Spanish America, Vol. 2 (of 2)

by Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle

In their agricultural pursuits they displayed great diligence and ingenuity, irrigating their fields, and manuring them with the dung of sea fowls procured from the islands on the coast; they also turned up the earth with a sort of mattock formed of hard wood. In the arts of architecture they had advanced far beyond the other nations of America. The great temple of the sun at Pachacamac, with the palace of the Inca, and the fortress, were so connected together as to form one great building half a league in circuit, and many ruins of palaces and temples still existing, prove the extent of the knowledge and perseverance of these people.

The immense obelisks of Tiahuacan, and the town of Chulunacas, with the mausolea of Chachapoyas, which are conical stone buildings supporting large rude busts, are among the most singular, though unfortunately the least known of the Peruvian remains; and are equally curious as the great military roads with their accompanying palaces or posts; together with the buildings still existing in the province of Quito, which have already been described.

Their skill in polishing stones to form mirrors, in sharpening them to serve as hatchets and instruments of war, was as admirable as the ingenuity they displayed in all their ornamental works of gold, silver and precious stones.

In the religion of the Peruvians few of those sanguinary traits which so forcibly marked the character of the worship of the Mexicans were found; they adored the Sun as the supreme Deity, under whose influence they also acknowledged various dependent gods; and instead of offering human victims on the altars, they presented to that glorious luminary a part of the productions of the earth, which had come to life and maturity through his genial warmth, and they sacrificed as an oblation of gratitude some animals before his shrine, placing around it the most skilful works of their hands.

Next to the sun they beheld their Incas with the greatest reverence, looking upon them as his immediate descendants and vicegerents upon earth. The system universally adopted by these patriarchal kings, bound the affections of their people more firmly to them, than even this their supposed divine legation; and as they never intermarried with their subjects, they were kept at so great a distance that their power was unbounded. The only sanguinary feature displayed in the Peruvian rites, was in their burials; as, on the death of the Incas, or of any great curaca or chief, a number of his servants and domestic animals were slain and interred around the guacas or tumuli, that they might be ready to attend them in a future state, in which these people fully believed. When Huana Capac, the greatest of the Incas, was buried, 1000 victims were doomed to accompany his body to the tomb.

In ancient Peru the only very large city was Cuzco or Couzco; every where else the people lived in villages or in scattered habitations: and as the palaces of the Incas and their fortresses, which were built in all parts of the country, were rarely surrounded with the houses of the natives, very few distinct towns remain.

The ancient Peruvians had traditions concerning a deluge, in which their ancestors were all drowned, excepting a few who got into caves in the high mountains; they also adored two beings named Con and Pachacamac, who created the race of Peruvians in an extraordinary manner; and they asserted that Pachacamac dwelt amongst them till the Spaniards came, when he suddenly disappeared.

But the Peruvians of the present day are a very different people from their progenitors, as they are timid and dispirited, melancholy in their temperament, severe and inexorable in the exercise of authority, wonderfully indifferent to the general concerns of life, and seeming to have little notion, or dread of death. They stand in awe of their European masters, but secretly dislike and shun their society, and they are said to be of a distrustful disposition, and though robust and capable of enduring great fatigue, yet they are very lazy. Their habitations are miserable hovels, destitute of every convenience or accommodation, and disgustingly filthy; their dress is poor and mean, and their food coarse and scanty; their strongest propensity is to spirituous liquors, and to that they sacrifice all other considerations, but which is unmixed with any love for gaming: they follow all the external rites of the catholic religion, and spend large sums in masses and processions.

Soon after the conquest of America, the country and the Indians were parcelled out into encomiendas, a sort of feudal benefices which were divided among the conquerors, and the priests and lawyers who arrived from Spain; the holder of this property was obliged to reside on his estate, to see the Indians properly instructed in religions duties, and to protect their persons. In return the natives were bound to pay the encomendero a certain tribute, but they were not reduced to absolute slavery. This system was variously modified and changed by the successors of Charles V. who introduced it, till the reign of Philip V. when it was entirely abolished on account of the continual complaints which were made to that sovereign of the exactions of the Spaniards, and their total neglect of the Indians.

This plan was followed by one still more fatal, that of the repartimientos; according to which the governor or judge of the district was directed to supply the Indians in his department with cattle, seed corn, implements of agriculture, clothes and food at a fixed price. The abuses attendant on such a system were enormous, and so grievously were the natives afflicted that it at last was abolished in 1779. Spanish America was incorporated to the crown of Castile by Charles V. on September 14th, 1559, at a solemn council held in Barcelona; but notwithstanding this decree declared that the white inhabitants of America were to have no personal controul over the Indians, the greatest enormities were still committed.