Peruvians

“ But the Peruvians of the present day are a very different people from their progenitors, as they are timid and dispirited, melancholy in their temperament, severe and inexorable in the exercise of authority, wonderfully indifferent to the general concerns of life, and seeming to have little notion, or dread of death. They stand in awe of their European masters, but secretly dislike and shun their society, and they are said to be of a distrustful disposition, and though robust and capable of enduring great fatigue, yet they are very lazy. ”

“ The Peruvians are alive to its value and possibilities, but they are poor. Days, weeks, months of arduous travel on mule-back, on foot, cutting trochas, or paths, through the impenetrable under- brush, by raft and by canoe, suffering all the hardships of the tropics, of torrential rain, burning sun, scarcity of food. ”

“ In fact, we find amongst the Peruvians at the time of the conquest the underlying conceptions of the most widely severed peoples, all mingled together. Thus the common people of Peru, like all savages, thought of the future life as a continuation, pure and simple, of the present life. ”

“ Not only in the descendants of the Incas’ subjects does the charm of the past linger in many beautiful and interesting features of Peru to-day. The influence of the viceroyalty is seen in some of the most attractive characteristics of republican Peruvians; their inheritance from their colonial ancestry may not be an unmixed blessing, but they have reason to be proud of some of its advantages. ”

“ So great was their industry that the Peruvians had gardens and orchards above the clouds, and on ranges still higher flocks of sheep and llamas, in regions bordering on the limit of perpetual snow.
In Cuzco, the metropolis, was the residence of the inca or emperor, and the great temple of the sun.
The inca was both temporal prince and ruling priest of their religion. Though they ostensibly worshiped the sun, yet the higher classes recognized the existence of one almighty, invisible God.
Like the Egyptians, the Peruvians understood the art of embalming the dead. ”

“ The civilisation of the Ancient Peruvians, although 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 prevailed. 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. ”

“ If we consider all things in the circumstances of the Peruvians, their story from first to last must awaken an interest in the mind of every inquirer into their past and present state, rather than dispose him to censure them indiscriminately for their errors. ”

“ The Spanish rule was bad, but Peru was then a pleasant place to live in compared with what it is now. It is a sort of cock-pit, where a succession of ambitious rascals struggle for the spoils, and the moment one gets the better of his rivals fresh intrigues are set on foot, and fresh rebellions break out. There are good Peruvians—men who have estates and live upon them, and who are good masters. ”

“ CONQUEST OF PERU.—The conquest of Peru was effected by Francisco Pizarro, and Almagro, both illiterate adventurers, equally daring with Cortes, but more cruel and unscrupulous. The Peruvians were of a mild character, prosperous, and not uncivilized, and without the savage religious system of the Mexicans. They had their walled cities and their spacious temples. The empire of the Incas, as the rulers were called, was distracted by a civil war between two brothers, who shared the kingdom. ”

“ A pleasing feature of the Peruvians is their cordial welcome of foreigners, their desire to assimilate the things of the outside world, and strong notions of progress. It is not, however, to be supposed that their houses are readily open to the foreign visitor. Like all Latin Americans they are exclusive; and the traveller must be a caballero, a person of refinement, if he is to enter their family circle. ”

“ The Peruvians kept up their roads, protected their subjects, respected life, and fostered everything which tended to increase the general happiness and prosperity of the kingdom—all these objects, have been for a long period neglected, and Peru, which was under the Spanish rule, one of the blots on the face of civilization and Christianity, is only just emerging from a long night, under the influence of Republican institutions. ”

“ The Peruvians, like so many other of the Indian races, acknowledged a Supreme Being, the Creator and Ruler of the Universe, whom they adored under the different names of Pachacamac and Viracocha.6 No temple was raised to this invisible Being, save one only in the valley which took its name from the deity himself, not far from the Spanish city of Lima. ”

“ It should likewise be borne in mind that the Peruvians have suffered the greatest indignities at the hands of successive British Governments. Claims for money of the most vexatious, frivolous and irritating nature have been pressed upon Peru with an arrogance equal only to their ridiculous extravagance. ”

“ Peru is a Republic in name, 'governed' or rather farmed by groups or families of despots, who frequently quarrel among themselves, cut each other's throats, and alternately embrace and kiss each other, in a manner that is sickening to any one who is not a moral eunuch [14] . Only those who are rich enough to escape to Chile are saved from the above gentle process. General Prado is one of these favoured Peruvians. ”

“ The inferiority of the Peruvians may be, perhaps, in part explained by the fact of their priesthood being drawn exclusively from the body of the Incas, a privileged order of nobility, who had no need, by the assumption of superior learning, to fence themselves round from the approaches of the vulgar. ”

“ In South America, the Peruvians of old, were undoubtedly the most civilized of the tribes who inhabited the country, but their empire extended only to the verge of the eastern declivity of the Andes, and was bounded in the strip of territory which stretches between those mountains and the Pacific Ocean. ”

“ The Peruvians are wonderful traders, most remarkable people for exploring unknown regions and carrying on commerce to the most distant points where human beings are found. That particular Peruvian firm had foreseen that that region will some day develop to a great extent, and they had therefore established their store at the most distant point where it was possible to navigate the river without extraordinary dangers. ”

“ After all, it has not yet been proved that the lords of Cuzco were not of the same race and origin as the authors of the most ancient civilization of Peru, and, even, of all America. Scholars who have studied the language, customs, and monuments of the ancient Peruvians, find what is evidently a parent influence making itself felt through all the changing conditions of successive periods, and in spite of seemingly foreign and unrelated cultures that have appeared in various localities during the course of the ages. ”

“ Peruvians from thirty-five to fifty years of age form the national guard. By the well-regulated system of conscription in force, Peru will have in a few years, in addition to its well-drilled army, a host of instructed reserves, requiring only a few drills to transform them into able soldiers. The republic is divided into four military zones, the capitals being Piura in the northern, Lima in the central, Arequipa in the southern, and Iquitos in the eastern zone. ”

“ Unlimited wealth, easily acquired through the labor of the conquered race in the rich mines of the sierra during colonial days, led to the greatest extravagance, though at the same time it provided ample means for travel and study, the benefits of which became apparent in the fine culture of the people—a culture which has left its impress on succeeding generations of Peruvians, giving them the reputation they enjoy to-day of being essentially a gentle and polished nation. ”

“ The same feeling may actuate many a Peruvian bondholder when he is told that the Peruvians are beginning to cultivate literature. Many city men will disregard the thing altogether, or disdain to take notice of it. ”

“ Since the independence he has held important offices both in Bolivia and Peru.
But old Castilla requires obedient clerks around him, not independent ministers, and the more able and active-minded Peruvians are not to be found filling high political posts. The best specimens of the natives of Peru are either to be met with leading unobtrusive literary lives, and preparing for better times; or on their estates actively and energetically developing the resources of their country. ”

“ But the Peruvians, having thrown off the tameness of bondage, and assumed the name of freemen, have yet harder work before them than the expulsion of the Spaniards: they have to finish their own work of regeneration; to surmount all the intestine difficulties and reconcile all the discordant elements which originate among themselves ”

“ If they are still pursued, they once more abandon their homes, and retreat; for wherever they go they find a fertile land ready to supply them with its fruits, so that war or peace are in their own hands; and they never want for food. The Peruvians, on the contrary, are docile because they have more understanding, and{56} because they were subject to the Kings Yncas, to whom they paid tribute, and whom they always served. In this condition they were born; and if any did not wish to obey, they were constrained to do so, for the land of Peru is full of mountainous tracts and snowy plains. ”

“ The Peruvians worship the Sun and Moon as deities, and swear by these luminaries and by the earth, which they consider as their mother. In their temples they adore certain stones, as representatives of the sun, which they name guacas, a word signifying to weep, which they do on entering into their temples. ”

“ The men of Indian extraction display perhaps more energy and equal ability with their [Pg 292] fellow-countrymen of pure Spanish origin; and many Indians are wealthy enterprising men, while others have held the highest offices in the state. The Peruvians are intelligent and quick of apprehension, exceedingly hospitable and kind-hearted, and remarkably humane and forgiving, as a rule, in the conduct of their civil wars; but they are apt to be fickle and volatile, incapable of any long-sustained effort, and inclined to indolence. Corruption, bribery, treason, and pusillanimity are but too common ”

“ They had no plough, but turned up the [Pg 59] earth with a kind of mattock of hard wood. The men labored in the fields with the women, thus showing the advance of civilization over the rude tribes which imposed all the drudgery upon females.
The superior ingenuity of the Peruvians was also obvious in their houses and public buildings. In the extensive plains along the Pacific Ocean, where the sky is always serene and the climate mild, the houses were, of course, very slight fabrics. ”

“ The best authorities agree that the inhabitants of the country, now known as Peru, lived in barbarism until civilization was introduced amongst them by the Incas. One tradition designates an island in the Titicaca lake, another Tiahuanaco, as the place where, “after the deluge,” a man or deity appeared, divided the land into four parts and distributed these to four brothers, amongst whom was Manco Capac, to whom was assigned the province to the north. Each brother had a sister who was also his wife. ”

“ The Peruvian Indians, a hale, hardy, vigorous, intellectual race of people, were succeeded by those who soon became idle, vicious, degenerated, and imbecile. But Peru, like all the other South American states, is regaining her former potency, just in proportion as the European race decreases among them. All the labor of the country is performed by the aboriginal natives and the blacks, the few Europeans there being the merest excrescences on the body politic—consuming drones in the social hive. ”

“ The old Peru is passing,—the dominant traits of the nation are changing,—new life is apparent in its ideals, its institutions, in the spirit that rules society and politics, in everything that shows the influence of a broader outlook, a greater range of endeavor, a loftier aspiration. The traditions of caste and the contempt for utilitarian ideals which constituted a part of the creed of the colonial aristocracy have given place to an appreciation of true worth wherever found ”

“ The New Peru, which is heralded by all recent visitors to the west coast republics, is building an industrial and commercial nation on the long smoldering ruins of Spain’s golden empire, and it will be a worthier and more lasting structure than that with which Pizarro remorselessly smothered the unique civilization of the Incas. The war with Chile seemed to awaken her to the necessity of keeping pace with the times, not only in military but in commercial affairs. ”

“ Peru has played a tremendously important part in the affairs of men. It was the treasure of Peru that armed the soldiers of Alva and laid the keels of the Armada. It was the treasure of Peru that relieved the Spanish people of the necessity of wresting a national revenue out of a soil by agriculture ”

“ Granted that Peru has all the physical elements of a great nation,—such as gold and silver, copper and iron, and coal, oil and wine, a vast line of sea-coast with numerous safe bays and ports, rivers for internal navigation, as well as railroads,—has she the moral qualities to develop these riches and make the best use of them? In plain words, has Peru ceased to be a hotbed of revolution? ”