The aptness of these people in learning is not second to those of the mountains. They cultivate the sugar-cane quite as well as the others do the barley, and when we examined the woollen goods of the mountain girls, and compared them with the white cotton dresses of the fair ones on the banks of the rivers in the lowlands, both made by their own hands, we must give preference to the manufactures of Mojos, with all deference to the memory of Manco Capac's wife, who taught the mountain girls to net and knit, to spin and to weave. The Mojos women are few in number, and the people of the next tribe being as exclusive as those of Japan, the manufacturers of the one tribe had no opportunities to exchange with them ideas.
The Mojos Indians have a natural fondness for painting human figures and representing birds and animals, particularly the common chicken and the cow. The latter seems to have made a deep impression upon them at first sight; they often paint the cow fighting or chasing a man. These Indians describe the novel sights. I have not seen a single painting of an Indian or of an animal which originally belonged on this pampa. The white man, the cow, and chicken cock, are their favorite studies. On the white walls of their houses, inside and out, such figures appear as a decoration. In the rooms of the government houses the best artist displayed his talent, and those drawings on the walls of the market-place are admired by all who go there. So much taste and caution have the boys and little children, that none of them are known to disfigure any of these paintings in the public market-place.
The Indians of Cuzco have had some of the most beautiful, large, and costly paintings hung before them in the churches of that ancient city. The church encourages this taste; yet we saw nothing there like what we find among these people who have never had lessons set them, and the natural scenery here is less calculated to draw upon the imagination. The whole country is a dead level; the view only extends to the horizon, the sky above, and one continued sheet of herd grass below.
The Mojos Indian makes a scene for himself, and describes it with colored paints. On a windy day he strikes light and puts fire to the dry prairie-grass. As the wind carries the fire swiftly along, and the sheets of blaze shoot up under the heavy cloud of smoke, the Indian sketches the effect produced upon the cattle, who toss their tails into the air, and rush in fear with heads erect at the top of their speed in an opposite direction to that from which the wind comes. He decorates the inside wall of his house with this scene, which is a common one on these prairie lands.
The Mojos Indians have musical talent also, what the Quichua Indians want. The Aymaras have a little, but the Mojos are decided by natural characteristics: they play the guitar, violin, and flute; blow their organic pipes, and beat the drum. They accompany the instruments with a sweet voice, and read music with ease. They all take part in church music, while on the mountains a regular choir is employed.
The altar of the cathedral is beautifully carved out of ornamental woods, adorned with hundreds of dollars' worth of silver. The candlesticks are made of tin, and the candles are tallow. The silver and tin came from Potosi. The wood and tallow are close at hand.
We are ignorant of the means used by the Jesuits to incline the savages to collect together on a swell of the pampa, and plant the corner post of this cathedral. They could not understand the white man's language; they worshipped what they saw before them on the plain, in the heavens, and among the woods; and yet they were induced to erect a church, kneel in it, and worship the God who made them as well as the animals. All this was accomplished by a series of signs of the hand.
Don Antonio brought among his cargo some gold ornaments manufactured in France and Portugal; amidst other similar articles, a number of gilded beads. The Indian women of the town of Exaltacion fancied and purchased a quantity of them. They were sold as gold beads, just as a jeweller disposes of such things. The Indian women put one of them into the fire, and after heating it well and then cooling it, placed it by the side of some others. The change of color proved to them that the beads contained alloy. They were at once deposited in the hands of the police and sent back to Don Antonio, who had left for this place. He laid the case before the prefect, and informed him the beads had not been sold as pure gold, but as ornaments. The beads were forwarded to a jeweller in Cochabamba to determine their true value, which was as Don Antonio said. But the Indians would not receive them. They answered that the beads were not pure, and for that reason they did not wish them, nor would they wear such things if they were manufactured in Paris. He had to return their money.
Gold manufactured into ornaments in this country is generally worked up just as it comes from the river, without the application of any artificial alloy. The Indians do not understand this art of mixing. The Spaniards often do; and the Indians have their own way of proving the impositions sometimes practised on them. The Brazilian merchant was exceedingly annoyed at the idea of being considered dishonest by those he had been dealing fairly with. He tried in vain to show that he sold the beads for less than if they had been pure. It was of no use; the Indians had their ideas of what they should be; they did not want the reasoning, but pure gold beads.
Don Antonio made a young mestizo girl a present of a gilded chain, because she had purchased a number of ribbons and silk handkerchiefs from him. She brought it back a short time after, and thanked him for it, saying it was of no use. They had put it into the fire, and it very soon turned copperish. He was much displeased with her, because he had made it a present; but she answered, "Had your present been pure, I should have valued it."