Peru: a land of contrast

by Millicent Todd Bingham

“May he not destroy us! He, the creator of the earth; he, the righteous, who created heaven."—Hymn of Indian Sun-worship from the Rig-Veda.

Primitive peoples usually adore that natural force which is their greatest good. Gratitude for benefits conferred is the basis of all pagan religion. Primitive peoples also worship the sky and the bright objects within it. Sun worshippers combine the two.

Inti, the Sun, child of the Universal Spirit, is his mighty emblem, a symbol of his uncreated glory, the quickening principle in nature, the great wizard of Peru, the only source of vitality upon earth, by whose energy the winds arise, the glaciers slide over the mountains, by whose energy even the rain descends, the rivers swell, and cascades leap through the valleys down toward the sea. In how much more real a sense than the Incas knew is Peru the land of the sun!

The Sun, ruler of the stars, together with Quilla, the Moon, ruler of winds and waters, his sister, wife, and queen, created beautiful Chasca, the Dawn, “whose time was the gloaming and twilight, whose messengers the fleecy clouds which sail through the sky ... and who, when he shakes his clustering hair, drops noiselessly pearls of dew on the green grass fields.”

The light-rays emanating from the Sun and the morning star of double course are his messengers, bringing strength and power. They precede to announce his coming in the morning, and follow him as, by the force of his power and heat, the sea parts in the evening to receive him.

The name of Sun-temples in Peru was Intihuatana, the binding of the Sun, the place where the eternal light or fire was held fast. Though there were many such throughout the kingdom, the Holy of Holies was at Cuzco, the Place of Gold, Inti-cancha, oriented to the sunrise, golden crown gleaming, sheltering walls and cornices lined with gold plates under its roof of straw. There flamed the great golden image of the Sun, glistening with emeralds and other precious stones, completely covering one side of the temple opposite the eastern portal. The mummies of all former kings, perfect replicas of themselves, sat staring as in more active days from their thrones of gold along the walls, the eyes shining with a mixture of gold. “And so light were these bodies that an Indian could easily carry one of them in his arms to the houses of Spanish gentlemen who desired to see them.”

Beyond, twinkled the temple of the Moon, the Sun’s coya. The queens, her descendants, were also called coya, “not being worthy a title so truly magnificent as Inca.” This was the Place of Silver, surrounded by the dark shadow of night, receiving the silent homage of the queens, the sister-wives of the Incas, reposing on silver thrones. At full moon the festival of the deities of water was held here.

A white cross of crystalline jasper hung from a silver chain in a secret place. The white light in it increased and decreased with the moon. It was beneficent and associated with the morning light, whose compartment came next, sacred to the Dawn with the Morning Star, chasca coyllur, ragged with earth mist, he of the long curling locks, the page of the Sun. The royal runners were named for him, messengers of the Inca as he of the Sun. All the other stars, companions of the Moon, which vanish at the coming of the Sun, glittered each in its proper magnitude from a starry ceiling.

The temple belonging to Thunder, Lightning, and the Thunderbolt—servants of the Sun, but messengers of an angry god—shone with tiles of gold, but was without symbol. As the arms of the Inca, the dread liquid fire which darted from heaven like a golden serpent with quick spring and mortal bite, surrounded the Rainbow, beautiful cuychi, whose image spanned one wall of the room beyond, a multi-colored ray of the Sun, flickering over the showery hillside, announcing his gracious reappearance after the tempest and promising peace. The all-powerful Sun could subdue the dark cloud and draw from its depths the shining rainbow, whose fragile arch widens as the Sun sinks. He lives in the clouds, and the rainbow is the hem of his garment. Is it strange that the Incas should have held it in such veneration that when they saw it in the air they shut their mouths and clapped their hands before it? Is it not stranger that they only should have worshipped the rainbow and placed it on their banners as an emblem of God?

All the priests of the Sun in Cuzco were of the blood royal, a privileged class. As many as thirty thousand officiated in Inti-cancha. They washed the sacrifices in fountains of water which bubbled up in golden cisterns and celebrated the great festivals in glittering dresses of feathers with drums of serpents’ skins.