The official religion was a worship of the sun; but along with it were carried the myths of Viracocha, the national hero-god, whom it is not difficult to identify with the personifications of light so common in American religions. The ceremonies of the cult were elaborate, and were not associated with the bloody sacrifices frequent in Yucatan and Mexico. Their mythology was rich, and many legends were current of the white and bearded Viracocha, the culture hero, who gave them their civilization, and of his emergence from the “house of the dawn.” According to some authorities which appear to be trustworthy, the more intelligent of the Kechuas appear to have risen above object-worship, and to have advocated the belief in a single and incorporeal divinity.
A variety of ancestral worship also prevailed, that of the pacarina, or forefather of the ayllu or gens, idealized as the soul or essence of his descendants. The emblem worshipped was the actual body, called malqui, which was mummied and preserved with reverential care in sacred underground temples.
The morality of the Peruvians stood low. Their art relics abound in obscene devices and the portraiture of unnatural passions. We can scarcely err in seeing in them a nation which had been deteriorated by a long indulgence in debasing tastes.
The Kechua language is one of harsh phonetics, especially in the southern dialects, but of considerable linguistic development. The modifications of the theme are by means of suffixes, which are so numerous as to give it a flexibility and power of conveying slight shades of meaning rare in American tongues, and which Friedrich Müller compares to that of the Osmanli Turks.[300] Its literature was by no means despicable. In spite of the absence of a method of writing, there was a large body of songs, legends and dramas preserved by oral communication and the quipus. A number of these have been published. Among them the drama of Ollanta is the most noteworthy. It appears to be a genuine aboriginal production, committed to writing soon after the conquest, and bears the marks of an appreciation of literary form higher than we might have expected.[301] The poems or yaraveys, usually turn on love for a theme, and often contain sentiments of force and delicacy.[302] Several excellent grammatical studies of the Kechua have appeared in recent years.[303]
KECHUA LINGUISTIC STOCK.
- Ayahucas, south of Quitu.
- Canas, east of the Vilcañeta Pass.
- Caras, on the coast from Charapoto to Cape San Francisco.
- Casamarcas, on the head-waters of the Marañon.
- Chachapuyas, on the right bank of the Marañon.
- Chancas, near Huanta, in department Ayacucho.
- Chichasuyus, in the inter-Andean valley, from Loxa to Cerro de Pasco.
- Conchucos, near Huaraz.
- Huacrachucus, on both banks of the gorge of the Marañon.
- Huamachucus, on the upper Marañon.
- Huancapampas, near Juan de Bracamoros.
- Huancas, in the valley of Sausa.
- Huancavillcas, on and near the river Guayaquil.
- Huanucus, near Tiahuanuco.
- Incas, between Rio Apurimac and Paucartambo.
- Iquichanos, near Huanta.
- Kechuas, from Lake Apurimac to the Pampas.
- Lamanos or Lamistas, about Truxillo.
- Malabas, on Rio San Miguel (a branch of the Esmeraldas).
- Mantas, on the coast north of the Gulf of Guayaquil.
- Morochucos, in the department of Ayacucho.
- Omapachas, adjacent to the Rucanas.
- Quitus, near Quito.
- Rucanas, near the coast, about lat. 15°.
- Yauyos, near Cañete.[304]
2. The Aymaras.
I have thought it best to treat of the Aymara as a distinct linguistic stock, although the evidence is steadily accumulating that it is, if not merely a dialect of the Kechua, then a jargon made up of the Kechua and other stocks. In the first place, the name “Aymara” appears to have been a misnomer, or, as Markham strongly puts it, a “deplorable blunder,” of the Jesuit missionaries stationed at Juli.[305] The true Aymaras were an unimportant ayllu or gens of the Kechuas, and lived in the valley of the Abancay, hundreds of miles from Juli. A number of them had been transported to Juli to work in the mines, and there had intermarried with women of the Colla and Lupaca tribes, native to that locality. The corrupt dialect of the children of these Aymara colonists was that to which the Jesuit, Ludovico Bertonio, gave the name Aymara, and in it, Markham claims, he wrote his grammar and dictionary.[306]
Its grammar and phonetics are closely analogous to those of the southern Kechua dialects, and about one-fourth of its vocabulary is clearly traceable to Kechua radicals. Moreover, the Colla, Lupaca, Pacasa and allied dialects of that region are considered by various authorities as derived from the Kechua. For these reasons, Markham, Von Tschudi, and later, Professor Steinthal, have pronounced in favor of the opinion that the so-called Aymara is a member of the Kechua linguistic stock.[307]