The mythologies of ancient Mexico and Peru

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LIBRARY

UNIVERSITY OF

CALIFORNIA
. SAN

RELIGIONS ANCIENT AND MODERN

RELIGIONS: ANCIENT AND MODERN.

ANIMISM.

By EDWARD CLODD, Author of The Story of Creation.
PANTHEISM.

By JAMES ALLANSON PICTOM, Author of The Religion of the

Universe.
THE RELIGIONS OF ANCIENT CHINA,

By Professor GILES, LL. D. , Professor of Chinese in the University

of Cambridge.
THE RELIGION OF ANCIENT GREECE.

By JANE HARRISON, Lecturer at Newnham College, Cambridge,

Author of Prolegomena to Study of Greek Religion.
ISLAM.

By SYED AMEER ALI, M.A., C.I.E., late of H.M.'s High Court

of Judicature in Bengal, Author of The Spirit of Islam and The

Ethics of Islam.
MAGIC AND FETISHISM.

By Dr. A. C. HADDON. F.R.S., Lecturer on Ethnology at Cam-

bridge University.
THE RELIGION OF ANCIENT EGYPT.

By Professor W. M. FLINDERS PETRIE, F.R.S.
THE RELIGION OF BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA.

By THEOPHILUS G. PINCHES, late of the British Museum.
BUDDHISM. 2 vols.

By Professor RHYS DAVIDS, LL.D., late Secretary of The Royal

Asiatic Society.
HINDUISM.

By Dr. L. D. BARNETT, of the Department of Oriental Printed

Books and MSS., British Museum.
SCANDINAVIAN RELIGION.

By WILLIAM A. CRAIGIE, Joint Editor of the Oxford English

Dictionary.
CELTIC RELIGION.

By Professor ANWYL, Professor of Welsh at University College,

Aberystwyth.
THE MYTHOLOGY OF ANCIENT BRITAIN AND IRELAND.

By CHARLES SQUIRE, Author of The Mythology of the British

Islands.
JUDAISM.

By ISRAEL ABRAHAMS, Lecturer in Talmudic Literature in

Cambridge University, Author of Jewish Life in the Middle Ages.
SHINTO. By W. G. ASTON, C.M.G.
THE RELIGION OF ANCIENT MEXICO AND PERU.

By LEWIS SPENCE, M.A.
THE RELIGION OF THE HEBREWS.

By Professor YASTROW.

THE MYTHOLOGIES

OF ANCIENT MEXICO

AND PERU

By
LEWIS SPENCE

LONDON

ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE fcf CO LTD

1907

Edinburgh : T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to His Majesty

FOREWORD

IT is difficult to understand the neglect into
which the study of the Mexican and Peruvian
mythologies has fallen. A zealous host of
interpreters are engaged in the elucidation of the
mythologies of Egypt and Assyria, but, if a few
enthusiasts in the United States of America be
excepted, the mythologies of the ancient West
have no following whatsoever. That this little
book may lead many to a fuller examination of
those profoundly interesting faiths is the earnest
hope of one in whose judgment they are second
in importance to no other mythological system.
By a comparative study of the American mytho-
logies the student of other systems will reap his
reward in the shape of many a parallel and many
an elucidation which otherwise would escape his
notice; whilst the general reader will introduce
himself into a sphere of the most fascinating
interest — the interest in the attitude towards the
eternal verities of the peoples of a new and
isolated world. L. S.

CONTENTS

CHAP. PAGE

i. THE ORIGIN OF AMERICAN RELIGIONS, . 1

n. MEXICAN MYTHOLOGY, .... 9

in. THE PRIESTHOOD AND RITUAL OF THE

ANCIENT MEXICANS, .... 27

iv. THE RELIGION OF THE ANCIENT PERUVIANS, 44

v. PERUVIAN RITUAL AND WORSHIP, . . 58

vi. THE QUESTION OF FOREIGN INFLUENCE

UPON THE RELIGIONS OF AMERICA, . . 71

A LIST OF SELECT BOOKS BEARING ON THE

SUBJECT, 79

THE MYTHOLOGIES OF
ANCIENT MEXICO AND PERU

CHAPTER I

THE ORIGIN OF AMERICAN RELIGIONS

THE question of the origin of the religions of
ancient Mexico and Peru is unalterably associated
with that of the origin of the native races of
America themselves — not that the two questions
admit of simultaneous settlement, but that in
order to prove the indigenous nature of the
American mythologies it is necessary to show the
extreme improbability of Asiatic or European
influence upon them, and therefore of relatively
late foreign immigration into the Western Hemi-
sphere. As regards the vexed question of the
origin of the American races it has been thought
best to relegate all proof of a purely speculative
or legendary character to a chapter at the end of
the book, and for the present to deal with data
concerning the trustworthiness of which there is
little division of opinion.

A I

MYTHOLOGIES OF MEXICO AND PERU

The controversy as to the manner in which the
American continent was first peopled is as old as
its discovery. For four hundred years historians
and antiquarians have disputed as to what race
should have the honour of first colonising the
New World. To nearly every nation ancient and
modern has been credited the glory of peopling
the two Americas ; and it is only within compara-
tively recent years that any reasonable theory has
been advanced in connection with the subject.
It is now generally admitted that the peopling of
the American continent must have taken place at
a period little distant to the original settlement of
man in Europe. The geological epoch generally
assumed for the human settlement of America is
the Pleistocene (Quaternary) in some of its inter-
glacial conditions; that is, in some of the re-
current periods of mildness during the Great Ice
Age. There is, however, a possibility that the
continent may have been peopled in Tertiary
times. The first inhabitants were, however, not
of the Red Man type.

Difficult as is this question, an even more diffi-
cult one has to be faced when we come to consider
the affinities of the races from whom the Red
Man is descended. It must be remembered
that at this early epoch in the history of man-

THE ORIGIN OF AMERICAN RELIGIONS

kind in all likelihood the four great types of
humanity were not yet fully specialised, but were
only differentiated from one another by more or
less fundamental physiological characteristics.
That the Indians of America are descended from
more than one human type is proved by the
variety of shapes exhibited in their crania, and it is
safe to assume that both Europe and Asia were
responsible for these early progenitors of the Red
Man. At the period in question the American
continent was united to Europe by a land-bridge
which stretched by way of Greenland, Iceland,
and the Faroe Islands to Northern Europe, and
from the latter area there probably migrated to
the western continent a portion of that human
type which has been designated the Proto-
European — precursors of that race from which
was finally evolved the peoples of modern Europe.
When we come to the question of the settle-
ment of America from the Asiatic side we can say
with more certainty that immigration proceeded
from that continent by way of Behring Strait, and
was of a Proto-Mongolian character, though the
fact should not be lost sight of that within a few
hundred miles of the point of emigration there
still exists the remains of an almost purely
Caucasian type in the Ainu of Saghalien and the

3

MYTHOLOGIES OF MEXICO AND PERU

Kurile Islands. However, immigration on any
extensive scale must have been discontinued at a
very early period, as on the discovery of America
the natives presented a highly specialised and
distinctive type, and bear such a resemblance one
nation to another, as to draw from all authorities
the conclusion that they are of common origin.

According to all known anthropological stand-
ards the Amerind (as it has been agreed to desig-
nate the American Indian) bears a close affinity
to the Mongolian races of Asia, and it must be
admitted that the most likely origin that can
be assigned to him is one in which Asiatic, or
to be more exact, Mongolian blood preponderates.
The period of his emigration, which probably
spread itself over generations, was in all likeli-
hood one at which the Mongolian type was not
yet so fully specialised as not to admit of the
acquirement under specific conditions of very
marked structural and physiological attributes.1
In recent years large numbers of Japanese have
settled in Mexico, and in the native dress can hardly
be distinguished from the Mexican peasants.

Of course it would be unsafe to assume that,

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

4

THE ORIGIN OF AMERICAN RELIGIONS

once settled in the Western Hemisphere, its
populations were subject to none of those fluctua-
tions or race-changes which are so marked a
feature in the early history of European and
Asiatic peoples. It is thought, and with justice,
that some such race-movement convulsed the
entire northern division of the continent at a
period comparatively near to that of the Columbian
discovery. Aztec history insists upon a prolonged
migration for the race which founded the Mexican
Empire, and native maps are still extant in
several continental collections, Avhich depict the
routes taken by the Aztec conquerors from
Aztlan, and the Toltecs from Tlapallan, their
respective fatherlands in the north, to the
Mexican Tableland. This, at least, would appear
to be worthy of notice : that the ' Skraelings ' or
native Americans mentioned in the accounts of
the tenth-century Norse discoverers of America,
by the description given of them, do not appear to
be the same race as that which inhabited the New
England States upon their rediscovery.

As regards the origin of the American mytho-
logies it is difficult to discover traces of foreign
influence in the religion of either Mexico or Peru.
At the time of their subjugation by the Spaniards
legends were ripe in both countries of beneficent

5

MYTHOLOGIES OF MEXICO AND PERU

white and bearded men, who brought with them
a fully developed culture. The question of Asiatic
influences must not altogether be cast aside as an
untenable theory ; but it is well to bear in mind
that such influences, did they ever exist, must
have been of the most transitory description, and
could have left but few traces upon the religion
of the peoples in question. If any such contact
took place it was merely of an accidental nature,
and, when speaking of faiths carried from Asia
into America at the period of its original settle-
ment, it is first necessary to premise that Pleisto-
cene Man had already arrived at that stage of
mental development in which the existence of
supernatural beings is recognised — a premise with
which modern anthropology would scarcely find
itself in agreement.

Almost exhaustive proof of the wholly indi-
genous nature of the American religions is offered
by the existence of the ruins of the large centres
of culture and civilisation which are found
scattered through Yucatan and Peru. These
civilisations preceded those of the Aztecs and
Incas by a very considerable period, how long it is
impossible in the present state of our knowledge
of the subject to say. These huge, buried cities,
the Ninevehs and Thebeses of the West, have left

6

THE ORIGIN OF AMERICAN RELIGIONS

not even a name, and of the peoples who dwelt in
them we are almost wholly ignorant. That they
were of a race cognate with the Aztecs and
Toltecs appears probable when we take into
account the similarity of design which their
architecture bears to the later ruins of the Aztec
structure. Yet there is equally strong evidence
to the contrary. At what epoch in the history of
the world these cities were erected it would at the
present time be idle to speculate. The recent dis-
covery of a buried city in the Panhandle region of
Texas may throw some light upon this question,
and indeed upon the dark places of American
archaeology as a whole. In the case of the buried
cities of Uxmal and Palenque a great antiquity is
generally agreed upon. Indeed one writer on the
subject goes so far as to place their foundation at
the beginning of the second Glacial Epoch ! He
sees in these ruins the remnants of a civilisation
which flourished at a time when men, fleeing
from the rigours of the glacial ice-cap, huddled
for warmth in the more central parts of the earth.
It is unnecessary to state that this is a wholly
preposterous theory, but the fact that the ruins
of Palenque are at the present time lost in the
depths of a tropic forest goes far to prove their
great antiquity.

7

MYTHOLOGIES OF MEXICO AND PERU

Arguing, then, from this antiquity, we may be
justified in assuming that in these now buried
cities the mythology of Mexico was partly evolved ;
that it was handed down to the Aztec conquerors
who entered the country some four hundred years
before its subjugation by Cortes, and that it re-
ceived additions from the tribal deities. In the
case of the Peruvian mythology we may argue a
similar evolution, which, as we shall see later, had
been spread over a considerably shorter period.

CHAPTER II

MEXICAN MYTHOLOGY

THE Mexican Empire at the period of its conquest
by Cortes had arrived at a standard of civilisation
comparable with that of those dynasties which
immediately preceded the rule of the Ptolemies
in Egypt. The government was an elective
monarchy, but princes of the blood alone were
eligible for royal honours. A complex system
of jurisdiction prevailed, and a form of district
and family government was in vogue which was
somewhat similar to that of the Anglo-Saxons.
In the arts a high state of perfection had been
reached, and the Aztec craftsman appears to have
been a step beyond the slavish conventionalism
of the ancient Egyptian artist. In architecture
the Mexicans were highly skilled, and their
ability in this respect aroused the wonder of
their Spanish conquerors, who, however, did not
hesitate to raze to the ground the splendid

9

MYTHOLOGIES OF MEXICO AND PERU

edifices they professed so much to admire. As
road-builders and constructors of aqueducts they
chiefly excelled, and a perfect system of posts
•was established on each of the great highways of
the empire.

With the Aztecs the art of writing took the
form of hieroglyphs, which in some ways re-
sembled those of the ancient Egyptians; but
they had not at the period of their conquest by
Cortes evolved a more convenient and cursive
method, such as the hieratic or demotic scripts
employed in the Nile valley. In astronomical
science they were surprisingly advanced and
exact. The system in use by them was wonder-
fully accurate. It is, however, quite erroneous
to suppose that it has affinities with any Asiatic
system. They divided the year into eighteen
periods of twenty days each, adding five sup-
plementary days, and providing for intercala-
tion every half-century. Each month contained
four weeks of five days each, and each of the
months had a distinct name. That the Aztecs
were possessed of exact astronomical instru-
ments cannot be proved; but in the thirteenth
plate of Dupaix's Monuments (Part n.) there
is a representation of a man holding to his
face an instrument which might or might not

10

MEXICAN MYTHOLOGY

be a telescope.1 The astronomical dial was cer-
tainly in use among them, and astrology, and
divination in its every shape were frequently
resorted to.

In the manual arts the Aztecs were far advanced.
Papermaking was in a moderate state of perfection,
and the dyeing, weaving, and spuming of cotton
were crafts in which they excelled. Feather- work
of supreme beauty was a staple article of manu-
facture, but in the metallic arts the absence of
iron had to be compensated for by an alloy of
copper, siliceous powder, and tin — an admixture
by the use of which the hardest granite was cut
and shaped, and the most beautiful gold and
silver ornaments fashioned. Sharp tools were
also made from obsidian, and in the barbers'
shops of the city of Mexico razors of the same
stone were in use.

To the art of war the Aztecs — a military nation
who won and held all they possessed by force of
arms — attached great importance. Training in the
army was rigorous, and the knowledge of tactics
displayed appears to have been very consider-
able.

1 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 Conquigtadorcs.

II

MYTHOLOGIES OF MEXICO AND PERU

Although the Aztecs had founded and adopted
from other nations a complete pantheon of their
own, they were strongly influenced by the ancient
sun and moon worship of Central America.
Ometecutli (twice Lord) and Omecihuatl (twice
Lady) were the names which they bestowed upon
these luminaries, and they were probably the first
deities known to the Aztecs upon their emergence
from a condition of totemism. The sun was the
teotl, the god of the Mexicans, but it will be seen
in the course of this chapter that the national
deities and those acquired by the Aztecs in their
intercourse with the surrounding peoples of Tez-
cuco and Tlacopan somewhat obscured the wor-
ship of those elementary gods.

Through all the confusion of a mythology
second only in richness to those of Egypt and
Hellas can be traced the idea of a supreme
creator, a 'god behind the gods.' This was not
the sun, but an Allfather, addressed by the Mexi-
can nations as ' the God by whom we live ' ;
' omnipotent, that knoweth all thoughts, and
giveth all gifts ' ; ' invisible, incorporeal, one God,
of perfect perfection and purity.' The universality
of this great being would seem (as in other mytho-
logies) to have led to the deification of his attri-
butes, and thus we have a pantheon in which we

12

MEXICAN MYTHOLOGY

can trace all the various attributes of an anthro-
pomorphic deity. This subdivision of the deity
was not, however, responsible for all the gods
embraced by the Mexican pantheon. Many of
these were purely national gods — and two at least
had probably been raised to this rank from a
condition of symbolic totemism during a period
of national expansion and military success.

Such a god was the Mexican Mars, Huitzilo-
pochtli, a name which signifies ' Humming-bird on
the left,' a designation concerning the exact
derivation of which there is considerable differ-
ence of opinion. The general explanation of this
peculiar name is that it may have arisen from
the fact that the god is usually represented as
having the feathers of a humming-bird on the
left foot. Before attempting an elucidation of
the name, however, it will be well to examine the
myth of Huitzilopochtli.

Huitzilopochtli was the principal tribal deity
of the Aztecs. Another, though evidently less
popular name applied to him, was Mextli, which
signifies ' Hare of the Aloes.' Indeed a section of
the city of Mexico derived its name from this ap-
pellation. The myth concerning his origin is one
the peculiar features of which are common to many
nations. His mother, Coatlicue or Coatlantona

13

MYTHOLOGIES OF MEXICO AND PERU

(she-serpent), a devout widow, on entering the
Temple of the Sun one day for the purpose of
adoring the deity, beheld a ball of brightly
coloured feathers fall at her feet. Charmed with
the brilliancy of the plumes, she picked it up
and placed it in her bosom with the intention of
making an offering of it to the sun-god. Soon
afterwards she was aware of pregnancy, and her
children, enraged at the disgrace, were about to
put her to death when her son Huitzilopochtli
was born, grasping a spear in his right hand and
a shield in his left, and wearing on his head a
plume of humming-bird's feathers. On his left
leg there also sprouted the flights of the hum-
ming-bird, whilst his face and limbs were barred
with stripes of blue. Falling upon the enemies
of his mother he speedily slew them. He became
the leader of the Aztec nation, and after per-
forming on its behalf prodigies of valour, he and
his mother were translated to heaven, where she
was assigned a place as the Goddess of Flowers.

The Mtillerism of fifteen or twenty years ago
would have assigned unhesitatingly the legend
of Huitzilopochtli to that class of myths which
have their origin in natural phenomena. In the
Hibbert Lectures for 1884, M. Reville, the French
religionist, professes to see in the Mexican war-

MEXICAN MYTHOLOGY

god the offspring of the sun and the ' spring
florescence.' Mr. Tylor (Primitive Culture) calls
Huitzilopochtli an 'inextricable compound par-
thenogenetic deity.' A more satisfactory solu-
tion of the myth would seem to the present writer
to be that the origin of Huitzilopochtli was partly
totemic — that, in fact, the humming-bird was the
original totem of the wandering tribe of Aztecs
prior to their descent upon Anahuac. The
humming-bird is of an extremely pugnacious
disposition, and will not hesitate to attack birds
considerably larger than itself. This courage
would appeal to a warlike tribe bent on conquest,
and its adoption as a totem and as a standard in
the wars of the Aztecs would naturally follow.
This standard was known as the Huitziton or
Paynalton, the ' little humming-bird ' or ' little
quick one,' and was a miniature of Huitzilo-
pochtli borne by the priests in front of the
soldiers in battle. This totem, then, took rank
as the national war-god of the Aztecs. The com-
merce of the mortal woman with the animal is
common to many legends of a totemic origin,
as may be witnessed in the myths of many of
the present-day American Indian tribes who be-
lieve their ancestors to have been the progeny
of bears or wolves and mortal women, or as many

MYTHOLOGIES OF MEXICO AND PERU

Norse and Celtic families in Early Britain be-
lieved themselves to be able to trace a similar
ancestry.

However, Huitzilopochtli had a certain solar
connection. He had three annual festivals, in
May, August, and December. At the last of these
festivals, an image of him was modelled in dough,
kneaded with the blood of sacrificed children, and
this was pierced by the presiding priest with an
arrow, in token that the sun had been slain, and
was dead for a season. The totem had, in fact,
become confounded with the sun-god, the deity
of the older and more cultured races of Anahuac,
who had been adopted by the Aztecs on their
settlement there. The myth had, in fact, to be
revised in the light of the later adoption of a
solar cultus ; so that here as in so many of the
myths of other lands we find an amicable blend-
ing of rival beliefs which have been almost in-
sensibly fused one into another.

But another originally totemic deity had gained
high rank in the Aztec pantheon. This was
Tezcatlipoca, whose name signifies ' Shining
Mirror.' He was the brother of Huitzilopochtli,
and hi this brotherhood may be discerned the
twofold nature of the Huitzilopochtli legend.
Tezcatlipoca was not the blood- brother of the

16

MEXICAN MYTHOLOGY

war-god of the Aztecs, but his brother in so far as
he was connected with the sun. Tezcatlipoca, then,
was the god of the cold season, and typified the
dreary sun of that time of year. But he was also
(probably as an afterthought) the God of Justice,
in whose mirror the thoughts and actions of men
were reflected. It seems probable to the present
writer that Tezcatlipoca may originally, and in
another clime, have been an ice-god. The facts
which lead to this assumption are the period of
his coming into power at the end of summer, and
his possession of a shining mirror. Another of
Tezcatlipoca's names signifies ' Night Wind.' He
was evidently regarded also as the 'Breath of
Life.' He may originally have been a Avind
demon of the prairies.

Tezcatlipoca's plaited hair was enclosed in a
golden net, and from this plait was suspended an
ear wrought in gold, towards which mounted a
cloud of tongues, representative of the prayers
of mankind. The ever-present nature of the
'Great Spirit' is also typified by Tezcatlipoca,
who wandered invisible through the city of
Mexico to observe the conduct of the inhabitants.
That he might be enabled to rest during his
tour of inspection, stone seats were placed for
his reception at intervals in the streets. Need-
is 17

MYTHOLOGIES OF MEXICO AND PERU

less to say no human being dared to occupy those
benches.

But the most unique of all the gods of
Mexico was Quetzalcoatl. This name indicates
'Feathered Serpent,' and the deity who owned it
was probably adopted by the Aztecs upon their
settlement in Mexico, called by them Anahuac.
At all events, Quetzalcoatl stood for a worship
which was eminently more advanced and humane
than the degrading and sanguinary idolatry of
which Huitzilopochtli and Tezcatlipoca were the
prime objects. That he was not of Aztec origin
but a god of the Toltecs or of the elder peoples
who had preceded them in Anahuac is proved by
a myth of the Mexican nations, in which his strife
with Tezcatlipoca is related. Step by step
Quetzalcoatl, the genius of Old Anahuac, resisted
the inroads of the newcomers as represented by
Tezcatlipoca. But he was forced to flee the
country over which he had presided so long,
and to embark on a frail boat on the ocean, pro-
mising to return at some future period. The
Aztecs believed in and feared his ultimate
return. He was not one of their gods. But in
their terror of his vengeance and return they
attempted to propitiate him by permitting
his worship to flourish as a distinct caste side

18

MEXICAN MYTHOLOGY

by side with that of Huitzilopochtli and Tez-
catlipoca.

Reville, writing in ' the mythical age,' as the
decade of the 'eighties of last century has wittily
been designated, sees in Quetzalcoatl the east
wind, and quotes Sahagun to substantiate his
theory.1 But Quetzalcoatl was ' Lord of the
Dawn.' In fine he was a culture-god, and was
closely connected with the sun. It would be
impossible in the space assigned to me to enter
fully into an analysis of the origin of this most
interesting figure. There is, however, reason to
believe that Quetzalcoatl was one of those early
introducers of culture who sooner or later find a
place among the deities of the nation they have
assisted in its early struggles towards civilisation.
The strife between Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca,
according to R6ville, typifies the struggle between
the wind and the cold and dry season. It is more
probable that it typifies the strife between culture
and barbarism. The same authority points out
that it is Tezcatlipoca and not Huitzilopochtli
who attacks Quetzalcoatl. But Tezcatlipoca was
the god of austerity, and perhaps of the cold
north, and thus the proper opponent of a luxurious

1 An absolutely erroneous one.
19

MYTHOLOGIES OF MEXICO AND PERU

southern civilisation. I have gone more fully
into the question of the origin of Quetzalcoatl in
the last chapter of this work, as a more prolonged
consideration of the subject would be somewhat
out of the scope of the present chapter.

The worship of Quetzalcoatl was antipathetic
if not directly opposed to that of the other deities
of Anahuac. It had a separate priesthood of its
own who dressed in white in contradistinction to
the sable garments which the priests of the other
divinities were in the habit of wearing, and its
ritual discountenanced if it did not forbid human
sacrifice. Quetzalcoatl possessed a high priest of
his own, who was subservient, however, to the
Aztec pontiff, and who only joined the monarch's
deliberative council on rare and extraordinary
occasions. There can be no doubt that the good
reception given to Cortes and the Spanish
conquerors was solely on account of the Quetzal-
coatl legend, which insisted upon his return at
some future period, and the Aztecs undoubtedly
regarded the arrival of the strange white men as
a fulfilment of this prophecy.

Tlaloc was the god of rain — an important deity
for a country where a droughty season was
nothing less than a national disaster. His name
signifies ' the nourisher,' and from his seat among

20

MEXICAN MYTHOLOGY

the mountains he despatched the rain-bearing
clouds to water the thirsty and sun-baked plains
of Anahuac. He was also the god of fertility or
fecundity, and in this respect appears to have
been analogous to the Egyptian Amsu or Khein,
the ithyphallic deity of Panopolis. He was the
wielder of the thunder and lightning, and the
worship connected with him was even more cruel,
if possible, than that of Huitzilopochtli. One-
eyed and open-mouthed, he delighted in the
sacrifice of children, and in seasons of drought
hundreds of innocents were borne to his temple
in open litters, wreathed with blossoms and
dressed in festal robes. Should they weep, their
tears were regarded as a happy augury for a rainy
season ; and the old Spanish chroniclers record
that even the heartless Aztecs, used to scenes
of massacre as they were, were moved to tears at
the spectacle of the infants hurried, amid the
wild chants of frenzied priests, to the maw of this
Mexican Moloch.

The statues of Tlaloc were usually cut in a
greenish-white stone to represent the colour of
water. He had a wife, Chalchihuitlicue (the lady
Chalchihuit), and by her he possessed a numerous
family which are supposed to represent the
clouds, and which bear the same name as him-
21

MYTHOLOGIES OF MEXICO AND PERU

self. At one of his festivals the priests plunged
into a lake, imitating the sounds and motions of
frogs, which were supposed to be under the special
protection of the water-god.

Xiuhtecutli (lord of fire), or Huehueteotl (the
old god), was one of the most ancient of the
Mexican deities. He is usually represented as
typifying the nature of the element over which
he had dominion, and in his head-dress of green
feathers, his blackened face, and the yellow-
feathered serpent which he carried on his back,
the different colours observed in fire, as well as
its sinuous and snake-like nature, are well
depicted. Like Tezcatlipoca, he possessed a
mirror, a shining disc of gold, to show his con-
nection with the sun, from which all heat
emanated, and to which all heat was subject.
And here it will be well to remind the reader of
the statement made near the commencement of
this chapter that the god par excellence, the sun,
was more or less manifested in all the principal
deities of Anahuac ; that in fact these deities were
the sun in conjunction with some attribute of a
totem ic or naturalistic origin.

The first duty of an Aztec family when rising
in the morning was to consecrate to Xiuhtecutli
a piece of bread and a libation of drink. He was

22

MEXICAN MYTHOLOGY

thus analogous to Vulcan, who, besides being the
creator of thunderbolts and conflagration, was
also the divinity of the domestic hearth. Once
a year the fire in every Mexican house was ex-
tinguished, and was rekindled by friction before
the statue of Xiuhtecutli by his priests.

The two principal goddesses of the Aztecs were
Centeotl, the maize-goddess, the Ceres of Mexico,
and Tlazolteotl, the goddess of love. The name
Centeotl is derived from centli (maize) and
teotl (divinity), and is often confounded with that
of her son, who bore the same name. Like
the Virgin or the Egyptian Hes, she bears in her
arms a child, who is the young maize, who after-
wards grows to bearded manhood. Centeotl was
the goddess of sustenance, and was often repre-
sented as a many-uddered frog, to typify the
food-yielding soil. Her daughter, Xilonen, was
the tender ear of the maize. Appalling sacrificial
rites were celebrated in connection with the
worship of this goddess, in which women were
the principal victims. These are dealt with in
the chapter on ritual and ceremonial.

Tlazolteotl, the goddess of love, or, more
correctly, of sensuality, was the object concerning
whom the deities of the Aztec Olympus waged a
terrible war. Her abode was a lovely garden,

23

where she dwelt surrounded by musicians and
merrymakers, dwarfs and jesters. At one time
she had been the spouse of Tlaloc, the rain-god,
but had eloped with Tezcatlipoca, and thus she
probably represents nature, who in one season
espouses the rain-god and in another the god of
the cold season. The myths concerning Tlazol-
teotl are most unsavoury, and consist chiefly of
tales concerning her seductive prowess.

Mictlan was the Mexican Pluto. The name
signifies ' Country of the North ' — the region of
waste and hunger and death, and was used both
of the place and the deity. There, surrounded
by fearful demons (Tzitzimitles), he ruled over
the shades of the departed much as did Pluto,
and, like his classical prototype, he possessed a
consort, or rather consorts, since he had several
wives. The representations of him naturally
give to him a most repulsive aspect, and he is
usually depicted in the act of devouring his
victims.

The minor gods of the Aztecs were legion
— indeed various authorities estimate their
numbers from two hundred and sixty to two
thousand — and of these it will only be possible
to deal with a few of the more important.

Ixtlilton (brown one) was the god of healing,
24

MEXICAN MYTHOLOGY

and was analogous to ^Esculapius. The priests
connected with his worship vended a liquor which
purported to be a sort of ' cure-all.' Xipe (the
bald) was the tutelar deity of goldsmiths. He
was, in reality, a form of Huitzilopochtli, and
probably indicated the idea that gold had some
connection with the sun. Mixcoatl (cloud
serpent) was the spirit of the waterspout, and was
propitiated rather than worshipped by the semi-
savage mountaineers in the vicinity of Mexico.
Oinacatl (double reed) was the god or spirit of
mirth and festival. Yacatecutli (guiding lord)
was the god of travellers and merchants. Indeed
the commercial class among the Aztecs were
more exact concerning his worship than in that
of almost any other of their deities. His symbol
was the staff' usually carried by the people of the
country when on a journey, and this stick was
an object of veneration among travellers, who
usually prayed to it as representative of the
god when evening brought their day's march to
a close.

The Tepitoton, or diminutive deities, were
household gods of the lares and penates type,
and were probably connected with a species of
Shamanism, the origin of which may either
have been prior to or contemporary with the
25

MYTHOLOGIES OF MEXICO AND PERU

adoption of the worship of the greater gods.
Their existence might appear to suggest the
presence of fetishism in the Aztec religion, but
the theory of a Shamanistic origin for these
household deities seems the more likely one.

26

CHAPTER III

THE PRIESTHOOD AND RITUAL OF THE
ANCIENT MEXICANS

THE resemblance of the Mexican priesthood to
that of Ancient Egypt was very marked. How-
ever, the influence of the priests among the
people of Anahuac was even greater than that of
the analogous caste among the people of Khemi.
Their system of conventual education permitted
them to impress their doctrines upon the minds
of the young in that indelible manner which
secures unfaltering adhesion in later life to the
dogmas so inculcated ; and no doubt the ever-
present fear of human sacrifice assisted them
mightily in their dealings with the people. In
short, they were all-powerful, and the Mexican,
accustomed to their influence from the period of
childhood to that of death, submitted unquestion-
ingly to their rule in all things, spiritual and
temporal.

The religious ethics of the Mexican priesthood
27

MYTHOLOGIES OF MEXICO AND PERU

were lofty and sublime in the extreme, and had
but little in common with their barbarous
practices. They had been borrowed from the
more cultured Toltecs, who during their sole
tenure of Anahuac had evolved a moral code to
which it would be difficult to take exception.
But although this exalted philosophy had been
adopted by the fierce and uncultured Aztecs, it
had become so obscured by the introduction of
cruel and inhuman rites and customs as to be
almost no longer recognisable as the pure faith
of the race they had succeeded in the land. The
germ and core of the Aztec religion was the idea
of the constant necessity of propitiating the gods
by means of human sacrifice, and to this aspect
of their religion we will return later.

We have already seen that underlying the
mythology of the ancient Mexicans was the idea
of a supreme Being, a 'Great Spirit.' In the
rites of confession and absolution particularly
was this Being appealed to in prayer, and the
similarity of these petitions to those offered up
by themselves so impressed the monkish com-
panions of the Spanish conquerors that their
astonishment is very evident in their writings.
It is unlikely that these priests would admit a
soul of goodness in the evil thing it was their

28

RITUAL OF THE ANCIENT MEXICANS

business to stamp out; and their testimony in
this respect is of the highest value as evidence
that the Aztec Religion possessed at least the
germ of the eternal verities.

The Aztecs believed that eternity was broken
up into several distinct cycles, each of several
thousand years' duration. There would seem to
have been four of these periods, concerning the
length and nature of which the old Spanish
writers on the subject differ very materially. The
conclusion of each was (according to the Mexican
tradition) to witness the extinction of humanity
in one mighty holocaust, and the blotting out of the
sun in the heavens. Whether this universal up-
heaval applied only to the sons of men, or, like the
Teutonic Gotterdammerung, or the Scandinavian
Ragnarok, had an equal significance for the gods,
is not clear. It is worth remarking, however, that
it premises the mortal nature of the sun, and,
therefore, the existence of a creative agency with
the ability to set another sun in its place.

With the Mexicans the question of a future
life was a very nebulous one, though perhaps no
more so than with the ancient Greeks or Romans.
There was more than one paradise. Mictlan, the
shadowy sombre place of the dead, was the
resting-place of the majority, for the Aztecs fully

29

MYTHOLOGIES OF MEXICO AND PERU

believed that the higher realms of bliss were pre-
serves for the aristocracy where the lowly might
not enter. And this, in passing, is perhaps an
explanation of the marvellously speedy adop-
tion of Christianity by the Mexican natives
subsequent to the conquest of Anahuac. Of the
higher realms of bliss the ' Mansion of the Sun '
was perhaps the most desirable. There the
principal pleasures consisted in accompanying the
sun in his course, and the amusement of choral
dancing. Souls in this paradise might also enter
the bodies of humming-birds, and flit from flower
to flower. The exercise of the chase lent to this
place something of the character of a Valhalla,
and we hear something of Gargantuan banquets.
Here, too, the blessed might animate the clouds,
and float deliciously over the world they had
quitted.

The paradise of Tlaloc was the special dwelling
of those who had lost their lives by drowning, of
sacrificed children, and of those who had died of
disease caused by damp or moisture. But two
exceptions were made as regarded the souls of
others, and these related to warriors slain in
battle, and women who had died in child-bed,
who were permitted to enter paradise as having
forfeited their lives in the service of the state.

30

RITUAL OF THE ANCIENT MEXICANS

All the science and wisdom of the country was
embodied in the priestly caste. The priests
understood the education of the people, and so
forcibly impressed their students with their
knowledge of the occult arts that for the rest of
their lives they quietly submitted to priestly in-
fluence. The priestly order was exceedingly
numerous, as is proved by the fact that no less
than five thousand functionaries were attached to
the great temple of Mexico, the rank and offices
of whom were apportioned with the most minute
exactitude. The basis of the priesthood was emi-
nently aristocratic, and its supreme pontiff was
known by the appellation of Mexicatl Teohuatzin,
or 'Mexican Lord of Divine Matters.' Next in
rank to him was the high priest of Quetzalcoatl,
whose authority was limited to his own priest-
hood, and who lived a life of strict seclusion, not
unlike that of the Grand Lama of Tibet. This
was probably a remnant of old Toltec practice.
The pontiff seems to have wielded a very consider-
able amount of political power, and to have had
a seat on the royal council.

The life of an Aztec priest was rigorous in the
extreme. Fasting and penance bulked largely
among his duties, and the idea of the implaca-
bility of the gods which was current in the

MYTHOLOGIES OF MEXICO AND PERU

priesthood appears to have driven many priests
to great extremes of self-inflicted torture. They
dressed entirely in black (with the exception of
the caste of Quetzalcoatl, who were clothed in
white), and their cloaks covered their heads,
falling down at each side like a mantilla. Their
hair was permitted to grow very long. They
bathed every evening at sunset, and rose several
times during the night for the purpose of paying
their devotions. Some of their orders permitted
marriage, while others were celibate, but all,
without distinction, passed an existence of severe
asceticism. As has been said, departmental
duties were strongly marked. Some were
readers, others musicians, while others again,
probably the lower orders, attended to the sacred
fires, and the more menial offices, the grand
duty of human sacrifice devolving upon the
higher orders of the prelacy alone.

There was also an order of females who were
admitted to the practice of all the sacerdotal
functions, omitting only that of human sacrifice.
These appear to have been more of the descrip-
tion of nuns than of priestesses. Fakirs and
religious beggars also abounded, but these seem
to have taken upon themselves mendicant vows
for a space only.

32

RITUAL OF THE ANCIENT MEXICANS

Education was wholly sacerdotal. That is,
though secular studies were communicated to the
young, the principal part of their training con-
sisted of religious instruction. The schools were
situated in the temple precincts, and entering
these at an early age the boys were instructed by
priests, and the girls by nuns. They resided
within the temple buildings, and those who did
not, and who probably consisted of the lower
orders, were enrolled in a society called the
Telpochtiliztli, which met every evening at sunset
to perform choral dances in honour of Tezcatli-
poca. A secondary school also existed, called
the Calmecac, in which the lore of the priests and
the reading of the hieroglyphs, astrology, and
the kindred sciences were taught the young men,
whilst the girls became experts in the weaving of
costly garments for the adornment of the idols,
and the wear of the higher orders of the
hierarchy.

When the boys and girls left the school at the
age of fifteen they were either sent back to their
families, or to public service, to which they were
often recommended by the priests. Others re-
mained to become in their turn priests or nuns
in different convents.

Severe educational tests were required for
C 33

MYTHOLOGIES OF MEXICO AND PERU

entrance into the priesthood, and grades were
many. The priests, we have seen, might occupy
one of several ranks, and the nuns could become
abbesses, or merely retain the position of simple
sisters, according to their ambition and abilities.
The lower ranks were designated CikuaquaquUli,
or 'lady herb-eaters,' while the higher orders
were known as Cihuatlainacasque, or 'lady
deaconesses.'

The Spanish conquerors of Mexico were aston-
ished to find among this peculiar people a
number of rites which appeared in many respects
analogous to some of those practised by Catholics.
Such were the use of the cross as a symbol,
communion, baptism, and confession. The cross,
which was designated, strangely enough, ' Tree of
our Life,"1 was merely the symbol of the four winds,
which were indeed the life of Anahuac. As
regards confession and absolution, these were per-
mitted to a person only once in his existence, and
that at a late period of life, as any repetition of
the pardoned offence was held to be inexpiable.
Penance was apportioned, and absolution given
much in the same manner as in the Roman Catholic
Church. There appears to have been more than
one kind of communion. At the third festival of
Huitzilopochtli they made an image of him in

34

RITUAL OF THE ANCIENT MEXICANS

dough kneaded with the blood of infants, and
divided the pieces among themselves. In the
case of Xiuhtecutli a similar image was placed on
the top of a tree, which, like our Christmas trees,
had been transported from the forest to the town,
and when the tree was thrown down and the
image broken, the people scrambled for the pieces,
which they devoured.

In the rite of baptism the principal functionary
was the midwife. She touched the mouth and
breast of the infant with water in the presence of
the assembled relations, and invoked the blessing
of the goddess Cihuatcoatl, who presided over
childbirth (and who was a variant of Centeotl,
the maize-goddess) upon it. But it is unlikely
that she did so in the devoutly Christian language
ascribed to her by Sahagun.

At death the corpse of a Mexican was dressed
in the robes peculiar to his guardian deity, and in
this can be perceived an analogy to every dead
Egyptian becoming an Osirian, or Osiris himself.
Covered with paper charms, as the Egyptian
mummy was covered with metal or faience
symbols, the body was cremated, the ashes placed
in an urn, and preserved in the house of the
deceased. At the death of a rich man many
slaves were sacrificed to bear him company in the

35

MYTHOLOGIES OF MEXICO AND PERU

world beyond the grave. This was obviously a
meaningless survival of a prehistoric custom.
Valuable treasures were often buried with the
wealthy, and a rich man would often have his
private chaplain sacrificed at his tomb to assist
him with ghostly counsel and comfort in the
other world.

Among the ancient Mexicans every month was
consecrated to some particular deity, and in their
calendar every day marked a celebration of some
greater or lesser divinity. Those differed consider-
ably in their character. Some were light and
joyous, and their ritual abounded in the use of
flowers and song. Others (and these, unhappily,
were in the majority) were stained with the
hideousness of human sacrifice.

The temples of the Ancient Mexicans were very
numerous. They were called teocallis,1 or ' houses
of God,' and were constructed by facing huge
mounds of earth with brick and stone. They
were pyramidal in shape, and built in stages which
grew smaller as the summit was reached. The bases
of some of these teocallis were more than one
hundred feet square. The great teocalli at Mexico,
for example, was three hundred and seventy-five

1 The temple, with all its purlieus and courts, was named
teopan ; the central pyramid, teocalli.

36

feet long at the base, and three hundred feet in
width. Its height was over eighty feet. It con-
sisted of five stages, each communicating with the
other by means of a staircase which wound around
the entire edifice. In the case of some teocallis,
however, the staircase led directly up the western
face of the building. At the top two towers,
between forty and fifty feet in height, stood
perched upon a broad area. Inside these were
kept the idols of the gods to whom the teocalli
was sacred. Before these towers stood the stone
of sacrifice, and two altars upon which the fires
blazed night and day. In the city of Mexico six
hundred of these fires rendered any artificial
illumination at night superfluous. Through the
very construction of these temples all religious
services were of a public nature. In front of
the great teocalli of Mexico stretched a court
twelve hundred feet square, around which clus-
tered the chapels of minor deities, and those
captured from conquered peoples, as well as the
dwellings and offices set apart for the attendant
priests.

Although it appears that the Toltecs, the fore-
runners of the Aztecs in Mexico, had at one period
of their history been prone to human sacrifice,
they had almost entirely discarded the practice
37

at the time of their downfall. Some two hundred
years before the coming of the Spaniards the Aztecs
had adopted this abomination, and were in the
habit of sparing the lives of immense numbers of
prisoners of war solely for the purpose of offering
them up to the national gods. As their empire ex-
tended, these holocausts became greater and more
common. On the teocalli of Mexico the Spaniards
could count one hundred and thirty-six thousand
human skulls piled in a horrid pyramid.

Of the sacrifices the most important was that
signifying the annual demise of Tezcatlipoca.
The most handsome of the captives who chanced
to be in the hands of the Aztecs was chosen for
the purpose. It was necessary that he should be
without spot or blemish, as it was intended that
he should represent Tezcatlipoca himself. He
was taken in hand by a body of tutors, who in-
structed him how to play his allotted part with the
dignity and grace to be expected from a divine
being. Arrayed in magnificent robes typical of
his godhead, and surrounded by an atmosphere of
flowers and incense, he led the life of a voluptuary
for the space of nearly a year. On the occasion
of his appearance in the public streets he was
received by the populace with all the homage due
to a god, but was strictly guarded, nevertheless, by

38

RITUAL OF THE ANCIENT MEXICANS

eight pages, who in reality were merely gaolers.
Within a month's time of his immolation four
beautiful girls were given him as wives, and he
was feasted and feted by the nobility as the in-
carnation of Tezcatlipoca.

On the day preceding the sacrifice the victim
was placed on one of the royal canoes, and accom-
panied by his four wives, was rowed to the other
side of the lake. That evening his wives bade
him farewell, and he was stripped of his gorgeous
apparel He was then conducted to a teocalli
some three miles from the city of Mexico. In
scaling this he threw away the wreaths of flowers
with which he had been adorned, and broke in
pieces the musical instruments with which he had
amused his hours of captivity. Crowds thronged
from the city to behold the act of sacrifice. On
reaching the summit of the teocalli the victim
was met by six priests, five of whom led him to
the sacrificial stone, a great block of jasper with
a convex surface. On this he was placed by the
five priests, who secured his head, arms, and legs,
whilst the officiating priest, robed in a blood-red
mantle, dexterously opened his breast with a
sharp flint knife. He then inserted his hand into
the gaping wound, and tearing out the still palpi-
tating heart, held it aloft towards the sun. Then

39

MYTHOLOGIES OF MEXICO AND PERU

he cast the bleeding offering into a vessel con-
taining burning copal, which lay at the feet of the
image of Tezcatlipoca. A species of sermon was
then delivered by one of the priests to the people
in which he drew a moral from the fate of the
victim illustrative of the inevitable conclusion of
all human pleasure by the hand of death.

Huitzilopochtli had also a representative sacri-
ficed every year who had to take part in a sort of
war-dance immediately before his immolation, and
a woman was annually sacrificed to Centeotl, the
maize-goddess. Before her death she took part in
several symbolic representations which were ex-
pressions of the various processes in the growth
of the harvest. The day before her sacrifice she
sowed maize in the streets, and on the arrival of
midnight she was decapitated and flayed. A
priest arrayed himself in the still warm skin and
engaged in mimic combat with soldiers who were
scattered through the streets. Part of the skin
was then carried to the temple of Centeotl the
Son, where a priest made a mask of it in the like-
ness of the presiding deity, and afterwards sacri-
ficed four captives in honour of the occasion. The
skin was then carried to the frontiers of the empire,
and buried. It was supposed that its presence
there acted as a talisman against invasion.
40

RITUAL OF THE ANCIENT MEXICANS

We have before described the sacrifices of
children to Tlaloc. Even more gruesome were the
awful doings at the festival of Xiuhtecutli, when
the unhappy victims were half-roasted and finally
despatched by having their hearts torn out.
Cannibal feasts often followed these sacrifices —
feasts which were the more horrible in that they
were accompanied by all the accessories of a high
standard of civilisation ; but it must be remem-
bered that their purport was essentially symbolic,
and in no way partook of the nature of the orgies
of flesh-famished savages.

When the great temple of Huitzilopochtli was
dedicated in 1486, the chain of victims sacrificed
on that occasion extended for the length of two
miles. In this terrible massacre the hearts of no
less than seventy thousand human beings were
offered up ! In the light of such appalling wicked-
ness it is difficult to blame the Spanish con-
querors of Anahuac in their zeal to blot out the
worship of the deities whom they designated
'horrible demons.' These victims were nearly
always captive warriors of rival nations, and it
was on rare occasions only that native Mexicans
were led to the stone of sacrifice unless, indeed,
they were malefactors.

The great jubilee festival, which was cele-

MYTHOLOGIES OF MEXICO AND PERU

brated every fifty-two years throughout the
empire, marked the coincidence of four times
thirteen solar and four times thirteen lunar
years. This the Mexicans called a ' sheaf of
years,' and when the first day of the fifty-third
year dawned, the ceremony of Toxilmolpilia, or
' the binding-up of years,' was held. Priests and
people gazed feverishly at the Pleiades to see if
they would pass the zenith. Should they do so
the world would hold on its course for another
similar period ; if not, extinction would instantly
follow. Fire was kindled upon a victim's breast
by the friction of wood, and whenever it was
alight the prisoner's heart was plucked out, and
along with his body was consumed upon a pile
of wood kindled by the new fire. As the flames
ascended, and it was seen that the Pleiades had
crossed the zenith, cries of joy burst from the
assembled people below. Faggots were lighted
at the sacred pyre, and domestic fires rekindled
from them. Humanity had been respited for a
generation.

It is difficult to believe that a people so
imbrued in a religion of bloodshed could have
been punctilious in matters of morality, and it
is still more difficult to believe the evidence of
Sahagun and Clavigero concerning their personal
42

RITUAL OF THE ANCIENT MEXICANS

piety. It seems certain, however, that as a race
the Aztecs were austerely moral, pious, truth-
loving, and loyal as citizens, and even the
sanguinary priests do not appear to have reaped
any benefit from their terrible offices. All the
evidence would seem to show that it was the
belief in the existence of cruel and insatiable gods
which rendered the priests and people alike
callous and insensible to the taking of human
life, and this is the more easily understood when
it is remembered that the Aztecs had at a com-
paratively late period emerged from a state of
migratory savagery into the heirship of an
ancient and complex civilisation.1

1 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.

43

CHAPTER IV

THE RELIGION OF THE ANCIENT PERUVIANS

THE civilisation of the Ancient Peruvians, al-
though in many ways analogous to that of the
Aztecs, was strangely dissimilar in some of its
aspects. The peoples of the two empires were
totally unaware of each other's existence, and
were divided by dense tracts of mountain, plain,
and forest, where the most intense savagery pre-
vailed. It seems probable that the Peruvian
culture had its origin in the region of Lake
Titicaca, and that it was of an indigenous
character admits of little doubt. Like the
Mexicans, the Peruvians had displaced an older
civilisation and an older race. What was the
nature of that civilisation, and thanks to what
people it flourished, it is at present impossible to
say. Scattered over the surface of the Peruvian
slope are Cyclopean ruins, the sole remnants of
the works of a more primeval people. These
ruins are chiefly to be found in the neighbour-
44

RELIGION OF THE ANCIENT PERUVIANS

hood of Lake Titicaca and Cuzco, the ancient
metropolis of the Incas. Whatever may have
been the architectural ability of this ancient
people, the usurpers had little to learn from them
in this respect, or, more strictly speaking, having
borrowed their methods, continued faithful to
them. The temples and mansions of the
Peruvians were massive and handsome, but for
the most part covered only with a thatch of
Indian maize straw. They made long, straight,
macadamised roads which they pushed with
surprising engineering skill through tunnelled
mountains, spanning seemingly impassable gorges
with marvellously constructed bridges. The
temples and the palaces of the Incas were
adorned with gold and silver ornaments of
fabulous value and skilful design. Sumptuous
baths, supplied with hot and cold water by means
of pipes laid in the earth, were to be found in the
houses of the aristocracy, and a high state of
comfort and luxury prevailed.

To describe the social polity of the Peruvians
is to describe their religion, for the two were one
and the same. The empire of Peru was the most
absolute theocracy the world has ever seen, much
more absolute, for example, than that of Israel
under the Judges. The Inca was the direct repre-
45

MYTHOLOGIES OF MEXICO AND PERU

sentative of the sun upon earth. He was the head,
the very keystone of a socio-religious edifice to
equal which in intricacy of design and organisa-
tion the entire history of man has no parallel to
offer.

The Inca was the head of a colossal bureau-
cracy which had ramifications into the very homes
of the people themselves. Thus after the Inca
came the governors of provinces, who were of the
blood- royal; then officials were placed above
ten thousand families, a thousand families, a
hundred, and even ten families, upon the prin-
ciple that the rays of the sun enter everywhere.
Personal freedom was a thing unknown. Each
individual was under direct surveillance, as it
were, branded and numbered like the herds of
llamas which were the special property of the
sun incarnate, the Inca. Rules and regulations
abounded in a manner unheard of even in police-
ridden Prussia, and no one had the opportunity
in this vast social machine of thinking or acting
for himself. His walk in life was marked out
for him from the time he was five years of age,
and even the woman he was to marry was selected
for him by the responsible officials; the age at
which he should enter the matrimonial state
being fixed at not earlier than twenty-four years
46

RELIGION OF THE ANCIENT PERUVIANS

in the case of a man and eighteen in that
of a woman. Even the place of his birth was
indicated by a coloured ribbon (which he dared
not remove) tied round his head.

The Peruvian legend of the coming to earth of
the sun-race, of whom the Inca was held to be
the direct descendant, told how two beings,
Manco Capac and Mama Ogllo or Oullo, the
offspring of the Sun and Moon, descended from
heaven in the region of Lake Titicaca. They had
received commands from their parent, the sun-
god, to traverse the country until they came to
a spot where a golden wedge they possessed
should sink into the ground, and at this place to
found a culture-centre. The wedge disappeared
at Cuzco, which Garcilasso el Inca de la Vega
(the most important of the ancient chroniclers of
Peru) interprets as meaning 'navel/ or, in
twentieth-century idiom, ' Hub of the Universe,'
but which possibly possesses a more exact render-
ing in the words ' cleared space.'

The city founded, Manco Capac instructed the
men in the arts of civilisation, and his consort
busied herself in teaching the women the
domestic virtues, as weaving and spinning.
Leaving behind them as earthly representatives
their son and daughter, they reascended to heaven,
47

MYTHOLOGIES OF MEXICO AND PERU

and from the children they left upon earth the
race of Incas was said to have sprung. Thus it
was that all Peruvian monarchs must marry
their sisters, as it was not permissible to defile
the offspring of the blood of the Son by mortal
union — the breaking of which law assisted in the
ruin of the Peruvian empire.

Like the Mexicans, the Peruvians appear to have
acknowledged the existence of a Supreme Being.
The attributes of this Supreme Being, through the
fostering care of a special cultus, soon developed
the rank of deities, each having a strongly marked
identity.

The most important individual deities next to
the Sun were Viracocha and Pachacamac, and
these, curiously enough, were deities who had
been admitted to the Peruvian pantheon from a
still older faith.

The name Viracocha was, besides being the
specific appellation of a certain deity, a generic
name for divine beings. It signifies ' Foam of
the Water/ thus alluding to the legend that the
god had arisen out of the depths of Lake Titicaca.
On his appearance from the sacred waters
Viracocha created the sun, moon, and stars, and
mapped out for them the courses which they
were to hold in the heavens. He then created
48

RELIGION OF THE ANCIENT PERUVIANS

men carved out of stone statues made by himself,
and bade them follow him to Cuzco. Arrived
there he collected the inhabitants, and placed
over them one, Allca Vica, who subsequently
became the ancestor of the Incas. He then
returned into Lake Titicaca, into the waters of
which he disappeared.

It is evident that this legend clashes strongly
with that of the solar origin of the Incas, and it
would seem to have been put forward by a rival
priesthood which had survived the introduction
of solar worship, but which was not powerful
enough to combat it.

Viracocha was usually represented as a god
bearded with water-rushes, and this hirsute
adornment is so far significant in that it may
have some connection with the older legends of
the Peruvians which tell of a white and bearded
race which advanced to Cuzco, the centre of
civilisation, from the regions of Lake Titicaca.
He is also spoken of as being without flesh or
bone, yet swift in movement, and this description
does not leave us long in doubt as to his real
nature. He was the water-god, the fertiliser of
all plant life. In the somewhat arid country
surrounding Lake Titicaca that great body of
water would undoubtedly come to be regarded as
D 49

MYTHOLOGIES OF MEXICO AND PERU

the generator of all fertility to be found in its
vicinity. Hence Viracocha's origin. His consort
was his sister Cocha, the lake itself. He, like Tlaloc
among the Mexicans, had a penchant for human
sacrifice, but his worship was by no means so
sanguinary as was that of his Mexican prototype.
We must then regard Viracocha as the god of a
faith anterior to the sun-worship which obtained
in Peru at the time of the Spanish conquest.
But we shall also be forced to admit that
Pachacamac (whose name we bracketed with that
of Viracocha a few paragraphs back), although
a member of the Peruvian pantheon and a great
god, was but there on sufferance. The name
Pachacamac signifies 'earth-generator/ and the
primitive centres of the worship of this deity were
in the valleys of Lurin and Rimac, near the city
of Lima. In the latter once stood a great temple
to Pachacamac, the ruins of which, alone, now
remain. Pachacamac would seem to have borne
the reputation of a great civiliser, and to some
extent he usurped the claims of Viracocha to
this honour. Viracocha, so runs the legend, was
defeated by him in combat, and fled, whereupon
the victor created a new world more to his liking
by the simple expedient of transferring the race
of men then upon earth into wild animals, and

50

RELIGION OF THE ANCIENT PERUVIANS

creating a new and higher humanity. He was
also a god of fertility, as on the remains of his
temples fishes are to be found evidently symbolis-
ing this attribute.

The hostility of Pachacamac and Viracocha
has a mythical significance. Pachacamac was
the god of volcanoes, earthquakes, and subter-
ranean fire, and was therefore hostile to water.
His worship was much more mysterious than
that of Viracocha. The Peruvians, in fact,
regarded Pachacamac as a dreaded and unseen
deity, at whose mutterings in the centre of the
earth they prostrated themselves in dread.
Rimac, indeed, where the worship of this god had
its focus, means ' the speaker,' ' the murmurer,'
and a kind of oracular character appears ulti-
mately to have been associated with the name of
this terrible deity, who on occasion demanded to
be appeased by human sacrifice.

The myth of Pacari Tambo, the ' house of the
dawn,' a legend of the Collas, a tribe of moun-
taineers dwelling to the south-west of Cuzco,
throws some light on this strife between Vira-
cocha and Pachacamac. Four brothers and
sisters (runs the legend) issued one day from the
caverns of Pacari Tambo. The eldest ascended
a mountain, and cast stones to all the cardinal

MYTHOLOGIES OF MEXICO AND PERU

points of the compass to show that he had taken
possession of the land. The other three were
averse to this, especially the youngest, who was
the most cunning of all. By dint of persuasion
he managed to get the obnoxious brother to
enter a cave. As soon as he had done so he
closed the mouth of the cave with a great stone,
and imprisoned him there for ever. He then, on
pretence of seeking his lost brother, persuaded
the second to ascend a high mountain, from
which he cast him, and, as he fell, by dint of
magic art changed him into a stone. The third
brother, having no desire to share the fate of the
other two, then fled. The first brother appears
to be the oldest religion, that of Pachacamac ; the
second, that of an intermediate fetishism, or stone
worship; and the third, Viracocha. The fourth
is the worship of the Sun, pure and simple, the
youngest brother, but the victor over the other
older faiths of the land. This is proved by the
circumstance that the name applied to the
youngest brother is Pirrhua Manca, an equivalent
to that of Manco Capac, the Son of the Sun.

This, however, does not altogether tally with

what might be called the ' official ' legend, the

myth promulgated by the Incas themselves.

According to this the Sun had three sons, Vira-

52

RELIGION OF THE ANCIENT PERUVIANS

cocha, Pachacamac, and Manco Capac. This
stroke of policy at once blended all three
religions ; but by another stroke of politic genius,
the earthly power was vested in Manco Capac,
the other two deities being placed in subordinate
positions, where they were concerned chiefly with
the workings of nature. To Manco Capac, and
his representatives, the Incas, alone, was left the
dominion of mankind.

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 is
53

MYTHOLOGIES OF MEXICO AND PERU

represented 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 in-
sensibly 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 sub-

54

RELIGION OF THE ANCIENT PERUVIANS

terranean gold, 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.1 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 constitu-
tion 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. And

1 The veneration of an animal or plant which does not identify
a tribe is not ' totemism ' but ' naturalism,' or nature-worship.

55

MYTHOLOGIES OF MEXICO AND PERU

here the root difference between the Mexican and
Peruvian mythologies may be pointed out — that
although both systems had grown up from vari-
ous 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.1

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, was Huaca, or sacred.
The chief priest of Cuzco was designated Huacap-
villac, or ' he who speaks with sacred beings,' but
the principal use to which the term Huaca was
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 con-
siderably in size. The reverence for them was
probably of prehistoric origin, and in this cultus

1 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 a tribe originally for t lie 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.

56

RELIGION OF THE ANCIENT PERUVIANS

we 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 pro-
perty, 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 oppor-
tunity 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.

57

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 un-
disturbed felicity. In a community where every-
thing 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 the

58

PERUVIAN RITUAL AND WORSHIP

people 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 in-
carnate 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 ' Chief

59

MYTHOLOGIES OF MEXICO AND PERU

Sacrificer.' 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 com-
panies, 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 exer-
cise 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 culmin-
ated in unfailing obedience to the Inca and his
representatives, and that the acquirement of
further knowledge was the work of supereroga-
tion.

60

PERUVIAN RITUAL AND WORSHIP

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 priest-
hood 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 as Coricancha,
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 accur-
ately indeed were these fitted that the blade of a
knife could not be inserted between them. Inside
61

MYTHOLOGIES OF MEXICO AND PERU

the 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 scintil-
lations from a thousand gems, with which its
surface was enriched, lent to it a brilliance which
eye-witnesses declare to have been almost in-
supportable. 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 com-
posed 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 rain-
bow; 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 dead
62

PERUVIAN RITUAL AND WORSHIP

queens of the Incas. In that of Cuycha, the
rainbow, as already explained, a golden repre-
sentation 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 extra-
ordinary 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 con-
ducted 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 re-
presentations 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 to

63

MYTHOLOGIES OF MEXICO AND PERU

regard their descriptions as in any way untrust-
worthy.

As in Mexico, so in Peru, the Spanish con-
querors 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 abso-
lution granted. At the festival of Ray mi, 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, how-
ever, 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, authorities
64

PERUVIAN RITUAL AND WORSHIP

are not agreed, some believing that the cold of
the mountains to which the corpses were sub-
jected 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 of Hailly, or 'triumph.' Some of those
Peruvian hymns were preserved in the work of a
Spanish composer, who hi 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 Eland

E 65

MYTHOLOGIES OF MEXICO AND PERU

Nordenskjold, 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 cus-
toms 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 appro-
priate 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, accom-
panied in procession by his court and the people,
who followed en masse, proceeded to the great
square to hail the rising sun. The scene must
have been one of intense brilliance. Clad in their

66

PERUVIAN RITUAL AND WORSHIP

most costly robes, and sheltered beneath canopies
of cunning feather- work in which the gay plumage
of tropical birds was aesthetically 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 psean of thanks-
giving. 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.
67

MYTHOLOGIES OF MEXICO AND PERU

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
role of fertiliser. The fourth great festival, Capac
Raymi, fell in December, when the thunder-god
shared the honours paid to the Sun. It was then
68

PERUVIAN RITUAL AND WORSHIP

that the younger generation of Incas after a
vigorous training received an honour equivalent
to that of knighthood.

The Peruvians possessed a fully developed con-
ventual 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 of rnatncwones, 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 communica-
tion 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 destruc-
tion 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 incar-
nate shape of the Inca, the most beautiful being
selected for the harem of the monarch.

Sorcery and divination were frequently em-
ployed by the Peruvians, and the Huacarimachi,
' They who make the gods speak,' were held in
great veneration by the ignorant masses. The
oracles in the valleys of Lima and Rimac were
69

MYTHOLOGIES OF MEXICO AND PERU

much 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 regime 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 isola-
tion 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 notwith-
standing, 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 sup-
planted 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 the
71

MYTHOLOGIES OF MEXICO AND PERU

Red 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) vid the 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. It

72

QUESTION OF FOREIGN INFLUENCE

cannot be too strongly insisted upon that any
foreign influence arriving in the American con-
tinent 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 simi-
larity 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 the
73

MYTHOLOGIES OF MEXICO AND PERU

entrance 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 con-
quistadores, and how the fear of his vengeance
was ever before the Aztec priesthood. Quetzal-
coatl, 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 Mtiller 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 ex-
istence of ' white men/ or ' white tribes,' dwelling
upon the American continent.

Passing over the sagas of the Norse discovery
74

QUESTION OF FOREIGN INFLUENCE

of 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 Irish
Book of Liamore tells of the voyage of St.
Brandan, 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 Avith 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 Wales
75

MYTHOLOGIES OF MEXICO AND PERU

he once more set out with ten vessels, but con-
cerning 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.1 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.2

Innumerable are the legends of ' white Indians '
— the 'white Panis,'3 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 anthro-
pology 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 Kings-
borough squandered a fortune and compiled a
work on Mexican antiquities the parallel of

1 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.

a Antiguitatea Americana. Were they Picts ?

3 Pawnees.

76

QUESTION OF FOREIGN INFLUENCE

which has not been known in the entire history
of bibliography.1

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 exceed-
ingly dangerous to premise anything of the sort ;
and, as has been said before, the influence of
such wanderers could only have been infini-
tesimal.

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 of

1 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.

77

MYTHOLOGIES OF MEXICO AND PERU

Asia, they are explicable by that law now so well
known to anthropologists and students of com-V
parative religion, that, given similar circum-
stances, 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 icith an asterisk are also applicable
to the subject of Peruvwn Mythology).

SAHAGUX, Historia General de las Cosas de Nueva Espafia.
(English translation edited for the Hakluyt Society by
Clements R. Markhani in 1880.)

TORQUEMADA, Los veynte y un libros Ritual ts y Monarchia
Yndiana.

IXTLILXOCHITL, ' Historia Chichimeca' and l Relaciones' in
Lord Kingsborough's Mexican Antiquities, vol. ix.

PRESCOTT, Conquest of Mexico.

*HUMBOLDT, YUM des CordiUcres et Monuments des Peuples
de VAmirique.

CLAVIGERO, Storia antica del Messico. (English transla-
tion by Charles Cullen. London, 1787.)

BRASSEUR DE BOURBOURG, Histoires des Nations civilisces du
Mexique et de I'Amtrique-centrale, and Quatre Lcttres
sur le Mexique.

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

KINGSBOROUGH, Antiquities of Mexico.

*RE"VILLE, The Hibbert Lectures, 1884.

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

TTLOR, Anahuac.

BRIXTOX, The Myths of the New World.

WINSOR, Narrative and Critical History of America.

PERUVIAN MYTHOLOGY

MONTESIXOS, Mcmoires historiques sur VAncitn Perou.
(Translated from the Spanish MS. in Ternaux-Compans,
vol. xvii.)

79

MYTHOLOGIES OF MEXICO AND PERU

GARCILASSO DE LA VEGA, Comentarios reales. (English
translation for the Hukluyt Society by Clements R.
Markham. London, 1869, 1871.)

LACROIX, l Perou,' in vol. iv. of L'Amerique in L'Univers
Pittoresque.

HUTCHINSON, Two Years in Pent, 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 ; and Rites and Laws of
the Incas.

LORENTE, Historia Antigua del Peru, 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's History 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. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to His Majesty
at the Edinburgh University Press

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