The Mythology of All Races, Vol. 11: Latin-American

by Hartley Burr Alexander

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.

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.