shores of the Maragnon for several hundred leagues, and extended themselves
quite to the Atlantic, appear to have been a Peruvian colony, both from analogy
of language and customs; for they were in the practice of moulding the heads of
their children so as to give them the high and lunated shape in use among the
Connivos.*
I presume De Pauw alludes to the Omaguas when he tells us, that “ certain
Indians on the borders of the Maragnon, have square or cubic heads: in other
words they are flattened on the face, on the crown, on the occiput, and on the
temples, thus presenting the acme of human extravagance.”!
Peru, like the co-existent feudal states of Europe, contained two classes of
people wholly unlike each other, viz: the exotic Inca family, with its numberless
ramifications, which held all the honor and advantage in their own hands; and
the native plebeian multitude, who were in as low a state of degradation as the
selfish policy of their superiors could devise and establish.
To the former of these classes was confined whatever was known of science,
art or refinement. The members of the royal family prided themselves on their
skill in architecture, astronomy and the national literature; and it will be observed
that whenever an individual was named as pre-eminent in any of these departments
of knowledge, he belonged to the dominant caste. In fact, the plebeian class was
excluded from any participation in literature and science, except only when they
could be employed as musicians and artisans. The Incas thus held alike the
power and the knowledge in their own hands.
Their principal intellectual attainments were in geometry, music, poetry and
architecture; but a people having no written language, and transmitting only
by tradition their attainments in these branches of knowledge, cannot at this late
period be fully appreciated, and much less can they be fairly compared in these
respects With Europeans.
Architecture is one of the earliest attributes of civilisation, and in this the
Peruvians had made surprising progress. Their temples, palaces and tombs bear
* L a. Condamine, Mem. de F Acad. Roy. des Sc. Tome 62, p. 427.—Ulloa, Hist, del Viage, T. I,
p. 505.—Does the following fragment of history refer to these Omaguas ? “ When Francisco Pizarro,
Diego Almagro, and others, conquered the said empire of Peru, and had put to death Atabalipa, one
of the younger sons of Guaynacapa fled out of Peru, and took with him many thousands of those
soldiers of the empire called Orejones, and with those and many ot,hers that followed him, he vanquished
all that tract and valley of America which is situate between the great rivers of the Amazons
and Bàraquan, otherwise called Orinoco and Maragnon.”—Sir W. Raleigh, Voy. to Guiana, p.25.
t Rescherches sur les Américaines, I, p. 146.
ample evidence of this fact ; and while the design is for the most part simple, the
execution cannot but excite our admiration. Their great object appears to have
been to erect cyclopean structures, which should at once attest their skill in art,
and the power of their mechanical contrivances. They separated from the quarries
enormous masses of stone, they shaped them into exact proportions, and they then
conveyed them to such distances that we are at a loss to conjecture by what means
the object was accomplished. Acosta, after stating that he had measured a single
block of stone at Tiaguanico (the city, as we have seen, of the primitive Peruvians)
which was thirty feet long, eighteen feet broad and six feet thick, declares that
there were stones in the walls of the fortress of Cuzco o f fa r greater size, and
which were placed there by hand. Yet thèse masses, says Acosta, were not
shaped by rule, but of unequal proportion, the irregularities of the one being
exactly fitted by extreme toil and ingenuity to those of the other, without mortar
or cement ; and yet the place of junction was scarcely discernible.* What is
equally remarkable is the fact, that these gigantic fragments of rock were brought
from Muyna, which is five leagues distant from the city of Cuzco ; and some of
them from a much greater distance.!
Thus the seemingly superhuman efforts of the Egyptians are at least equalled
by those of the Peruvians ; and what most excites our admiration in the one, must
be also conceded to the other. We see in the Péruvians a'" people destitute of
horses, oxen, or any beast of burthen except the feeble lama ; and yet they have
left monuments which sufficiently attest their great ingenuity and indomitable
perseverance. We are ignorant of the means by which they transported these
cyclopean fragments of rock, and the mechanical contrivances that were used in
excavating and adapting them to their destined situation. The arts of the present
day, with all the refinements of successive generations of ingenious minds, would
perhaps be inadequate to achieve those remarkable ends which are common in the
monuments of Peru.
The Peruvians, like the primitive Egyptians, were not acquainted with the
use of iron.J Such of their implements as in other countries are made of that
* Hist de las Indias, Lib. VI, Cap. XIV.—Ulloa, Voy. II, p. 130.
t Garcilaso, Comment. Lib. VII, Cap. XXVII, XXVIII, XXIX.
! Yet according to the best information we possess on this subject, “ iron was known (in the old
world) 184 years before the Trojan war, about 1370 years before Christ}” and there is sufficient proof
that the Egyptians used iron instruments and utensils so early as the Pharaonic era.—Wilkinson,
Jinc. Egypt, III, p. 247.