[1192] Ñusta, princess; calli, valorous; sapa, alone, unrivalled.
[1193] Of the first class were the Tarpuntay, or sacrificing priests, and the Nacac, who cut up the victims and provided the offerings, whether harpay or bloody sacrifices, haspay or bloodless sacrifices of flesh, or cocuy, oblations of corn, fruit, or coca. Molina mentions a custom called Ccapac-cocha or Cacha-huaca, being the distribution of sacrifices. An enormous tribute came to Cuzco annually for sacrificial purposes, and was thence distributed by the Inca, for the worship of every huaca in the empire. The different sacrifices were sent from Cuzco in all directions for delivery to the priests of the numerous huacas. The ministering priests were called Huacap Uillac when they had charge of a special idol, Huacap Rimachi or Huatuc when they received utterances from a deity while in a state of ecstatic frenzy called utirayay, and Ychurichuc when they received confessions and ministered in private families. The soothsayers were a very numerous class. The Hamurpa examined the entrails of sacrifices, and divined by the flight of birds. The Llayca, Achacuc, Huatuc, and Uira-piricuc were soothsayers of various grades. The Socyac divined by maize heaps, the Pacchacuc by the feet of a large hairy spider, the Llaychunca by odds and evens. The recluses were not only Aclla-cuna, or virgins congregated in temples under the charge of matrons called Mama-cuna. There were also hermits who meditated in solitary places, and appear to have been under a rule, with an abbot called Tucricac, and younger men serving a novitiate called Huamac. These Huancaquilli, or hermits, took vows of chastity (titu), obedience (Huñicui), poverty (uscacuy), and penance (villullery).
[1194] [The general works on the Inca civilization necessarily touch these points of their religious customs, and Mr. Markham’s volume on the Rites and Laws of the Incas is a prime source of information. Hawk’s translation of Rivero and Von Tschudi (p. 151) gives references; but special mention may be made of Müller’s Geschichte der Amerikanischen Urreligionen; Castaing’s Les Système religieux dans l’Antiquité peruvienne, in the Archives de la Soc. Amér. de France, n. s., iii. 86, 145; Tylor’s Primitive Culture; Brinton’s Myths of the New World; and Albert Réville’s Lectures on the origin and growth of religion as illustrated by the native religions of Mexico and Peru. Delivered at Oxford and London, in April and May, 1884. Translated by Philip H. Wicksteed (London, 1884. Hibbart lectures).—Ed.]
[1195] The Quichua language was spoken over a vast area of the Andean region of South America. The dialects only differ slightly, and even the language of the Collas, called by the Spaniards Aymara, is identical as regards the grammatical structure, while a clear majority of the words are the same. The general language of Peru belongs to that American group of languages which has been called agglutinative by William von Humboldt. These languages form new words by a process of junction which is much more developed in them than in any of the forms of speech in the Old World. They also have exclusive and inclusive plurals, and transitional forms of the verb combined with pronominal suffixes which are peculiar to them. In these respects the Quichua is purely an American language, and in spite of the resemblances in the sounds of some words, which have been diligently collected by Lopez (Les Races Aryennes du Pérou, par Vicente F. Lopez, Paris, 1871) and Ellis (Peruvia Scythica, by Robert Ellis, B. D., London, 1875), no connection, either as regards grammar or vocabulary, has been satisfactorily established between the speech of the Incas and any language of the Old World. Quichua is a noble language, with a most extensive vocabulary, rich in forms of the plural number, which argue a very clear conception of the idea of plurality; rich in verbal conjugations; rich in the power of forming compound nouns; rich in varied expression to denote abstract ideas; rich in words for relationships which are wanting in the Old World idioms; and rich, above all, in synonyms: so that it was an efficient vehicle wherewith to clothe the thoughts and ideas of a people advanced in civilization.
[1196] Garcilasso, Com. Real., i. lib. i. cap. 24, and lib. vii. cap. 1.
[1197] Among several kinds of flutes were the chayña, made of cane, the pincullu, a small wooden flute, and the pirutu, of bone. They also had a stringed instrument called tinya, for accompanying their songs, a drum, and trumpets of several kinds, one made from a sea-shell.
[1198] Blas Valera wrote upon the subject of Inca drugs, and I have given a list of those usually found in the bags of the itinerant Calahuaya doctors, in a foot-note at page 186 in vol. i. of my translation of the first part of the Royal Commentaries of Garcilasso de la Vega. An interesting account of the Calahuaya doctors is given by Don Modesto Basadre in his Riquezas Peruanas, p. 17 (Lima, 1884).
[1199] In the church of Santa Anna.
[1200] [See pictures of Atahualpa in Vol. II. pp. 515, 516. For a colored plate of “Lyoux d’or péruviens,” emblems of royalty, see Archives de la Soc. Amér. de France, n. s., i. pl. v.—Ed.]
[1201] The truth of this use of gold by the Incas does not depend on the glowing descriptions of Garcilasso de la Vega. A golden breastplate and topu, a golden leaf with a long stalk, four specimens of golden fruit, and a girdle of gold were found near Cuzco in 1852, and sent to the late General Echenique, then President of Peru. The present writer had an opportunity of inspecting and making careful copies of them. His drawings of the breastplate and topu were lithographed for Bollaert’s Antiquarian Researches in Peru, p. 146. The breastplate was 5-3/10 inches in diameter, and had four narrow slits for suspending it round the neck. The golden leaf was 12-7/10 inches long, including the stem; breadth of the base of the leaf, 3-1/10 inches. The models of fruit were 3 inches in diameter, and the girdle 18¼ inches long.