Iquique

“ In the cities she reports finding all life at a standstill, although at Iquique, the landing party encountered some hill-Indians who had suffered a bluing of the blood similar to ours, and who proved distinctly unfriendly. ”

“ In the evening I gave my adios, with a hearty good-will, to my companion Mariano Gonzales, with whom I had ridden so many leagues in Chile. The next morning the Beagle sailed for Iquique.
July 12th.—We anchored in the port of Iquique, in lat. 20° 12', on the coast of Peru. The town contains about a thousand inhabitants, and stands on a little plain of sand at the foot of a great wall of rock, 2000 feet in height, here forming the coast. The whole is utterly desert. A light shower of rain falls only once in very many years ”

“ The next important port south of Arica is Iquique, 156but between the two is Pisagua where many boats call, affording opportunity for any who desire, to disembark and go 124 miles by rail to Iquique, thus to see without loss of time something of the rich nitrate lands of Tarapacá. This part of the coast may not look very different from some of the Peruvian, yet it is still more of a desert; for the Peruvian will blossom like a rose, with a sufficient water supply, while this is less easily transformed. ”

“ Iquique is a city of much commercial importance and is provided with banks, substantial business houses, newspapers, clubs, schools, railways, tramways, electric lights, telephone lines, and steamship and cable communication with the outside world. It exports iodine and immense quantities of nitrate of soda obtained from the desert region of the province. A large number of vessels are engaged in the nitrate trade, and Iquique ranks as one of the two leading ports of Chile in the aggregate value of its foreign commerce. ”

“ The recollections of these events assumed different forms in the traditions of different tribes until each nation claimed, or were deemed by the Spaniards to claim, a distinct migration from its former home. [39]
After the creation of the first men Balam-Quitze, Balam-Agab, Machucutah and Iqui-Balam, wives were given to them, and these were the parents of the Quiche nation. * * * * All seem to have spoken one language and to have lived in great peace, black men and white men together. Here they awaited the rising of the sun and prayed to the Heart of Heaven. ”

“ They have always appeared to live together very happily.
The trial of Señor Nunes has aroused great interest and sympathy in Iquitos, especially among the señoritas. An admiring and distinguished anthology of beautiful damsels and charming wives attended the execution, which was admitted to be the most magnificent held in Iquitos for years.
When an opportunity was given the condemned to address his hearers, Señor Nunes pronounced a graceful tribute to “woman.” ”

“ A good description of a fight between the Quiché and the Kakchiquel is given in the "Annals." "When the dawn appeared, the Quiché descended from the hills, the cries and the shouts of war broke forth, the banners were displayed. Then were heard the drums, the trumpets and the conches of the combatants. Truly this descent of the Quiché was terrible. They advanced rapidly in rank, and one might see afar off their bands following one another descending the mountain. ”

“ Dame Nature had gotten Ike up without especial regard to good looks, but had braced, propped and generally supported his irregular features with wonderful bones and sinews, all contained in a close knit wrapper of inflexible cord and muscle. Like other unusually powerful men, Ike was usually the very soul of good nature; but when fully aroused and forced on the aggressive he was known and acknowledged to be a holy terror. He had long powerful arms and hands, broad shoulders, thick neck, surmounted by a bullet-shaped head with small ears. ”

“ There are many streams of like nature, which run through divers parts of the empire, which being conveyed by Aqueducts, at the charge and expense of the Incas, are works of grandeur and ostentation, and which recommend the magnificence of the Incas to all posterity ”

“ Benito, Manoel, Araujo had not even to stir up the Indians or to encourage them. The gallant fellows knew that they were working for the fazender of Iquitos—for the man whom they loved, for the chief of the excellent family who treated their servants so well. ”

“ Their Cattel, though they are much less than the ordinary Kine of Europe, are the chief Sustenance and Employment of the Natives; by Pasturing huge Herds whereof from place to place, the People live, and maintain a Traffick with other Parts. Yet some of them inhabit Towns, the chief whereof, as yet discover’d, seem to be these which follow:
Towns of chief note. 1. Acus, or Acuco, a small Town, but seated in a strong defensible place, and being a great Staple for Cotton, the Territory about it hath been taken for a distinct Province, and by some call’d The Kingdom of Acuco. ”

“ That was one thing about Ike, he always used his head. Well, he figgered and figgered, and purty soon he looked around, and he seen an axe about a hundred yards off. He ’lowed some nester had been haulin’ wood out of the canyon and had lost his axe. And mighty glad Ike was of the nester’s hard luck, too. And jest to show you the nerve of the man, he goes over and gits the axe and chops off his own leg, and he didn’t have any chloroform, either, it not bein’ wormy season, and gits his self loose and walks ten miles into headquarters. That’s what I call nerve. ”

“ I have likewise quoted the remarkable qualification of a supreme divinity made by Inca Yupanqui, who [pg 161] raised a temple in Cuzco to the Creator who, superior to the sun, could rest and light the world from one spot. It is an extremely important and significant fact that the principal doorway of this temple opened to the north,32 and that the “true Creator” is alluded to as an invisible power, the knowledge of which was transmitted by the Incas from father to son. ”

“ Then, said the Inca to his sister and wife—in this valley, our Father, the Sun, hath commanded that we should stay, and make our abode, and in so doing we shall obey his will; in pursuance whereof, it is necessary that we now separate from each other, and take different ways that we may assemble and draw the people together in such manner as we may be able to preach and propagate the doctrine among them, which has been committed to us. ”

“ Every civilization has produced in those who enjoyed its fruits, a firm conviction of its stability, its perpetuity.
When the palanquins of the Incas travelled rapidly on the smooth, magnificent causeways which still unite Cuzco and Quito, a distance of fifteen hundred miles, with what feelings of exultation must they have contemplated the conquests of the present, what magnificent prospects of the future must have presented themselves to their imaginations! Stern time, with one blow of his gigantic wings, hurled their empire into the deepest depths of the abyss of oblivion. ”

“ The history of the Quiché exhibits some connection with that of the Kakchiquel, and further displays certain points of resemblance with the early legends of the Mexicans. Though both the Quiché and Kakchiquel accounts give lists of kings who ruled over their respective tribes, yet they furnish no dates, and the lengths of the various reigns can only be conjectured. Quiché history, like the Mexican, begins in myth, with the final or historical creation. The creating-gods fashioned four men out of maize, Balam-Quitzé, Balam-Agab, Mahucutah and Iqi-Balam. ”

“ In this style, then, we dashed from the door of the old Ten Eyck-house; all the blacks in the street gazing at us in delight, and shaking their sides with laughter—a negro always expressing his admiration of anything, even to a sermon, in that mode. I remember to have heard a traveller who had been as far as Niagara, declare that his black did nothing but roar with laughter, the first half-hour he stood confronted with that mighty cataract.
Nor did the blacks alone stop to admire Guert Ten Eyck, his sleigh and his horses. ”

“ Out of the confusion of many legends that are related by the Indians to account for the origin of the Incas’ empire, the one which is best known, and most generally approved, because of the poetic beauty of the conception, tells us that the Sun, the creator of mankind, through compassion for the deplorable degradation of the world, sent two of his children, Manco-Ccapac and Mama Ocllo, to regenerate humanity and to teach the arts of civilized life. ”

“ At the end of the Republican period the Aequi appear, under the name Aequiculi or Aequicoh, organized as a municipium, the territory of which seems to have comprised the upper part of the valley of the Salto, still known as Cicolano. It is probable, however, that they continued to live in their villages as before. ”

“ At Quito, at any rate before the conquest of the country by the Incas, a hundred children were sacrificed to him every year. There is no idea of positive suffering inflicted on the wicked under his direction. But the subterranean abode is gloomy and dismal, like the place of shades in the Odyssey. ”

“ To be sure, a certain amount of interpretation is desirable: the idolos of Acuña are hardly idols in the classical sense; rather they are in the nature of charms, fetishes, ritual paraphernalia, trophies,—all that goes under the name "medicine," as applied to Indian custom. And it is true, too, that in so vast a territory, and among peoples who, although all savages, differ widely in habit of life, there are indefinite variations both in custom and mental attitude. Some tribes are but hunters, fishers, and root-gatherers; others practice [Pg 288] agriculture also. ”

“ The Quiches, like their neighbours the Cakchiquels, were a highly civilised race, possessing well-built towns, roads, and the arts of life, and were great agriculturists. Maize, the staple of food among these advanced Americans, was almost as great a god as soma among the Indo-Aryans. ”

“ At Quito, the Inca received news that his orders had been well attended to in the provinces, and that his delegates had{183} instructed the people over whom they were placed, and had treated them well; while the people were happy, and did what was required of them. From many lords there arrived ambassadors every day, with valuable presents, and the Inca’s court was full of great men, and his palaces of vases of gold and silver, and other precious things. ”

“ Every valley, every tribe, every temple, every chief, had a guardian spirit. Those which were analogous to pænates publici were recognized by the Incas, who endowed them with flocks and various presents. Often a stone in the middle of the village passed as the abode of the patron spirit of the place. ”

“ Ixtual declared.
“He says there is a legend among his people that in a spur of the Sierra Chuchumatlane mountains are two peaks beyond which no living man has ever looked and that they were sacred to those who built the temples here,” the doctor answered concisely enough, and still speaking in Spanish as if to make certain that Ixtual might understand. But the latter was not satisfied.
“Señores,” he said gravely, “those peaks are sacred to my people and were once a part of their religion. A man does not betray his religion, does he?” ”

“ In Genesis (chap. iii., 22) , "And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever:" therefore God drove him out of the garden. In the Quiche legends we are told, "The gods feared that they had made men too perfect, and they breathed a cloud of mist over their vision."
When the ancestors of the Quiches migrated to America the Divinity parted the sea for their passage, as the Red Sea was parted for the Israelites. ”

“ After the first day the Inca Upanqui, he who is my father and whose lawful heir I am, although he discarded me for Urco and believes me dead, made it a habit to take his food in the same tent or rest-house chamber as the lady Quilla. Lord, being very clever, she set herself to charm him, so that soon he began to dote upon her, as old, worn-out men sometimes do upon young and beautiful women. ”

“ CHAPTER LII. How Inca Yupanqui set out from Cuzco and marched to the Collao, and of what happened there.
THESE Indians have no letters, and can only preserve their history by the memory of events handed down from generation to generation, and by their songs and quipus. I say this, because their narratives vary in many particulars, some saying one thing, and others giving a different version. Human judgment would not suffice to decide what is truest, without taking, from these various stories, what the people themselves consider to be most accurate, for record. ”

“ CHAPTER XXXVI. Of the seventh King or Inca who reigned in Cuzco, named Inca Yupanqui.
WHEN Inca Rocca died, many people, both men and women came from Condesuyo, Vicos, and Ayamarca, and there was great mourning for the deceased king. Many women, from among those who in life had loved and served him, in accordance with the general blindness of those Indians, hung themselves by their own hair, and others were killed in divers ways; that their souls might go quickly to serve their lord. ”

“ The christianized Indians of the Inca dynasty, whose native tongue is Quichua,—for we do not at present speak of the savage, or half-christianized Pano, and other yet unsettled tribes of the Montaña,—are said to be an indolent race; but we have had the opportunity of knowing that their exertions will increase as the prospect of bettering their condition expands, and that in general their labour is only conducted in a slothful manner when it is compulsory, or to themselves unproductive. ”