Man, Past and Present Part 44

It has to be remembered that the Aztecs were but one branch of the Nahuatlan family, whose affinities Buschmann[887] has traced northwards to the rude Shoshonian aborigines who roamed from the present States of Montana, Idaho, and Oregon down into Utah, Texas, and California[888].

To this Nahuatlan stock belonged the barbaric hordes who overthrew the civilisation which flourished on the Anahuac (Mexican) table-land about the sixth century A.D. and is a.s.sociated with the ruins of Tula and Cholula. It now seems clear that the so-called "Toltecs," the "Pyramid-builders," were not Nahuatlans but Huaxtecans, who were absorbed by the immigrants or driven southwards.

To north and north-west of the settled peoples of the valley lived nomadic hunting tribes called Chichimec[889], merged in a loose political system which was dignified in the local traditions by the name of the "Chichimec Empire." The chief part was played by tribes of Nahuan origin[890], whose ascendancy lasted from about the eleventh to the fifteenth century, when they were in their turn overthrown and absorbed by the historical Nahuan confederacy of the _Aztecs_[891] whose capital was Tenocht.i.tlan (the present city of Mexico), the _Acolhuas_ (capital Tezcuco), and the _Tepanecs_ (capital Tlacopan).

Thus the Aztec Empire reduced by the Conquistadores in 1520 had but a brief record, although the Aztecs themselves as well as many other tribes of Nahuatl speech, must have been in contact with the more civilised Huaxtecan peoples for centuries before the appearance of the Spaniards on the scene. It was during these ages that the Nahuas "borrowed much from the Mayas," as Forstemann puts it, without greatly benefiting by the process. Thus the Maya G.o.ds, for the most part of a relatively mild type like the Maya themselves, become in the hideous Aztec pantheon ferocious demons with an insatiable thirst for blood, so that the teocalli, "G.o.d's houses," were transformed to human shambles, where on solemn occasions the victims were said to have numbered tens of thousands[892].

Besides the Aztecs and their allies, the elevated Mexican plateaus were occupied by several other relatively civilised nations, such as the _Miztecs_ and _Zapotecs_ of Oajaca, the _Tarasco_ and neighbouring _Matlaltzinca_, of Michoacan[893], all of whom spoke independent stock languages, and the _Totonacs_ of Vera Cruz, who were of Huaxtecan speech, and were in touch to the north with the Huaxtecs, a primitive Maya people. The high degree of civilisation attained by some of these nations before their reduction by the Aztecs is attested by the magnificent ruins of Mitla, capital of the Zapotecs, which was captured and destroyed by the Mexicans in 1494[894]. Of the royal palace Viollet-le-Duc speaks in enthusiastic terms, declaring that "the monuments of the golden age of Greece and Rome alone equal the beauty of the masonry of this great building[895]." In general their usages and religious rites resembled those of the Aztecs, although the Zapotecs, besides the civil ruler, had a High Priest who took part in the government. "His feet were never allowed to touch the ground; he was carried on the shoulders of his attendants; and when he appeared all, even the chiefs themselves, had to fall prostrate before him, and none dared to raise their eyes in his presence[896]." The Zapotec language is still spoken by about 260 natives in the State of Oajaca.

Farther north the plains and uplands continued to be inhabited by a mult.i.tude of wild tribes speaking an unknown number of stock languages, and thus presenting a chaos of ethnical and linguistic elements comparable to that which prevails along the north-west coast. Of these rude populations one of the most widespread are the Otomi of the central region, noted for the monosyllabic tendencies of their language, which Najera, a native grammarian, has on this ground compared with Chinese, from which, however, it is fundamentally distinct. Still more primitive are the Seri Indians of Tiburon island in the Gulf of California and the adjacent mainland, who were visited in 1895 by W. J. McGee, and found to be probably more isolated and savage than any other tribe remaining on the North American Continent. They hunt, fish, and collect vegetable food, and most of their food is eaten raw, they have no domestic animals save dogs, they are totally without agriculture, and their industrial arts are few and rude. They use the bow and arrow but have no knife.

Their houses are flimsy huts. They make pottery and rafts of canes. The Seri are loosely organised in a number of exogamic, matrilineal, totemic clans. Mother-right obtains to a greater extent perhaps than in any other people. At marriage the husband becomes a privileged guest in the wife's mother's household, and it is only in the chase or on the war-path that men take an important place. Polygyny prevails. The most conspicuous ceremony is the girls' p.u.b.erty feast. The dead are buried in a contracted position. "The strongest tribal characteristic is implacable animosity towards aliens.... In their estimation the brightest virtue is the shedding of alien blood, while the blackest crime in their calendar is alien conjugal union[897]."

It is noteworthy that but few traces of such savagery have yet been discovered in Yucatan. The investigations of Henry Mercer[898] in this region lend strong support to Forstemann's views regarding the early Huaxtecan migrations and the general southward spread of Maya culture from the Mexican table-land. Nearly thirty caves examined by this explorer failed to yield any remains either of the mastodon, mammoth, and horse, or of early man, elsewhere so often a.s.sociated with these animals. Hence Mercer infers that the Mayas reached Yucatan already in an advanced state of culture, which remained unchanged till the conquest. In the caves were found great quant.i.ties of good pottery, generally well baked and of symmetrical form, the oldest quite as good as the latest where they occur in stratified beds, showing no progress anywhere.

The caves of Loltun (Yucatan) and Copan (Honduras), examined by E. H.

Thompson and G. Byron-Gordon, yielded pre-Mayan debris from the deep strata. Perhaps this very ancient population was of the same race as the little known tribes still living in the forests of Honduras and San Salvador[899].

Since the conquest the Aztecs, and other cultured nations of Anahuac, have yielded to European influences to a far greater extent than the Maya-Quiche of Yucatan and Guatemala. In the city of Mexico the Nahuatl tongue has almost died out, and this place has long been a leading centre of Spanish arts and letters[900]; yet the Mexicans yearly celebrate a feast in memory of their great ancestors who died in defence of their country[901]. But Merida, standing on the site of the ancient Ti-hoo, has almost again become a Maya town, where the white settlers themselves have been largely a.s.similated in speech and usages to the natives. The very streets are still indicated by the carved images of the hawk, flamingo, or other tutelar deities, while the houses of the suburbs continue to be built in the old Maya style, two or three feet above the street level, with a walled porch and stone bench running round the enclosure.

One reason for this remarkable contrast may be that the Nahua culture, as above seen, was to a great extent borrowed in relatively recent times, whereas the Maya civilisation is now shown to date from the epoch of the Tolan and Cholulan pyramid-builders. Hence the former yielded to the first shock, while the latter still persists to some extent in Yucatan. Here about 1000 A.D. the cities of Chichen-Itza, Uxmal and Mayapan formed a confederacy in which each was to share equally in the government of the country. Under the peaceful conditions of the next two centuries followed the second and last great Maya epoch, the Age of Architecture, as it has been termed, as opposed to the first epoch, the Age of Sculpture, from the second to the sixth century A.D. During this earlier epoch flourished the great cities of the south, Palenque, Quirigua, Copan, and others[902]. Despite their more gentle disposition, as expressed in the softer and almost feminine lines of their features, the Mayas held out more valiantly than the Aztecs against the Spaniards, and a section of the nation occupying a strip of territory between Yucatan and British Honduras, still maintains its independence. The "barbarians," as the inhabitants of this district are called, would appear to be scarcely less civilised than their neighbours, although they have forgotten the teachings of the padres, and transformed the Catholic churches to wayside inns. Even as it is the descendants of the Spaniards have to a great extent forgotten their mother-tongue, and Maya-Quiche dialects are almost everywhere current except in the Campeachy district. Those also who call themselves Catholics preserve and practise many of the old rites. After burial the track from the grave to the house is carefully chalked, so that the soul of the departed may know the way back when the time comes to enter the body of some new-born babe. The descendants of the national astrologers everywhere pursue their arts, determining events, forecasting the harvests and so on by the conjunctions of the stars, and every village has its native "Zadkiel" who reads the future in the ubiquitous crystal globe. Even certain priests continue to celebrate the "Field Ma.s.s," at which a c.o.c.k is sacrificed to the Mayan Aesculapius, with invocations to the Trinity and their a.s.sociates, the four genii of the rain and crops.

"These tutelar deities, however, have taken Christian names, the Red, or G.o.d of the East, having become St Dominic; the White, or G.o.d of the North, St Gabriel; the Black, or G.o.d of the West, St James; and the 'Yellow G.o.ddess' of the South, Mary Magdalene[903]."

To the observer pa.s.sing from the northern to the southern division of the New World no marked contrasts are at first perceptible, either in the physical appearance, or in the social condition of the aborigines.

The substantial uniformity, which in these respects prevails from the Arctic to the Austral waters, is in fact well ill.u.s.trated by the comparatively slight differences presented by the primitive populations dwelling north and south of the Isthmus of Panama.

At the discovery the West Indies were inhabited by two distinct peoples, both apparently of South American origin. The populations of the Greater Antilles, Cuba, Jamaica, Santo Domingo and Porto Rico were of Arawak stock, as were also the Lucayans of the Bahamas. The Lesser Antilles were peopled by Caribs, whose culture had been somewhat modified by the Arawaks who had preceded them. As regards influences from the north-west and west, Joyce considers that intercourse between Yucatan and Western Cuba was confined to occasional trading voyages and did not long antedate the arrival of the Spaniards. The same applies to Florida where, however, Antillean influences may be traced, especially in pottery designs[904]. According to Beuchat, however, the Guacanabibes of Cuba are of common origin with the Tekestas of Florida. Other tribes from Florida spread to the Bahamas, Cuba[905], and perhaps Hayti, but were checked by Arawaks from South America who mastered the whole of the West Indies. Last came the more vigorous but less advanced Caribs, also from the southern mainland (of Arawak origin according to Joyce and Beuchat). The statement of Columbus that the Lucayans[906] were "of good size, with large eyes and broader foreheads than he had ever seen in any other race of men" is fully borne out by the character of some old skulls from the Bahamas measured by W. K. Brooks, who regarded them as belonging to "a well-marked type of the North American Indian race which was at that time distributed over the Bahama Islands, Hayti, and the greater part of Cuba. As these islands are only a few miles from the peninsula of Florida, this race must at some time have inhabited at least the south-eastern extremity of the continent, and it is therefore extremely interesting to note that the North American crania which exhibit the closest resemblance to those from the Bahama Islands have been obtained from Florida[907]." This observer dwells on the solidity and ma.s.siveness of the Lucayan skulls, which bring them into direct relation with the races both of the Mississippi plains and of the Brazilian and Venezuelan coast-lands, though the general ethnography of Panama and Costa Rica reveals no active influence exerted by tribes of Colombia and Venezuela, except in eastern Panama[908].

Equally close is the connection established between the surviving Isthmian and Colombian peoples of the Atrato and Magdalena basins. The Chontal of Nicaragua are scarcely to be distinguished from some of the Santa Marta hillmen, while the Choco and perhaps the Cuna of Panama have been affiliated to the Choco of the Atrato and San Juan rivers. The cultural connection between the tribes of the Isthmus and of Colombia appears especially in the gold-work and pottery of the Chiriqui; at the Chiriqui Lagoon, however, Nahuan influence is perceptible[909].

Attempts, which however can hardly be regarded as successful, have even been made to establish linguistic relations between the Costa Rican Guatuso and the Timote of the Merida uplands of Venezuela, who are themselves a branch of the formerly widespread Muyscan family.

But with these Muyscans we at once enter a new ethnical and cultural domain, in which may be studied the resemblances due to the common origin of all the American aborigines, and the divergences due obviously to long isolation and independent local developments in the two continental divisions. In general the southern populations present more violent contrasts than the northern in their social and intellectual developments, so that while the wild tribes touch a lower depth of savagery, some at least of the civilised peoples rise to a higher degree of excellence, if not in letters--where the inferiority is manifest--certainly in the arts of engineering, architecture, agriculture, and political organisation. Thus we need not travel many miles inland from the Isthmus without meeting the Catio, a wild tribe between the Atrato and the Cauca, more degraded even than the Seri of Tiburon island, most debased of all North American hordes. These Catio, a now nearly extinct branch of the Choco stock, were said to dwell like the anthropoid apes, in the branches of trees; they mostly went naked, and were reported, like the Mangbattus and other Congo negroes, to "fatten their captives for the table." Their Darien neighbours of the Nore valley, who gave an alternative name to the Panama peninsula, were accustomed to steal the women of hostile tribes, cohabit with them, and carefully bring up the children till their fourteenth year, when they were eaten with much rejoicing, the mothers ultimately sharing the same fate[910]; and the Cocoma of the Maranon "were in the habit of eating their own dead relations, and grinding their bones to drink in their fermented liquor. They said it was better to be inside a friend than to be swallowed up by the cold earth[911]." In fact of the Colombian aborigines Herrera tells us that "the living are the grave of the dead; for the husband has been seen to eat his wife, the brother his brother or sister, the son his father; captives also are eaten roasted[912]."

Thus is raised the question of cannibalism in the New World, where at the discovery it was incomparably more prevalent south than north of the equator. Compare the Eskimo and the Fuegians at the two extremes, the former practically exonerated of the charge, and in distress sparing wives and children and eating their dogs; the latter sparing their dogs because useful for catching otters, and smoking and eating their old women because useless for further purposes[913]. In the north the taste for human flesh had declined, and the practice survived only as a ceremonial rite, chiefly amongst the British Columbians and the Aztecs, except of course in case of famine, when even the highest races are capable of devouring their fellows. But in the south cannibalism in some of its most repulsive forms was common enough almost everywhere. Killing and eating feeble and aged members of the tribe in kindness is still general; but the Mayorunas of the Upper Amazon waters do not wait till they have grown lean with years or wasted with disease[914]; and it was a baptized member of the same tribe who complained on his death-bed that he would not now provide a meal for his Christian friends, but must be devoured by worms[915].

In the southern continent the social conditions ill.u.s.trated by these practices prevailed everywhere, except on the elevated plateaus of the western Cordilleras, which for many ages before the discovery had been the seats of several successive cultures, in some respects rivalling, but in others much inferior to those of Central America. When the Conquistadores reached this part of the New World, to which they were attracted by the not altogether groundless reports of fabulous wealth embodied in the legend of _El Dorado_, the "Man of Gold," they found it occupied by a cultural zone which extended almost continuously from the present republic of Colombia through Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia right into Chili. In the north the dominant people were the semi-civilised Chibcha, already mentioned under the name of Muysca[916], who had developed an organised system of government on the Bogota table-land, and had succeeded in extending their somewhat more refined social inst.i.tutions to some of the other aborigines of Colombia, though not to many of the outlying members of their own race. As in Mexico many of the Nahuatlan tribes remained little better than savages to the last, so in Colombia the civilised Muyscans were surrounded by numerous kindred tribes--Coyaima, Natagaima, Tocaima and others, collectively known as Panches--who were real savages with scarcely any tribal organisation, wearing no clothes, and according to the early accounts still addicted to cannibalism.

The Muysca proper had a tradition that they owed their superiority to their culture-hero Bochica, who came from the east long ago, taught them everything, and was then placed with Chiminigagua, the creator, at the head of their pantheon, and wors.h.i.+pped with solemn rites and even human sacrifices. Amongst the arts thus acquired was that of the goldsmith, in which they surpa.s.sed all other peoples of the New World. The precious metal was even said to be minted in the shape of discs, which formed an almost solitary instance of a true metal currency amongst the American aborigines[917]. Brooches, pendants, and especially grotesque figurines of gold, often alloyed with silver and copper, have been found in great numbers and still occasionally turn up on the plateau. These finds are partly accounted for by the practice of offering such objects in the open air to the personified constellations and forces of nature, for the primitive religion of all the Andean tribes consisted of nature-, in particular sun-cults. Near Bogota was a temple of the Sun, where children were reared for sacrifice[918]. Any mysterious sound emanating from a forest, a rock, a mountain pa.s.s, or gloomy gorge, was accepted as a manifestation of some divine presence; a shrine was raised to the embodied spirit, and so the whole land became literally crowded with local deities. This world itself was upborne on the shoulders of Chibchac.u.m, a national Atlas, who now and then eased himself by s.h.i.+fting the burden, and thus caused earthquakes. In most lands subject to underground disturbances a.n.a.logous ideas prevail, and when their source is so obvious, it seems unreasonable to seek for explanations in racial affinities, contacts, foreign influences, and so forth.

It has often been remarked that at the advent of the whites the native civilisations seemed generally stricken as if by the hand of death, so that even if not suddenly arrested by the intruders they must sooner or later have perished of themselves. Such speculations are seldom convincing, because we never know what recuperative forces may be at work to ward off the evil day. When the Spaniards arrived in Colombia they found at one end of the scale naked and savage cannibals, at the other a people with a feudal form of government, whose political system was progressive, who, though possessing no form of writing, had a system of measures and a calendar, and who were skilled in the arts of weaving, pottery, and metallurgy[919]. The chiefs of the Chibcha were all absolute monarchs and the appointment of priests rested with them.

Succession to the chieftains.h.i.+p was matrilineal, and installation in the office was attended by much ceremony. A great gulf separated n.o.bles and commoners; slavery existed as an inst.i.tution but slaves were well treated. Polygyny was permitted, but relatives within certain degrees might not marry[920]. This feebly organised political system broke to pieces at the first shock from without, and so disheartened had the people become under their half theocratic rulers, that they scarcely raised a hand in defence of a government which in their minds was a.s.sociated only with tyranny and oppression. The conquest was in any case facilitated by the civil war at the time raging between the northern and southern kingdoms which with several other semi-independent states const.i.tuted the Muyscan empire. This empire was almost conterminous southwards with that of the Incas. At least the numerous terms occurring in the dialects of the Paes, Coconucos, and other South Colombian tribes, show that Peruvian influences had spread beyond the political frontiers far to the north, without, however, quite reaching the confines of the Muyscan domain.

But for several centuries prior to the discovery the sway of the Peruvian Incas had been established throughout nearly the whole of the Andean lands, and the territory directly ruled by them extended from the Quito district about the equator for some 2500 miles southwards to the Rio Maule in Chili, with an average breadth of 400 miles between the Pacific and the eastern slopes of the Cordilleras. Their dominion thus comprised a considerable part of the present republics of Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chili, and Argentina, with a roughly estimated area of 1,000,000 square miles, and a population of over 10,000,000. Here the ruling race were the Quichua, whose speech, called by themselves _ruma-simi_, "the language of men," is still current in several well-marked dialects throughout all the provinces of the old empire. In Lima and all the seaports and inland towns Spanish prevails, but in the rural districts Quichuan remains the mother-tongue of over 2,000,000 natives, and has even become the _lingua franca_ of the western regions, just as Tupi-Guarani is the _lingoa geral_, "general language," of the eastern section of South America. The attempts to find affinities with Aryan (especially Sanskrit), and other linguistic families of the eastern hemisphere, have broken down before the application of sound philological principles to these studies, and Quichuan is now recognised as a stock language of the usual American type, unconnected with any other except that of the Bolivian Aymaras. Even this connection is regarded by some students as verbal rather than structural, an interchange of a considerable number of terms being easily explained by the close contact in which the two peoples have long dwelt.

As to the origin of the Incas we cannot do better than follow the views of Sir Clements Markham, who has made a careful study of the various early authorities. His account (_The Incas of Peru,_ 1910) is based largely on the works of Spanish military writers such as Ciezo de Leon and Pedro Pizarro (cousin of the conqueror), of priests like Molina, Montesinos, and the half-breed Blas Valera, and on those of the Inca Garcila.s.so de la Vega, son of a Spanish knight and an Inca princess. The megalithic ruins of Tiahuanacu, at the southern end of Lake t.i.ticaca, mark the earliest known centre of culture in southern Peru. They are situated on a lofty plateau, over 13,000 feet above the sea, and are the remains of a great city built by highly skilled masons who used enormous stones. The placing of such monoliths, unrivalled except by those of ancient Egypt, indicates a dense and well-organised population. The famous monolithic doorway is elaborately carved, the central figure apparently representing the deity, while on either side are figures, human- or bird-headed, kneeling in adoration (_op. cit._, pls. at pp.

26, 28). Now it seems probable that the builders of this megalithic city were the ancestors of the Incas, a.s.suming that a substratum of truth underlies the Paccari-tampu myth.

The end of the early civilisation is stated to have been caused by a great invasion from the south, when the king was killed in a battle in the Collao, north of Lake t.i.ticaca. A state of barbarism ensued. A remnant of the royal house took refuge in a district called Tampu-Tocco ("Window Tavern")[921] and there preserved a vestige of their ancient traditions and civilisation. Elsewhere religion deteriorated to nature wors.h.i.+p, here the kings declared themselves to be children of the sun.

Montesinos' list of kings gives 27 names for this period of Tampu-Tocco, which may cover 650 years.

The myth, which is "certainly the outcome of a real tradition, ... the fabulous version of a distant historical event," tells how Manco Ccapac and the three other Ayars, his brothers, the children of the sun, came forth with their wives from the central opening or window in the hill Tampu-Tocco. They advanced slowly at the head of several _ayllus_ (lineages). Ayar Manco took the lead, and he had with him a falcon-like bird revered as sacred, and a golden staff which he flung ahead; when it reached soil so fertile that the whole length sank in, there the final halt was to be made. This happened in the fertile vale of Cuzco. The date of these events would be about four centuries before the Spanish conquest.

Farther north at about 15 S. lat. the Inca civilisation was preceded, according to Uhle, by the very ancient one of Ica and Nazca, where dwelt a people who made pottery but were ignorant of weaving. The same authority has also discovered about Lima the remains of a tall people, who made rude pottery, nets, and objects of bone[922].

Manco established himself in the Cuzco valley, his third successor finally subjugating the tribes there. The early position of the Incas, cemented by judicious marriages, seems to have been one of priority in a very loose confederacy. The rise of the Incas was due to the ambition of the lady Siuyacu whose son, Inca Rocca, appears to have been the pioneer of empire; material prosperity began under him, schools were erected and irrigation works begun. Then from a strip of land 250 miles long between the gorge of the Apurimac and the wide fertile valley of Vilcamayu, the empire was extended to form the Ttahua-ntin-suyu, "the four provinces,"

of which the northern one, Chinchay-suyu, reached to Quito, and the southern, Colla-suyu, into Chili. This southward extension was due to the efforts of Pachacuti who succeeded after hard fighting in annexing the region around Lake t.i.ticaca, and the new territory was named after the Collas, the largest and most powerful tribe thereabouts. In order to pacify the region permanently large numbers of Collas were sent as _mitimaes_, or colonists, as far as the borders of Quito, while their places were filled by loyal colonists from Inca districts. Among these were a number of Aymaras from the Quichuan region of the Pachachaca, a left bank tributary of the Apurimac, who were settled among the remaining Lupacas on the west sh.o.r.e of Lake t.i.ticaca at Juli. Thither came Jesuit fathers in 1572 and learnt the language of the Lupacas from these Aymara colonists, who had been there three generations; the name Aymara was given by the priests not only to the Lupaca language but to those spoken by Collas and other t.i.ticacan tribes. Thus the name Aymara is now generally but quite erroneously applied to the language and people of this region; it was first so used in 1575. It must be pointed out, however, that other authorities regard the Aymara and Quichua as entirely distinct. A. Chervin[923] discusses the physical differences at great length and concludes that they are two separate brachycephalic peoples.

The Peruvians were primarily agriculturists, maize and at higher alt.i.tudes the potato being their chief crops. Their aqueducts and irrigation systems moved the admiration of early chroniclers, as did also their roads and suspension bridges[924]. The supreme deity and creator was Uira-cocha, who was wors.h.i.+pped by the more intellectual and had a temple at Cuzco. The popular religion was the wors.h.i.+p of the founder of each _ayllu_, or clan, and all joined in adoration of the sun as ancestor of the sovereign Incas. Sun-wors.h.i.+p was attended by a magnificent ritual, the high priest was an official of highest rank, often a brother of the sovereign, and there were over 3000 Virgins of the Sun (_aclla_) connected with the cult at Cuzco. The peasants put their trust in _conopas_, or household G.o.ds, which controlled their crops and their llamas. The calendar had been calculated with considerable ingenuity, and certain festivals took place annually and were usually accompanied with much chicha-drinking. It is remarkable that so advanced a people kept all their elaborate records by means of _quipus_ (coloured strings with knots).

Here is not the place to enter into the details of the astonis.h.i.+ng architectural, engineering, and artistic remains, often a.s.signed to the Incas, whose empire had absorbed in the north the old civilisation of the _Chimu_, perhaps of the _Atacameno_, and other cultured peoples whose very names have perished. The Yunga (Mochica or Chimu), conquered by the Inca Tupac Yupanqui, had a language radically distinct from Quichuan, but have long been a.s.similated to their conquerors.

The ruins of Grand Chimu (modern Trujillo) cover a vast area, nearly 15 miles by 6, which is everywhere strewn with the remains of palaces, reservoirs, aqueducts, ramparts, and especially _huacas_, that is, truncated pyramids not unlike those of Mexico, whence the theory that the Chimus, of unknown origin, were "Toltecs" from Central America. One of these huacas is described by Squier as 150 feet high with a base 580 feet square, and an area of 8 acres, presenting from a distance the appearance of a huge crater[925]. Still larger is the so-called "Temple of the Sun," 800 by 470 feet, 200 feet high, and covering an area of 7 acres. An immense population of hundreds of thousands was a.s.signed to this place in pre-Inca times; but from some rough surveys made in 1897 it would appear that much of the s.p.a.ce within the enclosures consists of waste lands, which had never been built over, and it is calculated that at no time could the number of inhabitants have greatly exceeded 50,000.

We need not stop to describe the peculiar civil and social inst.i.tutions of the Peruvians, which are of common knowledge. Enough to say that here everything was planned in the interests of the theocratic and all-powerful Incas, who were more than obeyed, almost honoured with divine wors.h.i.+p by their much bethralled and priest-ridden subjects. "The despotic authority of the Incas was the basis of government; that authority was founded on the religious respect yielded to the descendant of the sun, and supported by a skilfully combined hierarchy[926]." From remote antiquity the peoples of this area were organised into _ayllus_ each occupying part of a valley or a limited area. It was a patriarchal system, land belonging to the _ayllu_, which was a group of families.

The Incas systematised this inst.i.tution, the _ayllu_ was made to comprise 100 families under a village officer who annually allotted land to the heads of families. Each family was divided by the head into 10 cla.s.ses based on age. Ten _ayllus_ (now termed _pachacas_) formed a _huaranca_. A valley with a varying number of _huarancas_ was termed a _hunu_; over four _hunus_ there was an imperial officer. "This was indeed Socialism," Markham observes, "existing under an inexorable despotism" (p. 169).

Beyond the Maule, southernmost limits of all these effete civilisations, man rea.s.serted himself in the "South American Iroquois," as those Chilian aborigines have been called who called themselves _Molu-che_, "Warriors," but are better known by their Quichuan designation of _Aucaes_, "Rebels," whence the Spanish Aucans (Araucan, Araucanian).

These "Rebels," who have never hitherto been overcome by the arms of any people, and whose heroic deeds in the long wars waged by the white intruders against their freedom form the topic of a n.o.ble Spanish epic poem[927], still maintain a measure of national autonomy as the friends and faithful allies of the Chilian republic. Individual freedom and equality were leading features of the social system which was in the main patriarchal. The Araucanians were led by four independent chiefs, each supported by five _ulmen_, or district chiefs, whose office was hereditary but whose authority was little more than nominal. It was only in time of national warfare that the tribes united under a war-chief[928]. Not only are all the tribes absolutely free, but the same is true of every clan, sept, and family group. Needless to say, there are no slaves or serfs. "The law of retaliation was the only one understood, although the commercial spirit of the Araucano led him to forego personal revenge for its accruing profit. Thus every injury had its price[929]."

The basis of their belief is a rude form of nature wors.h.i.+p, the princ.i.p.al deities being malignant and requiring propitiation. The chief G.o.d was Pillan, the thunder G.o.d. Spirits of the dead go west over the sea to a place of abundance where no evil spirits have entry[930]. And this simple belief is almost the only subst.i.tute for the rewards and punishments which supply the motive for the observance of an artificial ethical code in so many more developed religious systems.

In the sonorous Araucanian language, which is still spoken by about 40,000 full-blood natives, the term _che_, meaning "people," occurs as the postfix of several ethnical groups, which, however, are not tribal but purely territorial divisions. Thus, while _Molu-che_ is the collective name of the whole nation, the _Picun-che_, _Huilli-che_, and _Puel-che_ are simply the North, South, and East men respectively. The Central and most numerous division are the _Puen-che_, that is, people of the pine district, who are both the most typical and most intelligent of all the Araucanian family. Ehrenreich's remark that many of the American aborigines resemble Europeans as much as or even more than the Asiatic Mongols, is certainly borne out by the facial expression of these Puenche. The resemblance is even extended to the mental characters, as reflected in their oral literature. Amongst the specimens of the national folklore preserved in the Puenche dialect and edited with Spanish translations by Rodolfo Lenz[931], is the story of a departed lover, who returns from the other world to demand his betrothed and carries her off to his grave. Although this might seem an adaptation of Burger's "Lenore," Lenz is of opinion that it is a genuine Araucanian legend.

Of the above-mentioned groups the Puelche are now included politically in Argentina. Their original home seems to have been north of the Rio Negro, but they raided westwards and some adopted the Araucanian language[932] and to them also the Chilian affix _che_ has also been extended. Indeed the term Puelche, meaning simply "Easterns," is applied not only to the Argentine Moluche, whose territory stretches east of the Cordilleras as far as Mendoza in Cuyo, but also to all the aborigines commonly called _Pampeans_ (_Pampas Indians_) by the Europeans and _Penek_ by the Patagonians. Under the designation of Puelche would therefore be comprised the now extinct _Ranqualche_ (Ranqueles), who formerly raided up to Buenos-Ayres and the other Spanish settlements on the Plate River, the _Mapoche_ of the Lower Salado, and generally all the nomads as far south as the Rio Negro.

These aborigines are now best represented by the _Gauchos_, who are mostly Spaniards on the father's side and Indians on the mother's, and reflect this double descent in their half-nomadic, half-civilised life.

These Gauchos, who are now also disappearing before the encroachments of the "Gringos[933]," _i.e._ the white immigrants from almost every country in Europe, have been enveloped in an ill-deserved halo of romance, thanks mainly to their roving habits, splendid horsemans.h.i.+p, love of finery, and genial disposition combined with that innate grace and courtesy which belongs to all of Spanish blood. But those who knew them best described them as of sordid nature, cruel to their women-kind, reckless gamblers and libertines, ruthless political partisans, at times even religious fanatics without a spark of true religion, and at heart little better than bloodthirsty savages.

Beyond the Rio Negro follow the gigantic Patagonians, that is, the _Tehuelche_ or _Chuelche_ of the Araucanians, who have no true collective name unless it be _Tsoneca_, a word of uncertain use and origin. Most of the tribal groups--_Yacana_, _Pilma_, _Chao_ and others--are broken up, and the former division between the Northern Tehuelche (Tehuelhet), comprising the _Callilehet_ (Serranos or Highlanders) of the Upper Chupat, with the Calilan between the Rios Chupat and Negro, and the Southern Tehuelche (Yacana, Sehuan, etc.), south to Fuegia, no longer holds good since the general displacement of all these fluctuating nomad hordes. A branch of the Tehuelche are unquestionably the _Ona_ of the eastern parts of Fuegia, the true aborigines of which are the _Yahgans_ of the central and the _Alakalufs_ of the western islands.

Hitherto to the question whence came these tall Patagonians, no answer could be given beyond the suggestion that they may have been specialised in their present habitat, where nevertheless they seem to be obviously intruders. Now, however, one may perhaps venture to look for their original home amongst the _Bororo_ of Matto Grosso, a once powerful race who held the region between the Rios Cuyaba and Paraguay. These Bororo, who had been heard of by Martius, were visited by Ehrenreich[934] and by Karl von den Steinen[935], who found them to be a nomadic hunting people with a remarkable social organisation centring in the men's club-house (_baito_). Their physical characters, as described by the former observer, correspond closely with those of the Patagonians: "An exceptionally tall race rivalling the South Sea Islanders, Patagonians, and Redskins; by far the tallest Indians. .h.i.therto discovered within the tropics," their stature ranging nearly up to 6 ft. 4 in., with very large and rounded heads (men 81.2; women 77.4). With this should be compared the very large round old Patagonian skull from the Rio Negro, measured by Rudolf Martin[936]. The account reads like the description of some forerunner of a prehistoric Bororo irruption into the Patagonian steppe lands.

To the perplexing use of the term Puelche above referred to is perhaps due the difference of opinion still prevailing on the number of stock languages in this southern section of the Continent. D'Orbigny's emphatic statement[937] that the Puelche spoke a language fundamentally distinct both from the Araucanian and the Patagonian has been questioned on the strength of some Puelche words, which were collected by Hale at Carmen on the Rio Negro, and differ but slightly from Patagonian. But the Rio Negro lies on the ethnical divide between the two races, which sufficiently accounts for the resemblances, while the words are too few to prove anything. Hale calls them "Southern Puelche," but they were in fact Tehuelche (Patagonian), the true Pampean Puelche having disappeared from that region before Hale's time[938]. I have now the unimpeachable authority of T. P. Schmid, for many years a missionary amongst these aborigines, for a.s.serting that d'Orbigny's statement is absolutely correct. His Puelche were the Pampeans, because he locates them in the region between the Rios Negro and Colorado, that is, north of Patagonian and east of Araucanian territory, and Schmid a.s.sures me that all three--Araucanian, Pampean, and Patagonian--are undoubtedly stock languages, distinct both in their vocabulary and structure, with nothing in common except their common polysynthetic form. In a list of 2000 Patagonian and Araucanian words he found only two alike, _patac_ = 100, and _huarunc_ = 1000, numerals obviously borrowed by the rude Tehuelche from the more cultured Moluche. In Fuegia there is at least one radically distinct tongue, the Yahgan, studied by Bridges. Here the Ona is probably a Patagonian dialect, and Alakaluf perhaps remotely allied to Araucanian. Thus in the whole region south of the Plate River the stock languages are not known to exceed four: Araucanian; Pampean (Puelche); Patagonian (Tehuelche); and Yahgan.

Few aboriginal peoples have been the subject of more glaringly discrepant statements than the Yahgans, to whom several lengthy monographs have been devoted during the last few decades. How contradictory are the statements of intelligent and even trained observers, whose good faith is beyond suspicion and who have no cause to serve except the truth, will best be seen by placing in juxtaposition the accounts of the family relations by G. Bove, a well-known Italian observer, and P. Hyades of the French Cape Horn Expedition, both summarised[939]:--

_Bove._

The women are treated as slaves. The greater the number of wives or slaves a man has the easier he finds a living; hence polygamy is deep-rooted and four wives common. Owing to rigid climate and bad treatment the mortality of children under 10 years is excessive; the mother's love lasts till the child is weaned, after which it rapidly wanes, and is completely gone when the child attains the age of 7 or 8 years. The Fuegian's only lasting love is the love of self. As there are no family ties, the word "authority" is devoid of meaning.

_Hyades._

The Fuegians are capable of great love which accounts for the jealousy of the men over their wives and the coquetry sometimes manifested by the women and girls.

Some men have two or more wives, but monogamy is the rule.

Children are tenderly cared for by their parents, who in return are treated by them with affection and deference.