, and also because there are no provisions, all things being

destroyed by the snow and the wind, which never ceases to blow. The

third range comprises the sandy deserts from Tumbez to the other side

of Tarapaca, in which there is nothing to be seen but sand-hills and

the fierce sun which dries them up, without water, nor herb, nor tree,

nor created thing, except birds which, by the gift of their wings,

wander wherever they list. This kingdom, being so vast, has great

deserts for the reasons I have now given.

"The inhabited region is after this fashion. In parts of the mountains

of the Andes are ravines and dales, which open out into deep valleys

of such width as often to form great plains between the mountains; and

although the snow falls, it all remains on the higher part. As these

valleys are closed in, they are not molested by the winds, nor does the

snow reach them, and the land is so fruitful that all things which are

sown yield abundantly; and there are trees and many birds and animals.

The land being so fertile, is well peopled by the natives. They

make their villages with rows of stones roofed with straw, and live

healthily and in comfort. Thus the mountains of the Andes form these

dales and ravines in which there are populous villages, and rivers of

excellent water flow near them, some of the rivers send their waters to

the South Sea, entering by the sandy deserts which I have mentioned,

and the humidity of their water gives rise to very beautiful valleys

with great rows of trees. The valleys are two or three leagues broad,

and great quantities of _algoroba_ trees [_Prosopis horrida_] grow in

them, which flourish even at great distances from any water. Wherever

there are groves of trees the land is free from sand and very fertile

and abundant. In ancient times these valleys were very populous, and

still there are Indians in them, though not so many as in former days.

As it never rains in these sandy deserts and valleys of Peru, they do

not roof their houses as they do in the mountains, but build large

houses of _adobes_ [sun-dried bricks] with pleasant terraced roofs of

matting to shade them from the sun, nor do the Spaniards use any other

roofing than these reed mats. To prepare their fields for sowing,

they lead channels from the rivers to irrigate the valleys, and the

channels are made so well and with so much regularity that all the land

is irrigated without any waste. This system of irrigation makes the

valleys very green and cheerful, and they are full of fruit-trees both

of Spain and of this country. At all times they raise good harvests of

maize and wheat, and of everything that they sow. Thus, although I have

described Peru as being formed of three desert ridges, yet from them,

by the will of God, descend these valleys and rivers, without which

no man could live. This is the cause why the natives were so easily

conquered, for if they rebelled they would all perish of cold and

hunger. Except the land which they inhabit, the whole country is full

of snowy mountains, enormous and very terrible."

Cieza de León's description brings vividly before the imagination

the physical surroundings which made possible the evolution and the

long history of the greatest of native American empires. Divided

from one another by towering mountains and inhospitable deserts, the

tribes and clans that filtered into this region at some remote period

were compelled to develop in relative isolation; while, further, the

conditions of existence were such that the inhabitants could not be

nomadic huntsmen, nor even fishermen. Along the shores are vestiges of

ancient shell-heaps, indicative of utterly primitive fisher-folk, and

the sea always remained an important source of food for the coastal

peoples; yet even here, as Cieza de León indicates, the growth of

population was dependent upon an intensive cultivation of the narrow

river-valleys rather than upon the conquest of new territories. Thus,

the whole environment of life in Peru, montane and littoral, is

framed by the fact of more or less constricted and protected valley

centres, immensely productive in response to toil, but yielding no

idyllic fruits to unlaborious ease. If the peoples who inhabited these

valleys were not agriculturists when they entered them, they were

compelled to become such in order that they might live and increase;

and while the stupendous thrift of the aborigines, as evidenced by

their stone-terraced gardens, their elaborate aqueducts, and their

wonderful roads, still excites the astonishment of beholders, it is

none the less intelligible as the inevitable consequence of prolonged

human habitation. It is certain that the Peruvian peoples were the

most accomplished of all Americans in the working of the soil; and it

is possible that they were the originators of agriculture in America,

for it was from Peru, apparently, that the growing of maize spread

throughout wide regions of South America, Peru that developed the

potato as a food-crop, and in Peru that the cultivation of cotton and

various fruits and vegetables added greatest variety to the native

farming. Peru, likewise, was the only American centre in which there

was a domestic animal more important than the dog; and the antiquity of

the taming of the llama and alpaca--useful not only for food and wool,

but also as beasts of burden--is shown by the fact that these

animals show marked differentiation from the wild guanaco from which

they are derived. The development of domestic species of this animal

and, even more, the development of maize from its ancestral grasses

(if indeed this were Peruvian)[125] imply many centuries of settled

and industrious life, a consideration which adds strongly to the

archaeological and legendary indications of a civilization that must be

reckoned in millennia.

[Illustration: PLATE XXX.]

Machu Picchu, in the valley of the Urubamba, north of Cuzco. These

ruins of an ancient Inca city were discovered by Hiram Bingham, of the

Yale University and National Geographical Society expedition, in 1911,

and are by him identified with the "Tampu-Tocco" of Inca tradition

(see pages 216-18, and Plate XXXVIII). From photograph, courtesy of

Hiram Bingham, Director of the Yale Peruvian Expedition.

The conditions which thus fostered local and intensive cultural

evolutions were scarcely less favourable--once the local valleys had

reached a certain complexity--to the formation of extensive empires. As

Cieza de León remarks, conquest was easy where refuge was difficult;

and the Inca conquerors themselves found that the most effective weapon

they could employ against the coastal cities was mastery of their

aqueducts. The town which lost control of its water, drawn from the

hills, could only surrender; and thus, the segregated valleys fell an

easy prey to a powerful and aggressive people, gifted with engineering

skill, such as the Inca race; while the empire won was not difficult

to hold. At the time of the Spanish conquest that empire was truly

immense. Tahuantinsuyu ("the Four Quarters") was the native name, and

"the Quartered City" (Cuzco), its capital, was regarded as the Navel of

the World. The four quarters, or provinces, were oriented from Cuzco:

the southerly was Collasuyu, stretching from the neighbourhood of Lake

Titicaca southward; the eastern province was Antisuyu, extending down

the slopes of the Andes into the regions of savagery; to the west lay

Cuntisuyu, reaching to the coast and to the lands of the Yunca peoples;

while to the north was Chinchasuyu, following the Andean valleys.

Shortly before the Conquest the Inca dominion had been imposed upon

the realm of the Scyris of Quito, so that the northern boundary lay

beyond the equator; while the extreme southerly border had recently

been extended over the Calchaqui tribes and down the coast to the

edges of Araucania in the neighbourhood of latitude 35º south. The

imperial territories were naturally narrowed to the Andean region,

for the tropical forests to the east offered no allurements to the

mountain-loving race which, indeed, could endure only temporarily the

heat of the western coast, so that Inca campaigners in this direction

resorted to frequent reliefs lest their men be debilitated. On the

other hand, the immense expanse north and south, notwithstanding the

perfection of the roads and fortresses built by astute rulers to

facilitate communication, caused a natural tension of the parts and

a tendency to break at the appearance of even the least weakness at

the centre. Such appears to have been the fatal defect underlying the

conflict of Huascar, at Cuzco, with Atahualpa, whose initial strength

lay in his possession of Quito, and whose career was brought to an

untimely end by the advent of Pizarro. Despite the fact that Inca power

had been clearly crescent within the generation, it is by no means

certain that the political conditions which the Spaniards used to

advantage might not, if left to themselves, have disrupted the great

empire.

There is reason to think that such a rupture had occurred at least once

before in the history of Andean civilization. The list of more than

a hundred Peruvian kings given by the Licentiate Fernando Montesinos

(writing about 1650)[126] was formerly viewed with much distrust,

chiefly for the reason that the kings of the pre-Inca dynasties

recorded by Montesinos are almost without exception unnamed by earlier

and prime authorities on Peruvian history (including Garcilasso de la

Vega and Cieza de León). Recent discoveries, however, both scholarly

and archaeological, have brought a new plausibility to Montesinos's

lists, and it appears probable that he derived them from the lost works

of Blas Valera, one of the earliest men in the field, known to have had

exceptional opportunities for a study of native lore; while at the same

time the archaeological investigations of Max Uhle and the brilliant

achievements of the expeditions headed by Hiram Bingham have given a

new definiteness to knowledge of pre-Inca conditions.[127]

It has long been known that Inca civilization was only the last in a

series of Peruvian culture periods. Back of it, in the highlands, lay

the Megalithic Age, so called from the great size of the stone blocks

in its cyclopean masonry, the earliest centre of this culture being

supposed to have been about Lake Titicaca, and especially Tiahuanaco,

at the south of the lake--a site remarkable not only for the most

extraordinary of all ancient American monuments, the monolithic gate

and the surrounding precincts, but also for the importance ascribed

to it in legend as a place of origin of nations. Other highland

centres, however, hark back to the same period, and Cuzco itself, in

old cyclopean walls, shows evidence of an age of Megalithic greatness

upon which the later Inca civilization had supervened. Again, in the

coastal region from Ica to Truxillo--the realms of the Yunca, according

to the older chroniclers--there were several successive culture

periods; and though it is possible that traditions such as that of

Naymlap (see Chapter VI, Section V) indicate a foreign origin for the

Yunca peoples, in any case their differing environment would account

for much. The peoples of the littoral could have no herds of llamas,

since the animal was unable to live in that region; and hence they

looked mainly to cotton for their fabrics, while the sea gave them fair

compensation in the matter of food. In the lesser arts, especially in

that of the potter, they surpassed the highlanders and, indeed, all

other Americans; but their building material was adobe, and they have

left no magnificent monuments, as have the stone-workers of the hills.

Nevertheless at some remote, pre-Inca period the ideas of the coast

and those of the highlands met and interchanged: the art of Tiahuanaco

is reflected in motive at Truxillo, while the vases of Nasca repeat

the bizarre decoration of the monolith of Chavin de Huantar. The hoary

sanctity of the great temple of Pachacamac was such that its Inca

conqueror adopted the god into his own pantheon; and it was just here,

at the Yunca shrine of Pachacamac, that Uhle found evidence of a series

of culture periods leading to a considerable antiquity. The indigenous

coastal art had already passed its climax of expressive skill when the

influence of Tiahuanaco appeared; but this influence lasted long enough

to leave an enduring impress on the interregnum-like period which

followed, awaiting, as it were, the return of the hills' influence,

which came with the advent of the Inca. Such, in brief, is the

restoration, and it seems to fit remarkably with Bingham's discoveries

and with Montesinos's lists.

Of the one hundred and two kings in these lists, the last ten form the

Inca dynasty (a group with respect to which Montesinos is in essential

agreement with other chroniclers), whose beginning is placed 1100-1200

A. D.; back of these are the twenty-eight lords of Tampu-Tocco; and

still earlier the sixty-four rulers of the ancient empire, forty-six

of them forming the _amauta_ (or priest-king) dynasty which followed

after the primal line of eighteen Sons of the Gods. Were this scheme

of regal succession followed out _in extenso_ the beginnings of the

Megalithic Empire of the highlands should fall near the beginning of

the first millennium before Christ, and that of the Tampu Tocco dynasty

in the early years of our Era. Archaeological and other considerations

lead, however, to estimates somewhat more conservative, placing the

culmination of the early empire in the first centuries of the Christian

era, and the sojourn at Tampu Tocco from about 600-1100 A. D.[128]

The Inca dynasty, established at Cuzco toward 1200 A. D., was the

creator of the great empire which the Spaniards found, and its record

is the traditional history of Peru, recounted by Garcilasso and Cieza.

According to the legend, the Inca tribes had come to Cuzco from a place

called Tampu-Tocco, a city of refuge in an inaccessible valley, where

for centuries their ancestors had lived in seclusion, the cause of the

retirement being as follows: in past generations, it was said, the

Amauta dynasty held sway over a great highland realm, extending from

Tucuman in the south to Huanuco in the north, the empire having been

formed perhaps by the earlier royal house, which was called _Pirua_,

after the name of its first King. In the reign of the forty-sixth

Amauta, there came an invasion of hordes from the south and east,

preceded by comets, earthquakes, and dire divinations. The King Titu

Yupanqui, borne on a golden litter, led his soldiers out to battle; he

was slain by an arrow, and his discouraged followers retreated with

his body. Cuzco fell, and after war came pestilence, leaving city and

country uninhabitable, while the remnants of the Amauta people fled

away to Tampu-Tocco, where they established themselves, leaving at

Cuzco only a few priests who refused to abandon the shrine of the Sun.

It was said that the art of writing was lost in this _débâcle_, and

that the later art of reckoning by _quipus_, or knotted and coloured

cords, was invented at Tampu-Tocco. Here, in a city free from pests

and unmoved by earthquakes, the Kings of Tampu-Tocco reigned in peace,

going occasionally to Cuzco to worship at the ancient shrine, over

which, with its neighborhood, some shadowy authority was preserved.

Finally a woman, Siyu-Yacu, of noble birth and high ambition, caused

the report to be spread that her son, Rocca, had been carried off to

be instructed by the Sun himself, and a few days later the youth,

appearing in a garment glittering with gold, told the people that

corruption of the ancient religion had caused their fall, but that

their lost glories should be restored to them under his leadership.

Thus Rocca became the first of the Incas, Cuzco was restored as

capital, and the new empire started on a career which was to exceed the

old in grandeur.

With the removal to Cuzco, Tampu-Tocco became no more than a monumental

shrine where priests and vestals preserved the rites of the old

religion and watched over the caves made sacred by the bones of former

monarchs. The native writer Salcamayhua, who, like Garcilasso, makes

Manco Capac the founder of the Incas (Montesinos regards Manco Capac

I as the first native-born king of the Pirua dynasty), tells how "at

the place of his birth he ordered works to be executed, consisting of a

masonry wall with three windows, which were emblems of the house of his

fathers, whence he descended"; and the name Tampu-Tocco actually means

"Tavern of the Windows," windows being an unusual feature of Peruvian

architecture. As the event proves, the commemorative wall is still

standing.

In 1911, Hiram Bingham, the leader of the expedition sent out by

Yale University and the National Geographical Society, discovered

in the wild valley of the Urubamba, north of Cuzco, the ruins of a

mountain-seated city, one of the most wonderful, and (in its natural

context) beautiful ruins in the world. Machu Picchu the place is

called, and its discoverer identifies it with the Tampu-Tocco of Inca

tradition. One of its most striking features is a wall with three great

windows; it contains cave-made graves and temples; bones of the more

recent dead indicate that those who last dwelt in it were priestesses

and priests; and it gives evidence of long occupation. The more ancient

stonework is the more beautiful in execution, seeming to hark back to

the masterpieces of Megalithic civilization; the later portion is in

Inca style. Especially interesting is the discovery of record stones,

associated with the older period, indicating that an earlier method of

chronology had been replaced in later times, for it is to the reign of

the thirteenth King of Tampu-Tocco that the invention of _quipus_ is

ascribed. Ideally placed as a city of refuge in a remote cañon, so that

its very existence was unknown to the Spanish conquerors; seated on a

granite hill unmoved by earthquakes; with its elaborate structures and

complicated terraces indicating generations of residence, Machu Picchu

represents the connecting link between the old and the new empires in

Peru and gives a suddenly vivid plausibility to the traditions recorded

by Montesinos.

[Illustration. PLATE XXXI.]

Sculptured monolith from Chavin de Huantar, now in the Museum of Lima.

The design appears to be a deity armed with thunderbolts or elaborate

wands, with a monster head surmounted by an elaborate head-dress. If

the figure be viewed reversed the head-dress will be seen to consist

of a series of masks each pendent from the protruding tongue of the

mask above, a motive frequent in Nasca pottery (_cf_. Plate XXXII).

The figure strongly suggests the central image of the Tiahuanaco

monolithic gateway, but it is to be observed that serpent heads, from

the girdle, the rays of the head-dress, and in the caduceus-like

termination of the head-dress, take the place of the puma, fish and

condor accessories of the Tiahuanaco monument. The relationship of

this deity to those represented on Plates XXXII, XXXIII, XXXIV, XXXV,

and XXXVII, is scarcely to be doubted. Markham, _Incas of Peru_, page

34.

Thus, in shadowy fashion, the cycles of Andean civilization are

restored. There are two great regions, the highland and the littoral,

Inca and Yunca, each with a long history. The primitive fisher-families

of the coast gave way to a civilization which may have received its

impetus, as traditions indicate, from tribes sailing southward in great

_balsas_; at any rate it had developed, doubtless before the Christian

era, important and characteristic culture centres--Truxillo in the

north, Nasca to the south--and great shrines, Pachacamac and Rimac,

venerable to the Incas; while long after its own acme, and long before

the Inca conquest, the coastal civilization had had important commerce

with the ancient culture of the highlands. The origin of the pre-Inca

empire from the Megalithic culture of Tiahuanaco leads back toward the

middle of the first millenium B. C., perhaps to dimly remote centuries.

It passed its floruit, marked by the rise of Cuzco as a great capital,

and then followed barbarian migrations and wars; the retirement of a

defeated handful to Tampu-Tocco; a long period of decline; and finally,

about the beginning of the thirteenth century, a renaissance of

culture, marked by a religious reform amounting to a new dispensation

and stamping the revived power as essentially ecclesiastical in its

claims,--for all Inca conquests were undertaken with a Crusader's plea

for the expansion of the faith in the beneficent Sun and for the spread

of knowledge of the Way of Life revealed through his children, the Inca.

It is impossible not to be struck with the resemblance between the

development of this civilization and that of Europe during the same

period. Cuzco and Rome rise to empire simultaneously; the ancient

civilizations of Tiahuanaco, Nasca, and Truxillo, excelling the new

power in art, but inferior in power of organization and engineering

works, are the American equivalents of Greece and the Orient. Almost

synchronously, Rome and Cuzco fall before barbarian invasions; and in

each case centuries follow which can only be known as dark, during

which the empire breaks in chaos. Finally, both civilizations rise,

again during the same period, as leaders in a new movement in religion,

animated by a crusading zeal and basing their authority upon divine

will. It is true that Rome does not attain the material power that was

restored to Cuzco, but Christendom, at least, does attain this power.

Such is the picture,--though it must be added that in the present state

of knowledge it is plausible restoration only, not proven truth.

II. THE YUNCA PANTHEONS

It is not possible to reconstruct in any detail the religions and

mythologies of the pre-Inca civilizations of the central Andes, but

of the four culture centres which have been most studied some traits

are decipherable. Two of these centres are montane, two coastal. Of

the former, the Megalithic highland civilization, whose first home

is supposed to have been the region of Lake Titicaca, is assuredly

ancient; the civilization of the Calchaqui, to the south of this, was

a late conquest of the Incas and was doubtless a contemporary of Inca

culture. On the coast, the Yunca developed in two branches, both,

apparently, as ancient as the Megalithic culture, and both, again,

late conquests of the Incas. To the north, extending from Tumbez to

Paramount, with Chimu (Truxillo) as its capital, was the realm of the

Grand Chimu--a veritable empire, for it comprised some twenty coastal

valleys--while the twelve adjoining southern valleys, from Chancay to

Nasca, were the seat of the Chincha Confederacy, a loose political

organization with a characteristic culture of its own, though clearly

akin to that of the Chimu region. All these centres having fallen

under the sway of conquerors with a creed to impose (the Incas even

erected a shrine to the Sun on the terraces of oracular Pachacamac),

their religious traditions were waning in importance in the time of

the _conquistadores_, who, unhappily, secured little of the lore that

might have been salved in their own day. There are fragments for the

Chimu region in Balboa and Calancha, for the Chincha in Arriaga and

Avila; but in the main it is upon the monuments--vases, burials, ruins

of temples--that, in any effort to define the beliefs of these departed

peoples, we must depend for a supplementation of the meagre notices

recorded in Inca tradition or preserved by the early chroniclers.[129]

Fortunately these monuments permit of some interesting guesses which,

surely, are no unjustified indulgence of human curiosity when the

mute expression of dead souls is their matter; and in particular the

wonderful drawings of the Truxillo and Nasca vases and the woven

figures of their fabrics suggest analogical interpretation. Despite

their family likeness, the styles of the two regions are distinct;

and, as the investigations of Uhle show, they have undergone long and

changing developments, with apogees well in the past. The zenith of

Chimu art was marked by a variety and naturalism of design rivaled, if

at all in America, only by the best Maya achievements; while Chincha

expression realized its acme in polychrome designs truly marvellous in

complexity of convention. That the art of both regions is profoundly

mythological is obvious from the portrayals.

Striking features of this Yunca art are the

monster-forms[130]--man-bird, man-beast, man-fish, man-reptile--and,

again, the multiplication of faces or masks, both of men and of

animals. The repetition of the human countenance is especially frequent

in the art of Nasca, where series of masks are often enchained in

complex designs, one most grotesque form of this concatenation

representing a series of masks issuing, as it were, from the successive

mouths, and joined by the protruding tongues. Again, there are

dragon-like or serpentine monsters having a head at each extremity,

recalling not only the two-headed serpent of Aztec and Maya art, but

also the Sisiutl of the North-West Coast of North America--a region

whose art, also, furnishes an impressive analogue, in complexity

of convention, to that of the Yunca. Frequently, in Nasca art, the

fundamental design is a man-headed bird, or fish, or serpent, whose

body and accoutrements are complexly adorned with representations of

the heads or forms of other animals--the puma, for example, or even

the mouse. Oftentimes heads, apparently decapitations, are borne

in the hands of the central figure; and on one Truxillo vase there

is a depiction[131] of what is surely a ceremonial dance in which

the participants are masked and disguised as birds and animals;

the remarkable Nasca robes in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts (see

Plates XXXI, XXXII, XXXIII, XXXIV) also suggest masked forms, the

representations of the same personage varying in colour and in the

arrangement of facial design.

[Illustration: PLATE XXXII.]

Polychrome vase from the Nasca valley, showing the multi-headed deity

represented also by Plate XXXI. The succession of masks connected by

protruded tongues is a striking form of Nasca design. Examples are

found elsewhere, even into Calchaqui territory. The vase here pictured

is in the American Museum of Natural History.

The heads which are held in the hands and which adorn the costumes

of these figures are regarded by some authorities as trophy heads,

remotely related, perhaps, to those which are prepared as tokens of

prowess by some of the Brazilian tribes; and, in fact, the discovery

of the decapitated mummies of women and girls, buried in the guano

deposits of the sacred islands of Guañape and Macabi, points to a

remote period when human sacrifices were made, perhaps to a marine

power, and certainly connected with some superstition as to the head.

Another suggestion, however, will account for a greater variety of the

forms. The dances with animal masks irresistibly recall the ancestral

and totemic masked dances of such peoples as the Pueblo Indians of

North America and of the tribes of the North-West Coast; the figures of

bird-men, fish-men, and snake-men, with their bodies ornamented with

other animal figures, are again reminiscent of the totemic emblems of

the far North-West; and surely no image is better adapted to suggest

the descent of a series of generations from an ancestral hero than

the sequence of tongue-joined masks figured on the Nasca vases, each

generation receiving its name, as it were, from the mouth of the

preceding. The recurrence of certain constant designs, both on vases

and in fabrics, is at least analogous to the use of totemic signs

on garments and utensils in the region of the North-West Coast.

It is certain that ancestor-worship was an important feature of Yunca

religion, for Arriaga, speaking of the Chincha peoples, says that

for festivals they gathered in _ayllus_ (tribes or clans), each with

mummies of its kinsfolk to which were offered vases, clothes, plumes,

and the like. They had household gods (called Conopa or Huasi-camayoc),

as distinguished from the communal deities, which were of several

classes; more than three thousand of these Conopas it is said, were

destroyed by the Spaniards. Garcilasso informs us that each coastal

province worshipped a special kind of fish, "telling a pleasant tale

to the effect that the First of all the Fish dwells in the sky"--a

statement which is certainly in tone with a totemic interpretation.

In addition to the special idols of each province, says

Garcilasso,[132] all the peoples of the littoral from Truxillo to

Tarapaca adored the ocean in the form of a fish, out of gratitude for

the food that it yielded, naming it Mama Cocha ("Mother Sea"); and it

is indeed plausible that the Food-Giver of the Sea was a great deity

in this region, although some of the Truxillo vases seem to indicate

that the ocean was also regarded as the abode of dread and inimical

monsters, since they portray the conflicts of men or heroes with

crustacean and piscine monsters of the deep. Antonio de la Calancha,

who was prior of the Augustines at Truxillo in 1619, gives a brief

account of the Chimu pantheon.[133] The Ocean (Ni) and the earth

(Vis) were worshipped, prayers being offered to the one for fish and

to the other for good harvests. The great deity, however, was the

Moon (Si), to which sacrifices of children were sometimes made; and

this heavenly body, regarded as ruler of the elements and bringer of

tempests, was held to be more powerful than the Sun. Possibly the

crescent- or knife-shaped symbol which appears on the head-gear of vase

representations of chieftains, in Truxillo ware, is a token of this

cult, which finds a parallel among the Araucanians of the far south,

among whom, too, the Moon, not the Sun, is the lofty deity.

The language of the subjects of the Grand Chimu was Mochica, which

was unrelated to any other in Peru; but though they regarded the

Quichua-speaking Chincha as hereditary enemies, the religious

conceptions of the two groups were not very different. In Arriaga's

account,[134] the Chincha worshipped the Earth (Mama Pacha) as well

as Mama Cocha (the Sea); and they also venerated the "Mamas," or

Mothers, of maize and cacao. There were likewise tutelary deities

for their several villages--just as each family had its Penates--and

Garcilasso states that the god Chincha Camac was adored as the creator

and guardian of all the Chincha. The worship of stones in fields and

stones in irrigating channels is also mentioned (both for Chimu and

for Chincha), and these may well have been in the nature of herms in

valleys where fields were narrowly limited; while in addition there

were innumerable huacas--sacred places, fetishes, oracles, idols,

and, in short, anything marvellous, for Garcilasso, in explaining the

meaning of the word, says that it was applied to everything exciting

wonder, from the great gods and the peaks of the Andes to the birth of

twins and the occurrence of hare-lip. It is in this connexion that he

speaks of "sepulchres made in the fields or at the corners of their

houses, where the devil spoke to them familiarly," a description

suggestive of ancestral shrines; and it is quite possible that the

word _huaca_ is most properly applied in that sense in which it has

survived, to tombs.

In Chincha territory were located the two great shrines of Rimac

and Pachacamac, whose oracles even the Incas courted. Rimac, says

Garcilasso, signifies "He who Speaks"; he adds that the valley was

called Rimac from "an idol there, in the shape of a man, which spoke

and gave answers to questions, like the oracle of the Delphic Apollo";

and Lima, which is in the valley of Rimac, receives its appellation

from a corruption of this name. A greater shrine, however, and an older

oracle was Pachacamac. According to Garcilasso, the word means "Maker

and Sustainer of the Universe" (_pacha_, "earth," _camac_, "maker");

and he is of opinion that the worship of this divinity originated with

the Incas, who, nevertheless, regarded the god as invisible and hence

built him no temples and offered him no sacrifices, but "adored him

inwardly with the greatest veneration." Markham (not very convincingly)

identifies Pachacamac with the great fish-deity of the coast,

considering him as a supplanter of the older and purer deity, Viracocha.

One of the most interesting of coastal myths, quoted by Uhle, tells how

Pachacamac, having created a man and a woman, failed to provide them

with food; but when the man died, the woman was aided by the Sun, who

gave her a son and taught the pair to live upon wild fruits. Angered

at this interference, Pachacamac killed the youth, from whose buried

body sprang maize and other cultivated plants; the Sun gave the woman

another son, Wichama, whereupon Pachacamac slew the mother; while

Wichama, in revenge, pursued Pachacamac, driving him into the sea,

and thereafter burning up the lands in passion, transformed men into

stones. This legend has been interpreted as a symbol of the seasons,

but it is evident that its elements belong to wide-spread American

cycles, for the mother and son suggest the Chibcha goddess, Bachue,

while the formation of cultivated plants from the body of the slain

youth is a familiar element in myths of the tropical forests and,

indeed, in both Americas. From the story it is clear that Pachacamac is

a creator god, antagonistic (if not superior) to the Sun, who seems to

supplant him in power; but surely it is anomalous that the Earth-Maker

should find his end by being driven into the sea unless, indeed,

Pachacamac, spouse of Mother Sea, be the embodied Father Heaven,

descending in fog and damp and driven seaward by the dispelling Sun.

Such an interpretation would make Pachacamac simply a local form of

Viracocha; and this, certainly, is suggested in the descriptions, by

Garcilasso and others, of the reverence paid to this divinity.

From Francisco de Avila's account[135] of the myths of the Huarochiri,

in the valley of the Rimac, we may infer that Viracocha was known to

the Chincha tribes, at one period probably as a supreme god. An idol

called Coniraya (meaning according to Markham, "Pertaining to Heat")

they addressed as "Coniraya Viracocha," saying, "Thou art Lord of all;

thine are the crops, and thine are all the people"; and in every toil

and difficulty they invoked this deity for aid.

[Illustration: PLATE XXXIII.]

Embroidered figure from a Nasca robe in the Boston Museum of Fine

Arts. Nasca fabrics represent the highest achievement in textile art

of aboriginal America. Figures of the type here shown are repeated

with minor variations, each, no doubt, of symbolic significance, in a

chequered or "all-over" design. The deity represented may be totemic,

but obviously belongs to the same group as those shown in such pottery

paintings as are represented in Plates XXXII and XXXIV.

One of the decorative designs that occurs and recurs on the vases of

both the Chimu and Chincha regions--in the characteristic style of

each--is the plumed serpent. What is apparently a modification of this

is the man-headed serpent, or the warrior with a serpent's or dragon's

tail, a further modification representing the man or deity as holding

the serpent in one hand, while frequently, in the other hand, is a

symbolic staff or weapon that in certain forms is startlingly like the

classical thunderbolt in the hand of Jove. Another step shows only the

serpent's head held in the one hand, while the staff, or thunderbolt,

is made prominent; and, finally, in the style known as that of

Tiahuanaco, from its resemblance to the ancient art of the highlands, a

squat deity, holding a winged or snake-headed wand in each hand gives

the counterfeit presentment of the central figure on the Tiahuanaco

arch and the monolith of Chavin. In Central and North America the

plumed serpent is a sky-symbol, associated with rainbow, lightning,

rain, and weather; and it is not too much to follow the guesses

hitherto ventured that this cycle of images, appearing in various forms

in the different periods of Yunca art, is intimately associated with

the ancient and nearly universal Jovis Pater of America--Father Sky.

As in the old world, the eagle, so in South America the condor and the

falcon are the especial ministers of this deity; as also are the

most powerful of the beasts of prey known in the region--the puma,

or mountain lion; and, again, a fish, which we may suppose to typify

lordship over the waters, as the condor and lion symbolize dominion

over air and earth. Thus, as it were, through their grotesque masks

and gorgeous fantasies, the pots and jars of the Yunca peoples mutely

attest the universal reverence of mankind for the great powers of

Nature.

III. THE MYTHS OF THE CHINCHA

What were the tales which the Yunca peoples told of their gods? The

little that we know is almost wholly due to the unfinished manuscript

of Francisco de Avila,[136] composed in 1608; but brief and fragmentary

though this treatise be, ending abruptly with the heading of a Chapter

VIII, which was never written, it throws a curiously suggestive

light upon the archaeological discoveries of our own day, with their

revelation of successive civilizations and successive cults in the

coastal valleys.

Avila's narrative tells of a series of ages of the gods, each marked by

its new ruler, which he confesses he did not well comprehend because

of the contradictoriness of the legends. At all events, however,

in the most ancient period there were "certain _huacas_, or idols,...

supposed to have walked in the form of men. These _huacas_ were

called Yananamca Intanamca; and in a certain encounter they had with

another _huaca_, called Huallallo Caruincho, they were conquered and

destroyed by the said Huallallo, who remained as Lord and God of

the land. He ordered that no woman should bring forth more than two

children, of which one was to be sacrificed for him to eat, and the

other,--whichever of the two the parents chose,--might be brought

up. It was also a tradition that, in those days, all who died were

brought to life again on the fifth day; and that what was sown in that

land also sprouted, grew, and ripened on the fifth day; and that all

these three provinces [Huarochiri, Mama, Chaclla] were then a very hot

country, which the Indians call _Yunca_ or _Ande_." The last allusion

probably refers to some recollection of a migration from the coast,

for the Huarochiri region is in the highlands drained by the Rimac and

Lurin rivers.

The story goes on to record the overthrow of Huallallo by another

hero-god, Pariacaca; but before narrating this event, Avila turns aside

to tell the tale of Coniraya Viracocha, whom he regards as certainly

a great deity at one time, though whether before or after the rise of

Pariacaca is not evident.

In ancient times Coniraya appeared as a poor Indian, clothed in rags

and reviled by all. Nevertheless, he was the creator of all things,

at whose command terraces arose to support the fields and channels

were formed to irrigate them--feats which he accomplished by merely

hurling his hollow cane. He was also all-wise with respect to gods and

oracles, and the thoughts of others were open to him. This Coniraya

fell in love with a certain virgin, Cavillaca; and as she sat weaving

beneath a lucma-tree, he dropped near her a ripe fruit, containing his

own generative seed. Eating the fruit unsuspectingly, she became with

child; and when the babe was old enough to crawl, she assembled all

"the _huacas_ and principal idols of the land," determined to discover

the child's father; but as, to her amazement and disgust, the infant

crawled to the beggar-like Coniraya, she snatched it up and fled away

toward the sea. "But Coniraya Viracocha desired the friendship and

favour of the goddess; so, when he saw. her take flight, he put on

magnificent golden robes, and leaving the astonished assembly of the

gods, he ran after her, crying out: 'O my lady Cavillaca, turn your

eyes and see how handsome and gallant am I,' with other loving and

courteous words; and they say that his splendour illuminated the whole

country." But Cavillaca only increased her speed, and plunging into the

sea, mother and child were transformed into two rocks, still to be

seen. Coniraya, distanced, kept on his quest. He met a condor, and the

condor having promised him success in his pursuit, he gave the condor

the promise of long life, power to traverse wildernesses and valleys,

and the right to prey; and upon those who should slay the condor he set

the curse of death. Next he met a fox, but the fox told him his quest

was vain; so he cursed the fox, telling it that it must hunt at night

and be slain by men. The lion next promised him well, and he gave the

lion power over prey and honour among men. The falcon was similarly

blessed for fair promises, and parrots cursed for their ill omen.

Arrived at the seaside, Coniraya discovered the vanity of his pursuit,

but he was easily consoled; for on the beach he met two daughters of

Pachacamac. In the absence of their mother, who was visiting Cavillaca

in the sea, they were guarded by a great serpent, but Coniraya quieted

the serpent by his wisdom. One of the maidens flew away in the form of

a dove,--whence their mother was called Urpihuachac, "Mother of Doves";

but the other was more complaisant. "In those days it is said that

there were no fishes in the sea, but that this Urpihuachac reared a few

in a small pond. Coniraya was enraged that Urpihuachac should be absent

in the sea, visiting Cavillaca; so he emptied the fishes out of her

pond into the sea, and thence all the fishes now in the sea have been

propagated."

That Coniraya is a deity of sun or sky appears evident from this tale;

and he is, clearly, at the same time a demiurgic transformer, with

not a little of the mere trickster about him. The condor, falcon, and

lion are his servants and beneficiaries; foxes and parrots are his

antipathies; he has something to do with the provision of fish, and he

conquers the serpent of the sea-goddess. Avila says that the tradition

is rooted in the customs of the province: the people venerate the

condor, which they never kill, as also the lion; they have a horror

of the fox, slaying it where they can; "as to the falcon, there is

scarcely a festival in which one does not appear on the heads of the

dancers and singers; and we all know that they detest the parrots,

which is not wonderful considering the mischief they do, though their

chief reason is to comply with the tradition."

[Illustration: PLATE XXXIV.]

Vase from Nasca representing a deity with serpentiform body. The

commonest motive in Nasca designs is the multiplication, in grotesque

forms, of human masks. The deity here represented is commonly shown

with a mask head-dress, masks upon either cheek, with a girdle of

masks or trophy heads, and with masks elsewhere; while either the

body is shown as serpentiform or serpent-like wands are wielded by

the hands. It is probable that a sky-god is represented, possibly a

local form of Viracocha. Compare Plates XXXI, XXXVI, XXXVII. The vase

pictured is in the American Museum of Natural History.

Cataclysmic events which apparently followed the deeds of the Demiurge

were a five-day deluge, in which all men were destroyed save one who

was led by a speaking llama to a mountain height where he was safe;

and a five-day darkness, during which stones knocked together, while

both the stones with which they ground grain and the animals of their

herds arose against their masters. It was after these cataclysms, in

the days when there were as yet no kings, that five eggs appeared on a

certain mountain, called Condor-coto: round them a wind blew, for until

that time there had been no wind. These eggs were the birth-place of

Pariacaca and his four brothers; but before the hero had come forth

from his egg, one of his brothers, a great and rich lord, built his

house on Anchicocha, adorning it with the red and yellow feathers of

certain birds. This lord had llamas whose natural wool was of brilliant

colours--some red, some blue, some yellow--so that it was unnecessary

to dye it for weaving; but notwithstanding he was very wise, and even

pretended to be God, the Creator, misfortune befell him in the form of

a disgusting disease of which he was unable to cure himself, though

he sought aid in every direction. Now at this time there was a poor

and ill-clad Indian named Huathiacuri, "who, they say, was a son of

Pariacaca and who learned many arts from his father," whom, in his

egg, he visited in search of advice. This youth, having fallen in love

with a daughter of the rich man, one day overheard foxes conversing

about the great lord's illness. "The real cause," said a fox, "is

that, when his wife was toasting a little maize, one grain fell on

her skirt, as happens every day. She gave it to a man who ate it, and

afterward she committed adultery with him. This is the reason that the

rich man is sick, and a serpent is now hovering over his beautiful

house to eat it, while a toad with two heads is waiting under his

grinding-stone with the same object." When Huathiacuri learned this, he

told the girl that he knew the cure for her parent's malady; and though

she did not believe him, she informed her father, who had the young

man brought before him. Promised the price he demanded--the maiden's

hand--the youth revealed her mother's iniquity and gave orders to kill

two serpents, which were found in the roof, as well as a two-headed

toad, which hopped forth when the grinding-stone was lifted. After

this the rich man became well, and Huathiacuri received his bride. The

sister of this girl, however, was married to a man who, resenting so

beggarly a person in the family as Huathiacuri, challenged the latter

to a series of contests--first, to a drinking-bout; next, to a match

in splendour of costume, at which the youth appeared in a dress of

snow; then to a dance, in lions' skins, wherein he won because of a

rainbow that appeared round the head of the magic lion's skin which he

wore; and, finally, to a contest in house-building, wherein all the

animals aided him at night. Thus having vanquished his brother-in-law,

Huathiacuri in turn issued a challenge to a dance, ending it in a wild

race during which he transformed the brother-in-law into a deer and his

wife into rock. The deer lived for some time by devouring people, but

finally deer began to be eaten by men, not men by deer. Subsequent to

all this, Pariacaca and his brothers issued from the eggs, causing a

great tempest in which the rich man and his house were swept into the

sea. Pariacaca is also said to have destroyed by a torrent a village

of revellers who refused him drink when he appeared among them as a

thirsty beggar, all but one girl who took pity upon him; and there

is a story of his love for Choque Suso, a maiden whom he found in

tears beside her withering maize-fields and for whom he opened an

irrigation-channel, converting the girl herself into a stone which

still guards the headwaters. After this, in Avila's narrative, comes

a heading: "How the Indians of the Ayllu of Copara still worship

Choque Suso and this channel, a fact which I know not only from their

stories, but also from judicial depositions which I have taken on the

subject"--and there the manuscript abruptly ends.

Nevertheless, this fragment has given us enough to see, if not the

system, at least the character of Chincha mythology. There are the

generations of the elder gods, with transformations and cataclysms.

There are the cosmic eggs--perhaps earth's centre and the four winds

symbolized in the five of them. There is the toad-symbol of the

underworld, and the serpent-symbol of the sky-world. The Rich Man, in

his house of red and yellow feathers, is surely a sky-being--perhaps

a sun-god, perhaps a lunar divinity whose ceaseless crescence and

senescence, to and from its glory, may be imaged in his cureless

disease. Pariacaca is clearly a deity of waters, probably a divine

mountain, giving rain and irrigating streams, and clothing his son in

the snow and the rainbow; while the women--Cavillaca, and the Mother of

Doves, and Choque Suso, the Nymph of the Channel--who were turned into

rocks speak again the hoary sanctity of these images of perdurability.

IV. VIRACOCHA AND TONAPA

The Yunca peoples, both Chimu and Chincha, recalled a time when

their ancestors entered the coastal valleys to make them their own,

"destroying the former inhabitants,... a vile and feeble race,"

as Chincha tradition has it. In the uplands the followers of the

Scyris of Quito were remembered as coming from the littoral; but for

the rest, highland legends point almost uniformly to a southerly

or south-easterly origin--where, indeed, the tale is not of an

autochthonous beginning--and with general agreement it is to the plains

about Titicaca that the stories lead, as to the most ancient seat of

mankind. These traditions, coupled with the immemorial and wonderful

ruins of the sacred place at Tiahuanaco--whether the precinct of a

city or of a temple--give a special fascination to this region as being

plausibly the key to the solution of the problem of central Andean

civilization.

Certainly no more puzzling key was ever given for the unlocking of a

mystery, since the basin of Lake Titicaca is a plateau, some thirteen

to fourteen thousand feet above sea-level, where cereals will not

ripen, so that only potatoes and a few other roots, along with droves

of hardy llamas and alpacas, form the reliance for subsistence of a

population which at best is sparse. Yet in the midst of this plateau

are ruins characterized by the use of enormous stones--only less than

the great monoliths of Egypt--and by a skill in stone-working which

implies an extraordinary development of the mason's art. It is the

judgement of archaeologists who have visited the scene that nothing

less than the huge endeavour of a dense population could have created

the visible works; and there is a tradition, derived from an Indian

_quipu_-reader and recorded by Oliva, that the real Tiahuanaco is a

subterranean city, in vastness far exceeding the one above the ground.

The apparent discrepancy between the capacity of the region for the

support of population and the effort required to produce the megalithic

works has led Sir Clements Markham to suggest that these structures

may date from a period when the plateau was several thousand feet

lower than at present (for the elevation of the Andes is geologically

recent); it would seem, however, in view of the huge tasks which Inca

engineers accomplished, and of the fact that sacred cities in remote

sites were venerated by the Andeans, more reasonable to assume that

the ruins of Tiahuanaco and the islands represent, in part at least,

the devotion of distant princes, who here maintained another Delphi or

Lhassa.

The speaking monument of this ancient shrine (and there is no more

remarkable monolith in the world) is the carved monolithic gate, now

broken. Above the portal (see Plate XXXV) is the decoration, a broad

band in low relief; while a central figure, elevated above the others,

is a divine image--the god with rayed head and with wands or bolts in

each hand, whose likeness is met in the Yunca region and on the Chavin

stele. On either side, in three ranks of eight each, are forty-eight

obeisant figures--kings, some have called them, but others see in

them totemic symbols of clan ancestors, although it is not impossible

that they are genii of earth and air and water: all are winged, all

bear wands, and those of the middle tier are condor-headed, while

the wand and crest and garb of each is adorned with heads of condor

and puma and fish. In case of the central figure the two wands are

adorned with condors' heads, and some of the rays of the head-dress

terminate in pumas' heads, while on his dress are not only heads of

condors, pumas, and human beings, but centrally, on the breast, is

a crescent design most resembling a fish. Another curious feature,

alike of the forty-eight and of the central god, are circles under the

eyes, seemingly tears, which recall the wide-spread trope that rain

is heaven's tears, and the fact that tears were sometimes painted on

ceremonial masks used in supplications for rain. Beneath the design

just described is a meander, perhaps the symbol of earth,[137] adorned

with the same condor-heads; and framing plaque-like representations of

what are surely celestial divinities (still with tearful eyes); and it

is not beyond reason to suppose that the tiny trumpeter who appears

above one of these rayed masks may be the Morning Star, herald of the

day.

[Illustration: PLATE XXXV.]

Monolithic Gateway, Tiahuanaco, Bolivia. This is regarded by many

as the most remarkable prehistoric monument in America. It is

approximately ten by twelve and a half feet in front dimension, and

is estimated to weigh nine to twelve tons. The decoration consists

of a central figure, above the doorway, which is certainly a sky-god

and probably Viracocha, and a banded frieze showing groups of mythic

beings. For description see pages 233-34. After a photograph in the

Peabody Museum.

There is little ground to doubt that this monument is cosmical in

meaning (it may also be totemic, for at least the ruling Andeans became

"Children of the Sun"), and that the central figure is a heaven-god

or a sun-god. The most curious of its emblems, taking into account

the nature of the region, is the fish; for while there are fish in

Lake Titicaca, the natives (at least today) are little given to taking

them. It is possible, as suggested by the crescent on the breast of

the god, that the fish is here a symbol of the moon, which may have

been mistress of the waves; and this would lead us, analogically,

to the capital of the Grand Chimu and the temple of Si An, where were

the great deities, the Moon above and the Sea below. Certainly, if an

animal form were sought to symbolize the crescent of the skies, none

could be found more perfect than that of the fish; or, by extension,

the bark by which man conquers the piscine realm might be conceived and

imaged as symbol of the lunar ship.

Such an hypothesis implies a relation of Tiahuanaco to the coastal

regions as well as to the mountain valleys; and this relationship,

in a period long past, is demonstrated, representations of the deity

of Tiahuanaco being found, drawn in Tiahuanaco style, on the Yunca

vases. But what of its extension in the highlands? The Chavin stone

(see Plate XXXI) from the region of the headwaters of Rio Marañon far

to the north of Cuzco is, as monumental evidence of the ancient cult,

second in importance only to the Tiahuanaco arch. The figure on this

monument is in Nasca rather than in Tiahuanaco style, having as its

head-dress an elaborate structure which, when viewed reversed, is found

to be formed of that series of masks, each depending from the lolling

tongue of its predecessor, which is so common on Nasca vases; while

snakes' heads replace the condor-puma-fish adornments of the southern

monument, and it is interesting to note that the whole structure

terminates in a caduceus-like twist of serpents. The main figure,

however, with its elaborate wands, ending exactly in the form of Jove's

bolt, certainly follows the style of the central figure of Tiahuanaco,

so that we are justified in assuming that it represents a similar

conception--a celestial deity, from which proceed the serpentine rays,

sunlight or lightning. To the far south, in the Calchaqui-Diaguité

region, potsherds have been discovered implying the same central

conception--the deity with mask and bolt, the dragon with head at

each extremity, and a series of dragons' heads united by protruding

tongues (a design whose far extension leads into the country of the

unconquered Araucanians in the Chilean Andes).[138] More remarkable are

the ceremonial and votive objects discovered in this region, among them

certain plaques which include a masterpiece (Plate XXXVI) bearing many

traits that identify it with the monumental images: the rayed head, the

tears beneath the eyes, the crescent-shaped breast-ornament, and, on

either side of the central image, crested dragons which appear to take

the place of the wands in the type figures.

The names of this heaven-god, ancient in origin and wide in the range

of his cult, have doubtless been many in the course of history; but

though several of them have survived in the traditions which have been

recorded, paramount among them all is that by which the divinity was

known to the Inca--Viracocha (or Uiracocha). Montesinos's list of kings

commences, says Markham,[139] "with the names of the deity, Illa Tici

Uiracocha. We are told that the first word, Illa, means 'light.' Tici

means 'foundation or beginning of things.' The word Uira is said to

be a corruption of Pirua, meaning the 'depository or store-house of

creation.'... The ordinary meaning of Cocha is a lake, but here it is

said to signify an abyss--profundity. The whole meaning of the words

would be, 'The splendour, the foundation, the creator, the infinite

God.' The word Yachachic was occasionally added--'the Teacher.'"

[Illustration: PLATE XXXVI.]

Plaque probably representing Viracocha. The head is surmounted by a

rayed disk, doubtless the sun; tears, symbolic of rain, stream from

the eyes; above the hands, on either side, are dragon-like creatures

which are doubtless the equivalent of the wands or serpents shown in

the hands of similar figures, and which may represent the two servants

of the god, as they appear in legend. After _CA_ xii, Plate VIII.

Molina, Salcamayhua, Huaman Poma, all give Inca prayers addressed to

Viracocha--prayers which are our best evidence for the character in

which he was regarded. In the group recorded by Molina[140] the deity

appears as lord of generation of plants and animals and humankind;

and to him are addressed supplications for increase. But he is very

clearly, also, a supreme creator: "O conquering Viracocha! Ever-present

Viracocha! Thou who art in the ends of the earth without equal! Thou

gavest life and valour to men, saying, 'Let this be a man!' and to

women, saying, 'Let this be a woman!' Thou madest them and gavest them

being! Watch over them that they may live in health and peace.

Thou who art in the high heavens, and among the clouds of the tempest,

grant this with long life, and accept this sacrifice, O Creator!" In

other prayers Viracocha is represented as creator of the sun, and

hence as supreme over the great national god of the Incas; and in

the rites which Molina describes, Viracocha (the creator), the Sun,

and the Thunder form a triad, addressed in the order named. The same

supremacy of Viracocha is recognized in the elaborate hymn recorded by

Salcamayhua and translated by Markham after the emended text of Dr.

Mossi and the Spanish version of Lafone Quevado:[141]

"O Uira-cocha! Lord of the universe;

Whether thou art male,

Whether thou art female,

Lord of reproduction,

Whatsoever thou mayest be,

O Lord of divination,

Where art thou?

Thou mayest be above,

Thou mayest be below,

Or perhaps around

Thy splendid throne and sceptre.

Oh, hear me!

From the sky above,

In which thou mayest be,

From the sea beneath,

In which thou mayest be,

Creator of the world,

Maker of all men;

Lord of all Lords,

My eyes fail me

For longing to see thee;

For the sole desire to know thee.

Might I behold thee,

Might I know thee,

Might I consider thee,

Might I understand thee.

Oh, look down upon me,

For thou knowest me.

The sun--the moon--

The day--the night--

Spring--winter,

Are not ordained in vain

By thee, O Uira-cocha!

They all travel

To the assigned place;

They all arrive

At their destined ends,

Whithersoever thou pleasest.

Thy royal sceptre

Thou holdest.

Oh hear me!

Oh choose me!

Let it not be

That I should tire,

That I should die."

It were easy to accept a pantheistic interpretation of a divinity

so addressed; it is plausible to regard that deity as androgynous,

as Lafone Quevado suggests. What is certain is that here we have a

creator-god superior to the world of visible nature, so that he was

represented, according to Salcamayhua, by an oval plate of fine gold

above the symbols of the heavenly bodies in the great temple at Cuzco.

Salcamayhua, moreover, connects with Viracocha two other names, Tonapa

and Tarapaca, which, he declares, are appellatives of a servant (or

servants) of Viracocha; and here we have a glimpse into another cycle

of mythic history.

The story, as Salcamayhua tells it,[142] begins with the remote

Purunpacha--the time when all the nations were at war with each other,

and there was no rest from tumults. "Then, in the middle of the night,

they heard the Hapi-ñuños [harpy-like daemones] disappearing with

mournful complaints, and crying,--'We are conquered, we are conquered,

alas that we should lose our bands!'" This Salcamayhua interprets as

a New-World equivalent of the death-cry of Old-World paganism, "Great

Pan is dead!"--for from their cry, he says, "it must be understood that

the devils were conquered by Jesus Christ our Lord on the cross on

Mount Calvary." Some time after the devils departed, there appeared "a

bearded man, of middle height, with long hair, and a rather long shirt.

They say that he was somewhat past his prime, for he already had grey

hairs, and he was lean. He travelled by aid of a staff, teaching the

natives with much love and calling them all his sons and daughters. As

he went through the land, he performed many miracles. The sick were

healed by his touch. He spoke all languages better than the natives."

They called him, Salcamayhua says, Tonapa or Tarapaca ("_Tarapaca_

means an eagle"), associating these names with that of Viracocha; "but

was he not the glorious apostle, St. Thomas?"

Many tales are told of the miracles performed by Tonapa, among others

the story, which Avila narrates of Pariacaca, of the overwhelming

by flood of a village, the inhabitants of which had abused him; and

similar legends in which the offenders were transformed into stones.

"They further say that this Tonapa, in his wanderings, came to the

mountains of Caravaya, where he erected a very large cross; and he

carried it on his shoulders to the mountain of Carapucu, where he

preached in a loud voice, and shed tears." In 1897 Bandelier[143]

visited the village of Carabuco, on Lake Titicaca, and there saw the

ancient cross, known for more than three centuries, which tradition

associates with pre-Columbian times. "The meaning of Carapucu,"

Salcamayhua continues, "is when a bird called _pucu-pucu_ sings four

times at early dawn." May there not be here a clue to the meaning both

of the myth and of the emblem? At dawn, when the herald birds first

sing, the four quarters of the world, of which the cross is symbol, are

shaped by the light of day--a token and a reminiscence of the first

creation of Earth by shining Heaven.

Molina, Cieza de León, Sarmiento, Huaman Poma[144] tell of the making

of sun and moon, and of the generations of men, associating this

creation with the lake of Titicaca, its islands, and its neighbourhood.

Viracocha is almost universally represented as the creator, and the

story follows the main plot of the genesis narratives known to the

civilized nations of both Americas--a succession of world aeons,

each ending in cataclysm. As told by Huaman Poma, five such ages had

preceded that in which he lived. The first was an age of Viracochas, an

age of gods, of holiness, of life without death, although at the same

time it was devoid of inventions and refinements; the second was an age

of skin-clad giants, the Huari Runa, or "Indigenes," worshippers of

Viracocha; third came the age of Puron Runa, or "Common Men," living

without culture; fourth, that of the Auca Runa, "Warriors," and fifth

that of the Inca rule, ended by the coming of the Spaniards. As related

by Sarmiento the first age was that of a sunless world inhabited

by a race of giants, who, owing to the sin of disobedience, were

cataclysmically destroyed; but two brothers, surviving on a hill-top,

married two women descended from heaven (in Molina's version these are

bird-women) and repeopled a part of the world. Viracocha, however,

undertook a second creation at Lake Titicaca, this time with sun,

moon, and stars; but out of jealousy, since at first the moon was the

brighter orb, the sun threw a handful of ashes over his rival's face,

thus giving the shaded colour which the moon now presents. Viracocha,

we are told, was assisted by three servants, one of whom, Taguapaca,

rebelled against him; for this he was bound and set adrift upon the

lake (an event which, in a different form, is given by Salcamayhua as a

part of the persecution of Tonapa); and then, taking his two remaining

servitors with him, the deity "went to a place now called Tiahuanacu

... and in this place he sculptured and designed on a great piece of

stone all the nations that he intended to create," after which he sent

his servants forth to command all tribes and all nations to multiply.

The last act of Viracocha's career was his miraculous departure across

the western sea, "travelling over the water as if it were land, without

sinking," and leaving behind him the prophecy that he would send his

messengers once again to protect and to teach his people.

[Illustration: PLATE XXXVII.]

Vase painting of the sky-god, Tiahuanaco style, from Pachacamac.

Compare Plates XXXI, XXXIV, XXXV, XXXVI. After Baessler,

_Contributions to the Archaeology of the Empire of the Incas_, Vol.

IV, Plate CIV.

The tales are surely explanatory of the monuments; and in both we see

the general outlines of the ancient Peruvian religion. Supreme in the

pantheon was the great creator-god, High Heaven itself, Illa Tici

Viracocha. Attendant upon this divinity (perhaps ancient doublets in

some cases) was a group of two or three servants or sons, who were

assuredly also celestial--Sun and Moon, or Sun and Moon and Morning

Star, or Sun and Thunder (for in Peru _bidentalia_ were everywhere).

Tonapa (whom Markham regards as properly _Conapa_, "Heat-Bearing," and

the same being as Coniraya) is the Peruvian equivalent of Quetzalcoatl

and Bochica[145]--the robed and bearded white man, bearing a magic

staff, who comes from the east and after teaching men the way of life,

departs over the sea. It is no marvel that the first missionaries and

their converts saw in this being, with his cruciform symbol, an apostle

of their own faith who had journeyed by way of the Orient to preach

the Gospel. Yet certainly it is no mere imagination to find another

interpretation of the story--what better image could fancy suggest for

the daily course of the sun than that of a bright-faced man, bearded

with rays, mantled in light, transforming the world of darkness into a

world of beauty and the domain of the concealed into a domain of things

known, before his departure across the western waters, promising to

return, or to send again his messengers of light, to renew the luminous

mission? When the Spaniards came, bearded and white, in shining mail

and weaponed with fire, the Indians beheld the embodied form of the

mythic hero, and so they applied to them the name which, is still

theirs for a white man--_viracocha_. In such devious ways have the

faiths and the fancies of Earth's two worlds commingled.

What ground there is for the ascription of something approaching

monotheism to the Peruvians centres in the sky-deity rather than in

the Sun, whose cult under the Incas, to some extent replaced that of

the elder supreme god. "No one can doubt," says Lafone Quevado,[146]

"that Pachacamac and Viracocha were gods who correspond to our idea

of a Supreme Being and that they were adored in America before the

coming of Columbus; and it is logical to attribute to the same American

soil the idea of such a conception, even when it occurs among the most

savage tribes, since that simply presupposes an ethnic contact to which

are opposed no insuperable difficulties of geography. The solar cult

is farther from fetishism than is the idea of the Yahveh of the Jews

from the solar cult: from this to the true God is a step, and the most

savage nations of America found themselves surrounded by worshippers of

the light of day."

V. THE CHILDREN OF THE SUN

The most striking feature of the Inca conquests is their professed

motive--professed, that is, in Inca tradition, especially as

represented by the writings of Garcilasso de la Vega--for the Incas

proclaimed themselves apostles of a new creed and teachers of a new way

of life; they were Children of the Sun, sent by their divine parent

to bring to a darkened and barbarous world a purer faith and a more

enlightened conduct. Garcilasso tells[147] how, when a boy, he inquired

of his Inca uncle the origin of their race. "Know," said his kinsman,

"that in ancient times all this region which you see was covered with

forests and thickets, and the people lived like brute beasts without

religion nor government, nor towns, nor houses, without cultivating

the land nor covering their bodies, for they knew how to weave neither

cotton nor wool to make garments. They dwelt two or three together in

caves or clefts of the rocks, or in caverns under ground; they ate the

herbs of the field and roots or fruit like wild beasts, and they also

devoured human flesh; they covered their bodies with leaves and with

the bark of trees, or with the skins of animals; in fine they lived

like deer or other game, and even in their intercourse with women they

were like brutes, for they knew nothing of cohabiting with separate

wives.... Our Father, the Sun, seeing the human race in the condition

I have described, had compassion upon them and from heaven he sent down

to earth a son and daughter to instruct them in the knowledge of our

Father, the Sun, that adoring Him, they might adopt Him as their God;

and also to give them precepts and laws by which to live as reasonable

and civilized men, and to teach them to dwell in houses and towns, to

cultivate maize and other crops, to breed flocks, and to use the fruits

of the earth as rational beings, instead of existing like beasts. With

these commands and intentions our Father, the Sun, placed his two

children in the lake of Titicaca, saying to them that they might go

where they pleased and that at every place where they stopped to eat

or sleep they were to thrust into the ground a sceptre of gold which

was half a yard long and two fingers in thickness, giving them this

staff as a sign and a token that in the place where, by one blow on

the earth, it should sink down and disappear, there it was the desire

of our Father, the Sun, that they should remain and establish their

court. Finally He said to them: 'When you have reduced these people to

our service, you shall maintain them in habits of reason and justice by

the practice of piety, clemency, and meekness, assuming in all things

the office of a pious father toward his beloved and tender children;

for thus you will form a likeness and reflection of me. I do good to

the whole world, giving light that men may see and do their business,

making them warm when they are cold, cherishing their pastures and

crops, ripening their fruits and increasing their flocks, watering

their lands with dew and bringing fine weather in proper season. I take

care to go around the earth each day that I may see the necessities

that exist in the world and supply them, as the sustainer and

benefactor of the heathen. I desire that you shall imitate this example

as my children, sent to earth solely for the instruction and benefit

of these men who live like beasts; and from this time I constitute and

name you as kings and lords over all the tribes that you may instruct

them in your rational works and government.'"

Viewed as theology, this utterance is remarkable. Even if it be taken

(as perhaps it should be) rather as an excuse for conquests made than

as their veritable pretext, the story still reflects an advanced

stage of moral thinking, since utterly barbarous races demand no

such justification for seizing from others what they desire; and in

this broader scope the successors of Manco Capac and Mama Ocllo soon

interpreted their liberal commission. The third Inca, Lloque Yupanqui,

decided, Garcilasso says,[148] that "all their policy should not be

one of prayer and persuasion, but that arms and power should form a

part, at least with those who were stubborn and pertinacious." Having

assembled an army, the Inca crossed the border, and entering a province

called Cana, he sent messengers to the inhabitants, "requiring them

to submit to and obey the child of the Sun, abandoning their own vain

and evil sacrifices, and bestial customs"--a formula that became

thenceforth the Inca preliminary to a declaration of war. The Cana

submitted, but, the chronicler says, when he passed to the province

of Ayaviri, the natives "were so stubborn and rebellious that neither

promises, nor persuasion, nor the examples of the other subjugated

aborigines were of any avail; they all preferred to die defending

their liberty." And so fell many a province, after vainly endeavouring

to protect its native gods, as the realm of the Incas grew, always

advancing under the pretext of religious reform, the mandate of the Sun.

But while the extension of the solar cult was made the excuse for

the creation of an empire, it was more than a political device; for

the Incas called themselves "children of the Sun" in the belief that

they were directly descended from this deity and under his special

care. Molina[149] tells of an adventure which he ascribes to Inca

Yupanqui, meaning, apparently, Pachacuti, the greatest of the Incas.

While, as a young man, the Inca prince was journeying to visit his

father, Viracocha Inca, he passed a spring in which he saw a piece

of crystal fall, wherein appeared the figure of an Indian. From the

back of his head issued three very brilliant rays, even as those of

the Sun; serpents were twined round his arms, and on his head there

was a _llautu_ [the fringe, symbol of the sun's rays, worn on the

forehead by the Incas as token of royalty] like that of the Inca. His

ears were bored, and ear-pieces, resembling those used by the Incas,

were inserted; he was also dressed in the manner of the Inca. The

head of a lion came from between his legs, and on his shoulders there

was another lion whose legs appeared to join over the shoulders of

the man; while, furthermore, a sort of serpent was twined about his

shoulders. This apparition said to the youth: "Come hither, my son,

and fear not, for I am the Sun, thy father. Thou shalt conquer many

nations; therefore be careful to pay great reverence to me and remember

me in thy sacrifices." The vision vanished, but the piece of crystal

remained, "and they say that he afterward saw in it everything he

wanted." The solar imagery and the analogy of this figure, with its

lions and serpents, to the monumental representations of celestial

deities, are at once apparent; and there is, too, in the tale, with

its prophecy and its crystal-gazing more than a suggestion of the fast

in the wilderness by which the North American Indian youth seeks a

revelation of his personal medicine-helper, or totem. The Incas all had

such personal tutelaries. That of Manco Capac was said to have been a

falcon, called Inti; and the word came to mean the Sun itself in its

character as deity--or, perhaps, as tutelary of the Inca clan, since

the name Inti appears in the epithets applied to the "brothers" of more

than one later Inca. Serpents, birds, and golden images were forms of

these totemic familiars, each buried with the body of the Inca to whom

it had pertained.

Just as individuals had their personal Genii of this character, so each

clan had for ancestor its Genius, or tutelary, which might be a star, a

mountain, a rock, or a spring. The Sun was such a Genius of the Incas,

and it came to be an ever greater deity as Inca power spread by very

reason of the growing importance of their clan; while its recognition

by members of allied and conquered septs came to be demanded very

much, we may suppose, as the cultic acknowledgement of the Genius of

the Roman Emperor was required in expression of loyalty to the reigning

race.

The Inca pantheon was not narrow.[150] Besides the ancestral deities,

there were innumerable _huacas_--sacred places, oracles, or idols--and

whole classes of nature-powers; the generative Earth (Pacha Mama) and

"mamas" of plant and animal kinds; meteorological potencies, especially

the Rainbow and Thunder and Lightning, conceived as servants of the

Sun; and, in the heaven itself, the Moon and the Constellations, by

which the seasons were computed. Remote over all was the heaven-god

and creator, Viracocha, with respect to whom the Sun itself was but a

servitor. Salcamayhua declares that Manco Capac had set up a plate of

fine gold, oval in shape, "which signified that there was a Creator of

heaven and earth." Mayta Capac renewed this image--despising, tradition

said, all created objects, even the highest, such as men and the sun

and moon--and "he caused things to be placed round the plate, which I

have shown that it may be perceived what these heathen thought." In

illustration Salcamayhua gives a drawing which many authorities regard

as the key to Peruvian mythology. At the top is a representation of the

Southern Cross, the pole of the austral heavens. Below this is the oval

symbol of the Creator, on one side of which is an image of the Sun,

with the Morning Star beneath, while opposite is the Moon above the

Evening Star. Under these is a group of twelve signs--a leaping puma,

a tree, "Mama Cocha," a chart of this mountainous Earth surmounted by

a rainbow and serving as source for a river into which levin falls, a

group of seven circles called "shining eyes," and other emblems--the

whole representing, so Stansbury Hagar argues, the Peruvian zodiac.

Salcamayhua goes on to say that Huascar placed an image of the Sun in

the place where the symbol of the Creator had been, and it was as thus

altered that the Spaniards found the great Temple of the Sun at Cuzco.

It would appear, indeed, that the action of Huascar was only a final

step in the rise of the solar cult to pre-eminence in Peru. Doubtless

the sun had been a principal deity from an early period, but its

close relation to the Inca clan made it progressively more and more

important, so that by the time of the coming of the Spaniards it had

risen, as a national divinity, to a position analogous to that of Ashur

in the later Assyrian empire. Meantime the older heaven-god, Viracocha,

presumably the tutelary of the pre-Inca empire and of Tiahuanaco, had

faded into obscurity. To be sure, there was a temple to this god in

Cuzco (so Molina and Salcamayhua attest); but to the Sun there were

shrines all over the land, with priests and priestesses; while Cuzco

was the centre of a magnificent imperial cult, the sanctuary honoured

by royalty itself and served not only by the sacerdotal head of all

Inca temple-service, a high priest of blood royal, but also by hundreds

of devoted Virgins of the Sun, who, like the Roman Vestals, kept an

undying fire on the altars of the solar god.

Yet Viracocha was not forgotten, even by the Incas who subordinated

him officially to the Sun; and few passages in American lore are more

striking than are the records of Inca doubt as to the Sun's divinity

and power. Molina says of that very Inca to whom the vision of the

crystal appeared that "he reflected upon the respect and reverence

shown by his ancestors to the Sun, who worshipped it as a god; he

observed that it never had any rest, and that it daily journeyed round

the earth; and he said to those of his council that it was not possible

that the Sun could be the God who created all things, for if he was, he

would not permit a small cloud to obscure his splendour; and that if he

was creator of all things, he would sometimes rest, and light up the

whole world from one spot. Thus, it cannot be otherwise but there is

someone who directs him, and this is the Pacha-yachachi, the Creator."

Garcilasso (quoting Blas Valera) states that the Inca Tupac Yupanqui

likened the Sun rather to a tethered beast or to a shot arrow than to a

free divinity, while Huayna Capac is credited with a similar judgement.

In the prayers recorded by Molina, Viracocha is supreme, even over the

Sun; and these petitions, it must be supposed, represent the deepest

conviction of Inca religion.

VI. LEGENDS OF THE INCAS

Stories of Inca origins, as told by the chroniclers, present a certain

confusion of incident that probably goes back to the native versions.

There are obviously historical narratives mingled with clearly mythic

materials and influencing each other. The islands of Titicaca and the

ruins of Tiahuanaco appear as the source of remote provenance of the

Incas; a place called Paccari-Tampu ("Tavern of the Dawn"), not far

from Cuzco, and the mysterious hill of Tampu-Tocco ("Tavern of the

Windows") are recorded as sites associated with their more immediate

rise; yet as Manco Capac is associated with both origins, and as the

narratives pertaining to both contain cosmogonic elements, the tales

give the impression of blending and duplication.

[Illustration: PLATE XXXVIII.]

"Temple of the three Windows," Machu Picchu. Windows are not a

frequent feature of Inca architecture, and when Bingham discovered at

Machu Picchu the temple with three conspicuous windows, here shown,

this discovery seemed to give added plausibility to the theory that

Machu Picchu is indeed the Tampu-Tocco of the Incas. See pages 248 ff.

and compare Plate XXX. From photograph, courtesy of Hiram Bingham,

Director of the Yale Peruvian Expedition.

With different degrees of confusion all the chroniclers (Cieza de

León, Garcilasso, Molina, Salcamayhua, Betanzos, Montesinos, Huaman

Porno, and others) tell the story of the coming forth of Manco Capac

and his brothers from Tampu-Tocco to create the empire; but of all

the accounts Markham regards that given by Sarmiento as the most

authentic.[151] According to this version, Tampu-Tocco was a house on

a hill, provided with three windows, named Maras, Sutic, and Capac.

Through the first of these came the Maras tribe, through Sutic came

the Tampu tribe, and through Capac, the regal window, came four Ayars

with their four wives--Ayar Manco and Mama Ocllo; Ayar Auca (the

"joyous," or "fighting," Ayar) and Mama Huaco (the "warlike");

Ayar Cachi (the "Salt" Ayar) and Mama Ipacura (the "Elder Aunt"); Ayar

Uchu (the "Pepper" Ayar) and Mama Raua. The four pairs "knew no father

nor mother, beyond the story they told that they came out of the said

window by order of Ticci Viracocha; and they declared that Viracocha

created them to be lords"; but it was believed that by the counsel of

the fierce Mama Huaco they decided to go forth and subjugate peoples

and lands. Besides the Maras and Tampu peoples, eight other tribes were

associated with the Ayars, as vassals, when they began their quest,

taking with them their goods and their families. Manco Capac carrying

with him, as a palladium, a falcon, called Indi, or Inti--the name of

the Sun-god--bore also a golden rod which was to sink into the land

at the site where they were to abide; and Salcamayhua says that, in

setting out, the hero was wreathed in rain-bows, this being regarded as

an omen of success.

The journey was leisurely, and in course of it Sinchi Rocca, who was to

be the second Inca, was born to Mama Ocllo and Manco Capac; but then

came a series of magic transformations by which the three brothers

disappeared, leaving the elder without a rival. Ayar Cachi (who, Cieza

de León says,[152] "had such great power that, with stones hurled from

his sling, he split the hills and hurled them up to the clouds") was

the first to excite the envy of his brothers; and on the pretext that

certain royal treasures had been forgotten in a cave of Tampu-Tocco, he

was sent back to secure them, accompanied by a follower who had secret

instructions from the brothers to immure him in the cave, once he was

inside. This was done, and though Ayar Cachi made the earth shake in

his efforts to break through, he could not do so. Nevertheless (Cieza

tells us) he appeared to his brothers, "coming in the air with great

wings of coloured feathers"; and despite their terror, he commanded

them to go on to their destiny, found Cuzco, and establish the empire.

"I shall remain in the form and fashion that ye shall see on a hill

not distant from here; and it will be for your descendants a place of

sanctity and worship, and its name shall be Guanacaure [Huanacauri].

And in return for the good things that ye will have received from me,

I pray that ye will always adore me as god and in that place will set

up altars whereat to offer sacrifices. If ye do this, ye shall receive

help from me in war; and as a sign that from henceforth ye are to

be esteemed, honoured, and feared, your ears shall be bored in the

manner that ye now behold mine." It was from this custom of boring

and enlarging the ears that the Spaniards called the ruling caste

_Orejones_ ("Big-Ears"); and it was at the hill of Huanacauri that the

Ayar instructed the Incas in the rites by which they initiated youths

into the warrior caste.

At this mount, which became one of the great Inca shrines, both the

Salt and the Pepper Ayars were reputed to have been transformed into

stones, or idols, and it was here that the rainbow sign of promise was

given. As they approached the hill--so the legend states--they saw

near the rainbow what appeared to be a man-shaped idol; and "Ayar Uchu

offered himself to go to it, for they said that he was very like it."

He did so, sat upon the stone, and himself became stone, crying: "O

Brothers, an evil work ye have wrought for me. It was for your sakes

that I came where I must remain forever, apart from your company. Go!

go! happy brethren, I announce to you that ye shall be great lords. I

therefore pray that, in recognition of the desire I have always had to

please you, ye shall honour and venerate me in all your festivals and

ceremonies, and that I shall be the first to whom ye make offerings,

since I remain here for your sakes. When ye celebrate the _huarochico_

(which is the arming of the sons as knights), ye shall adore me as

their father, for I shall remain here forever."

Finally Manco Capac's staff sank into the ground--"two shots of an

arquebus from Cuzco"--and from their camp the hero pointed to a heap of

stones on the site of Cuzco. "Showing this to his brother, Ayar Auca,

he said, 'Brother! thou rememberest how it was arranged between us

that thou shouldst go to take possession of the land where we are to

settle. Well! behold that stone.' Pointing it out, he continued, 'Go

thither flying,' for they say that Ayar Auca had developed some wings;

'and seating thyself there, take possession of the land seen from that

heap of rocks. We will presently come and settle and reside.' When Ayar

Auca heard the words of his brother, opening his wings, he flew to that

place which Manco Capac had pointed out; and seating himself there, he

was presently turned into stone, being made the stone of possession. In

the ancient language of this valley the heap was called _cozco_, whence

the site has had the name of Cuzco to this day."

Markham placed the events commemorated in this myth at about 1100

A. D., and Bingham's remarkable discoveries of Machu Picchu and of

the Temple of the Three Windows appear to prove the truth of tales

of a Tampu-Tocco dynasty, preceding the coming to Cuzco. The tribal

divisions (in their numbers, three and ten, strikingly suggestive

of Roman legend) are surely in part historical, for Sarmiento gives

names of members of the various _ayllus_ in Cuzco in his own day. Yet

it is clear that the Ayars are mythical beings. Garcilasso says[153]

that the four pairs came forth in the beginning of the world; that

in the various legends about them the three brothers disappear in

allegory, leaving Manco Capac alone; and that the Salt Ayar signifies

"instruction in the rational life," while the Pepper Ayar means

"delight received in this instruction." The association of the two

Ayars with initiation ceremonies and civic destiny points, in fact,

to the character of culture heroes; and their names, Salt and Pepper,

again suggest association with economic life, perhaps, in some way,

as genii of earth and vegetation, though in the myth of Ayar Cachi

the suggestion of a volcanic power is almost irresistible. Ayar Auca

is clearly the _genius loci_ of Cuzco, while Manco Capac himself,

conceived as an Ayar, is little more than a culture hero. Perhaps

the solution is to be found in Montesinos's lists, where Manco Capac

is the first ruler of the dynasty of the oldest emperors, after the

god Viracocha himself, while the first Inca is Sinchi Rocca. The myth

of the Ayars would then hark back to the Megalithic age and to the

cosmogonies associated with Titicaca, while their connexion with the

Incas, after the dynasty of Tampu-Tocco, would be, as it were, but a

natural telescoping of ancient myth and later history, adding to Inca

prestige.

In Inca lore there are other legends--the tale of the prince who was

stolen by his father's enemies and who wept tears of blood, by this

portent saving his life; the legend of the virgin of the Sun who

loved a pipe-playing shepherd and of their transformation into rocks;

the story of Ollantay, the general, who loved the Inca's daughter,

preserved in the drama which Markham has translated; and along with

these are many fragments of creation-stories and aetiological myths

chronicled by the early writers. History and poetic fancy combine in

these to give materials into which are woven beliefs and practices

far more ancient than the Inca race, just as Hellenic myth contains

distorted reflections of the pre-Greek age of the Aegean. By means of

such tales the ancient shrines are made to speak again, as through

oracles.