The key to the entire gigantic system was the conception of a central immutable supreme power which directed all visible and invisible manifestations and which sent forth and re-absorbed all energy. In Cuzco and in the Inca Empire we have a minutely described instance of the application, to terrestrial government, of the laws of fixed order, harmony, periodicity and rotation learned by earnest and patient observers of the northern heaven, during countless centuries of time. The centre of Cuzco consisted of a great square whence four roads radiated to the cardinal points. In the centre of this stood a gold vase from which a fountain flowed. The Spaniards also found in Cuzco a large, beautifully-polished stone-cross which evidently symbolized, as in Mexico, the four quarters and must have been appropriately placed in the square. Garcilaso de la Vega states that the capital formed an actual image of the whole empire, “for it was divided into four quarters and an extremely ancient law rendered it obligatory that representatives of each province and of each class of population should reside there in homes, the location of which precisely corresponded to the geographical position of their respective provinces. Each lineage was thus represented and occupied separate dwellings, assigned to them by the governors of the quarters. All persons were obliged to adhere to the customs of their forefathers and also wear the costumes of their ayllus or tribes (Cieza de Leon, Cronica chap. xciii). For the Incas had decreed that the dresses worn by the members of each tribe should be different, so that the people [pg 137] might be distinguished from each other as, down to that time, there had been no means of knowing to what locality or tribe an Indian belonged.”... In order to avoid confusion the modes of wearing the hair were rigidly prescribed and the bands worn on the head by the vassals had to be black or of a single color only. The higher in rank a person was the more his costume resembled that of the Inca, without, however, approaching it in length and richness. “Thus, even in an assemblage of 100,000 persons it was easy to recognize individuals of each tribe and of each rank by the signs they wore on their heads.”...
“It was obligatory that each should permanently live in the province he belonged to. Each province, each tribe and, in many parts each village, had its own language which was different from that of its neighbors. Those who understood each other by speaking the same language considered themselves as related to each other and were friends and confederates.... The Incas employed a private language of their own which none but members of the royal lineage presumed or dared to learn.” Garcilaso de la Vega, who claimed royal descent, stated that unfortunately no records remained to enable one to form an idea of what the Inca language was like.
The autocratic, though peaceable way in which the novel scheme of government was imposed upon the inhabitants of Peru by the foreign chieftains is best proven by the following passages from the Rites and Laws of the Incas (p. 77) and Garcilaso de la Vega (pp. 9 and 10). “With a view that each tribe should be clearly distinguishable and after assigning a different costume to each they were ordered to choose their respective pacariscas, a word meaning, literally, their birth and origin. They were told to choose for themselves whence they were descended and whence they came, and as the Indians were generally very dull and stupid, some chose to assign their origin to a lake, others to a spring, others a rock, others a hill or ravine. But every lineage chose some object for its pacarisca. Some tribes [subsequently] adored eagles because they boasted to have descended from them ... others adored fountains, rivers, the earth, which they call Mother, or air, fire, ... snow-mountains, maize, the sea, named mother-sea.”
According to Garcilaso de la Vega “the Peruvian tribes subsequently invented an infinity of fables concerning the origin of their [pg 138] different ancestors.... An Indian does not consider himself honorable unless he can trace his descent from a river, fountain, lake or the sea, or from some wild beast like the bear, puma, ocelot, eagle, etc.” An example of a certain amount of vain-glory was indeed set by the diplomatic Inca himself who claimed, for himself and lineage, descent from the Sun and reserved burnished gold ornaments for his particular use. His successors subsequently built a temple of the Sun at Cuzco and set up its image made of gold and precious stones. Around this, the royal “pacarisca,” they placed the mummies of all the dead Incas. In another room there was an image of “the moon, with a woman's face,” and about it were the mummies of the royal women. From this we learn that the latter assigned their origin to the moon and that it was their pacarisca or huaca. As an illustration of the way in which creation-myths are sometimes evolved from actual occurrences, it is interesting to study another account of the mode in which tribal regulations were introduced into Peru. Owing, most probably, to the fact that one of the titles given to the Creator was “the Teacher,” we find Molina attributing to the Creator himself the establishment of the tribal system and the assignment of totems and different costumes to each group or family. If we read his account and, with Garcilaso de la Vega and others, attribute to the Incas the introduction of civilization into Peru, we recognize the practical good sense with which they accomplished the rather difficult task of obliging each tribe to wear a different costume. “In Tiahuanaco ... he made one of each nation of clay and painted [these] with the dresses that each one was to wear. Those who were to wear their hair, with hair; and those who were to be shorn, with hair cut ... when he had finished making the nations and painting the said figures of clay, he gave life and soul to each one, as well man as woman ... each nation then went to the place to which he ordered it to go.”
I confess that, until I studied the above record in full, I had very vague ideas about the huacas or “idols” of the Peruvians. But when I found it stated, further on, that “each tribe wore the dress with which their huaca is invested,” I began to realize what huacas might originally have been. It would seem that on assigning a different costume and distinctive name to each tribe, the founder of the new colony gave each chief as a model, a different clay doll, [pg 139] painted with the distinctive marks he and his people were to adopt. This figure would naturally have been kept for reference and treated as something sacred. On certain official occasions it would be produced as a means of identification or proof that the prescribed costumes had been strictly adhered to. To this practical and sensible plan the origin of the so-called tribal and household idols of the Peruvians and of the Mexicans can doubtlessly be assigned. Invented as an aid in the establishment of tribal-names and dress-regulations and intimately connected with the entire system of government, these huacas gradually became the representative of the ancestor of the clan, its “canting” arms and its sacred palladium. We are told that after the tribes had chosen their various ancestors or origins, such as caves, hills, fountains, etc., they settled in the land and multiplied. Then, on account of having “issued or descended from stated localities, the people made huacas and places of worship of these, in memory of the origin of their lineage.... The huacas they use are in different shapes.... Some say the first of their lineages were turned into falcons, condors and other animals or birds” (Molina ed. Hakluyt, p. 5). A certain form of ancestor-cult was thus evolved in a natural manner. “Idolatrous rites increased and people devoted themselves to the worship of huacas ... each village had its huaca. The cult assumed such proportions under Ccapac Yupanqui that he exclaimed: ‘How many false gods are there in the land, to my sorrow and the misfortune of my vassals! When shall we see these evils remedied?’ ”
At the same time we find that clay or wooden figures continued to be employed evidently as a method of keeping an accurate register of the population. In the capital, one building held duplicates of all the huacas throughout the land. When a new province was conquered the Inca carried its principal huaca to Cuzco. One or more living representatives of the conquered tribe, wearing its characteristic dress, were obliged to reside in the capital. In ancient Mexico these “living images of the gods” are one of the most striking features of the native civilization and have been persistently misunderstood, especially by modern authorities. As these “living gods” are specially treated in the “Lyfe of the Indians,” I shall merely point out here that small clay portraits or effigies of persons were made in Mexico at certain stages of an [pg 140] individual's life and also after his death. These seem to have been employed for statistical purposes.
In Mexico and Peru large numbers of small images were preserved in each household and were under the charge of its chief or “older brother,” who was obliged to guard and render account of them. Of course the Spanish conquerors took it for granted that all of these were idols and, in their ignorance, destroyed them unmercifully. Once the native system of tribal organization is understood, it becomes evident that an accurate register of all members of a tribe was of utmost importance. By means of a group of more or less skillfully-modelled figures or heads the size of a family could be ascertained at a glance by the government recorder. In the light of this recognition it seems more than probable that the immense numbers of small clay heads of various kinds, found in the “street of the dead” at the base of the great pyramids of Teotihuacan, and elsewhere, indicate that, in these localities, a periodical and official registration of deaths was carefully carried on. This assumption is fully corroborated by the conclusions I reached, in 1886, after making a minute study of a large number of terra-cotta heads[21] and ascertaining that numbers of them were portraits of dead persons. The above inference is, moreover, confirmed by the name of Teotihuacan, which means, literally, “the place of the lords or masters of the teotle.” The term teotl was given to the head of a tribe, who constituted the living image of the tribal ancestor. When he died he himself became one of the tribal ancestors and all dead lords were termed teotle.
The foregoing data enlighten us as to the practical value of a sternly enforced system of division and differentiation for the control of the population, and of clay images of persons for statistical purposes. We have seen that, during many centuries, the energy of the rulers was directed towards making groups of people as distinct and different from each other as possible. They were rigidly kept apart and, in all assemblages, they occupied separate positions, in a fixed order of relation to each other. “All the people of Cuzco came out according to their tribes and lineages ... and assembling in the great square ... sat down on their benches, each man according to the rank he held, the Hanan-Cuzco [pg 141] on one side and the Hurin-Cuzco on the other” (Molina ed. Hakluyt, p. 26). Beside this dual division of the entire population, under the separate rulerships of the Inca and Coya, who were linked together, however, in a sacred and indissoluble union and respectively represented Heaven and Earth, let us study the executive administration of the religious and civil governments.
Two sets, each consisting of four rulers, next in rank to the Inca and Coya, are described: Each quarter or Suyu was ruled over by a “viceroy,” or “Inca governor,” entitled tucuyricoc=“he who sees all,” or Capac. In the days of the Inca Huayna Capac the names of the four “viceroys” are recorded as having been Capac=Achachic, Capac=Larico, Capac=Yochi, Capac=Hualcaya. These were obviously members of the Inca family and next in rank to the Inca, who presided as supreme pontiff over the religious government. The civil and tribal administration was executed by four Curacas, each of which had charge of 10,000 persons belonging to the ayllus=tribes or lineages. The titles of these four Curacas are recorded as: Hunu-Camayu or Camayoc, Huaronca-Camayu or Camayoc, Pachaca-Camayu or Camayoc, Chunca-Camayu or Camayoc. As their titles show, they were the chief accountants or recorders of statistics, which were recorded by means of the quippus. Under them, in regular order there were officers, who respectively had charge of 500, 100, 50 or 10 individuals. In the latter instance it is expressly stated that it was always one man out of the ten who governed and rendered account of the remaining nine. The four chief recorders dwelt in Cuzco but “left it every year and returned in February to make their report ... bringing with them the tribute of the whole empire. They also reported upon the administration every year recording the births and deaths that had occurred among men and flocks, the yield of crops and all other details, with great minuteness” (Polo de Ondegardo).
From the recorded details of organization we learn that the governmental scheme introduced by the Incas was based on the assumption that the standard population of the empire should number 40,000 individuals under the civil rulership of 4 recorders, 40 first-grade officers, 400 second-grade officers, 4,000 third-grade officers—each of the last being responsible for nine individuals besides himself. It is noteworthy that the three grades of officers [pg 142] correspond to the threefold division of the entire produce of the land, between the Inca, the Huaca and the Ayllu, equivalent to the religious government, the civil government and the people—to the Above, Below and Middle. The minimal division of people into groups of ten of which one was the governmental representative corresponds, moreover, to the classification into the following ten categories, according to their ages: