According to Sir Clements B. Markham,[31] the original inhabitants of the Peruvian coast fished in boats made of inflated sealskins. It is well known that the coast-tribes of Mexico and Central America employed boats of various kinds and some of great size. The Mexican tradition relates that the culture hero Quetzalcoatl departed in a craft he had constructed and which is designated as a coatlapechtli=coa=coatl=serpent or twin, tlapechtli=raft. It is open to conjecture whether this construction, “in which he sat himself as in a boat,” may be regarded as a sort of double or twin raft, or a boat made of serpent or seal (?) skin. In order to form any opinion, the name for seal in the Nahuatl and other languages spoken by the coast tribes should first be ascertained and compared with the native names for serpent.
The Maya colonists who founded the colony on the Mexican coast, and are known as the Huaxtecans, are described as having transported themselves thither by boats from Yucatan. In the native Codices and in the sculptured bas-relief at Chichen-Itza, there are, moreover, illustrations of navigation by boats. As dependent upon Polaris as their East Indian colleagues of to-day, it is but natural that the ancient Mexican traders by land or sea expressed their gratitude by offerings to Polaris and Ursa Minor.
Let us now return to Peru and examine whether there is any proof that the “Teacher or Guide of the World,” the Supreme Being of the Incas, was identical with the “Lord who guides” revered by the Mexican navigators.
I have already demonstrated that in ancient America the native scheme of religion and government was but the natural outcome of certain ideas suggested by the observation of Polaris and the circumpolar constellations. I have likewise quoted the remarkable qualification of a supreme divinity made by Inca Yupanqui, who [pg 161] raised a temple in Cuzco to the Creator who, superior to the sun, could rest and light the world from one spot. It is an extremely important and significant fact that the principal doorway of this temple opened to the north,[32] and that the “true Creator” is alluded to as an invisible power, the knowledge of which was transmitted by the Incas from father to son. Thus Salcamayhua records that on one occasion the young Inca Ccapac Yupanqui exclaimed “I now feel that there is another Creator of all things [than that worshipped in the Andes], as my father Mayta Ccapas Inca has indeed told me.”[33] Considering that in the latitude of Cuzco, situated as it is 14° below the equator, Polaris is invisible, the conditions thus recorded as existing in Peru are exactly those which might be expected to exist if a religion founded on pole-star worship had been carried southward to a region in which the star itself was invisible. The orientation of the temple would designate the north as the sacred region and the star-god would become an invisible power whose very existence would have become traditional and necessarily be accepted on faith by native-born Peruvians and converted sun- and moon-worshippers.
It is a remarkable fact that a descendant of the Incas has furnished us with actual proof that the Supreme Creator revered at Cuzco was not only associated with a star, but also with the figure of a cross, each branch of which terminated in a star. We are indebted to the native chronicler Salcamayhua for some extremely curious drawings, which are reproduced here from his account of the Antiquities of Peru.[34] In treating of the primitive astronomy in America in my special paper on the native calendar, I shall refer to these in greater detail. For my present purpose it suffices to designate the following figures.
Salcamayhua records that the founder of the Peruvian Empire, Manco Capac, ordered the smiths to make a flat plate of fine gold, of oval shape, which was set up as an image of the Creator (op. cit. p. 76). The Inca Mayta Ccapac, “who despised all created things, including the sun and moon,” and “ordered his people to pay no honour to them,” caused the plate to be renewed which his “great grandfather had put up, fixing it afresh in the place where [pg 162] it had been before. He rebuilt the ‘house of gold’ and they say that he caused things to be placed round the plate, which I have shown, that it may be seen what these heathens thought.” The central figure on this plate consists of the oval image of the Creator, fig. [48], c. Close to its right are images designated by the text as representing the sun and morning star. To the left are the moon and the evening star. Above the oval and touching it, is a group of five stars forming a cross, with one star in the centre. Below it is a cross figure formed by lines uniting four stars. In this case, instead of being in the middle, the fifth star is attached to the lower edge of the oval, which is designated as “the image of Uiracocha Pacha-Yachachic, the teacher of the World.” Outside of the plate is what appears to be an attempt to explain more clearly the relative positions of the group of five stars to the oval plate (fig. [48], a). It represents the oval and one star in the centre of a cross formed by four stars. The question naturally suggests itself whether the group of five stars forming a cross may not represent the Southern Cross, popularly called the pole-star of the south and which consists of four principal stars, one of which is of the first and two of the second magnitude. This possibility opens out a new field of inquiry, and calls for the statement of the following facts, which I quote from Amedée Guillemin's Handbook of Popular Astronomy, edited by J. Norman Lockyer and revised by Richard A. Proctor.[35]
Figure 48.
“In [our] enumeration of the circumpolar constellations of the South, we have said nothing of the stars situated at the Pole itself. The reason is simple; there are none deserving mention, and with the exception of one star in Hydræ, none approach the third magnitude. [pg 163] There is not then, in the southern sky, any star analogous to Polaris in the northern heavens.” M. Guillemin proceeds to explain, however, that this poverty of the polar regions is singularly compensated for by the stars of the equatorial zone. It seems more than probable that primitive astronomers or their descendants, who had been reared in a knowledge of the northern Polaris and of the periodical motion of the circumpolar constellations, should continue their observations in whatever latitude they found themselves. It seems possible that they may have observed the Southern Cross and recognized its closeness to the pivot or centre of rotation; but from personal experience and observation I can vouch for the fact that this constellation could never have produced upon primitive man the powerful impression caused by Ursa Major and Cassiopeia revolving around Polaris. It is, of course, impossible to conclude to what extent the ancient Peruvians revered the Southern Cross. It suffices for the present to establish the incontrovertible facts that the image of the motionless Creator, set up by the Incas, was associated with stars and with the cross and that the door of the Cuzco Temple, where this image was kept, faced the north, the direction whence, according to native traditions, the culture-heroes had come to Peru.