Chalivas, on upper Changuina-Aula.Changuinas, near Bugaba.Chumulus, near Caldera.Dorasques, on the Rio Puan.Gualacas, near San Francisco de Dolega.Teluskies, near Rio Puan.
TheChocoswere the first nation encountered in South America on passing beyond the territory of the Cunas. They occupied the eastern shore of the Gulf of Uraba, and much of the lower valley of the Atrato. Thence they extended westerly across the Sierra to the Pacific coast, which they probably occupied from the Gulf of San Miguel, in north latitude 8°, where some of them still live under the name of Sambos, down to the mouth of the San Juan River, about north latitude 4°, on the affluents of which stream are the Tados and Noanamas, speaking well-marked dialects of the tongue. To the east they reached the valley of the Cauca, in the province of Antioquia. The Tucuras, at the junction of the Sinu and the Rio Verde, are probably their easternmost branch.[231]
Anthropologically, they resemble the Cunas, having brachycephalic skulls, with large faces, but are rather taller and of darker color. Here the resemblance ceases, for they are widely dissimilar in language, in customs and in temperament. Instead of being warlike and quarrelsome, they are mild and peaceable; they lived less in villages and communal houses than in single isolated huts. Most of them are now Catholics and cultivate the soil. They have little energy and live miserably. At the time of the conquest they were a trafficking people, obtaining salt from the saline springs and gold from the quartz lodes, which they exchanged with the tribes of the interior. Some of them were skilful in working the metal, and fine specimens of their products have been obtained from their ancestral tombs.
Angaguedas, west of province of Cauca.Cañasgordas, west of province of Cauca.Caramantas, west of province of Cauca.Chocos, on Rio Atrato.Chamis, near Marmato.ChiamusorChocamus, on the Pacific.Citaraes, on Rio Buei and Rio Buchado.Murindoes.Necodades.Noanamas, on head-waters of Rio San Juan.Paparos, between rivers Sapa and Puero.Patoes.Rio Verdes, on the Rio Verde.Sambos, on Rio Sambo, south of Gulf of San Miguel.Tados, head-waters of Rio San Juan.Tucuras, on Rio Senu.
It is worth while recording the names and positions of the other native tribes along the northern coast at the time of the discovery, even if we are unable to identify their linguistic connections. An official report made in 1546 furnishes a part of this information.[232]At that time and previously the eastern shore of Venezuela was peopled by the Chirigotos, who are probably the Chagaragotos of later authors.[233]Their western neighbors were the Caracas, near the present city of that name. They were warlike, wove hamacs, poisoned their arrows, and wore ornaments of gold. The whole coast from Caracas to Lake Maracaibo was in possession of the Caquetios, who also wove hamacs, and dwelt in stationary villages. They were of milder disposition and friendly, and as a consequence were early enslaved and destroyed by the Spaniards. Even at the date of the Relation they had disappeared from the shore. It is possible that they fled far inland, and gave their name in later days to the river Caqueta.
Along the eastern border of Lake Maracaibo were the Onotes, “The Lords of the Lagoon,”Señores de la Laguna, a fine race, whose women were the handsomest along the shore.[234]They lived in houses built on piles in the lake, and fished in its waterswith nets and hooks. They traded their fish for maize and yuca to the Bobures. These dwelt on the southern shore of the lake, and are distinguished as erecting temples,mesquites adoratorios, for their religious rites.[235]The Sierra on the west of the lake was the home of the warlike Coromochos.
These warriors probably belonged to the Goajiros, who then, as now, occupied the peninsula on the northwest of Lake Maracaibo.
It is not easy to say who were the Tirripis and Turbacos, who lived about the mouth of the Magdalena River, though the names remind us of the Chibcha stock. Approaching the Gulf of Darien from the east, we find the highlands and shores on its west peopled by the Caimanes. These undoubtedly belonged to the Cunas, as is proved by the words collected among them in 1820 by Joaquin Acosta.[236]The earliest linguistic evidence about their extension dates from a report in 1515,[237]in which the writer says that all along this coast, up to and beyond San Blas, the natives call a manumaand a womanira, whichare words from the Cuna dialects.
In the mountainous district of Mérida, south of the plains in the interior from Lake Maracaibo, there still dwell the remains of a number of small bands speaking dialects of a stock which has been called from one of its principal members, theTimote. It has been asserted to display a relationship to the Chibcha, but the comparisons I have made do not reveal such connection. It seems to stand alone, as an independent tongue.
All the Timotes paid attention to agriculture, raising maize, pepper and esculent roots of the potato character. Those who lived in the warm regions painted their bodies red and went naked; while those in the uplands threw around them a square cotton blanket fastened at the waist. Some of them buried their dead in caves, as the Quindoraes on the banks of the Motatan. With them they placed small figures in terra cotta. The Mocochies, living where caves are rare, built underground vaults for their dead, closing the entrance with a great stone.[238]
From the writings of Lares and Ernst I make the following list of the members of the
Aricaguas.Aviamos.Bailadores.Canaguaes.Chamas.Escagueyes.Guaraques.Guaquis.Iguiños.Insumubies.Jajies.Miguries.Mirripuyas.Mocochies.Mocotos.Mocombos.Mombunes.Mucuchaies.Mucunchies.Mucurabaes.Mucutuyes.Quindoraes.Quinos.Quiroraes.Tabayones.Taparros.Tatuyes.Tiguinos.Tricaguas.
Few of these names are found in the older writers. In the Taparros we recognize the “Zaparas,” who, in the last century, lived in contiguity to the Goajiros of the adjacent peninsula.[239]The Mucuchis gave their name to an early settlement of that name in the province of Mérida.[240]The prefixmucoormoco, which is very common in place-names of that region, is believed by Lares to have a locative significance. Such names give approximately the extent of the dialects at the settlement of the country.
In the highlands near the present city of Caracas, and in the fertile valleys which surround the beautiful inland lake of Valencia to the southeast, were at the discovery a number of tribes whose names, Arbacos, Mariches, Merigotos, etc., give us no information as to their affinities. They are now extinct, and nothing of their languages has been preserved. All the more store do we set by the archæology of the district, about which valuable information has been contributed by Dr. G. Marcano.[241]He opened a number of burial mounds where the bones of the dead, after having been denuded of flesh, were interred, together with ornaments and utensils. These were in stone, bone and terra cotta, the onlymetal being gold in small quantity. The character of the work showed the existence of a culture belonging to the highest stage of polished stone. Many of the skulls were artificially deformed to a high degree, the frontal obliquity in some cases being double the normal. Add to this that there was present an almost unexampled prognathism, and we have crania quite without similars in other parts of the continent. When not deformed they were brachycephalic, and both series gave a respectable capacity, 1470 c. c.
Most of the writers on the Chibchas have spoken of them as a nation standing almost civilized in the midst of barbarous hordes, and without affinities to any other. Both of these statements are erroneous. The Chibchas proper, or Muyscas, are but one member of a numerous family of tribes which extended in both directions from the Isthmus of Panama, and thus had representatives in North as well as South America. The Chibcha language was much more widely disseminated throughout New Granada at the time of the discovery than later writers have appreciated. It was the general tongue of nearly all the provinces, and occupied the same position with reference to the other idioms that the Kechua did in Peru.[242]Indeed, most of the tribes in New Granada were recognized as members of this stock.[243]Norwere they so much above their neighbors in culture. Many of these also were tillers of the soil, weavers and spinners of cotton, diggers of gold in the quartz lodes, skilled in moulding and hammering it into artistic shapes, and known widely as energetic merchants.
No doubt the Chibchas had carried this culture to the highest point of all the family. Their home was on the southern confines of the stock, in the valleys of Bogota and Tunja, where their land extended from the fourth to the sixth degree of north latitude, about the head-waters of the Sogamoso branch of the Magdalena. Near the mouth of this river on its eastern shore, rises the Sierra of Santa Marta, overlooking the open sea, and continuing to the neck of the peninsula of Goajira. These mountains were the home time out of mind of the Aroacos, a tribe in a condition of barbarism, but not distantly related in language to the Chibchas.
When the Spaniards first undertook the conquest of this Sierra, they met with stubborn resistance from the Tayronas and Chimilas, who lived among these hills. They were energetic tribes, cultivating fields of maize, yucca, beans and cotton, which latter they wove and dyed for clothing. Not only were they versed in stratagems, but they knew some deadlypoison for their arrows.[244]
In later generations the Tayronas disappear entirely from history, but I think the suggestion is well founded that they merely became merged with the Chimilas, with whom they were always associated, and who still survive in the same locality as a civilized tribe. We have some information about their language.[245]It shows sufficient affinity with the Chibcha to justify me in classing the Tayronas and Chimilas in that group.
An imperfect vocabulary of the native residents of Siquisique in the state of Lara, formerly the province of Barquisimetro, inclines me to unite them with the Aroac branch of this stock, though their dialect is evidently a mixed one.[246]
A still more interesting extension of this stock was that which it appears to have had at one time in the northern continent. A number of tribes beyond the straits, in the states of Panama and Costa Rica, were either filially connected or deeply influenced by theoutposts of the Chibcha nation. These were the Guaymis in Veraguas, who possessed the soil from ocean to ocean, and the Talamancas of Costa Rica, who in a number of small sub-tribes extended quite to the boundaries of the present state of Nicaragua. It has been recently shown, and I think on satisfactory evidence, that their idioms contain a large number of Chibcha words, and of such a class that they could scarcely have been merely borrowed, but point to a prolonged admixture of stocks.[247]Along with these terms are others pointing to a different family of languages, perhaps, as has long been suspected, to some of the Carib dialects; but up to the present time they must be said not to have been identified.
Thus Lucien Adam has pointed out that the two groups of the Guaymi dialects differ as widely, as follows:
Dr. Max Uhle, in a late essay, has collected numerous verbal identities between the various Guaymi and Talamanca dialects on the one hand, and the Aroac and Chibcha on the other, including most of the simple numerals and many words besides those which would be likely to be introduced by commerce. Not stopping with this, he has successfully developed a variety of laws of vowel and consonant changes in the dialects, which bring the resemblance of the two groups into strong relief and do away with much of their seeming diversity. Moreover, he points out that the terminations of the present and imperative are identical, and the placement of words in the sentence alike in both. These and his other arguments are sufficient, I think, to establish his thesis; and I am at greater pains to set it forth, as I regard it as one of unusual importance in its bearing on the relations which existed in pre-historic times between tribes along the boundary of the two continents.
As to the course of migration, I do not think that the discussion of the dialectic changes leaves any room for doubt. They all indicate attrition and loss of the original form as we trace them from South into North America; evidently the wandering hordes moved into the latter from the southern continent. So far, there is no evidence that any North American tribe migrated into South America.
To illustrate these points I quote from Uhle’s tables the following:
Comparison of the Chibcha with the Costa Rican Dialects.
(T. = Talamanca. G. = Guaymi.)
The numerous relics which since 1859 have been disinterred from the ancient sepulchres of Chiriqui may be attributed to the members of this stock; perhaps, as M. Pinart has suggested, to the ancestors of the Guaymis, or, as Dr. Berendt thought, to the Cunas or Coibas.[248]These graves are scattered in small groups or cemeteries, rarely more than ten acres in extent, over the Pacific slope of the province of Chiriqui. The similarity of the culture of their makers to that of the Chibchas has not failed to impress archæological experts. Thus, W. H. Holmes remarks in his admirable article on the “Art ofChiriqui.” “In their burial customs, in the lack of enduring houses or temples, and in their use of gold, they were like the ancient peoples of middle and southern New Granada.”[249]
These relics are in stone, in pottery of many varieties and forms, and in the metals gold, copper, silver and tin in various alloys. So large was the quantity of gold that from a single cemetery over fifty thousand dollars in value have been extracted. No wonder that Columbus and his companions gave to this region the appellationCastillo del Oro, Golden Castilé.
Such a condition of civilization is in accord with the earliest descriptions of the Chiriqui tribes. When in 1521 Francisco Compañon overran their country, he found the Borucas and their neighbors living in villages surrounded with high wooden palisades, the posts firmly lashed together, making a solid wall of defence.[250]
The culture of the Chibchas has been portrayed by numerous writers, and it deserves to rank as next to that of the Nahuas and Kechuas, though in many respects inferior to both of these. Their chiefs held by succession through the female side, the matriarchal system prevailing throughout their tribes.Agriculture was diligently pursued, the products being maize, potatoes, yucca and cotton. Artificial irrigation by means of ditches was in extended use. Salt was prepared on a large scale by evaporation, and their skill in the manufacture of cotton cloth was notable. Copper and bronze were unknown, and all their tools and weapons were of wood and stone. In this respect they were in arrears of their not distant neighbors, the Kechuas. Gold, however, they had in quantity, and knew how to smelt it and to work it into vases and ornaments of actual beauty. The use of stone for building was unknown, and their finest structures were with wooden walls coated with clay and roofed with straw.
In spite of what has sometimes been brought forward, it is not likely that they had any method of writing, and much that has been advanced about their calendar is of doubtful correctness. They had neither the quipos of the Peruvians nor the picture writing of the Mexicans. The carved stones which have sometimes been produced as a species of calendar were probably merely moulds for hammering gold into shape.
Quite a body of their mythologic legends have been preserved, replete with interest to the student of the religious sentiment of this race. They indicate an active imagination and may be regarded as quite authentic.
The Chibchas proper, as well as the Aroacos, were meso- or brachycephalic, the cephalic index ranging above 80. They were of moderate stature, dark in color, the face broad, the eyes dark and often slightlyoblique, the cheek-bones prominent and the general appearance not handsome.
Aruacs(Aroacos), in Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta and on Rio Paramo.Bintucuas, a sub-tribe of the Aruacs.Borucas, sub-tribe of Talamancas.Bribris, sub-tribe of Talamancas.Bruncas, seeBorucas.Cabecars, sub-tribe of Talamancas.Chibchas, on upper Rio Magdalena, near Bogota.Chicamochas, about 4° N. lat.Chimilas, in the sierra of Santa Marta.ChitasorChiscas, near Sierra de Morcote.Duits, near Duitama.Guacicas, east of Bogota, on the head-waters of Rio Meta.Guamacas, a sub-tribe of Aruacs.Guaymis, on both slopes of the Cordillera, in Veraguas.Köggabas, a sub-tribe of the Aruacs.Morcotes, near San Juan de los Llanos.Muois, a sub-tribe of the Guaymis.Murires, a sub-tribe of the Guaymis.Muyscas, seeChibchas.Sinsigas, in the sierra near Tunja.Talamancas, in the sierra in Costa Rica.Tayronas, in the Sierra de Santa Marta.Terrabas, a sub-tribe of Talamancas.Tirribis, a sub-tribe of Talamancas.Tucurriques, a sub-tribe of the Talamancas.Tunebos, in the sierra east of Bogota.Valientes, a sub-tribe of the Guaymis.
A number of tribes living to the north and west of the Chibchas seem to have belonged to one stock. They are mentioned by the older historians as acting in alliance, as in constant war with the Chibchas,and several of them as speaking dialects of a tongue wholly different from the Chibchas. Their stage of culture was lower, but they were acquainted with the bow, the sling and the war-club, and had fixed habitations. I give the list of these presumably related tribes, and apply to the stock the name of one of the modern tribes which retain the language.[251]
Canapeis, sub-tribe of Colimas (Herrera).Colimas, on the right bank of Magdalena, adjacent to the Musos.Manipos, adjacent to the Pijoas.Musos, on right bank of the Magdalena, adjacent and north of the Muyscas.Nauras, on the Rio Carari.Paezes, on the central Cordillera.Panches, on the east bank of Magdalena, near Tocayma.Paniquitas, between upper waters of the Magdalena and Cauca.Pantagoros, on both shores of the Magdalena and in province of Quimbaya.Pijaos, in Popayan, on the Cauca and Neyva.
My reasons for identifying the modern Paniquitas and Paezes with the ancient tribes named are, first, the identity of the location, and secondly, the presence of the initial syllablepanin the names of two of the principal extinct peoples, a word which in Paniquita means “mountain,” and clearly refers to the position of their villages in the sierra, between the head-waters of the Cauca and Magdalena Rivers.
Among the references in the older writers, I may mention that Herrera states that the language of the Panches was one of the most extended in that part of the country, and that the tribes speaking it almost surrounded the Muyscas;[252]and Piedrahita specifically adds that the Pijaos, the most powerful tribe in Popayan, whose territory extended from Cartago to the city of Popayan, along the valley of the Neyva, and quite to San Juan de los Llanos, belonged to the same stock as the Pantagoros.
Some fragments have been preserved from the mythology of the Musos, who lived about 24 leagues northwest of Santa Fé, on the right bank of the Magdalena. Their legends pointed for the home of their ancestors to the left or western side of the river. Here dwelt, lying in a position of eternal repose, the Creator, a shadow whose name wasAre. Ages ago he carved for his amusement two figures in wood, a man and a woman, and threw them into the river. They rose from its waters as living beings, and marrying, became the ancestors of the human species.[253]
Most of these tribes are reported to have flattened artificially their heads, and to have burned the bodies of their dead, or, in Popoyan, to have mummified them by long exposure to a slow fire.
The Paezes live on both slopes of the central Cordillera, across the valley of the Magdalena from Bogota, some two thousand in number, in twenty-one villages. They prefer the high altitudes, and are ahardy set of hunters and mountaineers. In spite of the cold they go nearly naked, but what is rare among native Americans, they wear a hat of reeds or bark, resembling in this some Peruvian tribes. Nor are they devoid of skill in hammering gold into ornaments, and weaving fibres of the maguey into mats and cloths. One of their peculiar customs is to burn down a house whenever a birth or a death takes place in it. The harsh dialect they speak has been rendered accessible by a publication of Señor Uricoechea. Its practical identity with the Panequita is obvious from the following comparison:[254]
In the states of Cauca and Antioquia there are scarcely any full-blood natives remaining, and the tribes after the conquest were so shifted about that it is difficult to know to which of them we should attribute the abundant remains of ancient art which are scattered profusely over this region. There arenumerous sepulchral tumuli, especially in the Frontino and Dabeiba districts, which yield a rich harvest to the antiquary. They contain gold figures, vases and ornaments, stone implements of uncommon perfection, mirrors of polished pyrites, and small images in stone and terra cotta. There are also remarkable ruins in the valley of the Rio de la Plata, an affluent of the upper Magdalena. They consist in colossal statues rudely carved from stone, and edifices of the same material, partly underground, the walls of large slabs, and the roof supported by cylindrical carved pillars. A few of these still remain intact, but the majority have been wrecked by the earthquakes and by the vandalism of treasure-hunters.[255]
In an attempt to restore the ancient ethnography of this region, Dr. Posada-Arango thinks the former tribes can be classed under three principal nations:[256]
1. TheCatios, west of the river Cauca.
2. TheNutabes, on the right bank of the Cauca, in its central course.
3. TheTahamies, toward the east and south.
In addition to these, there are the Yamacies, near the present city of Saragossa.
According to the early records, these tribes lived in fixed habitations constructed of wood and roofed with thatch. They were cultivators of the soil, skilledin the manufacture of pottery and stone implements, and had as domestic animals parrots and a small species of dog (perros de monte). Their clothing was of cotton, and they were much given to wearing ornaments, many of which were of gold.
From the unfortunate absence of linguistic material, I am unable to classify these interesting peoples.
In the valleys of the Sierra south of the Paezes dwelt theGuanucos, described by the first explorers as a warlike people in an advanced stage of culture. Their houses were of stone, roofed with straw. The sun was worshipped with elaborate ceremonies, including choruses of virgins and the ministration of thousands of priests.[257]The dead were buried and the funeral solemnities associated with human sacrifice. At present the neighbors of the Paezes on the western slope of the Cordillera are the Moguexes or Guambianos, partially civilized and carrying on a rude agriculture. They are much given to dissolute dances to the sound of the marimba, and to stupefying themselves with stramonium, which they also use to catch fish.[258]
The informant of the Abbé Hervas, Señor Velasco, asserted that the Guanucos were a branch of theCoconucos, who dwelt near the foot of the mountain of that name in Popayan, and figure considerably in some of the older histories.[259]Bollaert learned thatsome of them still survive, and obtained a few words of their language, which he was also told was the same as that of the Pubenanos.[260]I have found by comparison that it is identical with that of the Moguexes and Totoros,[261]and I am therefore enabled to present the following group as members of what I shall call the
Coconucos, at the sources of the Rio Purase.Guanucos, in the Sierra.Guambianos, seeMoguexes.Moguexes, on the western slope of the Cordillera.Pubenanos, adjacent to the Coconucos.Mosqueras, sub-tribe of Moguexes.Polindaras, head-waters of Rio Cauca.Totoros, in the Sierra between the Magdalena and Cauca.
To these should probably be added the Conchucos and Guaycos, who appear to have been adjacent tribes speaking the same tongue, although also being familiar with the Kechua language.[262]
In the upper valleys of the rivers Daule, Chone and Tachi, there still survive some families of the “painted Indians,” who were referred to by Cieza de Leon as Manivis, now usually called Colorados, but whose own name is Sacchas, men or people. They are naturally of a light yellow hue, some with light hair and eyes, but are accustomed to go naked and cover their skin with a reddish vegetable pigment, which on the face is laid on in decorative lines. Their language,[263]with which we have some acquaintance, appears to belong to the same family as that of the Barbacoas, to whom the Jesuit Father Luca della Cueva went as missionary in 1640, and that of the Iscuandes and the Telembis, all residing in the forests near the coast, between 1° and 2° north latitude. These are described by M. André, who visited themin 1880, as of mixed blood and reduced to a few hundreds, but still retaining something of their ancient tongue, of which he obtained a vocabulary of 23 words. The Cuaiqueres he reports as also speaking this idiom.[264]
Velasco mentions that the Barbacoas, Telembis and Iscuandes formed a confederation governed by a council of nine members chosen equally from the three tribes.
To the south of the Telembis and adjoining the Kechua-speaking Malabas in the district of La Tola were the Cayapas, of whom some remnants remain, still preserving their native tongue. A vocabulary of it, obtained by H. Wilcszynski, has recently been published.[265]On comparing it with the Colorado vocabulary secured by Bishop Thiel and edited by Dr. Seler, it is clear that they are dialects of the samestock, as will be seen from these examples:[266]
The Cayapas are described as well-built, with oval faces and roman noses.[267]
As the Barbacoas were the first known and probably the most numerous member of this family, I shall select their name to apply to them all, and classify the group as follows:
Barbacoas, on Upper Patia and Telembi.Cayapas, on coast near La Tola.Colorados, on Daule, Chone and Tachi Rivers.Cuaiqueres, on the coast about 1° N. Lat.Iscuandes, on Rio Patia.Manivis, head-waters of Rio Telembi.Sacchas, seeColorados.Telembis, on Rio Telembi.
I have, in obedience to a sense of caution, treated of this stock as separate from the Cocanuca; but the fragmentary vocabularies at my command offer a number of resemblances between the two, and I expect that ampler material will show increased analogies, probably to the extent of proving them branches of the same family tree.
In the roughest part of the Eastern Cordillera, about the head-waters of the two rivers Fragua, (between 1° and 2° north latitude), live theAndaquis. They are wild and warlike, and are the alleged guardians of the legendaryIndeguau, “House of the Sun,” a cavern in which, according to local tradition, lies piled the untold gold of the ancient peoples.[268]At the time of the conquest their ancestors are said to have occupied the fertile lands between the Magdalena and Suaza rivers, especially the valley of San Augustin, where they constructed mysterious cyclopean edifices and subterranean temples, and carved colossal statues from the living rock. These have been described and portrayed by intelligent travelers, and give us a high opinion of the skill and intelligence of their builders.[269]
The only specimen I have found of the Andaqui language is the vocabulary collected by the PresbyterAlbis. Its words show slight similarities to the Paniquita and the Chibcha,[270]but apparently it is at bottom an independent stock. The nation was divided into many sub-tribes, living in and along the eastern Cordillera, and on the banks of the rivers Orteguasa, Bodoquera, Pescado, Fragua and San Pedro, all tributaries of the Caqueta.
The home of theMocoasis between 1° and 2° north lat. along the Rio de los Engaños or Yari, (whence they are sometimes called Engaños or Inganos), and other tributaries of the Caqueta.[271]They are partially civilized, and have seven or more villages near the town of Mocoa. They are the first natives encountered in descending the eastern slope of the Cordillera. Unfortunately, we have a very imperfect knowledge of their language, a few words reported by the Presbyter Albis being all I have seen. So many of them are borrowed from the Kechua, that I have no means of deciding whether the following list of the stock is correct or not:
Almaguereños.EngañosorInganos.Mesayas.Mocoas.Pastuzos.Patias(?)Sebondoyes.
Of these, the Patias dwelt on the lofty and sterile plain between the two chains of the Cordilleras in Popayan. The Sebondoyes had a village on the Putumayo, five leagues south of the Lake of Mocoa (Coleti).
The region around the Gulf of Guayaquil was conquered by the Inca Tupac Yupanqui about 1450.[272]The accounts say that it had previously been occupied by some five-and-twenty independent tribes, all of whom were brought under the dominion of the Kechuas and adopted their language. The most prominent of these were theCañaris, whose homes were in the hot valleys near the coast. Before the arrival of the Incas they had a certain degree of cultivation, being skilled in the moulding of copper, which they worked with a different technique from the Kechuas. Many of their copper axes are ornamented with strange figures, perhaps totemic, cut into the metal. As much as five or six hundred pounds’ weight of these axes has been taken from one of their tombs.[273]Some of the most beautiful gold work from the Peruvian territory has been found in modern times in this province, but was perhaps the work of Kechua rather than of Cañari artists.[274]
The original language of the Cañaris, if it was other than the Kechua, appears to have been lost.
The difficulty of a linguistic classification of the tribes of the Peruvian region is presented in very formidable terms by the old writers. Cieza de Leon said of this portion of the continent: “They have such a variety of languages that there is almost a new language at every league in all parts of the country;”[275]and Garcilasso de la Vega complains of the “confusion and multitude of languages,” which gave the Incas so much trouble, and later so much impeded the labors of the missionaries.[276]An authority is quoted by Bollaert to the effect that in the vice-royalty of Quito alone there were more than forty distinct tongues, spoken in upwards of three hundred different dialects.[277]
Like most such statements, these are gross exaggerations. In fact, from all the evidence which I have been able to find, the tribes in the inter-Andean valley, and on the coast, all the way from Quito, under the equator, to the desert of Atacama in 25° south latitude, belonged to probably four or at most five linguistic stocks. These are the Kechua, the Aymara, the Puquina, the Yunca, and the Atacameño. Of these, the first three were known in the early days of the conquest, as “the three general languages”—lenguas generales—of Peru, on account of their wide distribution. But it is quite likely, as I shall show later, that the Aymara was a dialect, andnot an independent stock.
The Kechua in its various dialects, was spoken by an unbroken chain of tribes for nearly two thousand miles from north to south; that is, from 3° north of the equator to 32° south latitude. Its influence can be traced over a far wider area. In the dialects of Popayan in Ecuador, in those on the Rio Putumayo and Rio Napo, in those on the Ucayali and still further east, on the banks of the Beni and Mamore, in the Moxa of the Bolivian highlands, and southeast quite to the languages of the Pampas, do we find numerous words clearly borrowed from this widespread stock.
This dissemination was due much more to culture than to conquest. It was a tribute to the intellectual superiority, the higher civilization, of this remarkable people, as is evident by the character of the words borrowed. It is a historic error to suppose that the extension of the Kechua was the result of the victories of the Incas. These occurred but a few centuries before the arrival of the Spaniards, and their influence was not great on the native tongues, as even the panegyrist of the Incas, Garcilasso de la Vega, confesses.[278]The opinion of Von Tschudi was so positive on this point that he says: “With a few unimportant exceptions, wherever the Kechua was spoken at the time of the conquest, it had beenspoken thousands of years before the Inca dynasty began.”[279]The assertion of Garcilasso de la Vega, that the Inca gens had a language of its own, has been shown to be an error.[280]
Where should we look for the starting-point, the “cradle,” of the far-spread Kechua stock? The traditions of the Incas pointed to the shores and islands of Lake Titicaca as the birth-place of their remotest ancestors; but as Markham has abundantly shown, this was a pure myth. He himself is decidedly of the opinion that we must search for the cradle of the stock in the district of Cuzco, perhaps not far from Paucartambo, “The House of the Dawning,” to which other venerable Incarian legends assigned the scene of the creation of their common ancestors.[281]
But there are many reasons, and to me satisfactory ones, for believing that the first Kechuas appeared in South America at the extreme north of the region they later occupied, and that the course of their migration was constantly from north to south. This was also the opinion of the learned Von Tschudi. He traces the early wandering of the Kechua tribes from the vicinity of Quito to the district between the Andes and the upper Marañon, thence in the direction of Huaraz, and so gradually southward, followingthe inter-Andean plateau, to the northern shore of Lake Titicaca. There they encountered warlike tribes who put a stop to their further progress in that direction until the rise of the Inca dynasty, who pushed their conquests toward the south and west.
The grounds for this opinion are largely linguistic.[282]In his exhaustive analysis of the Kechua language, Von Tschudi found its most archaic forms in the extreme north, in the dialects of Quito and Chinchasuyu. This is also my own impression from the comparison of the northern and southern dialects. For instance, in the Chinchaya (northern), the word for water isyacu, while the southern dialects employyacuin the sense of “flowing water,” or river, and for water in general adopted the wordunu, apparently from the Arawak stock. Now, as Karl von den Steinen argues in a similar instance, we can understand how a river could be called “water,” but not how drinking water could be called “river;” and therefore we must assume that the original sense ofyacuwas simply “water,” and that the tribes who retained this meaning had the more archaic vocabulary.[283]
Mr. Markham indeed says: “In my opinion there is no sufficient evidence that the people of Quito did speak Quichua previous to the Inca conquest;” and he quotes Cieza de Leon to the effect that at the time of the Spanish conquest they had a tongue of their own.[284]I have, however, shown how untrustworthy Cieza de Leon’s statements are on such subjects; and what is conclusive, there were Kechua-speaking tribes living at the north who never were subjugated by the Incas. Such for instance were the Malabas, whom Stevenson, when visiting that region in 1815, found living in a wild state on San Miguel river, a branch of the Esmeraldas.[285]This is also true, according to the observations of Stübel, of the natives of Tucas de Santiago in the province of Pasto in Ecuador.[286]
This opinion is further supported by a strong consensus of ancient tradition, which, in spite of its vagueness, certainly carries some weight. Many of the southern Kechua tribes referred for their origin to the extreme northwest as known to them, to the ancient city of Lambayeque on the Pacific coast, a locality which, according to Bastian,[287]held a place in their traditions equivalent to that of Culiacan, “the Home of the Ancestors,” in the legendary lore of the Aztecs.
The legends of the ancient Quitus have been preserved in the work of Juan de Velasco, and although they are dismissed with small respect by Markham, I am myself of the opinion that there is both external and internal evidence to justify us in accepting them as at least genuine native productions. They relate that at a remote epoch two Kechua-speaking tribes, the Mantas on the south, and the Caras on the north, occupied the coast from the Gulf of Guayaquil to the Esmeraldas River. The Caras were the elder, and its ancestors had reached that part of the coast in rafts and canoes from some more northern home. For many generations they remained a maritime people, but at length followed up the Esmeraldas and its affluents until they reached the vicinity of Quito, where they developed into a powerful nation under the rule of theirscyri, or chiefs. Of these they claimed a dynasty of nineteen previous to the conquest of their territory by the Inca Huayna Capac. They inherited in the male line, and were monogamous to the extent that the issue of only one of their wives could be regarded as legal heirs.[288]They did not bury their dead, as did the southern Kechuas, but placed them on the surface of the soil and constructed a stone mound or tomb, calledtola, over the remains, resembling in this the Aymaras.
The extent of the Kechua tongue to the north has not been accurately defined. Under the nameYumbos,orYumbos de Guerra, the old Relations included various tribes in the Quito region who had not been reduced by the Spanish Conquistadores.[289]A recent traveler, M. André, states that the Yumbos belong to the family of the Quitus, and include the tribes of the Cayapas, Colorados and Mangaches.[290]Of these, the Cayapas and Colorados, as I have shown, belong to the Barbacoa stock, though the termColorados“painted,” is applied to so many tribes that it is not clear which is meant. The geographer Villavicencio observes that “the Napos, Canelos, Intags, Nanegales and Gualeas, collectively called Yumbos, all speak dialects of the Kechua.” The modern Canelos he describes as a cross between the ancient Yumbos and the Jivaros, to whom they are now neighbors, while the modern Quitos adjoin the Zaparos. Their language, however, he asserts, has retained its purity.[291]
Whether we should include in this stock the Macas, who dwell on the eastern slope of the Andes a few degrees south of the equator, is not clear, as I have found no vocabularies. Velasco refers to them as a part of the Scyra stock, and they are in theKechua region. Mr. Buckley, who visited them a few years ago, describes them as divided into small tribes, constantly at war with each other. Their weapons are spears and blow-pipes with poisoned arrows. Hunting is their principal business, but they also raise some maize, yucca and tobacco. Polygamy prevails along with the patriarchal system, the son inheriting the property of his father. Some rude pottery is manufactured, and their huts of palm leaves are neatly constructed. Like the Jivaros, they prepare the heads of the dead, and sometimes a man will kill one of his wives if he takes a fancy that her head would look particularly ornamental thus preserved.[292]
The southern limit of the Kechua tongue, before the Spanish conquest, has been variously put by different writers; but I think we can safely adopt Coquimbo, in south latitude 30°, as practically the boundary of the stock. We are informed that in 1593 the priests addressed their congregations in Kechua at this place,[293]and in the same generation the missionary Valdivia names it as the northern limit of the Araucanian.[294]Doubtless, however, it was spoken by outlying colonies as far south as the river Maule, in south latitude 35°, which other writers assign as the limit of the conquests of the Incas.
Cieza de Leon and other early Spanish writers frequently refer to the general physical sameness of the Peruvian tribes. They found all of them somewhat undersized, brown in color, beardless, and of but moderate muscular force.
The craniology of Peru offers peculiar difficulties. It was the policy of the rulers to remove large numbers of conquered tribes to distant portions of the realm in order to render the population more homogeneous. This led to a constant blending of physical traits. Furthermore, nowhere on the continent do we find skulls presenting more grotesque artificial deformities, which render it difficult to decide upon their normal form. When the latter element is carefully excluded, we still find a conflicting diversity in the results of measurements. Of 245 Peruvian crania in the collection of the Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, 168 are brachycephalic, 50 are dolichocephalic, and 27 mesocephalic. Of 13 from near Arica, all but one are dolichocephalic. Of 104 from Pachacamac, 93 are brachycephalic and none dolichocephalic. It is evident that along the coast there lived tribes of contrasted skull forms. From the material at hand I should say that the dividing line was near Pisco, those south of that point having elongated, those north of it rounded heads. The true Kechuas and Aymaras are meso or brachycephalic. The crania from the celebrated cemetery of Ancon, which is situated on the coast near Lima, are mostly deformed, but when obtained in natural form prove the population to have been mesocephalic, with rounded orbits (megasemes) and narrow prominent noses (leptorhines). An average of six specimensyielded a cubical capacity of 1335 cub. cent.[295]
The cubical capacity of the Peruvian skulls from the coast generally averages remarkably low—lower than that of the Bushmen or Hottentots. Careful measurements give the capacity at 1230 cubic centimeters.[296]They almost reach the borders of microcephaly, which Broca placed at 1150 cubic centimeters.
Although the Spanish writers speak of the Inca as an autocratic despot, a careful analysis of the social organization of ancient Peru places it in the light of a government by a council of the gentes, quite in accordance with the system so familiar elsewhere on the continent. The Inca was a war-chief, elected by the council as an executive officer to carry out its decision, and had practically no initiative of his own. Associated with him, and nearly equal in power, was thehuillac huma, or “speaking head,” who acted as president of the tribal council, and was the executive officer in the Inca’s absence. The totemic system still controlled the social life of the people, although it is evident that the idea of the family had begun to assert itself. The land continued to be owned by the gens orayllu, and not by individuals.[297]
Agriculture had reached its highest level in Peru among the native tribes. The soil was artificially enriched with manure and guano brought from the islands; extensive systems of irrigation were carried out, and implements of bronze, as spades and hoes, took the place of the ruder tools of stone or wood. The crops were maize, potatoes both white and sweet, yucca, peppers, tobacco and cotton. Of domestic animals the llama and paco were bred for their hair, for sacrifices and as beasts of burden, but not for draft, for riding nor for milking.[298]The herds often numbered many thousands. The Inca dog was a descendant of the wolf,[299]and monkeys, birds and guinea pigs were common pets.
Cotton and hair of the various species of the llama were spun and woven into a large variety of fabrics, often ornamented with geometric designs in color. The pottery was exceedingly varied in forms. Natural objects were imitated in clay with fidelity and expression, and when a desirable model was not at hand, the potter was an adept in moulding curious trick-jars that would not empty their contents in the expected direction, or would emit a strange note from the gurgling fluid, or such as could be used as whistles, or he could turn out terra-cotta flutes and the like. Not less adroit were the artists in metal,especially in bronze and in gold and silver. The early writers are filled with expressions of astonishment at the amount, variety and beauty of the Incarian gold work. Its amount we may well credit when we are told that the value of the precious metals shipped to Spain within twenty-five years after the conquest was four hundred million ducats of gold. There are specimens enough remaining to judge of its artistic designs. They are quite ingenious and show dexterous manipulation, but rarely hint at a sense of the beautiful.
Peruvian architecture was peculiar and imposing. It showed no trace of an inspiration from Yucatan or Mexico. Its special features were cyclopean walls of huge stones fitted together without mortar; structures of several stories in height, not erected upon tumuli or pyramids; the doors narrowing in breadth toward the top; the absence of pillars or arches; the avoidance of exterior and mural decoration; the artistic disposition of niches in the walls; and the extreme solidity of the foundations. These points show that Inca architecture was not derived from that north of the isthmus of Panama. In the decorative effects of the art they were deficient; neither their sculpture in stone nor their mural paintings at all equalled those of Yucatan.
The only plan they had devised to record or to recall ideas was by means of knotted strings of various colors and sizes, called quipus. These could have been nothing more than mere mnemonic aids, highly artificial and limited in their application.
The official religion was a worship of the sun; but along with it were carried the myths of Viracocha, the national hero-god, whom it is not difficult to identify with the personifications of light so common in American religions. The ceremonies of the cult were elaborate, and were not associated with the bloody sacrifices frequent in Yucatan and Mexico. Their mythology was rich, and many legends were current of the white and bearded Viracocha, the culture hero, who gave them their civilization, and of his emergence from the “house of the dawn.” According to some authorities which appear to be trustworthy, the more intelligent of the Kechuas appear to have risen above object-worship, and to have advocated the belief in a single and incorporeal divinity.
A variety of ancestral worship also prevailed, that of thepacarina, or forefather of theaylluor gens, idealized as the soul or essence of his descendants. The emblem worshipped was the actual body, calledmalqui, which was mummied and preserved with reverential care in sacred underground temples.
The morality of the Peruvians stood low. Their art relics abound in obscene devices and the portraiture of unnatural passions. We can scarcely err in seeing in them a nation which had been deteriorated by a long indulgence in debasing tastes.
The Kechua language is one of harsh phonetics, especially in the southern dialects, but of considerable linguistic development. The modifications of the theme are by means of suffixes, which are so numerous as to give it a flexibility and power of conveying slight shades of meaning rare in Americantongues, and which Friedrich Müller compares to that of the Osmanli Turks.[300]Its literature was by no means despicable. In spite of the absence of a method of writing, there was a large body of songs, legends and dramas preserved by oral communication and the quipus. A number of these have been published. Among them the drama ofOllantais the most noteworthy. It appears to be a genuine aboriginal production, committed to writing soon after the conquest, and bears the marks of an appreciation of literary form higher than we might have expected.[301]The poems oryaraveys, usually turn on love for a theme, and often contain sentiments of force and delicacy.[302]Several excellent grammatical studies of the Kechua have appeared in recent years.[303]