To return to the Peruvian author of whom I intended to speak. He is the celebrated Garcilasso de la Vega, who published his Commentarios reales in 1609 and 1617.[41] Garcilasso's father was a European, but his mother was a Peruvian, and, what is more, a Palla, that is to say, a princess of the family of the Incas. Born in 1540, this Garcilasso had received from his mother and a maternal uncle a great amount of information as to the family, the history and the persons of the ancient sovereigns. He was extremely proud of his origin; so much so, indeed, that he issued his works under the name of "Garcilasso el Inca de la Vega," though he had no real title to the name of Inca, which could not be transmitted by women. A genuine fervour breathes through his accounts of the history of his Peruvian country and his glorious ancestors, and it is to him that we owe the knowledge of many facts that would otherwise have been lost. The interest of his narrative explains the reputation so long enjoyed by his work, but the more critical spirit of recent times has discovered that his filial zeal has betrayed him into lavish embellishments of the situation created by the clever and cautious policy of his forebears, the Incas. He has passed in silence over many of their faults, and has attributed more than one merit to them to which they have no just claim. But in spite of all this, when we have made allowance for his family weakness, we may consult him with great advantage as to the institutions and sovereigns of ancient Peru.
We must allow, with Garcilasso, that from the year 1000 A.D. onwards (for he places the origin of their power at about this date) the Incas had accomplished a work that may well seem marvellous in many respects. Had there been any relations between Peru and Central America? Can we explain the Peruvian civilization as the result of an emigration from the isthmic region, or an imitation of what had already been realized there? There is not the smallest trace of any such thing. No doubt it would be difficult to justify a categorical assertion on a subject so obscure; but it is certain that when they were discovered, Peru and the kingdom of Quito were separated from North America by immense regions plunged in the deepest savagery. Beginning at the Isthmus of Panama, this savage district stretched over the whole northern portion of South America, broken only by the demi-civilization of the Muyscas or Chibchas (New Granada); and the Peruvians knew nothing of the Mexicans. Neither the one nor the other were navigators, and nothing in the Peruvian traditions betrays the least connection with Central America. The most probable supposition is, that an indigenous civilization was spontaneously developed in Peru by causes analogous to those which had produced a similar phenomenon in the Maya country. In Peru, as in Central America, the richness of the soil, the variety of its products, the abundance of vegetable food, especially maize, secured the first conditions of civilization. The Peruvian advance was further favoured by the fact that it was protected towards the East by almost impassable mountains, and towards the West by the sea, while to the North and South it might concentrate its defensive forces upon comparatively narrow spaces.
The whole territory of the empire was divided into three parts. The first was the property of the Sun, that is to say of the priests who officiated in his numerous temples; the second belonged to the reigning Inca; and the third to the people. The people's land was divided out every year in lots apportioned to the needs of each family, but the portions assigned to the Curacas, or nobles, were of a magnitude suited to their superior dignity. Taxes were paid in days of labour devoted to the lands of the Inca and those of the Sun, or in manufactured articles of various kinds, for the cities contained a number of artizans. Indeed, it was one of the maxims of the Incas that no part of the empire, however poor, should be exempt from paying tribute of one kind or another. To such a length was this carried, that so grave a historian as Herrera tells us how the Inca Huayna Capac, wishing to determine what kind of tribute the inhabitants of Pasto were to pay, and being assured that they were so entirely without resources or capacity of any kind that they could give him nothing at all, laid on them the annual tribute of a certain measure of vermine, preferring, as he said, that they should pay this singular tax rather than nothing.[42] We cannot congratulate the officials commissioned to collect the tribute, but we cite this sample in proof of the rigour with which the Incas carried out the principles which they considered essential to the government of the country. The special principle we have just illustrated was founded on the idea that the Sun journeys and shines for every one, and that accordingly every one should contribute towards the payment of his services. For the rest, the great herds of llamas, which constituted a regular branch of the national wealth, could only be owned by the temples of the Sun and by the Inca. Every province, every town or village, had the exact nature and the exact quantity of the products it must furnish assigned, and the Incas possessed great depôts in which were stored provisions, arms and clothes for the army. All this was regulated, accounted for and checked by means of official Quipos.
The numerous body of officials charged with the general superintendence and direction of affairs was organized in a very remarkable manner, well calculated to consolidate the Inca's power. All the officials held their authority from him, and represented him to the people, just as he himself represented the Sun-god. At the bottom of the scale was an official overseer for every ten families, next above an overseer of a hundred families, then another placed over a thousand, and another over ten thousand. Each province had a governor who generally belonged to the family of the Incas. All this constituted a marvellous system of surveillance and espionage, descending from the sovereign himself to the meanest of his subjects, and founded on the principle that the rays of the Sun pierce everywhere. The lowest members of this official hierarchy, the superintendents of ten families, were responsible to their immediate superiors for all that went on amongst those under their charge, and those superiors again were responsible to the next above them, and so on up to the Inca himself, who thus held the threads of the whole vast net-work in the depths of his palace. It was another maxim of the Peruvian state that every one must work, even old men and children. Infants under five alone were excepted. It was the duty of the superintendents of ten families to see that this was carried out everywhere, and they were armed with disciplinary powers to chastise severely any one who remained idle, or who ordered his house ill, or gave rise to any scandal. Individual liberty then was closely restrained. No one could leave his place of residence without leave. The time for marriage was fixed for both sexes—for women at eighteen to twenty, for men at twenty-four or upwards. The unions of the noble families were arranged by the Inca himself, and those of the inferior classes by his officers, who officially assigned the young people one to another. Each province had its own costume, which might not be changed for any other, and every one's birthplace was marked by a ribbon of a certain colour surrounding his head.[43] In a word, the Jesuits appear to have copied the constitution of the Peruvian society when they organized their famous Paraguay missions, and perhaps this fact may help us to trace the profound motives which in either case suggested so minutely precise a system of inserting individuals into assigned places which left no room for self-direction. The Incas and the Jesuits alike had to contend against the disconnected, incoherent turbulence of savage life, and both alike were thereby thrown upon an exaggerated system of regulations, in which each individual was swaddled and meshed in supervisions and ordinances from which it was impossible to escape.
Having said so much, we must acknowledge that, generally speaking, the Incas made a very humane and paternal use of their absolute power. They strove to moderate the desolating effects of war, and generally treated the conquered peoples with kindness. But we note that in the century preceding that of the European conquest, they had devised a means of guarding against revolts exactly similar to the measures enforced against rebellious peoples by the despotic sovereigns of Nineveh and Babylon; that is to say, they transported a great part of the conquered populations into other parts of their empire, and it appears that Cuzco, like Babylon, presented an image in miniature of the whole empire. There, as at Babylon, a host of different languages might be heard, and it was amongst the children of the deported captives that Pizarro, like Cyrus at Babylon, found allies who rejoiced in the fall of the empire that had crushed their fathers. For the rest, the Incas endeavoured to spread the language of Cuzco, the Quechua, throughout their empire.[44] Nothing need surprise us in the way of political sagacity and insight on the part of this priestly dynasty. Its monarchs seem to have hit upon every device which has been imagined elsewhere for attaching the conquered peoples to themselves or rendering their hostility harmless. Thus you will remember that at Mexico there was a chapel that served as a prison for the idols of the conquered. In the same way there stood in the neighbourhood of Cuzco a great temple with seventy-eight chapels in it, where the images of all the gods worshipped in Peru were assembled. Each country had its altar there, on which sacrifice was made according to the local customs.[45]
The Spaniards, amongst whom respect for the royal person was sufficiently profound, were amazed by the marks of extreme deference of which the Inca was the object. They could not understand at first that actual religious worship was paid to him. He alone had the inherent right to be carried on a litter, and he never went out in any other way, imitating the Sun, his ancestor, who traverses the world without ever putting his foot to the ground. Some few men and women of the highest rank might rejoice in the same distinction, but only if they had obtained the Inca's sanction. In the same way, it was only the members of the Inca family and the nobles of most exalted rank who were allowed to wear their hair long, for this was a distinctive sign of the favourites of the Sun. None could enter the presence of the reigning Inca save bare-footed, clad in the most simple garments and bearing a burden on his shoulders, all in token of humility; nor must he raise his eyes throughout the audience, for no man looks upon the face of the Sun. It seems that the Incas possessed "the art of royal majesty" in a high degree. They could retain the impassive air of indifference, whatever might be going on before their eyes, like the Sun, who passes without emotion over everything that takes place below. It was thus that Atahualpa appeared to the Spaniards, who remarked the all but stony fixity of the Peruvian monarch's features in the presence of all the new sights—horses, riding, fire-arms—which filled his subjects with surprise and terror.[46] And such was the superhuman character of the Inca, that even the base office of a spittoon—excuse such a detail—was supplied by the hand of one of his ladies.[47] The salute was given to the Inca by kissing one's hand and then raising it towards the Sun. At his death the whole country went into mourning for a year. The young Incas were educated together, under conditions of great austerity, and were never allowed to mingle with young people of the inferior classes.[48]
The army of the Incas was the army of the Sun. The obligation to military service was universal, since the Sun shines for all men. Every sound man from twenty-five to fifty might be called on to serve in his company. Thus numerous and highly-disciplined armies were raised, for the spirit of obedience had penetrated all classes of the people. The Incas had abolished the use of poisoned arrows, which is so common amongst the natives of the New World.[49]
Justice was organized after fixed laws, and, as is usually the case in theocracies, these laws were severe. For in theocracies, to the social evil of the offence is added the impiety committed against the Deity and his representative on earth. The culprit has been guilty not only of crime, but of sacrilege. The penalty of death was freely inflicted even in the case of offences that implied no evil disposition.[50] The palanquin-bearer, for instance, who should stumble under his august burden when carrying the Inca, or any one who should speak with the smallest disrespect of him, must die. But we must also note certain principles of sound justice which the Incas had likewise succeeded in introducing. The judges were controlled, and, in case of unjust judgments, punished. The law was more lenient to a first offence than to a second, to crimes committed in the heat of the moment than to those of malise prepense; more lenient to children than to adults, and (mark this) more lenient to the common people than to the great.[51] The members of the Inca family alone were exempted from the penalty of death, which in their case was replaced by imprisonment for life. They alone might, and indeed must, marry their sisters, for a reason that we shall see further on. Thus everything was calculated to set this divine family apart. Polygamy, too, was only allowed to the Incas and to the families of next highest rank after them, who, however, might not marry at all without the personal assent of the sovereign.[52] But the Incas strove to make themselves loved. Herrera tells us of establishments in which orphans and foundlings were brought up at the Inca's charges, and of the alms he bestowed on widows who had no means of subsistence.[53]