With regard to the true position that the portrait of Manco Capac ought to hold in this middle space, how near it should stand to history and how near to fable, we should find it difficult to say, and perhaps useless to inquire. Plutarch has gravely given us the lives and actions of several heroes who are evidently more fabulous than Capac, and of others who should be placed on the same line with him. The existence of Theseus, Romulus and Numa is more doubtful and their actions less probable than his. The character of Capac, in regard to its reality, stands on a parallel with that of the Lycurgus of Plutarch and the Cyrus of Xenophon; not purely historical nor purely fabulous, but presented to us as a compendium of those talents and labors which might possibly be crowded into the capacity of one mind, and be achieved in one life, but which more probably belong to several generations; the talents and labors that could reduce a great number of ferocious tribes into one peaceable and industrious state.
Garcilasso was himself an Inca by maternal descent, born and educated at Cusco after the Spanish conquest. He writes apparently with the most scrupulous regard to truth, with little judgment and no ornament. He discovers a credulous zeal to throw a lustre on his remote ancestor Manco Capac, not by inventing new incidents, but by collecting with great industry all that had been recorded in the annals of the family. And their manner of recording events, tho not so perfect as that of writing, was not so liable to error as traditions merely oral, like those of the Caledonian and other Celtic bards, with respect to the ancient heroes of their countries.
His account states, that about four centuries previous to the discovery of that country by the Spaniards, the natives of Peru were as rude savages as any in America. They had no fixed habitations, no ideas of permanent property; they wandered naked like the beasts, and like them depended on the events of each day for a subsistence. At this period Manco Capac and his wife Mauna Oella appeared on a small island in the lake Titiaca, near which the city of Cusco was afterwards built. These persons, to establish a belief of their divinity in the minds of the people, were clothed in white garments of cotton, and declared themselves descended from the sun, who was their father and the god of that country. They affirmed that he was offended at their cruel and perpetual wars, their barbarous modes of worship, and their neglecting to make the best use of the blessings he was constantly bestowing, in fertilizing the earth and producing vegetation; that he pitied their wretched state, and had sent his own children to instruct them and to establish a number of wise regulations, by which they might be rendered happy.
By some uncommon method of persuasion, these persons drew together a few of the savage tribes, laid the foundation of the city of Cusco, and established what is called the kingdom of the Sun, or the Peruvian empire. In the reign of Manco Capac, the dominion was extended about eight leagues from the city; and at the end of four centuries it was established fifteen hundred miles on the coast of the Pacific ocean, and from that ocean to the Andes. During this period, thro a succession of twelve monarchs, the original constitution, established by the first Inca, remained unaltered; and this constitution, with the empire itself, was at last overturned by an accident which no human wisdom could foresee or prevent.
For a more particular detail of the character and institutions of this extraordinary personage the reader is referred to a subsequent note, in which he will find a dissertation on that subject.
In the passage preceding this reference, I have alluded to the fabulous traditions relating to these children of the sun. In the remainder of the second and thro the whole of the third book, I have given what may be supposed a probable narrative of their real origin and actions. The space allowed to this episode may appear too considerable in a poem whose principal object is so different. But it may be useful to exhibit in action the manners and sentiments of savage tribes, whose aliment is war; that the contrast may show more forcibly the advantages of civilized life, whose aliment is peace.
No. 18
Long robes of white my shoulders must embrace, To speak my lineage of ethereal race;
Book II. Line 553.
As the art of spinning is said to have been invented by Oella, it is no improbable fiction to imagine that they first assumed these white garments of cotton as an emblem of the sun, in order to inspire that reverence for their persons which was necessary to their success. Such a dress may likewise be supposed to have continued in the family as a badge of royalty.