and uncertain symbols; upon the whole, it is much more BOOK obscure than that of Mexico, and little is known of the LXXXVIII. natives previous to two or three centuries before the discovery of America by Columbus; for the reigns of twelve Incas can hardly be supposed to include a greater period. The Peruvians, like other savages, wandered from province to province, and gained a subsistence by hunting or fishing. After their combats, the victors tore asunder the limbs and arms of the conquered. Their superstition made them worship different objects; the mountains were adored as the sources of streams, the rivers and fountains for having watered and fertilized the land; the tree that furnished them with fire wood, and the animal that had been slaughtered to satisfy their hunger. The ocean too was expressly called the mother of fishermen ; but their devotion was the effect of terror, rather than of gratitude. The most of their deities were frightful and unseemly; altars were erected to tigers and serpents; sacrifices were offered to the gods that ruled whirlwinds and storms. A volcano excited still greater veneration, as it indicated the existence of an enemy, whose dreadful influence extended to the lowest regions of the earth. An African has been known to sacrifice himself before his idol, and many Peruvians destroyed their children to avert the wrath of malignant deities. National vanity too heightened the superstition of the Americans. The natives of Cuba, Quinvala, and Tacma, proud of imagining that they were descended from a lion which their ancestors worshipped, dressed themselves in the spoils of their god, and strove with each other to imitate his fierceness. The inhabitants of Sulla, Hanco and Urimarca, boasted of being sprung from a cavern or a lake, to which they had been accustomed to sacrifice their children.* Divine providence, it is said, in compassion to a world delivered over to an evil genius, sent at last the sage and virtuous Manco Capac, and the beautiful Oello LXXXVIII. BOOK his sister and his wife. The nativity of that excellent pair is unknown, but it was generally supposed that they came down from heaven, to increase the happiness of the human race. He taught men to till the ground, and to change the course of rivers, for the purpose of watering their lands. Cello enjoined women to educate their children, and obey their husbands. As the founder of a new religion, Manco Capac instructed his followers to worship the sun; he thought that gratitude was admirably adapted for diffusing the happiness and promoting the welfare of a nation, and he made laws to enforce it among his people. By his humanity, wandering savages were made to love and assist each other; they built themselves houses, and overturned their bloody altars. The earth, laboured by its inhabitants, opened its fruitful bosom, and was covered with golden harvests. He fixed the division of lands, enjoined every man to bestow a portion of his time and industry for the benefit of his neighbour, and inculcated brotherly love among the members of different families; but, at the same time he compelled his subjects to submit to the will of the Incas, and retarded the progress of genius, by making it unlawful for a son to follow any profession different from his father's. The despotism of his successors became excessive; subjects, or more properly slaves, were only permitted to approach them with offerings in their hands; and the inhabitants of a whole province have been destroyed to gratify the cruelty of a single individual. If the moral improvement of a people be connected with their civil rights, the Peruvians had to struggle against many disadvantages; their wrongs were seldom redressed, and the worst sort of superstition was encouraged by their rulers. After the death of an Inca, many human beings were sacrificed at his tomb. One law may serve to illustrate the nature of their government. If it were discovered that a priestess of the sun had broken her oath of chastity, she was buried alive, her seducer suffered the most cruel torments; even their families were thought to have participated in the crime, fa ther, mother, brothers and sisters, were thrown into the BOOK flames; and the boundary drawn round the birth place of LXXXVIII. the two lovers, marked it out as a desert for ever. The Incas seldom forgave an injury: it was customary for them to mutilate the faces and limbs of all the individuals taken in a revolted district. From such institutions the national character of the people was formed; and, if their government possessed any advantages, these were completely destroyed by its obvious defects. We may discover on the frontiers of Peru, the remains Roads, of ancient grandeur. The length of the road from Quito Canals, and public to Cuzco was nearly fifteen hundred miles; there was ano- buildings. ther of the same distance in the lower part of the country, and several extended from the centre to the remotest parts of the Empire. Mounds of earth and other works rendered the ascent of hills comparatively easy. Granaries were built at certain distances, and charitable houses founded by the Incas were ever open to the weary traveller. Temples, fortresses, and canals, varied and improved the aspect of the country. But the great quantity of gold excited more than any thing else the wonder of the first settlers. Some ancient monuments were adorned with as much of that metal, as amounted in value to several millions of dollars. Trees and shrubs of gold fantastically formed, were placed in the imperial gardens at Cuzco. Garcilasso takes notice of huge funeral piles consisting of golden faggots, and granaries filled with gold dust; but these fables, it is probable, might have been invented at that period by the Spaniards for advancing their political purposes. Were we to judge of the Peruvians from the lively descriptions Character given by Marmontel, we should form a wrong estimate of of the Petheir character. They were ignorant and slothful, and oppression made them sullen and dejected. Fearful of danger, and at the same time unwilling to forgive an enemy, they became servile, cruel, and revengeful. Their dread of their masters rendered them docile and sub ruvians. BOOK missive to the Spaniards, but the hard usage which they LXXXVIII. experienced, made them consider the good offices of bene factors as so many pretexts to deceive them. Although strong, and able to endure great fatigue, they lived in indolence and thought only of providing for their immediate wants. Their food was of the coarsest sort, and in their squalid dress they resembled the most savage tribes. They were besides so much addicted to drunkenness, that it was common for them to part with whatever they possessed to indulge in that vice. Such as were converted, continued strongly tainted with their former superstition; the missionaries remarked, that they were rigid observers of the rites and ceremonies of the Romish Church, and the Jesuits cited their fondness for masses and processions, as a proof of their piety and devotion. The method lately adopted by the Spaniards in governing the different tribes was calculated to improve them. If the indolence and effeminacy of the Indians were not less remarkable in some provinces during the authority of their native magistrates, the greater number made rapid advances in industry. The people of Lambayeque applied themselves with so much assiduity to agriculture, that they became in a short time equal, if not superior in that respect to the Spaniards. The produce of their farms was exempt from taxation, and by this means they had a great advantage over the other castes. The Indians paid only a trifling impost, which might be considered rather as an acknowledgment of servitude, than a real burden. The Caciques and nobles did not pay that tax, but like the Spaniards, were capable of holding any office in the state. No other caste was permitted to reside in the districts inhabited by Indians without their consent. The mita or law by Forced la- which they were obliged to work the mines, has been mines. thought the greatest grievance to which they were exposed. Every Indian from the age of eighteen to bour of the * Mercurio Peruviano, X. 275. LXXXVIII. fifty was forced to labour in the mines; for this purpose BOOK lists were made out and arranged into seven divisions, the individuals whose names were marked in them had to serve for the space of six months, so that every man must have been once prest into that service after the lapse of three years and a half. The Indian on these occasions quitted his family, relinquished his trade, and had to repair to a mine perhaps many hundred miles distant from his cottage. Some, it is true, took their families along with them, and were even entitled to a small sum for the expeuse of their journey. The price of labour was fixed at half a dollar a day.* Besides those subject to the mita, there were others that served voluntarily, and these individuals formed a considerable proportion of the work men. tion. The Indians have decreased since the conquest of Peru, Decrease and as the other castes have not increased in the same raof popula tio, the total number of inhabitants is now less than it was at that period. Inaccurate statements, however, have been made on this subject; by the first census in 1551, the Indians in Peru, Santa Fe, and Bogota, were calculated at 8,255,000, from this account, supposing it correct, the Indian population in Peru, could not be estimated at more than four millions. According to another census made in 1581, before the mita was legally established, tho number of males fit for that service, or from the age of eighteen to fifty, in Peru and Potosi, exclusively of Quito, Tucuman, and Buenos Ayres, amounted to 1,067,692; but it may be shown from that result, that the whole Indian population in these countries must have exceeded 4,270,000 souls. From more recent information, it appeared that there were not more than 1,100,000 natives in Peru, or in the viceroyalty of Lima, before the late revolution in Spanish America; but if we suppose, what is very probable, that more than 200,000 Indians eluded the vigilance of the persons employed in making out the census, Mercurio Peruviano, VII. 37. ↑ Idem, ibid. I. 273; VII, 37; VIII. 48; X. 273. |