Religion.

which this extraordinary change, and revolution of manners, was effected. The genealogy of the fovereigns favours ftrongly of that adulation ever paid to the rulers of the world, who are often inferior to the brute creation; while they are regarded by their indifcriminating fubjects as fomething above human. Garcilajo de la Vega, the most authentic hiftorian of Peru, himself defcended, by the mother, from the royal line, lavthes his praifes on the Incas, as the civilizers and humanizers of a barbatous people, who wandered about like the beafts of the fields without laws, government, or the least idea of virtue or rational religion. Perhaps he intended to compliment the regal dignity at the expence of human nature; certain it is, that the horrible picture he has drawn of the ancient Peruvians, before the foundation of their monarchy, is the higheft panegyric on the conduct of the Incas. If we may credit this writer, the ancestors of the Peruvians were favages, diftinguished from the brute creation only by fpeech, and the human form; they were fierce, ignorant, and cruel, almoft beyond belief. We fhall begin with their religion, if that term may be applied to fuch abominable superftitious inftitutions, every way fuitable to their corrupt manners, and grovelling notions.

THE ancient Peruvians, like the negroes on the coaft of Africa, had a multiplicity of gods; almoft every object that prefented itself was raifed into a deity. Nations, provinces, tribes, families, and individuals, had their peculiar gods; the Peruvians not being able to comprehend how the fame deity fhould be able to attend to the various actions of different perfons. Herbs, flowers, trees, fhrubs, caves, rivers, and all kinds of animals, were worshipped by this favage people, who facrificed to thofe material gods not only their enemies, but their own children. Mountains were adored for their height, trees for their fhade, tigers for their ferocity, other animals for other qualities, and many for their power of doing mifchief. Garcilaffo confirms the account of Blas Valera, who relates, that the inhabitants of the mountains of the Andes were man-eaters, and facrificed their fellow creatures and even their children to ferpents, whom they deified. Prifoners taken in war were immediately quartered and divided for the benefit of the captors, or fold in the shambles. Should any perfon of distinction happen to have fallen into the hands of this favage tribe, they ftripped him of his garments, tied him to a ftake, eut him in pieces with knives and fharp ftones, pared off all the fleshy muscular parts, and sprinkling the bye-standers with the blood, eat up the flesh with the utmoft greediness, before the eyes of the unhappy victim, regarding his excru

ciating

ciating anguish as the most delicious fauce. The women wet
their nipples with the blood, that their infant children might
partake of the shocking facrifice. All this was performed by
way of religious offering; and when the wretched victim ex-
pired in agonies, the remainder of his flesh and bowels were
devoured with a more folemn and filent reverence.
"Such,"
fays Garcilaffo, was the manner of these brutes, because
the government of the Incas was not received into their
country." Nor need we indeed be astonished at the profound
veneration with which their race of princes was regarded,
if the people ascribed to them the changes wrought on their

manners.

66

THE government of the ancient Peruvians was equally Manners, barbarous with their religion. There was no regular fyftem of policy; a few families lived together in caves, rocks, and forefts, and roamed for their prey over the country like wild beafts. Neither the arts of building, fowing, planting, or cloathing themselves, were known to these barbarians. Nature produced fufficient for their wants, in the fpontaneous roots, fruits, and herbs, of the earth; and the only luxury known, was that of feeding upon the flesh of their fellow creatures. Sometimes a ruler started up among the Peruvians, and then they were reduced for a while to a kind of focieties. Whoever had courage or policy enough to acquire a superiority, might eafily tyrannize over the whole, and treat them as flaves. When this kind of defpotifm was established, the fituation of the Peruvians became ftill more wretched; no change was wrought in their manners, and they loft their liberty. Their daughters and wives became the property of the tyrant; even their lives were facrificed to his caprice, and their fkins employed in covering drums, to regale the ears of this monfter of cruelty. In other parts they lived without lords, paffing their days like fo many fheep in all fimplicity; not that virtue moderated their nature, but that ftupidity rendered them equally infenfible to good and evil. Even their barbarity was the refult of their infenfibility. It was no way fhocking to them to difpofe of the flesh of their prisoners in the fhambles, and fatten children, in order to be ferved up as delicacies to table. Luft unrestrained by laws, cuftoms, or natural decency, was a ruling paffion among the Peruvians, who propagated like beafts without difcrimination, and gratified their appetites with the first woman that offered. Where there was no regular fociety, there could scarce be any idea of those refined paffions of love and friendship, which are the refult of communication and mutual converfe. No regard was paid to kindred, or affinity of blood, in the grati

fication of the fenfes; mothers, daughters, and fifters, were used without diftinction. In fome countries a kind of nuptial rite was obferved; but it was no lefs depraved than the vicious impulfe of nature. Those women who were the most lafcivious and incontinent, were the moft efteemed. It was the most notorious proftitution of virginity, and most diffolute life in the maiden state, that beft recommended to a husband. Certain tribes were charged with preferving inviolate the chastity of their female children to a marriageable age, when they were exposed in publick, and the proofs of their virginity fhewn to the whole world; others are taxed with the beaftly fin of fodomy; and it is affirmed, that forcery, witchcraft, and the arts of poifoning, arrived at great perfection in feveral of the provinces of this empire. Thefe, however, are the tales of tradition, blazoned out by the royal hiftorian in the strongest colours, only to heighten the compliment intended the Incas, by demonftrating the happy effects of their government, and the furprifing changes wrought on the manners of the most favage people on earth, by dint of prudence and policy. Thefe effects being fuppofed to exceed human means, the following fable was invented, to account for the manner in which the Peruvians were civilized, and give luftre to the pedigree of the royal line. It is confidently related by Garcilaffe as a tradition univerfally believed in his family; and we fhall beg leave to transcribe it from his commentaries, rather to fhew the genius of the nation, than to gain the belief of the reader.

GARCILASSO having one day queftioned the Inca, his uncle, concerning the origin of the nation, and the rife of the Incas, was anfwered in these words. "Coufin, I moft willingly comply with your requeft; for it is of confequence for you to know thefe things, and imprefs them deeply in your heart. You must therefore underftand, that all this region and country was formerly one intire foreft and defart, and the people a kind of brutes, devoid of religion and government, deftitute of all the arts neceffary to fociety; and ignorant of fowing, reaping, building, fpinning, or weaving. They dwelt in pairs in caves in the rocks and mountains, fed on roots, herbs, grafs, or human flesh. All their cloathing confifted of leaves, or the bark of trees, and the fkins of beasts. In a word, they were altogether favage; they had no property in women, or fingle enjoyment of the fex, but ufed their females in common like the brutes, and gratified their luft on the first object that occurred.

"THIS was the fituation of our ancestors, when our father the Sun, taking pity on their wretchednefs, fent a fon

and

and daughter of his own from heaven to earth to inftruct our people in the knowledge of his divinity, that fo they might adore and worship him, giving them laws and precepts to regulate their lives like men endowed with reafon. They were empowered to live in houfes and fociety; they were taught to fow the land, cultivate trees, rear plants, feed flocks, and enjoy them like civilized perfons, who made a proper use of their rational faculties. With these instructions our first parent, the Sun, placed his two children in the lake Titicaca (about eight leagues from the capital city of Cuzco), giving them full liberty to travel to whatever part of the country they chose, with this restriction only, that when they stopped for a night to fleep and refresh themselves, they should ftrike a gold wedge which he gave them into the earth. This wedge was about half a yard in length, and above an inch thick; and if it funk with one ftroke into the ground, there they were ordered to take up their future refidence, and form a court, to which all the people should refort. They were further directed to govern themselves with reafon, juffice, piety, clemency, and lenity. After they had reduced them to obedience, and fubjected them to laws, they were enjoined to perform all the offices of tender parents to children they love, and to imitate the example fet them by their parent the Sun, who doth good to all the world, furnisheth light and heat, maketh the feeds to vegetate, the trees to be prolific, and the flocks to encrease; watereth the lands with dews from heaven, and daily performs a circuit in which he vifits every corner of the earth, to discover the neceffities and wants of all things, and apply the proper remedies. "Thus, after my example, faid the great author of their being, I would have my children employ all their care in cherishing virtue and rooting out bad habits from the human breaft: from henceforth I conftitute and ordain you lords and fovereigns over this people, that they may be reclaimed to reafon by your inftructions, and maintained in regular fociety by your government." Sun, proceeded the inca, having declared his pleafure to thefe his two children, difpatched them to execute their important commiffion; and they, beginning their journey from Titicaca northward, tried to ftrike the wedge in the ground at every place they repofed themselves, but it refufed to enter. At length, after various fruitless efforts, they arrived at a poor place about seven or eight leagues fouthward from this city (Cuzco), which to this day is called Pacavec Tampu, or the Shining Dormitory. This is one of thofe colonies which this prince planted, the inhabitants of which boaft of the title. beflowed on it by the firft of our incas. From hence he and B 3

"Thus our father the

his

his queen defcended to the valley of Cuzco, at that time a wild and barren defart (A), halting at Huanacauti, where again the wedge of gold being tried, was received by the earth with fuch facility, that it funk at one stroke, and never more appeared." "Then, faid the inca to his fifter and wife in this valley, our father the Sun hath commanded that we should make our abode, and in fo doing we shall perform his pleafure. It is neceffary, therefore, that we should now separate and take different ways, in order to affemble the people in fuch a manner as we may be able to preach and propagate the doctrine among them which he recommends." Accordingly our firft governors proceeded by different ways from the defart of Huanacauti to collect the people, which being the firft place of their refidence which they hallowed by their feet, that we know of, we have deservedly erected a temple wherein to adore and worship our father the Sun, and offer up thanksgivings for this benefit conferred on mankind. Our inca the prince purfued his way northward, while his confort and fifter directed her fteps to the fouth, declaring to all men whom they met in the wild thickets and uncultivated places, that their father the Sun had fent them to be the inftructors and benefactors of those inhabitants, and to wean them from that rude and favage life to a method of living more agreeable to reafon and human fociety. In pursuance of these commands, they related to the people, they came to gather those who were scattered among thofe mountains and rude places into more convenient habitations, where they might live in fociety and friendship, upon fuch food as was allotted by nature for man. The people heard, beheld, and were astonished. They faw these children of the Sun cloathed in the habits in which their father had vefted them; they observed their ears pierced to receive the complaints of the oppreffed, and adorned with jewels as a mark of their fuperior dignity and birth; they greedily fucked in their words and promises of comfort, yielded to their perfuafion, adored them as the offfpring of a fuperior being, and refigned themselves to their tutelage and government. Thefe wretches relating the wonder to each other, the fame of the prince and princefs fpread abroad; infomuch that multitudes of men and women flocked to them, fubmitting themfelves to their obedience.

"GREAT numbers being collected in this manner, our first governors gave orders that provifion fhould be made of fuch fruits as the earth produced for the fuftenance of man; left, been followed by Sir Paul Raycaut his tranflator.

(A) Garcilafo, by a flip of the pen, calls this valley a mountain; in which he has