"The miserable state of the Indians is to be ascribed to the vices of the parish priests (curas), the extortions of the corregidores, and the bad treatment which they generally receive from all Spaniards. Unable to endure their sufferings, and longing to escape from slavery, many of them have risen up and moved off to unconquered districts, there to continue in the barbarous practices of heathenism.... In the community of Pimampiro in the province of Quito, which consisted of more than 5000 Indians, and was prosperous, the conduct of the parish priest drove the Indians to despair. Uniting in one body, they rose in rebellion and in one night passed to the Cordillera, where they joined themselves to the wild heathen Indians, with whom they have continued until now."[114]
It ought to be remembered that the avarice and moral faults charged upon the clergy in these reports, as well as in other accounts belonging to the eighteenth century are brought against the parish priests rather than the religious orders, although Ulloa describes the level of conduct as having sadly declined among these also. To some of the orders, most of all to the Jesuits, and in a less degree to the early Dominicans, much credit is due for their efforts not only to spread the gospel, often at the risk of their lives, but also to secure justice for the unfortunate Indians. The great Las Casas was only the most conspicuous among many admirable Spanish churchmen who threw their hearts into this campaign of humanity, though they seldom prevailed against the hard-hearted rapacity of the landowners and mine owners who wished to keep the Indians in serfdom and did not care how many perished under their hands. These worthy ecclesiastics sometimes secured good ordinances from the Council of the Indies in Spain, but the colonial governors found that the path of least resistance was to proclaim the ordinance and wink at its neglect. On many a law was the note made, "It is obeyed, but not executed" (Se obedece pero no se ejecuta). In Paraguay, where the population was almost wholly Indian, the reign of the Jesuits was generally beneficent. They could not do much for the education of the mass of their subjects, but while they trained some few of the promising youth, they impressed habits of industry and good conduct upon the rest. Perhaps it is to the excessive inculcation of obedience that the blind submissiveness of the later Paraguayans to such despots as Francia and Lopez may be partly attributed.[115]
The oppressions, both civil and ecclesiastical, referred to in the extracts given above, have long since ceased, but their consequences remain in the abject state of the aborigines and their ignorance of the truths and precepts of Christianity. As a learned student of Indian life observes, it is to them a kind of magic, more powerful for some purposes than their own ancient magic which was based on nature worship. "They believe in Dios (God)," says Mr. Bandelier,[116] "but believe more in Nuestra Señora de la Luz (Our Lady of the Light) at Copacavana." They worship evil spirits and make offerings to the mountain Achachilas and to the Earth. Even in Mexico, where the Indians are, as a rule, much more subject to enlightening influences, I was told in 1901 that an archbishop, visiting the parishes of his diocese not long before, had found the ancient idols hidden away behind the altars and occasionally brought out at night to receive marks of reverence. The Peruvians had at the conquest hardly advanced to the stage of a regular mythology with images of the deities, so idols were less common and prominent, while the worship of the spirits immanent in natural objects was universal.
Where the church fails to stir the currents of intellectual life among the masses of such a people as this, what other influence is there to make for progress?
These Peruvian races were specially unfortunate because their natural leaders, the caciques or local chieftains who had formed a sort of aristocracy before the Conquest, were either slaughtered or, in some few cases, incorporated into the colonial upper class, so that they were lost, as protectors, to the subject class, who, having little force of character, sank unresistingly into serfdom. Once, in 1781–1783, under the leadership of Tupac Amaru, of whom I have spoken briefly in an earlier chapter, they rose in a revolt which lasted for three years. Being unwarlike and untrained, ill-armed and ill-led, they were defeated with great slaughter, after atrocious cruelties had been perpetrated on both sides. But they accomplished one feat rare in the annals of war in destroying, along with its Spanish garrison, the city of Sorata, which they had long besieged in vain, by damming up the course of a mountain torrent and turning its full stream on the place. Since those days, even the few chiefs that then remained have vanished, and the aboriginal race consists wholly of the poorest and most neglected part of the population. That which to them makes life tolerable is the incessant chewing of coca, a very old habit, but now less costly than in Inca days, because the leaf can be more easily imported from the hot country east of the Andes.
Their enjoyments are two. One is intoxication, mostly with chicha, the old native beverage, but now also with fiery alcohol, made from the sugar-cane. The other is dancing at their festivals. The priests, when they were converting the natives, thought it better not to disturb the ancient heathen dances, but to transfer them to the days which the church sets apart for its feasts, expunging, so far as they could, the more offensive features of the dance, though what remains is sufficiently repulsive. Such ceremonial performances are common among the Indians of North America, also, and used often to be kept up for days together before a declaration of war. The dances of the Hopi and other Indians which the visitor sees to-day in Arizona are dull and decorous affairs. A striking description of the dances which he saw at Tiahuanaco on Corpus Christi Day is given by Mr. Squier,[117] and the much more recent account given by Mr. Bandelier of those he witnessed on another festival at Copacavana shew that things are much the same to-day.[118] The music, of a drum-and-fife type, is loud, harsh, and discordant, but this does not imply that a taste for sweet sound is wanting, for the Indian often carries his simple flute or pipe with him on his journeys and enjoys the monotonous ditties which he makes it discourse.
Three other facts may be adduced to illustrate the condition of the aborigines. There is no recent literature in their languages, not even a newspaper or magazine. They seem to be very rarely ordained as priests, though I was told in Mexico that there are a good many Indian priests there; and it seldom happens that any Indian rises into the learned or even into the educated class. I heard of one such at Lima, who had a remarkable knowledge of natural history; there may have been others.
Whether owing to the character of the Indians, or to their fear of the white man, robberies and assaults are rare not only among the more gentle Quichuas, but also in Bolivia, where the Aymarás, a more dour and sullen race, frequently break the peace among themselves, village attacking village with sticks and slings, while the women carry bags of stones to supply ammunition for the men's slings. In fact, the safety of the solitary European traveller in most parts of South America is almost as remarkable as the like circumstance in India.
In respect of civil rights, there is no legal distinction between the Indian and the white. Both enjoy the same citizenship for all private and public purposes, to both is granted the equal protection of the laws, equal suffrage, equal eligibility to office. This is to some extent a guarantee to the Indian against ill treatment, but it does not raise him in the social scale. He seldom casts a vote; not, indeed, that it makes much difference in these countries whether the citizen votes or not, for a paternal government takes charge of the elections. He is never—so far as I could learn—a candidate for any national office. The laws of the two republics interfere very little with his life, which is regulated by ancestral custom. Even in revolutions he does not seem to come to the front. He is, however, willing to fight, and a good fighter both in foreign and in civil wars, however little interest he may take in the cause. But for this fact there would have been fewer and shorter revolutions. Thus the Indian is a member of the nation for military, if not for political, purposes. The former are at least nearer to his comprehension than the latter, for he cares, and thinks of caring, about politics no more than did the needy knife-grinder in Canning's verses. No one has yet preached to him the gospel of democracy; no one has told him that he has anything to gain from action as a citizen. The whole thing is as completely out of his sphere as if he were still living under the Spanish viceroys, or, indeed, under the rule of the Inca Huayna Capac. There is, therefore, not yet any "Indian question" in South America.[119] There ought to be an Indian question: that is to say, there ought to be an effort to raise the Indians economically and educationally. But they have not yet begun to ask to be raised.
So much for the Indian as he is in Peru and Bolivia; and, apparently, also in those settled parts of northwestern Argentina where Indians still remain. In Paraguay the position is so far different that the Indians form not the lowest class, but the bulk of the nation. In the forest-covered regions of the Amazon and its tributaries, the Indios bravos are outside civilization altogether.