The indians who reside among the creoles and Spaniards on the coasts of Peru and in the province of Guayaquil are docile, obliging, and rather timid. Their timidity has been the cause of their being supposed totally indifferent to what passes; indeed, as I have before said, there does not appear to be any eager curiosity about them, they have little to satisfy; but at its lowest ebb, this disposition surely can only be termed apathy. They are industrious in the cultivation of their farms and gardens; attentive to their other occupations, and faithful in their engagements; they know the value of riches, strive to obtain them, and are fond of being considered rich, although they never boast of being so. Infidelity between man and wife is very rare; they are kind parents, which generally makes their children grateful as well as dutiful. Robertson says, that "chastity is an idea too refined for a savage." I must beg leave to state, that his compilation, founded on Spanish writings, is not always deserving of credit. Had Dr. Robertson travelled over half the countries he describes, or observed the native character of the people which he has depicted, he would have expressed himself in very different terms. Chastity is more common, and infidelity more uncommon, among the Peruvians than in most countries of the old world. The same author remarks, "in America, even among the rudest tribes, a regular union between husband and wife was universal, and the rights of marriage were understood and recognized." This surely is a proof that chastity was known among these savages; and I cannot conceive that polygamy, when sanctioned by law or custom, is any objection to chastity.
They are cleanly in their persons, and particularly so in their food; abstemious in general, but at their feasts inclined to gluttony and drunkenness; although disposed to the latter vice in a considerable degree, they are not habitual drunkards, and the females are so averse from it, that I never saw one of them intoxicated. I often observed, when living among the indians, that they slept very little; they will converse till late at night, and always rise early in the morning, especially if they have any work that requires their attention; such as irrigating their fields, when water can only be obtained at night, or tending their mules on a journey. In such cases they will abstain from sleep for three or four nights successively, without any apparent inconvenience, and they seldom or never sleep during the day. Both males and females adhere to one kind of dress, which varies little either in towns or villages. The men of Huacho wear long blue woollen trowsers, waistcoat, and sometimes a jacket; a light poncho, and a straw hat, but they are without either shoes or stockings, except some of the old men who have been alcaldes, and who afterwards wear shoes adorned with large square silver buckles when they go to church or to Lima. The alcaldes also usually wear a long blue Spanish cloak. The dress of the females is a blue flannel petticoat, plaited in folds about half an inch broad, a white shirt, and a piece of flannel, red, green, or yellow, about two yards long and three quarters of a yard broad; this they put over their shoulders like a shawl, and then throw the right end over the left shoulder, crossing the breast. They wear ear-rings formed like a rose or a button, the shank being passed through the aperture made in the ear, and secured by a small peg passed through the eye of the shank; they have also one or more rosaries, which like the ear-rings are of gold, and hang round their necks with large crosses, medals, &c. They seldom wear shoes, except when they go to church, and then often only put them on at the door; stockings they never wear. The hair both of the men and women is generally long; the former have one plat formed with the hair of the forehead, at the top of the head, and another with the rest behind, and both are fastened together at the ends; the women plat their hair in a number of very small tresses, but comb the whole from the forehead backwards. There is a considerable portion of superstition among them; old women are always afraid of being considered witches, and when a person dies his death is generally attributed to witchcraft. A widow will often, while lamenting the death of her husband, throw out a volume of abuse against some female who, as she imagines, had cast an evil eye on him. When a person praises a child or even a young animal, a by-stander will exclaim, God protect it! Dios lo guarda! to avert its being withered by an evil eye. They are considered as neophytes, and the inquisition has no power over them, nor are they included among the bull buyers. As to their religion, they are particularly attentive to all the outward forms, and strict in their attendance at church; but an instance of cunning in evading a reprimand from the rector happened at this town. An indian being questioned by the cura, rector, why he did not attend mass on a day of precept, to hear mass and work, replied, "that he had fulfilled the commandment of the church, for as he did not intend to work, mass was undoubtedly excused by the precept."
I observed at Huacho one of the ancient rites of the Peruvians; it was the ñaca feast. A child never has its hair cut till it is a year old, or thereabouts; the friends then assemble, and one by one take a small lock and cut it off, at the same time presenting something to the child. This ceremony among the ancient Peruvians was practised at the naming of the child, and the name was generally appropriate to some particular circumstance which occurred to the child on that day. The seventh Inca was called Yahuar Huacar, weeper of blood, because on that day drops of blood were observed falling from his eyes; and Huascar, the fourteenth Inca, was so named because the nobles on this day presented him with a golden chain called a huasca, after the ceremony of cutting the ñacas.
At this village I heard for the first time the oral tradition of the first Inca, Manco Capac; it was afterwards repeated to me by indians in various parts of the country, and they assured me that it was true, and that they believed it. A white man, they say, was found on the coast, by a certain Cacique, or head of a tribe, whose name was Cocapac; by signs he asked the white man who he was, and received for answer, an Englishman. He took him to his home, where he had a daughter; the stranger lived with him till the daughter of the Cacique bore him a son and a daughter, and then died. The old man called the boy Ingasman Cocapac, and the girl Mama Oclle; they were of a fair complexion and had light hair, and were dressed in a different manner from the indians. From accounts given by this stranger of the manner in which other people lived, and how they were governed, Cocapac determined on exalting his family; and having instructed the boy and girl in what he proposed to do, he took them first to the plain of Cusco, where one of the largest tribes of indians then resided, and informed them that their God, the sun, had sent them two of his children to make them happy, and to govern them; he requested them to go to a certain mountain on the following morning at sunrise, and search for them; he moreover told them that the viracochas, children of the sun, had hair like the rays of the sun, and that their faces were of the colour of the sun. In the morning the indians went to the mountain, condor urco, and found the young man and woman, but surprised at their colour and features, they declared that the couple were a wizard and a witch. They now sent them to Rimac Malca, the plain on which Lima stands, but the old man followed them, and next took them to the neighbourhood of the lake of Titicaca, where another powerful tribe resided; Cocapac told these indians the same tale, but requested them to search for the viracochas on the edge of the lake at sunrise; they did so, and found them there, and immediately declared them to be the children of their God, and their supreme governors. Elated with his success, Cocapac was determined to be revenged on the indians of Cusco; for this purpose he privately instructed his grandchildren in what he intended to do, and then informed the tribe that the viracocha, Ingasman Cocapac, had determined to search for the place where he was to reside; he requested they would take their arms and follow him, saying, that wherever he struck his golden rod or sceptre into the ground, that was the spot where he chose to remain. The young man and woman directed their course to the plain of Cusco, where having arrived, the signal was given, and the indians here, surprised by the re-appearance of the viracochas, and overawed by the number of indians that accompanied them, acknowledged them as their lord, and the children of their God. Thus, say the indians, was the power of the Incas established, and many of them have said, that as I was an Englishman, I was of their family. When H. B. M. ship Breton was at Callao, some of the officers accompanied me one Sunday afternoon to the Alameda at Lima; on our way we were saluted by several indians from the mountains, calling us their countrymen, and their relations, begging at the same time that we would drink some chicha with them.
There is a curious analogy between this tradition and one that I had from the mouth of Don Santos Pires, at Rio de Janeiro, in 1823. He told me, that before the discovery of the Brazils, an Englishman had been shipwrecked, and fell into the hands of the Coboculo indians; he had preserved or obtained from the wreck a musket and some ammunition, with which he both terrified and pleased the indians, who called him Camaruru, the man of fire, and elected him their king. He taught them several things of which they were before ignorant (as did Manco Capac and Mama Oclle the Peruvians); he was alive at the conquest of the country, and was carried to Portugal, when Emanuel granted him a valley near to Bahia, independent of the crown. Don Santos is the brother of the Baron da Torre, both lineal descendants of Camaruru, of which he boasted not a little, adding, that to the present time none of the lineal descendants had ever married a Portuguese.
The Muysca indians of the plains of Cundinamarca have a white man with a beard, called Bochica, Nemquetheba, or Suhé, for under these different names he is spoken of, as their legislator. This old man, like Manco Capac, taught them to build huts and live in communities, to till the ground, and to harvest the produce; as also to clothe themselves, with other comforts; but his wife, Chia, Yubecayguaya, or Huythaca, for she is also known by three different names, was not like Mama Oclle, who taught the females to spin, to weave, and to dye the cloths. Chia, on the contrary, opposed and thwarted every enterprize for the public good adopted by Bochica, who, like Manco Capac, was the child of the sun, dried the soil, promoted agriculture, and established wise laws. The Inca did not separate the ecclesiastical authority from the political, as Bochica did, but established a theocracia. The first opened an outlet to the lake Titicaca, for the benefit of his subjects, at a place now called Desaguadero, the outlet; while the latter, for the same purpose, opened the lake of Bogotá, at Tequendama. The Inca bequeathed his sovereign authority to his son, while Bochica named two chiefs for the government, and retired to Tunja, holy valley, where he lived two thousand years, or, as other traditions state, where his descendants governed the Muysca tribe for two thousand years. The first of these successors was called Huncahua, and the rest Huncas, which was the name of the holy city; but the Spaniards have changed the name to Tunja.
The Mexicans have likewise a bearded white man as a legislator, called Quatzalcoatl; he was the high priest of Cholula, chief of a religious sect, and a legislator; he preached peace to men, and prohibited all sacrifices to the Deity, excepting the first fruits.
We have here the tradition of four white men distinguished by the people of the new world, as having beards, a circumstance as remarkable to them, as it was visible, for they being beardless, would consequently be surprised at seeing men whose faces bore what they would be led to consider a feature so distinguishing. Two of these are said to have been Englishmen. Of the laws established by Camaruru I have no information, but those established by Manco Capac I know have no analogy, nor do they bear any resemblance to those of any of the northern governments, except, setting aside lineal descent, the papal, where the spiritual authority is exercised by the King of Rome. This coincidence of four men, bearing the same mark of a beard, three of whom were priests and legislators, occurred at places the most distant from each other, the one at Rio de Janeiro, in latitude 22° 54´ 10´´ S., longitude 42° 43´ 45´´ W.; one at Cusco in lat. 13° S., long. 81° W.; one at Cundinamarca in latitude 4° 35´ N., long. 74° 8´; and the other at Cholula in latitude 19° 4´ N., longitude 98° 14´ W.
The traditions of Manco Capac, Bochica, and Quatzalcoatl agree in predicting the arrival of bearded men at some future period, and the conquest of the different countries by them; which predictions operated strongly in favour of Pizarro, Benalcazar, and Cortes, and produced that submission of the Peruvians, Muyscas, and Mexicans, which finally laid the foundation of the degraded state of their descendants.
From some accounts of the government of the Incas of Peru, it is easy to observe how well acquainted they were with the natural character of the people whom they had to govern. The whole empire was modelled like a large monastic establishment, in which each individual had his place and his duty assigned to him, without being permitted to inquire into the conduct of his superiors, much less to question the authority of the high priest, or to doubt the justness of his mandates. Passive obedience to the decrees of their master could not but crush the germ of enterprize and ambition. Thus it is that the Peruvian indians are destitute of an active love for their country, and incapable of any exertion, unless roused by the orders of a Superior. Patient in adversity, and not elated with prosperity, their most indifferent actions are regulated by almost superstitious precision. Their veneration for the memory of their Incas is beyond description, particularly in some of the interior districts, where his decollation by Pizarro is annually represented. In this performance their grief is so natural, though excessive, their songs so plaintive, and the whole is such a scene of distress, that I never witnessed it without mingling my tears with theirs. The Spanish authorities have endeavoured to prevent this exhibition, but without effect, although several royal orders have been issued for the purpose. The indians in the territory of Quito wear black clothes, and affirm that it is mourning for their Incas, of whom they never speak but in a doleful tone. I cannot quit this subject without again saying, that from the unconquered tribes to the east and the west of Quito, both from those who were subject to the laws of the conquerors, as well as the warlike tribes of Arauco, I received the kindest treatment, and a degree of respect to which I was in no way entitled; and I hope I shall never permit ingratitude to guide either my pen or my tongue when their character is discussed.