The old and the new Peru

by Marie Robinson Wright

The contemplation of the ancient ruins of Peru stirs the imagination and brings before the mental vision pictures of these people of a forgotten past, with many fanciful ideas of their appearance and their origin, of the lives they led, the religion they practised, and the predominating social features of their civilization. Were they “a white and bearded race” as some of the legends tell? Or did the natives emerge out of barbarism and advance in culture, at first, unaided by outside influences? Were the conditions in ancient Peru as favorable for the evolution of human culture as those of ancient India and Egypt? One would like to know, in reference to the ancient edifices, whose crumbling ruins are still wonderful after the lapse of ages, who built them, and what the elaborate picture writings on their walls mean to tell us. It is said that the pre-Incaic people used hieroglyphics, but that the knowledge of this art was lost or prohibited by the Incas. Their civilization also gives evidence, in the ornamented pottery, the carvings of intricate design, and the fine workmanship of their gold and silver vessels, that its art surpassed, in technique and imagination, the productions of later prehistoric periods. In the earliest ages two closely related civilizations existed in the coast region of Peru, one of them centred around Trujillo and the other in the vicinity of Nasca and Ica, and, fine as they were, there is nothing similar to them in later cultures. The southern form is especially notable for the perfection of shape and decoration of its pottery, the freedom and breadth of its style; while the northern form is more distinguished by the harmony and greatness of its development. Gold, silver, and copper abounded and were wrought into manifold shapes; gold was cast and chased, soldered with copper and silver, or used as plating over copper and inlaid with turquoises; mosaic was also known. This culture was followed by that of the Tiahuanaco, which in the course of centuries declined and was forgotten, until the appearance of the Incas, who became the heirs of all the cultures which had preceded theirs in Peru.

FOUND IN THE BURIAL PLACE OF PACHACÁMAC.

OLLANTAYTAMBO. ONCE THE FAVORITE RESIDENCE OF THE INCAS.

CHAPTER II
THE RISE OF THE CUZCO DYNASTY

AN INCAIC DOORWAY.

Throughout the annals of history there is found no parallel to the extraordinary character and development of the great empire of the Incas, whose glory and splendor attained such supremacy and shone with such lustre, under a benign though despotic sovereignty, as to eclipse all earlier culture in pre-Columbian America. Whatever may have been the heritage which the Children of the Sun received from their predecessors, they carefully avoided giving it any importance in their records. The Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, who wrote the history of his people more than half a century after the Conquest, says that this rich and mighty monarchy was founded in the midst of barbarism and degradation and developed in all its magnificence through the divine direction of noble princes, who derived their power from heaven alone, and who were both the spiritual and the temporal rulers of the people, by right of their celestial origin.

A romantic charm envelopes the fame of the Incas and their brilliant court, their spectacular religion with its temples prodigally ornamented with gold and silver, and, above all, their own royal personality, so impressive in the dignity and sanctity of heaven-born greatness. One must even confess to resentment when meddlesome scholars seek to take away any of the prestige of these picturesque Conquerors of the Andes in favor of an earlier race, or of successive races, whose identity is lost in a mist of fable and legend, and who can present no such fascinating pageant to our imagination as do the heroes of Cuzco, with their mythical genealogy, the fame of their refined theocracy, and the prowess of their splendid legions. After all, it has not yet been proved that the lords of Cuzco were not of the same race and origin as the authors of the most ancient civilization of Peru, and, even, of all America. Scholars who have studied the language, customs, and monuments of the ancient Peruvians, find what is evidently a parent influence making itself felt through all the changing conditions of successive periods, and in spite of seemingly foreign and unrelated cultures that have appeared in various localities during the course of the ages. The two languages which are most generally spoken by the Indians throughout the territory formerly included in the Incas’ dominion—the Aymará and the Quichua—are apparently derived from a common stock. May it not be true that the people who spoke these languages, and to whom are credited the monuments of Tiahuanaco and Cuzco, were the heirs of a common ancestry, and that their progenitors were the authors of the earliest culture in Peru?