The Quichua contains also many words that seem closely allied to the dialects spoken by the nations inhabiting the regions called today Central America and the Maya tongue. It would not be surprising that some colony emigrating from these countries should have reached the beautiful valley of Cuzco, and established themselves in it, in times so remote that we have no tradition even of the event. It is well known that the Quichua was the language of the inhabitants of the valley of Cuzco exclusively before it became generalized in Ttahuantinsuyu, and it is today the place where it is spoken with more perfection and purity.
In answer to the question, if man came from the older (?) world of Asia,—and if so how, there are several points to consider, and not the least important relates to the relative antiquity of the continents. You are well aware that geologists, naturalists and other scientists are not wanting who, with the late Professor Agassiz, sustain that this western continent is as old, if not older, than Asia and Europe, or Africa. Leaving this question to be settled by him who may accomplish it, I will repeat here what I have sustained long ago: that the American races are autochthonous, and have had many thousand years ago relations with the inhabitants of the other parts of the earth just as we have them today. This fact I can prove by the mural paintings and bas-reliefs, and more than all by the portraits of men with long beards that are to be seen in Chichen Itza, not to speak of the Maya tongue, which contains expressions from nearly every language spoken in olden times (to this point I will recur hereafter), and also by the small statues of tumbaya (a mixture of silver and copper) found in the huacas of Chimu, near Trujillo on the Peruvian coast, and by those of the valley of Chincha.
These statues, which seem to belong to a very ancient date, generally represent a man seated cross-legged on the back of a turtle. The head is shaved, except the top, where the hair is left to grow, and is plaited Chinese fashion. Not unfrequently the arms are extended, the hands rest upon pillars inscribed with characters much resembling Chinese. I have had one of these curious objects long in my possession. Notwithstanding being much worn by time and the salts contained in the earth, it was one of the most perfect I have seen. It was found in the valley of Chincha. I showed it one day to a learned Chinaman, and was quite amused in watching his face while he examined the image. His features betrayed so vividly the different emotions that preyed upon his mind,—curiosity, surprise, awe, superstitious fear. I asked him if he understood the characters engraved on the pillars? “Yes,” said he, “these are the ancient letters used in China before the invention of those in usage today. That”—pointing to the image he had replaced, with signs of respect and veneration, on the table—“is very old; very great thing,—only very wise men and saints are allowed to touch it.” After much ado and coaxing, he at last told me, in a voice as full of reverence as a Brahmin would in uttering the sacred word O-a-um, that the meaning of the inscription was Fo.
Some families of Indians, that live in the remote bolsones (small valleys of the Andes), sport even today a cue as the inhabitants of the Celestial empire, and the people in Eten, a small village near Piura, speak a language unknown to their neighbors, and are said to easily hold converse with the coolies of the vicinage. When and how did this intercourse exist, is rather difficult to answer. I am even timorous to insinuate it, lest the believers in the chronology of the Bible, who make the world a little more than 5800 years old, should come down upon me, and, after pouring upon my humble self their most damning anathemas, consign me, at the dictates of their sectarian charity, to that place over the door of which Dante read,—
Perme si vá tra la perduta gente.
* * * * *
Lasciate ogni speranza voi ch’ entrate.
And yet mine is not the fault if reason tells me that the climate of Tiahuanaco, situated near the shores of the lake of Titicaca, 13,500 feet above the sea, must not have always been what it is now, otherwise the ground around it, and for many miles barren, would not have been able to support the population of a large city. Today it produces merely a few ocas (a kind of small potato that is preserved frozen), and yields scanty crops of maize and beans. Tiahuanaco may, at some distant period, have enjoyed the privilege of being a seaport. Nothing opposes this supposition. On one hand, it is a well-known fact that, owing to the conical motion of the earth, the waters retreat continually from the western coasts of America, which rise at a certain known ratio every century. On the other hand, the bank of oysters and other marine shells and debris, found on the slopes of the Andes to near their summits, obviously indicate that at some time or other the sea has covered them.
When was that? I will leave to sectarians to compute, lest the reckoning should carry us back to that time when the space between Tiahuanaco and Easter Island was dry land, and the valleys and plains now lying under the waters of the Pacific swarmed with industrious, intelligent human beings, were strewn with cities and villas, yielded luxuriant crops to the inhabitants, and the figure should show that people lived there before the creation of the world. I recoil with horror at the mere idea of being even suspected of insinuating such an heretical doctrine.
But if the builders of the strange structures on Easter Island have had, then, communications with the rearers of Tiahuanaco by land, then we may easily account for the many coincidences which exist between the laws, religious rites, sciences,—astronomical and others,—customs, monuments, languages, and even dresses, of the inhabitants of this Western continent, and those of Asia and Africa. Hence the similarity of many Asiatic and American notions. Hence, also, the generalized idea of a deluge among men, whose traditions remount to the time when the waters that covered the plains of America, Europe, Africa and Asia left their beds, invaded the portions of the globe they now occupy, and destroyed their inhabitants.
Since that time, when, of course, all communications were cut between the few individuals that escaped the cataclysm by taking refuge on the highlands, their intercourse has been renewed at different and very remote epochs—a fact that I can easily prove.
But, why should we lose ourselves in the mazes of supposition, where we run a fair chance of wandering astray, when we may recur to the monuments of Yucatan? These are unimpeachable witnesses that the Peninsula was inhabited by civilized people many thousand years ago, even before the time ascribed by the Mosaic records to the creation.