Peru: a land of contrast

by Millicent Todd Bingham

A MARKET IN HUANCAYO.

In Acllahuasi, near by, lived a thousand virgins, the most beautiful of all the pure blood of the Sun, destined as his wives, and watched over by their mamacunas. Visited only by the coya, they spun the fine vicuña garments for the Inca’s use and sewed upon them little plates of gold and emeralds. They wove and embroidered the royal coca bags which the Inca hung upon his left shoulder. They made the sacred llautu with the colored fringe, and the straw-colored twist for the head of the prince royal. They gathered bones of white llamas and burned them with linen they had spun. Then they collected the ashes, and looking toward the east, threw them into the air, an offering to the Sun. They made bread for the festivals of the Sun and the chicha drunk by the Inca and his kindred, in kettles of gold and silver. For recreation they went out to walk in their garden of silver and gold.

Nearly half the year in the Empire of the Sun was given to celebrating—everything from the first day of the moon to the day of marriage of the royal brides, coyaraymi. The beginnings of the four seasons were festivals. At the vernal equinox degrees of chivalry were taken by young nobles who, having gone through all possible tests, fasting, and temptation, received at last the kiss upon the shoulder and the jab through the ear-lobe given by the Inca with a nail of gold.

At the autumnal equinox all subjects were cleansed of whatever troubled them, when, purified with children’s blood, they asked the midday Sun to protect them from outward calamities and inward diseases. A messenger of the Sun with a gold-studded lance, fluttering feathers of many colors along its length, ran down from Sachsahuaman to the center of the city, where four sons of the Sun waited with lances to be touched by him, and scatter to the four quarters of the earth at the Sun’s command, all evils which beset mankind. Each ran six leagues in his separate direction to spread the good news. People shook their clothes. The evils of night were driven out by lighted torches, which were then thrown into a stream and extinguished before being borne away. Confession of sins followed.

The greatest feast was Intiraymi, the Binding of the Sun, when his southern shadow grew no longer, when the Sun-god by some unknown power was hindered from progressing farther. This was always a mystery. Tupac Yupanqui had said: “Many say that the Sun lives, and that he is the maker of all things.... Now we know that many things receive their beings during the absence of the Sun and therefore he is not the maker of all things; and that the Sun hath not life is evident for that it always moves in its circle and yet is never weary, for if it had life it would require rest as we do and were it free it would visit other parts of the heavens unto which it never inclines out of its own sphere. But as a thing obliged to a particular station, moves always in the same circle and is like an arrow which is directed by the hand of the archer.”

Later, Huayna Ccapac said: “There must be some other whom our father, the Sun, takes for a more supreme and more powerful lord than himself; by whose commands he every day measures the compass of the heavens without any intermission or hour of repose; for if he were absolute and at his own disposal he would certainly allot himself some time of cessation though it were only to please his own humor and fancy without other consideration than that of liberty and change.”

But to continue with the festival of the summer solstice. At peep of day the Inca and all the nobles of the blood of the Sun went in procession under canopies of feathers to await his arrival. Foreign princes and distinguished vassals, in garments plated with gold and silver, skins of jaguars, and condors’ wings, assembled at a little distance, the whole people filling the streets of Cuzco. All barefoot, crouching, they waited, looking toward the east. Hardly had the first rays touched the snowy mountain-tops when a loud shout of joy, songs of triumph, and deafening music on rude instruments broke from the multitude. It grew louder and louder as the god, in rising, shed more and more light upon the people. They raised their arms, opened their hands, and kissed the air so filled with light.

The Inca, rising, greeted the pomp of dawn. He held two great bowls of gold filled with chicha in his hands; the contents of one he poured into a golden channel leading to the temple, and the vapor rising in the heat, it seemed as if the Sun himself were drinking. The contents of the other he shared with all his kindred, pouring it into little golden goblets.