IV.
Let us now turn to the priesthood which presided over the worship of these numerous deities.
There was no sacerdotal caste in Peru, or, to speak more correctly, the Inca family constituted the only sacerdotal caste in the strict sense of the word. This family retained for itself all the highest positions in the priesthood, as well as in the army and administration. These priests of the higher rank bore special garments and insignia, while the lower clergy wore the ordinary costume. At the head of all the priests of the empire, first after the reigning Inca, stood the Villac Oumau, "the chief sacrificer," also, as we have seen, called the Huacapvillac. He was nominated by the reigning Inca, and in his turn nominated all his subordinates. His name indicates that he was the living oracle, the interpreter of the will of the Sun. You can understand, therefore, how important it was for the policy of the Incas that he should himself be subject to the authority and discretion of the sovereign. After him came the rest of the chief priests, also members of the Inca family, whom he put in charge of the provincial temples of the Sun. At Cuzco itself all the priests had to be Incas. They were divided into squadrons, which attended in succession, according to the quarters of the moon, to the elaborate ritual of the service. And here we must admire the consummate art with which the Incas had planned everything in their empire to secure their supremacy against all attaint, in religion as in all else, while still leaving the successively annexed populations a certain measure of religious freedom. In the provinces, the Inca family, numerous as it was, could not have provided priests for all the sanctuaries; and, moreover, there would be local rites, traditions, perhaps even priesthoods, which could not well be fitted into the framework of the official religion. The Incas therefore had decided that the priests of the local deities should be affiliated to the imperial priesthood, but in such a way that the chief priests of the local deities should at the same time be subordinate priests of the deities of the empire. What a wonderful stroke of political genius! What happier method could have been found of teaching the subject populations, while still maintaining their traditional forms of worship, to regard the imperial cultus patronized by the reigning Inca as superior to all others? And what an invaluable guarantee of obedience was obtained by this association of the non-Inca priests with the official priesthood, the honours and advantages of which they were thus made to share, without any room for an aspiration after independence! I regard this organization of the priesthood in ancient Peru as one of the most striking proofs of the political genius of the Incas, and as one of the facts which best explain how a theocracy, which was after all based on the absolute and exclusive pretensions of one special mythology, was able to consolidate itself and endure for centuries, while exercising a large toleration towards other traditions and forms of worship.[95]
By the side of the priests there were also priestesses; and they were clothed with a very special function. I refer to those Virgins of the Sun (acllia = chosen ones), those Peruvian nuns, who so much impressed the early historians of Peru. There were convents of these Virgins at Cuzco and in the chief cities of the empire. At Cuzco there were five hundred of them, drawn for the most part from the families of the Incas and the Curacas or nobles, although (for a reason which will be apparent presently) great beauty gave even a daughter of the people a sufficient title to enter the sacred abode. They had a lady president—I had almost said a "mother abbess"—who selected them while yet quite young; and under her superior direction, matrons, or Mamaconas, superintended the young flock. They lived encloistered, in absolute retreat, without any relationship with the outside world. Only the reigning Inca, his chief wife, the Coya, and the chief priest, were allowed to penetrate this sanctuary of the virgins. Now these visits of the Inca's were not exactly disinterested. The fact is, that it was here he generally looked for recruits for his harem. You will ask how that could be reconciled with the vow of chastity which the maidens had taken; but their promise had been never to take any consort except the Sun, or him to whom the Sun should give them. Now the Inca, the child of the Sun, his representative and incarnation upon earth, began by assigning the most beautiful to himself, after which he might give some of those who had not found special favour in his eyes to his Curacas. And thus the vow was kept intact. In other respects, the most absolute chastity was sternly enforced. If any nun violated her vow, or was unhappy enough to allow the sacred fire that burned day and night in the austere abode to be extinguished, the penalty was death. And the strange thing is, that the mode of death was identical with that which awaited the Roman vestal guilty of the same offences. The culprit was buried alive. This illustrates the value of the theories started by those authors who can never discover any resemblance of rites or beliefs between two peoples without forthwith setting about to inquire which of the two borrowed from the other! It will hardly be maintained that the Peruvians borrowed this cruel custom from the ancient Romans, and assuredly the Romans did not get it from Peru. Whence, then, can the resemblance spring? From the same train of ideas leading to the same conclusion. By the sacrilege of the culprit, the gods of heaven and of light, the protecting and benevolent deities, were offended and incensed, and the whole country would feel the tokens of their wrath. To disarm their anger, its unhappy cause must expiate her guilt, and at the same time must be removed from their sight and given over to the powers of darkness, for she was no longer worthy to see the light. And that is why the dark tomb must swallow her. She had betrayed her spouse the Sun—let her henceforth be the spouse and the slave of darkness; and let her be sent alive to those dark powers, that they might do with her as they would. We must add that the guilty nun's accomplice was strangled, and that her whole family from first to last was put to death.
The ordinary occupations of the Virgins of the Sun consisted in making garments for the members of the imperial family and tapestries destined to adorn the temples and palaces, in kneading and baking the sacred loaves, preparing the sacred drinks, and, finally, in watching and feeding the sacred fire. You perceive that it was not exactly the ascetic principle which had given rise to these convents—as in the case of the Buddhist and Christian institutions, for example—but rather the desire to do honour to the Sun, the supreme god, by consecrating seraglios to him, in which his numerous consorts, protected by a severe rule, could be kept from all except himself and those to whom he might give them; accomplishing, meanwhile, those menial tasks which, especially under the rule of polygamy, woman is required to perform in the abode of her lord and master.[96]
All this shows us once more, Gentlemen, how the same fundamental logic of the human mind asserts itself across a thousand diversities, and re-appears under every conceivable form in every climate and every race. Only let us look close enough and with the requisite information, and we shall find in every case that all is explained, that all holds together, that all is justified, by some underlying principle, and that "that idiot of a word," chance, is never anything but a veil for our ignorance. And thus, when we notice anything paradoxical, grotesque, and unexplained by the resources we command at present, we must be very careful not to pronounce it inexplicable. We should rather suspend our judgment, wait till wider reflection and renewed investigation have shown us the middle terms, and meanwhile keep silence rather than attribute to chance or to influences which escape all human reason the phenomena that seem abnormal.
For instance, you have heard sometimes of the strange custom in accordance with which the father of a new-born child goes to bed and is nursed as an invalid. You are perhaps aware that this custom, that appears so strange to us and is now restricted to a few savage tribes, was noted in ancient times in Europe itself, and has been preserved almost to our own time in certain cantons of the Pyrenees. It must therefore have been extremely wide-spread. Yet for a long time it seemed inexplicable. But now, thanks to investigations and comparisons, the explanation has been found. There is no doubt that the custom in question rested on the idea that there was a close solidarity between the health of the father and that of the new-born babe, so that if the father should fall sick, his far weaker child would die. The father, therefore, must be guarded from all over-exertion, must abstain from all excess—in short, was best in bed!
So, too, in the present case. How are we to explain the resemblance between the treatment of the Vestals at Rome and the Virgins of the Sun at Cuzco? It was once impossible, but now that we are better acquainted with the genesis, the spirit, the inner logic of the primitive religions, and the modes of life, the wants and the apprehensions proper to the pre-historic ages, we have no difficulty in attaching two parallel customs to a single religious principle which had found acceptance alike in Italy and Peru. And this is one of the chief tasks, and one of the greatest charms, of the branch of study which I have the honour of professing. It shows us that even in human error, human reason has never abdicated its throne.
We have still to speak of the temples, the ritual and the chief festivals of ancient Peru. To these subjects we shall devote the first part of our sixth and last Lecture, reserving the closing portion for the conclusions and the general lessons suggested by our two-fold study of Mexico and Peru.