The ruins of Ancient Peru are found chiefly on the elevated table-lands of the Andes, between Quito and Lake Titicaca; but they can be traced five hundred miles farther south, to Chili, and throughout the region connecting these high plateaus with the Pacific coast. The great district to which they belong extends north and south about two thousand miles. When the marauding Spaniards arrived in the country, this whole region was the seat of a populous and prosperous empire, complete in its civil organization, supported by an efficient system of industry, and presenting a very notable development of some of the more important arts of civilized life. These ruins differ from those in Mexico and Central America. No inscriptions are found in Peru; there is no longer a “marvelous abundance of decorations;” nothing is seen like the monoliths of Copan or the bas-reliefs of Palenque. The method of building is different; the Peruvian temples were not high truncated pyramids, and the great edifices were not erected on pyramidal foundations. The Peruvian ruins show us remains of cities, temples, palaces, other edifices of various kinds, fortresses, aqueducts (one of them four hundred and fifty miles long), great roads (extending through the whole length of the empire), and terraces on the sides of mountains. For all these constructions the builders used cut stone laid in mortar or cement, and their work was done admirably, but it is every where seen that the masonry, although sometimes ornamented, was generally plain in style and always massive. The antiquities in this region have not been as much explored and described as those north of the isthmus, but their general character is known, and particular descriptions of some of them have been published.
THE SPANISH HUNT FOR PERU.
The Spanish conquest of Peru furnishes one of the most remarkable chapters in the history of audacious villainy. It was the work of successful buccaneers as unscrupulous as any crew of pirates that ever robbed and murdered on the ocean. After their settlements began on the islands and the Atlantic coast, rumors came to them of a wonderful country somewhere at a distance in the west. They knew nothing of another ocean between them and the Indies; the western side of the continent was a veiled land of mystery, but the rumors, constantly repeated, assured them that there was a country in that unknown region where gold was more abundant than iron among themselves. Their strongest passions were moved; greed for the precious metals and thirst for adventures.
Balboa was hunting for Peru when he discovered the Pacific, about 1511 A.D. He was guided across the isthmus by a young native chief, who told him of that ocean, saying it was the best way to the country where all the common household utensils were made of gold. At the Bay of Panama Balboa heard more of Peru, and went down the coast to find it, but did not go south much beyond the eighth degree of north latitude. In his company of adventurers at this time was Francisco Pizarro, by whom Peru was found, subjugated, robbed, and ruined, some fifteen or twenty years later. Balboa was superseded by Pedrarias, another greedy adventurer, whose jealousy arrested his operations and finally put him to death. The town of Panama was founded in 1519 by this Pedrarias, chiefly as a point on the Pacific from which he could seek and attack Peru. Under his direction, in 1522, the search was attempted by Pascual de Andagoya, but he failed to get down the coast beyond the limit of Balboa’s exploration. Meanwhile clearer and more abundant reports of the rich and marvelous nation to be found somewhere below that point were circulated among the Spaniards, and their eagerness to reach it became intense.
In 1524, three men could have been seen in Panama busily engaged preparing another expedition to go in search of the golden country. These were Francisco Pizarro, a bold and capable adventurer, who could neither read nor write; Diego de Almagro, an impulsive, passionate, reckless soldier of fortune, and Hernando de Luque, a Spanish ecclesiastic, Vicar of Panama, and a man well acquainted with the world and skilled in reading character, acting at this time, it is said, for another person who kept out of view. They had formed an alliance to discover and rob Peru. Luque would furnish most of the funds, and wait in Panama for the others to do the work. Pizarro would be commander-in-chief. The vessels used would necessarily be such as could be built at Panama, and, therefore, not very efficient.
Pizarro went down the coast, landing from time to time to explore and rob villages, until he reached about the fourth degree of north latitude, when he was obliged to return for supplies and repairs. It became necessary to reconstruct the contract and allow Pedrarias an interest in it. On the next voyage, one of the vessels went half a degree south of the equator, and encountered a vessel “like a European caravel,” which was, in fact, a Peruvian balsa, loaded with merchandise, vases, mirrors of burnished silver, and curious fabrics of cotton and woolen.
It became again indispensable to send back to Panama for supplies and repairs, and Pizarro was doomed to wait for them seven months on an island. He next visited Tumbez, in Peru, and went to the ninth degree of south latitude; but he was obliged to visit Spain to get necessary aid before he could attempt any thing more, and it was not until the year 1531 that the conquest of Peru was actually undertaken.
In 1531 Pizarro finally entered Tumbez with his buccaneers, and marched into the country, sending word to the Inca that he came to aid him against his enemies. There had been a civil war in the country, which had been divided by the great Inca, Huayna Capac, the conqueror of Quito, between his two sons, Huascar and Atahuallpa, and Huascar had been defeated and thrown into prison, and finally put to death. At a city called Caxamalca, Pizarro contrived, by means of the most atrocious treachery, to seize the Inca and massacre some ten thousand of the principal Peruvians, who came to his camp unarmed on a friendly visit. This threw the whole empire into confusion, and made the conquest easy. The Inca filled a room with gold as the price of his ransom; the Spaniards took the gold, broke their promise, and put him to death.
THE RUINS NEAR LAKE TITICACA.
It is now agreed that the Peruvian antiquities represent two distinct periods in the ancient history of the country, one being much older than the other. Mr. Prescott accepts and repeats the opinion that “there existed in the country a race advanced in civilization before the time of the Incas,” and that the ruins on the shores of Lake Titicaca are older than the reign of the first Inca. In the work of Rivero and Von Tschudi, it is stated that a critical examination of the monuments “indicates two very different epochs in Peruvian art, at least so far as concerns architecture; one before and the other after the arrival of the first Inca.” Among the ruins which belong to the older civilization are those at Lake Titicaca, old Huanuco, Tiahuanaco, and Gran-Chimu, and it probably originated the roads and aqueducts. At Cuzco and other places are remains of buildings which represent the later time; but Cuzco of the Incas appears to have occupied the site of a ruined city of the older period. Figure 51 gives a view of the ancient Peruvian masonry. Montesinos supposes the name of Cuzco was derived from cosca, a Peruvian word signifying to level, or from heaps of earth called coscos, which abounded there. In his account of the previous times there is mention that an old city built there was in ruins. Perhaps the first Inca found on its site nothing but coscos, or heaps of ruins.
At Lake Titicaca some of the more important remains are on the islands. On Titicaca Island are the ruins of a great edifice described as “a palace or temple.” Remains of other structures exist, but their ruins are old, much older than the time of the Incas. Figures 52 and 53 represent different ruins on the island of Titicaca. They were all built of hewn stone, and had doors and windows, with posts, sills, and thresholds of stone, the doorways being narrower above than below. On the island of Coati there are remarkable ruins. The largest building here is also described as “a palace or temple,” although it may have been something else. It was not high, but very large in extent. It stood around three sides of a parallelogram, with some peculiarities of construction connected with the ends or wings. Making allowance for the absence of the pyramidal foundations, it has more resemblance to some of the great constructions in Central America than to any thing peculiar to the later period of Peruvian architecture. Another ruin on this island is shown in Figure 54. The antiquities on the islands and shores of this lake need to be more completely explored and described, and probably interesting discoveries could be made at some points by means of well-directed excavations.
A few miles from Lake Titicaca, at Tiahuanaco, are ruins which were very imposing when first seen by the Spaniards in the time of Pizarro. It is usual to speak of them as the oldest ruins in Peru, which may or may not be correct. They must, however, be classed with those at the lake. Not much now remains of the edifices, which were in a very ruinous condition three hundred and forty years ago. They were described by CieÇa de Leon, who accompanied Pizarro, and also by Diego d’AlcobaÇa. CieÇa de Leon mentions “great edifices” that were in ruins, “an artificial hill raised on a groundwork of stone,” and “two stone idols resembling the human figure, and apparently made by skillful artificers.” These “idols” were great statues, ten or twelve feet high. One of them, which was carried to La Paz in 1842, measured “three and a half yards” in length. Sculptured decorations appear on them, and, according to CieÇa de Leon, the figures seemed to be “clothed in long vestments” different from those worn in the time of the Incas. Of a very remarkable edifice, whose foundations could be traced near these statues, nothing remained then “but a well-built wall, which must have been there for ages, the stones being very much worn and crumbled.” CieÇa de Leon’s description goes on as follows:
“In this place, also, there are stones so large and so overgrown that our wonder is incited, it being incomprehensible how the power of man could have placed them where we see them. They are variously wrought, and some of them, having the form of men, must have been idols. Near the walls are many caves and excavations under the earth, but in another place, farther west, are other and greater monuments, such as large gateways with hinges, platforms, and porches, each made of a single stone. It surprised me to see these enormous gateways made of great masses of stone, some of which were thirty feet long, fifteen high, and six thick.”
Many of the stone monuments at Tiahuanaco have been removed, some for building, some for other purposes. In one case, “large masses of sculptured stone ten yards in length and six in width” were used to make grinding stones for a chocolate mill. The principal monuments now seen on this field of ruins are a vast mound covering several acres, where there seems to have been a great edifice, fragments of columns, erect slabs of stone which formed parts of buildings, and several of the monolithic gateways, the largest of which was made of a single stone ten feet high and thirteen broad. Figure 55 gives a view of one. The doorway is six feet four inches high, and three feet two inches wide. Above it, along the whole length of the stone, which is now broken, is a cornice covered with sculptured figures. “The whole neighborhood,” says Mr. Squier, “is strewn with immense blocks of stone elaborately wrought, equaling, if not surpassing in size, any known to exist in Egypt or India.”
At Cuzco, two or more degrees north of Lake Titicaca, there are ruins of buildings that were occupied until the rule of the Incas was overthrown. Remains of the old structures are seen in various parts of the present town, some of them incorporated into new edifices built by the Spaniards. Cyclopean remains of walls of the Temple of the Sun now constitute a portion of the Convent of St. Domingo. In the days of the Incas, this temple stood “a circuit of more than four hundred paces,” and was surrounded by a great wall built of cut stone. Remains of the old fortifications are seen; and there is an extensive ruin here which shows what is supposed to be all that remains of the palace of the Incas. Figures 56 and 57 give views of remains of the ancient fortress walls at Cuzco. Occasionally there is search at Cuzco, by means of excavation, for antiquities. Within a few years an important discovery has been made; a lunar calendar of the Incas, made of gold, has been exhumed. At first it was described as “a gold breastplate or sun;” but William Bollaert, who gives an account of it, finds that it is a calendar, the first discovered in Peru. Many others, probably, went to the melting-pot at the time of the Conquest. This is not quite circular. The outer ring is five inches and three tenths in diameter, and the inner four inches. It was made to be fastened to the breast of an Inca or priest. The figures were stamped on it, and there “seem to be twenty-four compartments, large and small, including three at the top. At the bottom are two spaces; figures may or may not have been there, but it looks as if they had been worn away.” It was found about the year 1859.
The uniform and constant report of Peruvian tradition places the beginning of this old civilization in the Valley of Cuzco, near Lake Titicaca. There appeared the first civilizers and the first civilized communities. This beautiful valley is the most elevated table-land on the continent, Lake Titicaca being 12,846 feet above the sea level. Were it not within the tropics, it would be a region of eternal snow, for it is more than 4000 feet higher than the beginning of perpetual snow on Mont Blanc. Near it are some of the higher peaks of the Andes, among them Sorato, Illimani, and Sahama.
OTHER RUINS IN PERU.
The ancient Peru conquered and robbed by Pizarro is now divided into Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and Chili as far down as the thirty-seventh degree of south latitude. Its remains are found to some extent in all these countries, although most abundantly in Peru.
The ruins known as “the Palaces of Gran-Chimu” are situated in the northwestern part of Peru, near Truxillo. Here, in the time of the first Incas, was an independent state, which was subjugated by the Inca set down in the list of Montesinos as the grandfather of Huayna Capac, about a century before the Spaniards arrived. For what is known of these ruins we are chiefly indebted to Mariano Rivero, director of the National Museum at Lima. They cover a space of three quarters of a league, without including the walled squares found on every side. The chief objects of interest are the remains of two great edifices called palaces. “These palaces are immense areas surrounded by high walls of brick, the walls being now ten or twelve yards high and six feet thick at the base.” There was in each case another wall exterior to this. Within the palace walls were squares and dwellings, with narrow passages between them, and the walls are decorated. In the largest palace are the remains of a great reservoir for water, which was brought to it by subterranean aqueducts from the River Moche, two miles distant. Outside the inclosures of these palaces are remains of a vast number of buildings, which indicate that the city contained a great population. The Spaniards took vast quantities of gold from the huacas or tombs at this place. The amount taken from a single tomb in the years 1566 and 1592 was officially estimated at nearly a million dollars. Figure 58 presents an end view of the walls at Gran-Chimu. Figures 59 and 60 represent some of the decorations at Chimu-Canchu.
Remarkable ruins exist at Cuelap, in Northern Peru. “They consist of a wall of wrought stones 3600 feet long, 560 broad, and 150 high, constituting a solid mass with a level summit.” Probably the interior was made of earth. On this mass was another, “600 feet long, 500 broad, and 150 high.” In this, and also in the lower structure, there are many rooms made of wrought stone, in which are a great number of niches or cells one or two yards deep, which were used as tombs. Other old structures exist in that neighborhood. Farther south, at Huanuco el Viego, or Old Huanuco, are two peculiar edifices and a terrace, and near them the faded traces of a large town. The two edifices were built of a composition of pebbles and clay, faced with hewn stone. One of them is called the “Look-out,” but it is impossible to discover the purpose for which it was built. The interior of the other is crossed by six walls, in each of which is a gateway, the outer one being finely finished, and showing a sculptured animal on each of the upper corners. It has a large court, and rooms made of cut stones. Connected with this structure was a well-built aqueduct. Figures 61 and 62 give views of the so-called palace and its ground plan. Figure 63 represents the Look-out.
Seven leagues from Lima, near the sea, are the much-dilapidated ruins, shown in Figure 64, of a large city of the Incas, which was built chiefly of adobes or sun-dried bricks. It is called Pachacamac. Ruins of towns, castles, fortresses, and other structures are found all about the country. At one place, near Chavin de Huanta, there are remarkable ruins which are very old. The material used here was like that seen at Old Huanuco. From the interior of one of the great buildings there is a subterranean passage which, it is said, goes under the river to the opposite bank. Very ancient ruins, showing remains of large and remarkable edifices, were seen near Huamanga, and described by CieÇa de Leon. The native traditions said this city was built by “bearded white men, who came there long before the time of the Incas, and established a settlement.” It is noticed every where that the ancient Peruvians made large use of aqueducts, which they built with notable skill, using hewn stones and cement, and making them very substantial. Some of them are still in use. They were used to carry water to the cities and to irrigate the cultivated lands. A few of them were very long. There is mention of one which was a hundred and fifty miles long, and of another which was extended four hundred and fifty miles across sierras and over rivers, from south to north.
THE GREAT PERUVIAN ROADS.
Nothing in Ancient Peru was more remarkable than the public roads. No ancient people has left traces of works more astonishing than these, so vast was their extent, and so great the skill and labor required to construct them. One of these roads ran along the mountains through the whole length of the empire, from Quito to Chili. Another, starting from this at Cuzco, went down to the coast and extended northward to the equator. These roads were built on beds or “deep under-structures” of masonry. The width of the roadways varied from twenty to twenty-five feet, and they were made level and smooth by paving, and in some places by a sort of macadamizing with pulverized stone mixed with lime and bituminous cement. This cement was used in all the masonry. On each side of the roadway was “a very strong wall more than a fathom in thickness.” These roads went over marshes, rivers, and great chasms of the sierras, and through rocky precipices and mountain sides. The great road passing along the mountains was a marvelous work. In many places its way was cut through rock for leagues. Great ravines were filled up with solid masonry. Rivers were crossed by means of a curious kind of suspension bridges, and no obstruction was encountered which the builders did not overcome. The builders of our Pacific Railroad, with their superior engineering skill and mechanical appliances, might reasonably shrink from the cost and the difficulties of such a work as this. Extending from one degree north of Quito to Cuzco, and from Cuzco to Chili, it was quite as long as the two Pacific railroads, and its wild route among the mountains was far more difficult.
Sarmiento, describing it, said, “It seems to me that if the emperor (Charles V.) should see fit to order the construction of another road like that which leads from Quito to Cuzco, or that which from Cuzco goes toward Chili, I certainly think he would not be able to make it, with all his power.” Humboldt examined some of the remains of this road, and described as follows a portion of it seen in a pass of the Andes, between Mansi and Loxa: “Our eyes rested continually on superb remains of a paved road of the Incas. The roadway, paved with well-cut, dark porphyritic stone, was twenty feet wide, and rested on deep foundations. This road was marvelous. None of the Roman roads I have seen in Italy, in the South of France, or in Spain, appeared to me more imposing than this work of the ancient Peruvians.” He saw remains of several other shorter roads which were built in the same way, some of them between Loxa and the River Amazon. Along these roads at equal distances were edifices, a kind of caravanseras, built of hewn stone, for the accommodation of travelers.
These great works were described by every Spanish writer on Peru, and in some accounts of them we find suggestions in regard to their history. They are called “roads of the Incas,” but they were probably much older than the time of these rulers. The mountain road running toward Quito was much older than the Inca Huayna Capac, to whom it has sometimes been attributed. It is stated that when he started by this route to invade the QuitÚs, the road was so bad that “he found great difficulties in the passage.” It was then an old road, much out of repair, and he immediately ordered the necessary reconstructions. Gomara says, “Huayna Capac restored, enlarged, and completed these roads, but he did not build them, as some pretend.” These great artificial highways were broken up and made useless at the time of the Conquest, and the subsequent barbarous rule of the Spaniards allowed them to go to decay. Now only broken remains of them exist to show their former character.
THE PERUVIAN CIVILIZATION.
The development of civilization in Peru was very different from that in Mexico and Central America. In both regions the people were sun-worshipers, but their religious organizations, as well as their methods of building temples, were unlike. Neither of these peoples seems to have borrowed from the other. It may be that all the old American civilizations had a common origin in South America, and that all the ancient Americans whose civilization can be traced in remains found north of the Isthmus came originally from that part of the continent. This hypothesis appears to me more probable than any other I have heard suggested. But, assuming this to be true, the first migration of civilized people from South America must have taken place at a very distant period in the past, for it preceded not only the history indicated by the existing antiquities, but also an earlier history, during which the Peruvians and Central Americans grew to be as different from their ancestors as from each other. In each case, the development of civilization represented by existing monuments, so far as we can study it, appears to have been original.In some respects the Peruvian civilization was developed to such a degree as challenged admiration. The Peruvians were highly skilled in agriculture and in some kinds of manufactures. No people ever had a more efficient system of industry. This created their wealth and made possible their great public works. All accounts of the country at the time of the Conquest agree in the statement that they cultivated the soil in a very admirable way and with remarkable success, using aqueducts for irrigation, and employing guano as one of their most important fertilizers. Europeans learned from them the value of this fertilizer, and its name, guano, is Peruvian. The remains of their works show what they were as builders. Their skill in cutting stone and their wonderful masonry can be seen and admired by modern builders in what is left of their aqueducts, their roads, their temples, and their other great edifices.
They had great proficiency in the arts of spinning, weaving, and dyeing. For their cloth they used cotton and the wool of four varieties of the llama, that of the vicuÑa being the finest. Some of their cloth had interwoven designs and ornaments very skillfully executed. Many of their fabrics had rare excellence in the eyes of the Spaniards. Garcilasso says, “The coverings of the beds were blankets and friezes of the wool of the vicuÑa, which is so fine and so much prized that, among other precious things from that land, they have been brought for the bed of Don Philip II.” Of their dyes, this account is given in the work of Rivero and Von Tschudi:
“They possessed the secret of fixing the dye of all colors, flesh-color, yellow, gray, blue, green, black, etc., so firmly in the thread, or in the cloth already woven, that they never faded during the lapse of ages, even when exposed to the air or buried (in tombs) under ground. Only the cotton became slightly discolored, while the woolen fabrics preserved their primitive lustre. It is a circumstance worth remarking that chemical analyses made of pieces of cloth of all the different dyes prove that the Peruvians extracted all their colors from the vegetable and none from the mineral kingdom. In fact, the natives of the Peruvian mountains now use plants unknown to Europeans, producing from them bright and lasting colors.”
They had great skill in the art of working metals, especially gold and silver. Besides these precious metals, they had copper, tin, lead, and quicksilver. Figures 65 and 66 show some of the implements used by the Peruvians. Iron was unknown to them in the time of the Incas, although some maintain that they had it in the previous ages, to which belong the ruins at Lake Titicaca. Iron ore was and still is very abundant in Peru. It is impossible to conceive how the Peruvians were able to cut and work stone in such a masterly way, or to construct their great roads and aqueducts without the use of iron tools. Some of the languages of the country, and perhaps all, had names for iron; in official Peruvian it was called quillay, and in the old Chilian tongue panilic. “It is remarkable,” observes Molina, “that iron, which has been thought unknown to the ancient Americans, has particular names in some of their tongues.” It is not easy to understand why they had names for this metal, if they never at any time had knowledge of the metal itself. In the Mercurio Peruano, tome i., p. 201, 1791, it is stated that, anciently, the Peruvian sovereigns “worked magnificent iron mines at Ancoriames, on the west shore of Lake Titicaca;” but I can not give the evidence used in support of this statement.
Their goldsmiths and silversmiths had attained very great proficiency. They could melt the metals in furnaces, cast them in moulds made of clay and gypsum, hammer their work with remarkable dexterity, inlay it, and solder it with great perfection. The gold and silver work of these artists was extremely abundant in the country at the time of the Conquest, but Spanish greed had it all melted for coinage. It was with articles of this gold-work that the Inca Atahuallpa filled a room in his vain endeavor to purchase release from captivity. One of the old chroniclers mentions “statuary, jars, vases, and every species of vessels, all of fine gold.” Describing one of the palaces, he said: “They had an artificial garden, the soil of which was made of small pieces of fine gold, and this was artificially sowed with different kinds of maize which were of gold, their stems, leaves, and ears. Besides this, they had more than twenty sheep (llamas), with their lambs, attended by shepherds, all made of gold.” This may be the same artificial garden which was mentioned by Francisco Lopez de Gomara, who places it on “an island near Puna.” Similar gardens of gold are mentioned by others. It is believed that a large quantity of Peruvian gold-work was thrown into Lake Titicaca to keep it from the Spanish robbers. In a description of one lot of golden articles sent to Spain in 1534 by Pizarro, there is mention of “four llamas, ten statues of women of full size, and a cistern of gold so curious that it incited the wonder of all.”
Nothing is more constantly mentioned by the old Spanish chroniclers than the vast abundance of gold in Peru. It was more common than any other metal. Temples and palaces were covered with it, and it was very beautifully wrought into ornaments, temple furniture, articles for household use, and imitations of almost every object in nature. In the course of twenty-five years after the Conquest, the Spaniards sent from Peru to Spain more than four hundred million ducats (800,000,000 dollars) worth of gold, all or nearly all of it having been taken from the subjugated Peruvians as “booty.”
Figures 67 and 68 show a golden and a silver vase, reduced from the actual size. Figures 69 and 70 represent various articles of pottery; all these illustrations are copies from articles taken from old Peruvian tombs.
The most perfectly manufactured articles of Peruvian pottery were used in the tombs. Some of those made for other uses were very curious. A considerable number of articles made for common use have been preserved. Mariano Rivero, a Peruvian, says: “At this day there exist in many houses pitchers, large jars, and earthen pots of this manufacture, which are preferred for their solidity to those manufactured by our own potters.” The ancient Peruvians were inferior to the Central Americans in the arts of ornamentation and sculpture.
Science among the Peruvians was not very highly developed, but engineering skill of some kind is indicated by the great roads and aqueducts. Their knowledge of the art of preparing colors and certain useful medicines implied a study of plants. Their progress in astronomy was not equal to that found in Central America; nevertheless, they had an accurate measure of the solar year, but, unlike the Central Americans, they divided the year into twelve months, and they used mechanical contrivances successfully to fix the times of the solstices and equinoxes. A class of men called amautas was trained to preserve and teach whatever knowledge existed in the country. It was their business to understand the quippus, keep in memory the historical poems, give attention to the science and practice of medicine, and train their pupils in knowledge. These were not priests; they were the “learned men” of Peru, and the government allowed them every facility for study and for communicating instruction. How much they knew of astronomy it is not easy to say. They had knowledge of some of the planets, and it is claimed that there is some reason to believe they used aids to eyesight in studying the heavens, such as some suppose were used by our Mound-Builders. A discovery made in Bolivia a few years since is cited in support of this belief. It is the figure of a man in the act of using a tube to aid vision, which was taken from an ancient tomb. Mr. David Forbes, an English chemist and geologist, obtained it in Bolivia, and carried it to England in 1864. William Bollaert describes it as follows in a paper read to the London Anthropological Society:
“It is a nude figure, of silver, two inches and a half in height, on a flat, pointed pedestal. In the right hand it has the mask of a human face, but in the left a tube over half an inch in length, the narrow part placed to the left eye in a diagonal position, as if observing some celestial object. This is the first specimen of a figure in the act of looking through a hollow tube directed to the heavens that has been found in the New World. We can not suppose the Peruvians had any thing that more nearly resembled a telescope. It was found in a chulpa, or ancient Indian tomb, at Caquingora, near Corocoro (lat. 17° 15' S., and long. 68° 35' W.), in Bolivia.” He forgets the astronomical monument described by Captain Dupaix.
The art of writing in alphabetical characters, so far as appears, was unknown to the Peruvians in the time of the Incas. No Peruvian books existed at that time, and no inscriptions have been found in any of the ruins. They had a method of recording events, keeping accounts, and making reports to the government by means of the quippu. This was made of cords of twisted wool fastened to a base prepared for the purpose. These cords were of various sizes and colors, and every size and color had its meaning. The record was made by means of an elaborate system of knots and artificial intertwinings. The amautas were carefully educated to the business of understanding and using the quippus, and “this science was so much perfected that those skilled in it attained the art of recording historical events, laws, and decrees, so as to transmit to their descendants the most striking events of the empire; thus the quippus could supply the place of documents.” Each quippu was a book full of information for those who could read it.
Among the amautas memory was educated to retain and transmit to posterity songs, historical narratives, and long historical poems. It is said, also, that tragedies and comedies were composed and preserved in this way, and that dramatic performances were among the regular entertainments encouraged and supported by the Incas. Whether the art of writing ever existed in the country can not now be determined. Some of the Peruvian tongues had names for paper; the people knew that a kind of paper or parchment could be made of plantain leaves, and, according to Montesinos, writing and books were common in the older times, that is to say, in ages long previous to the Incas. He explains how the art was lost, as I shall presently show.
It is not improbable that a kind of hieroglyphical writing existed in some of the Peruvian communities, especially among the Aymaraes. Humboldt mentions books of hieroglyphical writing found among the Panoes, on the River Ucayali, which were “bundles of their paper resembling our volumes in quarto.” A Franciscan missionary found an old man sitting at the foot of a palm-tree and reading one of these books to several young persons. The Franciscan was told that the writing “contained hidden things which no stranger ought to know.” It was seen that the pages of the book were “covered with figures of men, animals, and isolated characters, deemed hieroglyphical, and arranged in lines with order and symmetry.” The Panoes said these books “were transmitted to them by their ancestors, and had relation to wanderings and ancient wars.” There is similar writing on a prepared llama skin found among other antiquities on a peninsula in Lake Titicaca, which is now in the museum at La Paz, Bolivia. It appears to be a record of atrocities perpetrated by the Spaniards at the time of the Conquest, and shows that some of the Aymaraes could at that time write hieroglyphics.
