Narrative and Critical History of America, Vol. 1 (of 8) / Aboriginal America

by Unknown

UNFINISHED CLOTH FOUND AT PACHACAMAC.

[After a cut in Wiener, Pérou et Bolivie, p. 65.—Ed.]

Spinning, weaving, and dyeing were arts which were sources of employment to a great number of people, owing to the quantity and variety of the fabrics for which there was a demand. There were rich dresses interwoven with gold or made of gold thread; fine woollen mantles, or tunics, ornamented with borders of small square gold and silver plates; colored cotton cloths worked in complicated patterns; and fabrics of aloe fibre and sheeps’ sinews for breeches. Coarser cloths of llama wool were also made in vast quantities. But the potters art was perhaps the one which exercised the inventive faculties of the Peruvian artist to the greatest extent. The silver and gold utensils, with the exception of a very few cups and vases, have nearly all been melted down. But specimens of pottery, found buried with the dead in great profusion, are abundant. They are to be seen in every museum, and at Berlin and Madrid the collections are very large.[1223] Varied as are the forms to be found in the pottery of the Incas, and elegant as are many of the designs, it must be acknowledged that they are inferior in these respects to the specimens of the plastic art of the Chimu and other people of the Peruvian coast. The Incas, however, displayed a considerable play of fancy in their designs. Many of the vases were moulded into forms to represent animals, fruit, and corn, and were used as conopas, or household gods. Others took the shape of human heads or feet, or were made double or quadruple, with a single neck branching from below. Some were for interment with the malquis, others for household use.[1224] Professor Wilson, who carefully examined several collections of ancient Peruvian pottery, formed a high opinion of their merit. “Some of the specimens,” he wrote, “are purposely grotesque, and by no means devoid of true comic fancy; while, in the greater number, the endless variety of combinations of animate and inanimate forms, ingeniously rendered subservient to the requirements of utility, exhibit fertility of thought in the designer, and a lively perceptive faculty in those for whom he wrought.”[1225]

There is a great deal more to learn respecting this marvellous Inca civilization. Recent publications have, within the last few years, thrown fresh and unexpected light upon it. There may be more information still undiscovered or inedited. As yet we can understand the wonderful story only imperfectly, and see it by doubtful lights. Respecting some questions, even of the first importance, we are still able only to make guesses and weigh probabilities. Yet, though there is much that is uncertain as regards historical and other points, we have before us the clear general outlines of a very extraordinary picture. In no other part of America had civilization attained to such a height among indigenous races. In no other part of the world has the administration of a purely socialistic government been attempted. The Incas not only made the attempt, but succeeded.

[CRITICAL ESSAY ON THE SOURCES OF INFORMATION.]

THE student of Inca civilization will first seek for information from those Spanish writers who lived during or immediately after the Spanish conquest. They were able to converse with natives who actually flourished before the disruption of the Inca empire, and who saw the working of the Inca system before the destruction and ruin had well commenced. He will next turn to those laborious inquirers and commentators who, although not living so near the time, were able to collect traditions and other information from natives who had carefully preserved all that had been handed down by their fathers.[1226] These two classes include the writers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The authors who have occupied themselves with the Quichua language and the literature of the Incas have produced works a knowledge of which is essential to an adequate study of the subject.[1227] Lastly, a consideration of the publications of modern travellers and scholars, who throw light on the writings of early chroniclers, or describe the present appearance of ancient remains, will show the existing position of a survey still far from complete, and the interest and charm of which invite further investigation and research.

Foremost in the first class of writers on Peru is Pedro de Cieza de Leon. A general account of his works will be found elsewhere,[1228] and the present notice will therefore be confined to an estimate of the labors of this author, so far as they relate to Inca history and civilization. Cieza de Leon conceived the desire to write an account of the strange things that were to be seen in the New World, at an early period of his service as a soldier. “Neither fatigue,” he tells us, “nor the ruggedness of the country, nor the mountains and rivers, nor intolerable hunger and suffering, have ever been sufficient to obstruct my two duties, namely, writing and following my flag and my captain without fault.” He finished the First Part of his chronicle in September, 1550, when he was thirty-two years of age. It is mainly a geographical description of the country, containing many pieces of information, such as the account of the Inca roads and bridges, which are of great value. But it is to the Second Part that we owe much of our knowledge of Inca civilization. From incidental notices we learn how diligently young Cieza de Leon studied the history and government of the Incas, after he had written his picturesque description of the country in his First Part. He often asked the Indians what they knew of their condition before the Incas became their lords. He inquired into the traditions of the people from the chiefs of the villages. In 1550 he went to Cuzco with the express purpose of collecting information, and conferred diligently with one of the surviving descendants of the Inca Huayna Ccapac. Cieza de Leon’s plan, for the second part of his work, was first to review the system of government of the Incas, and then to narrate the events of the reign of each sovereign. He spared no pains to obtain the best and most authentic information, and his sympathy with the conquered people, and generous appreciation of their many good and noble qualities, give a special charm to his narrative. He bears striking evidence to the historical faculty possessed by the learned men at the court of the Incas. After saying that on the death of a sovereign the chroniclers related the events of his reign to his successor, he adds: “They could well do this, for there were among them some men with good memories, sound judgments, and subtle genius, and full of reasoning power, as we can bear witness who have heard them even in these our days.” Cieza de Leon is certainly one of the most important authorities on Inca history and civilization, whether we consider his peculiar advantages, his diligence and ability, or his character as a conscientious historian.

Juan José de Betanzos, like Cieza de Leon, was one of the soldiers of the conquest. He married a daughter of Atahualpa, and became a citizen at Cuzco, where he devoted his time to the study of Quichua. He was appointed official interpreter to the Audience and to successive viceroys, and he wrote a Doctrina and two vocabularies which are now lost. In 1558 he was appointed by the viceroy Marquis of Cañete, to treat with the Inca Sayri Tupac,[1229] who had taken refuge in the fastness of Vilcabamba; and by the Governor Lope Garcia de Castro, to conduct a similar negotiation with Titu Cusi Yupanqui, the brother of Sayri Tupac. He was successful in both missions. He wrote his most valuable work, the Suma y Narracion de los Incas, which was finished in the year 1551, by order of the Viceroy Don Antonio de Mendoza, but its publication was prevented by the death of the viceroy. It remained in manuscript, and its existence was first made known by the Dominican monk Gregorio Garcia in 1607, whose own work will be referred to presently. Garcia said that the history of Betanzos relating to the origin, descent, succession, and wars of the Incas was in his possession, and had been of great use to him. Leon Pinelo and Antonio also gave brief notices of the manuscript, but it is only twice cited by Prescott. The great historian probably obtained a copy of a manuscript in the Escurial, through Obadiah Rich. This manuscript is bound up with the second part of Cieza de Leon. It is not, however, the whole work which Garcia appears to have possessed, but only the first eighteen chapters, and the last incomplete. Such as it is, it was edited and printed for the Biblioteca Hispano-Ultramarina, by Don Márcos Jiménez de la Espada, in 1880.[1230]

The work of Betanzos differs from that of Cieza de Leon, because while the latter displays a diligence and discretion in collecting information which give it great weight as an authority, the former is imbued with the very spirit of the natives. The narrative of the preparation of young Yupanqui for the death-struggle with the Chancas is life-like in its picturesque vigor. Betanzos has portrayed native feeling and character as no other Spaniard has, or probably could have done. Married to an Inca princess, and intimately conversant with the language, this most scholarly of the conquerors is only second to Cieza de Leon as an authority. The date of his death is unknown.