Chapter 2

We will now pass to a consideration of the minor deities of the Peruvian mythology. These were numerous, and had been mostly evolved from nature forces and natural phenomena. Among the more important was Chasca, the planet Venus, the 'long-haired,' the 'Page of the Sun.' Cuycha, the rainbow, was the servant of the sun and moon. He was represented in a private chapel of his own, contiguous to that of the Sun, by large plates of gold so fired as to represent the various colours in the prismatic hues of the rainbow. Fire, also, was an object of profound veneration with the Peruvians, derived, as it was believed to be, from the sun. Its preservation was scrupulously attended to in the Temple of the Sun and in the House of the Virgins of the Sun, of which an account will be found in the next chapter.

Catequil was the god of thunder. He isrepresented as possessing a club and sling, the latter evidently being intended to symbolise the thunderbolt. He was a servant of the Sun, and had three distinct forms—Chuquilla (thunder), Catuilla (lightning), and Intiallapa (thunderbolt). Temples were erected to him in which children and llamas were sacrificed at his altars. The Peruvians had, and still have, a great dread of thunder, and sought to pacify Catequil in every possible manner. Their children were sacred to him as the supposed offspring of the lightning.

We now descend gradually and almost insensibly in the scale of deism, until little by little we reach a condition of gross idolatry, not far removed from that still practised by many African tribes. Here we find even vegetables adored as symbols of sustenance. The potato was glorified under the appellation of acsumama, and the maize as saramama. Trees partook of divine attributes, and we seem to see in this condition of things a state analogous to the reverence paid by the early Greeks and Romans to Sylvanus and his train, and the vivification of trees by the presence within them of dryads.

Certain animals were treated with much reverence by the Peruvians. Thus we find the serpent, especially Urcaguay, the keeper of subterraneangold, an object of great veneration. The condor or vulture of the Andes Mountains was the messenger or Mercury of the Sun, and he held the same place on the sceptre of the Incas as the eagle on the sceptre of the Emperor of Germany or Russia. Whales and sharks were also worshipped by the people who lived near the sea.

But in all this nature and animal worship it is difficult to detect a totemic origin.[6]The basis of totemism is the idea of blood-kinship with an animal or plant, which idea in the course of generations evolves into an exaggerated respect, and finally (under conditions favourable for development) into a full-blown mythology. At first it would appear as if the perfect organisation of the Peruvian state and its peculiar marriage laws had originated in a condition of totemism; but had totemism ever entered into the constitution of the Peruvian religion at any period of its development, it would have left as deep an impression upon it as it did in the case of the Egyptian religion—that is, some of the more important deities would have betrayed a totemic origin. That they betray an origin wholly naturalistic there is no room for doubt. Andhere the root difference between the Mexican and Peruvian mythologies may be pointed out—that although both systems had grown up from various constituents grouping themselves around the central worship of the Sun, the constituents of the Aztec religion were almost wholly totemic, whereas those of the Peruvian religion were naturalistic.[7]

But the factor of fetishism was not wanting in the construction of the Peruvian religion. All that was sacred, from the sun himself to the tomb of a righteous person, wasHuaca, or sacred. The chief priest of Cuzco was designated Huacapvillac, or 'he who speaks with sacred beings,' but the principal use to which the termHuacawas put was in reference to objects of metal, wood, and stone, which cannot be better described than as closely resembling those African fetishes so common in our museums. These differed considerably in size. The reverence for them was probably of prehistoric origin, and in this cultuswe have the second brother whom Pirrhua Manca changed into a stone. They were believed by the Peruvians to be the veritable dwelling-places of spirits. Many of these Huacas were public property, and had gifts of flocks of llamas dedicated to them. The majority, however, were private property.

It will be necessary to mention one more deity. This is Supay, god of the dead, who dwelt in a dreary underworld. He was the Pluto of Peruvian mythology, and is usually portrayed as an open-mouthed monster of voracious appetite, into whose maw are thrown the souls of the departed.

For the study of the worship of old Peru the materials are less plentiful than in the case of the Mexican mythology. Stratum upon stratum of belief is discovered, like those in the ruins of some ancient city where each yard of earth holds the story of a dynasty. To the student of comparative religion an exhaustive study of the complex mythology of the ancient Peruvians offers an almost unparalleled opportunity for comparison with and elucidation of other mythologies, since in it the process of its evolution is exhibited with greater clearness than in the case of any other belief, ancient or modern.

CHAPTER V

PERUVIAN RITUAL AND WORSHIP

With the Peruvians, as with the Mexicans, paradise was a preserve of the aristocrats. The poor might languish in the gloomy shades of the Hades presided over by Supay, Lord of the Dead, but for the Incas and their immediate relatives, by whom was embraced the entire nobility, the Mansions of the Sun were retained, where they might dwell with the Sun, their father, in undisturbed felicity. In a community where everything was ordered with military exactitude, sin meant disobedience, and consequently death. Indeed it took the form of direct blasphemy against the Inca, and was thus stripped of the purely ethical sense it holds for a free population. The sinner expiated his crime at once, and was consigned to the grey shades of the underworld, there to pass the same nebulous existence as his more meritorious companions. Some writers upon Peru refer to a belief on the part of thepeople in a place of retribution where the wicked would expiate their offences by ages of arduous toil. But there is little ground for the acceptance of these statements.

Strictly speaking, there was no priesthood in Peru. The ecclesiastical caste consisted of the Inca and his relatives, who were also known as Incas. These assumed all the principal positions in the national religion, but were unable, of course, to fill all the lesser provincial posts. These were undertaken by the priests of the local deities, who were at the same time priests of the imperial deities, a policy which permitted the conquered peoples to retain their own form of worship, and at the same time led them to recognise the paramountcy of the religion of the Incas. Nothing could be more intense than the devotion shown by all ranks of the population to the person of the Inca. He was the sun incarnate upon earth, and his presence must be entered with humble mien and beggarly apparel, and a further show of humility must also be made by carrying a bundle upon the back.

The High Priest, who has been already alluded to as holding the title of Huacapvillac, or 'He who converses with divine beings!' also held the more general one of Villac Oumau, or 'ChiefSacrificer.' He derived his position solely from the Inca, but made all inferior appointments, and was answerable to the monarch alone. He was invariably an Inca of exalted rank, as were all the priests who officiated at Cuzco, the capital. Only those ecclesiastics of the higher grades wore any distinguishing garb, the lower order dressing in the same manner as the people.

The existence of a Peruvian priest was an arduous one. It was necessary for him to master a ritual as complex as any ever evolved by a hierarchy. At regular intervals he was relieved by his fellow-priests, who were organised in companies, each of which took duty for a specified period of the day or night. The duties of the Peruvian priesthood, whilst even more exacting than that of the Mexican, did not appear to have been lightened in a similar manner by the acquirement of knowledge, or by mental exercise of any description, and this may be partly accounted for by the fact that the art of writing was discouraged among them, probably on the assumption that the whole duty of man culminated in unfailing obedience to the Inca and his representatives, and that the acquirement of further knowledge was the work of supererogation.

It is deeply interesting to notice (isolated as was everything Peruvian) that it was in this far corner of America that the native evolution of the temple took place, as distinguished from the altar or teocalli. Originally the Peruvian priesthood had adopted that pyramidal form of structure now familiar to us as that in use by the Mexicans, but as time went on they began to roof over these high altars, and this practice at length culminated in the erection of huge temples like that at Cuzco.

The great temple of Cuzco, known asCoricancha, or 'The Place of Gold,' was the greatest and most magnificent example of Peruvian ecclesiastical architecture. The exterior gave an impression of massiveness and solidity rather than of grace. Round the outer circumference of the building ran a frieze of the purest gold, and the interior was profusely ornamented with plates of the same metal. The doorways were formed from huge monoliths, and the whole aspect of the building was Cyclopean. In the dressing of stone and the fitting of masonry the Peruvians were expert, and the placing of immense blocks of stone appears to have had no difficulties for them. So accurately indeed were these fitted that the blade of a knife could not be inserted between them. Insidethe Temple of the Sun was placed a great plate of gold, upon which was engraved the features of the god of the luminary, and this was so placed that the rays of the rising sun fell full upon it, and bathed it in a flood of radiance. The scintillations from a thousand gems, with which its surface was enriched, lent to it a brilliance which eye-witnesses declare to have been almost insupportable. Enthroned around this dazzling object were the mummified bodies of the monarchs of the Inca dynasty, giving to the place an air of holy mystery which must have deeply impressed the pious and simple people. The roof was composed of rafters of choice woods, but was merely covered in by a thatching of maize straw. The principle of the arch had never been thoroughly grasped by the Peruvians, and that of adequate roofing appears to have been equally unknown to them.

Surrounding this, the principal temple, were others dedicated to the moon; Cuycha, the rainbow; Chasca, the planet Venus; the Pleiades; and Catequil, the thunder-god. In that of the moon, the mother of the Incas, a plate of silver, similar to that which represented the face of the sun in his own sanctuary, was placed, and was surrounded by the mummified forms of the deadqueens of the Incas. In that of Cuycha, the rainbow, as already explained, a golden representation of the arch of heaven was to be found, and the remaining buildings in the precincts of the great temple were set apart for the residences of the priests.

The most ancient of the temples of Peru was that on the island of Titicaca, to which extraordinary veneration was paid. Everything in connection with it was sacred in the extreme, and in the surrounding maize-fields was annually raised a crop which was distributed among the various public granaries, in order to leaven the entire crop of the country with sanctity.

All the utensils in use in these temples were of solid gold and silver. In that of Cuzco twelve large jars of silver held the sacred grain, and censers, ewers, and even the pipes which conducted the water-supply through the earth to the temple, were of silver. In the surrounding gardens, the hoes, spades, and other implements in use were also of silver, and hundreds of representations of plants and animals executed in the precious metals were to be found in them. These facts are vouched for by numerous eye-witnesses, among whom was Pedro Pizarro himself, and subsequent historians have seen no reason toregard their descriptions as in any way untrustworthy.

As in Mexico, so in Peru, the Spanish conquerors were astonished to find among the religious customs of the people practices which appeared to them identical with some of the sacraments of the Roman Catholic faith. Among these were confession, communion, and baptism. Confession appears to have been practised in a somewhat loose and irregular manner, but penance for ill-doing was apportioned, and absolution granted. At the festival of Raymi, which we will later examine, bread and wine were distributed in much the same manner as that prescribed in Christian communities. Baptism also was practised. Some three months after birth the child was plunged into water after having received its name. The ceremony, however, appears to have partaken more of the nature of an exorcism of evil spirits than of a cleansing from original sin.

Like the ancient Egyptians, the Peruvians practised the art of embalming the dead, but it does not appear that they did so with any idea in view of corporeal resurrection as did the former. As to the method by which they preserved the remains of the dead, authoritiesare not agreed, some believing that the cold of the mountains to which the corpses were subjected was sufficient to produce a state of mummification, and others that a process akin to that of the Ancient Egyptians was gone through.

Burnt offerings were very popular among the Peruvians. They were chiefly made to the sun, and were, in general, not unlike those made by the Semites.

As with the Mexicans, the sacred dance was a striking feature of the Peruvian religion. These choral dances were brought to a very high state of perfection, and in the case of the common people were often wild and full of the fire of abandoned fanaticism. The Incas, however, possessed a dance of their own, which was sufficiently grave and stately. At great festivals two choral dances and hymns were rendered to the sun, each strophe of which ended with the cry ofHailly, or 'triumph.' Some of those Peruvian hymns were preserved in the work of a Spanish composer, who in 1555 wrote a mass, into the body of which he introduced these curious waifs of American melody. That choral dances are still in favour with the aborigines of Peru is proved by the evidence of Baron ElandNordenskjöld, who arrived (August 1907) from an eight months' ethnological expedition to some of the Andes tribes. He states that the 'so-called civilised Indians—the Quichuas and Aymaras—living around Titicaca ... have retained many customs unaltered or but slightly modified since the time of the Incas.... Thus it was found that the Indians often worship Christ and the Virgin Mary by dances, in which the sun is used as the symbol for Christ, and the moon for the Virgin Mary.'

With the Peruvians each month had its appropriate festival. The solstices and equinoxes were of course the occasions of the most remarkable of these, and four times a year the feast of Raymi or the dance was celebrated with all the pomp and circumstance of which this strange and bizarre civilisation was capable. The most important of these was held in June, when nine days were given up to the celebration of the Citoc Raymi, or gradually increasing sun. For three days previous to this event all fasted, and no fire might be kindled in any house. On the fourth great day the Inca, accompanied in procession by his court and the people, who followeden masse, proceeded to the great square to hail the rising sun. The scene must have been one of intense brilliance. Clad in theirmost costly robes, and sheltered beneath canopies of cunning feather-work in which the gay plumage of tropical birds was æsthetically arranged, the vast crowd awaited the rising of the sun in eager silence. When he came, shouts of joy and triumph broke from the multitude, and the cries of delight were swelled by the crash of wild melody from a thousand instruments. Louder and louder arose the joyous tumult, until topping the eastern mountains the luminary shone in full splendour on his worshippers. The riot of sound culminated in a mighty pæan of thanksgiving. Libations of maguey, or maize-spirit, were made to the deity, after first having touched the sacred lips of the Inca. Then marshalling itself once more in order of procession, all pressed with one accord to the golden Temple of the Sun, where black llamas were sacrificed, and a new fire kindled by means of a concave mirror. Divested of their sandals the Inca and his suite spent some time in prayer. Occasionally a human victim—a maiden or a beautiful child—was offered up in sacrifice, but happily this was a rare occurrence, and only took place on great public occasions, such as a coronation, or the celebration of a national victory. These sacrifices never ended in cannibal feasts, as did those of the Aztecs.Grain, flowers, animals, and aromatic gums were the usual sacrificial offerings of the Peruvians.

The Citua Raymi was the festival of the spring, and fell in September. It was known as the Feast of Purification. The country must be purified from pestilence, and to secure this, round cakes, kneaded in the blood of children, were eaten. To secure this blood the children were merely bled above the nose, and not slaughtered, as with the more ferocious Aztecs—almost an example of the substitution of the part for the whole. These cakes were also rubbed upon the doorways, and the people smeared them all over their bodies as a preventive against disease. The circuit of the state of Cuzco was then made by relays of armed Incas, who planted their spears on the boundaries as talismans against evil. A torchlight procession followed, after which the torches were cast into the river as symbolic of the destruction of evil spirits.

The festival of the Aymorai, or harvest, fell in May, when a statue made of corn was worshipped under the name of Pirrhua, who seems to be an admixture of Manco Capac and Viracocha in his rôle of fertiliser. The fourth great festival, Capac Raymi, fell in December, when the thunder-god shared the honours paid to the Sun. It was thenthat the younger generation of Incas after a vigorous training received an honour equivalent to that of knighthood.

The Peruvians possessed a fully developed conventual system. A number of maidens, selected for their beauty and their birth, were dedicated to the deity as 'Virgins of the Sun.' Under the guidance ofmamacones, or matrons, these maidens were instructed in the nature of their religious duties, which chiefly consisted in the weaving of priestly garments and temple-hangings. They also watched over the sacred fire which had been kindled at the feast of Raymi. No communication with the outside world was permitted to them, and detection in a love-affair meant living burial, the execution of the lover, and the entire destruction of the place of his birth. In the convent of Cuzco were lodged between one and two thousand maidens of the royal blood, and at a marriageable age these became brides of the Sun in his incarnate shape of the Inca, the most beautiful being selected for the harem of the monarch.

Sorcery and divination were frequently employed by the Peruvians, and theHuacarimachi, 'They who make the gods speak,' were held in great veneration by the ignorant masses. The oracles in the valleys of Lima and Rimac weremuch resorted to, and auguries of all descriptions were in popular favour.

The Peruvians were ignorant of morality as we appreciate the term. That they were, however, a most moral people there is every evidence. But as has been before pointed out, all crime was a direct offence against the majesty of the Inca, who, as viceroy of the Sun on earth, had been blasphemed by the breaking of his law. Under such a régime the true significance of sin was bound to be obscured, if not altogether lost. Terror took the place of conscience, and the necessity for implicit obedience gave no scope to the true moral sense—probably to the detriment of the entire community.

The political and religious history of Peru is unique in the annals of mankind, and its study offers a startling instance of what prolonged isolation may work in the mind of man. That the Peruvian mind, isolated in a remote part of the world as it was, was never wholly blind to the existence of a great and beneficent creative Power, the degradation of a cramping theocracy notwithstanding, is triumphant proof that the knowledge of that Power is a thing inalienable from the mind of man.

CHAPTER VI

THE QUESTION OF FOREIGN INFLUENCE UPON THE RELIGIONS OF AMERICA

The space at my disposal for dealing with this most difficult of all questions is such as will enable me only to outline its salient points. As I pointed out at the beginning of the first chapter, the question of the origins of the American religions was almost identical with that of the origins of the American race itself.

That the Red Man was not the aboriginal inhabitant of the American continent, but supplanted a race with Eskimo affinities, is extremely probable. At all events, the 'Skraelings,' with whom the early Norse discoverers of America had dealings, were not described by them as in any way resembling the North American Indian of later times. If this be granted—and Indian folklore would seem to strengthen the hypothesis—we must then find some other home for theRed Man than the prairies of North-east America for the five centuries between the Norse and Columbian discoveries. He may, of course, have dwelt in the north-west of the continent, a solution of the problem which appears to me highly feasible. That his affinities are Mongolian it would be absurd to dispute; but—and this is of supreme importance—these affinities are of so archaic an origin as to preclude all likelihood of any important or numerous Asiatic immigration occurring for many centuries before either the Norse or Columbian discovery.

Coming to a period within the ken of history, there is just the possibility that Mexico, or some adjacent country of Central America, was visited by Asiatic Buddhist priests in the fifth century. The story is told in the Chinese annals of the wanderings of five Buddhist priests, natives of Cabul, who journeyed to America (which they designate Fusang)viâthe Aleutian Islands and Kamchatka, a region then well known to the Chinese. Their description of the country, however, is no more convincing than are the arguments of their protagonist, Professor Fryer of San Francisco, who sees Asiatic influence in various elephant-headed gods and Buddha-esque statuary in the National Mexican Museum. Itcannot be too strongly insisted upon that any foreign influence arriving in the American continent in pre-Columbian times was not sufficiently powerful to have more than a merely transitory influence upon the customs or religious beliefs of the inhabitants.

This leads us to the conclusion that the religions of Mexico and Peru were of indigenous origin. Any attempt to prove them offshoots of Chinese or other Asiatic religion on the basis of a similarity of art or custom is doomed to failure.

But however satisfactory it may be to brush aside unsubstantial theories which aspire to the honour of facthood, it would be a thousand pities to ignore the numerous intensely interesting myths which have grown up round the idea of foreign contact with the American races in pre-Columbian times. Let us briefly examine these, and attempt to discover any point of contact between them and similar American myths.

I have previously alluded to the myth of Quetzalcoatl. Quetzalcoatl was a Mexican deity, but in reality he was one of the older pre-Aztecan gods of Anahuac. He is sometimes represented as a being of white complexion and fair-bearded, with blue eyes, and altogether of European appearance. It will be remembered that on theentrance into Anahuac of Tezcatlipoca he waged a war with that god in which he was worsted, and eventually forced to depart for 'Tlapallan' in a canoe, promising to return at some future date. It will also be recollected how the legend of Quetzalcoatl's return influenced the whole of Montezuma's policy towards the Spanish conquistadores, and how the fear of his vengeance was ever before the Aztec priesthood. Quetzalcoatl, strangely enough, was reputed to have sailed for 'Tlapallan' from almost the identical spot first set foot upon by Cortes on his arrival on the Mexican coast.

The Max Müller school of mythologists see nothing in Quetzalcoatl but a god of the wind. With them Minos was a myth. So was his palace with its labyrinth until its recent discovery at Knossos. I am fain to see in Quetzalcoatl a real personality—a culture-hero; but I will suggest nothing concerning his non-American nationality. At the same time it will be interesting to examine, firstly, those European myths which speak of men who set out for America; and, secondly, those American myths which speak of the existence of 'white men,' or 'white tribes,' dwelling upon the American continent.

Passing over the sagas of the Norse discoveryof America, which are by no means mythical, we come to the Celtic story of the finding of the great continent. When the Norsemen drove the Irish Celts from Iceland, these fugitives sought refuge in 'Great Ireland,' by which, it is supposed, is intended America. The IrishBook of Lismoretells of the voyage of St. Brendan, abbot of Cluainfert in Ireland, to an island in the ocean destined for the abode of saints, and of his numerous discoveries during a seven years' cruise. The Norse sagas which tell of this 'Great Ireland' speak of the language of its inhabitants as 'resembling Irish,' but as the Irish were the nation with which the Norsemen were best acquainted, this 'resemblance' appears to smack of the linguistic classification of the British sailorman who applies the term 'Portugee' to all languages not his own. The people of this country were attired in white dresses, 'and had poles borne before them on which were fastened lappets, and who shouted with a loud voice.'

But another Celtic people claimed the honour of first setting foot upon American soil. The Welsh Prince Madoc in the year 1170 sailed westwards with a fleet of several ships, and coming to a large and fertile country, landed one hundred and twenty men. Returning to Waleshe once more set out with ten vessels, but concerning his further adventures Powell and Hakluyt are silent. Nor does the authority of the bard Meredith ap Rees concerning him rest upon any more substantial basis.[8]Stories of Welsh-speaking Indians, too, are not uncommon. Two slaves whom the Norsemen of 1007 sent on a foraging expedition into the interior of Massachusetts were Scots, although their names—Haki and Hakia—hardly sound Celtic.[9]

Innumerable are the legends of 'white Indians'—the 'white Panis,'[10]dwelling south of the Missouri, the 'Blanco Barbus, or white Indians with beards,' the Boroanes, the Guatosos of Costa Rica, the Malapoques in Brazil, the Guaranies in Paraguay, the Guiacas of Guiana, the Scheries of La Plata—but modern anthropology scarcely bears out the stories of the 'whiteness' of these tribes. On a similar footing are the travellers' tales concerning the existence of Indian Jews—to prove which Lord Kingsborough squandered a fortune and compiled a work on Mexican antiquities the parallel ofwhich has not been known in the entire history of bibliography.[11]

More convincing are the Mexican and Peruvian legends concerning the appearance of white and bearded culture-bringers. These legends are, it must be admitted, shadowy enough, but are so persistent and resemble each other so closely as to give some grounds for the supposition that at some period in the history of Mexico or Peru a member or members of the 'Caucasian' race may have stumbled into these civilisations through the accidents of shipwreck. But it is exceedingly dangerous to premise anything of the sort; and, as has been said before, the influence of such wanderers could only have been infinitesimal.

Enough, then, has been said to show that the origins of the religions of Mexico and Peru could not have been of any other than an indigenous nature. Their evolution took place wholly upon American soil, and if resemblances appear in their systems to the mythologies or religions ofAsia, they are explicable by that law now so well known to anthropologists and students of comparative religion, that, given similar circumstances, and similar environments, the evolution of the religious beliefs of widely separated peoples will proceed upon similar lines.

SHORT BIBLIOGRAPHY

Mexican Mythology

(Those authorities marked with an asterisk are also applicable to the subject of Peruvian Mythology).

Sahagun,Historia General de las Cosas de Nueva España. (English translation edited for the Hakluyt Society by Clements R. Markham in 1880.)

Torquemada,Los veynte y un libros Rituales y Monarchia Yndiana.

Ixtlilxochitl,'Historia Chichimeca' and 'Relaciones' inLord Kingsborough'sMexican Antiquities, vol. ix.

Prescott,Conquest of Mexico.

*Humboldt,Vues des Cordillères et Monuments des Peuples de l'Amérique.

Clavigero,Storia antica del Messico. (English translation by Charles Cullen. London, 1787.)

Brasseur de Bourbourg,Histoires des Nations civilisées du Mexique et de l'Amérique-centrale, andQuatre Lettres sur le Mexique.

Bancroft,Native Races of the Pacific States of North America.

Kingsborough,Antiquities of Mexico.

*Réville,The Hibbert Lectures, 1884.

*Payne,History of the New World, vols. i. and ii.

Tylor,Anahuac.

Brinton,The Myths of the New World.

Winsor,Narrative and Critical History of America.

Peruvian Mythology

Montesinos,Mémoires historiques sur l'Ancien Perou. (Translated from the Spanish MS. in Ternaux-Compans, vol. xvii.)

Garcilasso de la Vega,Comentarios reales. (English translation for the Hakluyt Society by Clements R. Markham. London, 1869, 1871.)

Lacroix, 'Perou,' in vol. iv. ofL'AmériqueinL'Univers Pittoresque.

Hutchinson,Two Years in Peru, with Explorations of its Antiquities. London, 1873.

Prescott,Conquest of Peru, 1848 (or better, Sonnenschein's new edition, or that in Everyman's Library).

Markham,A History of Peru, 1892; andRites and Laws of the Incas.

Lorente,Historia Antigua del Perú, 1860-3.

The works of Prescott upon Mexico and Peru (which are perhaps the most popular and accessible upon the antiquities of these countries) are nevertheless sadly meagre in their accounts of the respective mythologies of the Nahuatlaca and the Incas. Indeed in each of them but a few pages is given to the faith of the aborigines. In some later editions, however (notably in the recent popular editions of Mr. Sonnenschein), excellent variorum notes have been added by the editors. A great deal of Prescott's work is now quite obsolete and misleading. The works of Mr. Brinton have superseded them; but it is doubtful if Prescott will ever be surpassed in narrative charm. The best English work on the subject is Mr. Payne'sHistory of the New World called America, cited above, a work which is a veritable storehouse of knowledge upon aboriginal America. These works are, however, rather too erudite in tone for the general reader, and by no means easy to come by. A most excellent catalogue of American historical and mythological literature is published by Mr. Karl Hiersemann of Leipsic.

Printed by T. andA. Constable, Printers to His Majesty at the Edinburgh University Press

FOOTNOTES:

[1]The fact of the rapid approximation of the European colonists to the American type might, however, be quoted against this view.

[2]It must be borne in mind that the science and arts of the Aztecs were almost immediately lost in consequence of the intolerance of the Spanish Conquistadores.

[3]An absolutely erroneous one.

[4]The temple, with all its purlieus and courts, was namedteopan; the central pyramid,teocalli.

[5]There is reason to believe, however, that the sacrifices of the Aztecs were made not so much for the purpose of placating the gods as for the imagined necessity of rejuvenating them and keeping them alive. Of some of the sacrifices, at least, this is certain.

[6]The veneration of an animal or plantwhich does not identify a tribeis not 'totemism' but 'naturalism,' or nature-worship.

[7]The evidence of Garcilasso would seem to show that the early Peruvians possessed a totem-system; this, however, would appear to have been by some process totally eliminated. It will be seen that I differentiate between 'naturalism' and 'totemism.' 'Totemism' is the adoption of an animal or plant symbol by atribeoriginally for the purpose of identification. It later grows into the belief in blood-kinship with the symbol. 'Naturalism' is the worship of the wind, the sun, or other natural phenomena.

[8]The legend is the basis of some hundred of lines of bookish fustian by Southey, who follows Hakluyt in making Mexico the theatre of the prince's adventures.

[9]Antiquitates Americanæ.Were they Picts?

[10]Pawnees.

[11]This monumental work, which, apart from its letterpress, is exceedingly valuable in respect of numerous splendid plates representing Aztec MSS., is in nine huge volumes, and was published in London in 1831. Its original price was £175 coloured, and £120 uncoloured. Its noble author sought to prove that the Mexicans were the Lost Ten Tribes of Israel.

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