The Virgins of the Sun.
These girls were put in charge of old, reliable women, who had spent many years in the convents. They taught the girls how to spin and to weave the hangings for the temples. They prepared the apparel for the ruler and his people. They were instructed in their religious duties, one of these being the watching over the sacred fires.
When the girls entered the convents they were shut entirely away from the world, not even being permitted to see or to hear from their friends and relatives. Morality was carefully inculcated. If one of the young women should be caught in an intrigue, she was buried alive, her lover was strangled, and his native town razed to the ground.
No one was allowed to enter these convents except the king and his lawful queen. The institutions were inspected each year by persons sent for that purpose, who made a report of what they noted on their visits.
The buildings themselves were as finely furnished as were the palaces of the Incas and the temples, as they were for the accommodation of the Daughters of the Sun and so were in especial charge of the state.
When these young women reached a marriageable age, the most beautiful among them were chosen to become brides of the ruler, others were given by him as wives to the higher nobles, while others remained in the service of religion, vowing perpetual virginity, and who were held in the very highest respect.
Human Sacrifice.
Industries.
As is well known, much of the coast region of the country which was occupied by the empire of the ancient Peruvians is arid, as the prevailing winds are from the east and the moisture is taken from them by the high Andes mountains, and thus the rivers are few and with but little water in them, often dry for a long time, and there is but little rainfall, if at all. In order to overcome this lack of moisture and to add to the fertile area of the country, the Peruvians built reservoirs and aqueducts. These aqueducts were sometimes above ground and sometimes underground and some were quite long, one at least having been between four and five hundred miles in length and twelve feet deep and wide. As they did not use the arch they could not well cross depressions or streams and had to make long detours, and sometimes they tunneled in the mountains for the passages. They had sluices by means of which the water could be turned on to the land and they were very careful in allowing the right amount of water to be used on the fields. The construction of these aqueducts, and other great buildings, is all the more remarkable when it is considered that these people had no iron tools of any kind whatever.
They were acquainted with the principle of fertilizing the crop. A small sardine-like fish was abundant along the coast, which they caught and often placed with the grains of maize in the holes in planting. Guano, the deposit of sea-fowls on the islands along the coast, was used in great quantity by them, and much care was given to its proper distribution to the different districts. No one was allowed on the islands during the breeding season and such trespass and killing the birds at any time were punished by death. "Inland other forms of manure were used."[20]