Writings
of H P Blavatsky
Cardiff
Theosophical Society in
Theosophy
House
206
Newport Road, Cardiff, Wales, UK. CF24 -1DL
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1831 – 1891)
The Founder of Modern Theosophy
A
By
H
P Blavatsky
WHETHER one surveys the imposing ruins of Memphis or Palmyra;
stands at the foot of the great pyramid of Ghizé; wanders along the shores of
the Nile; or ponders amid the desolate fastnesses of the long-lost and
mysterious Petra; however clouded and misty the origin of these prehistoric
relics may appear, one nevertheless finds at least certain fragments of firm
ground upon which to build conjecture. Thick as may be the curtain behind which
the history of these antiquities is hidden, still there are rents here and
there through which one may catch glimpses of light. We are acquainted with the
descendants of the
builders. And, however superficially, we also know the story of the
nations whose vestiges are scattered around us. Not so with the antiquities of
the New World of the two Americas. There, all along the coast of Peru, all over
the Isthmus and North America, in the canyons of the Cordilleras, in the
impossible gorges of the Andes, and, especially beyond the valley of Mexico, lie,
ruined and desolate, hundreds of once mighty cities, lost to the memory of men,
and having themselves lost even a name. Buried in dense forests, entombed in
inaccessible valleys, sometimes sixty feet under-ground, from the day of their
discovery until now they have ever remained a riddle to science, baffling all
inquiry, and they have been muter than the Egyptian Sphinx herself. We know
nothing of America prior to the Conquest--positively nothing. No
chronicles, not even comparatively modern ones survive; there are no
traditions, even among the aboriginal tribes, as to its past events. We are as
ignorant of the races that built these cyclopean structures, as of the strange
worship that inspired the antediluvian sculptors who carved upon hundreds of
miles of walls, of monuments, monoliths and altars, these weird hieroglyphics,
these groups of animals and men, pictures of an unknown life and lost
arts--scenes so fantastic and wild, at
times, that they involuntarily suggest the idea of a feverish
dream, whose phantasmagoria at the wave of some mighty magician's hand suddenly
crystallized into granite, to bewilder the coming generations for ever and
ever. So late as the beginning of the present century, the very existence of
such wealth of antiquities was unknown.
The petty, suspicious jealousy of the Spaniards had, from the
first, created a sort of Chinese wall between their American possessions and
the too curious traveller: and the ignorance and fanaticism of the conquerors,
and their carelessness as to all but the satisfaction of their insatiable
greediness, had precluded scientific research. Even the enthusiastic accounts
of Cortez and his army of brigands and priests, and of Pizarro and his robbers
and monks, as to the splendour of the temples, palaces, and cities of Mexico
and Peru, were long discredited.
In his History of America, Dr. Robertson goes so far as to inform
his reader that the houses of the ancient Mexicans were "mere huts, built
with turf, or mud, or the branches of trees, like those of the
rudest Indians;''1 and, upon the testimony of some Spaniards he
even risked the assertion that "in all the extent of that vast
empire," there was not "a single monument or vestige of any building
more ancient than the Conquest"! It was
reserved to the great Alexander Humboldt to vindicate the truth. In
1803 a new flood of light was poured into the world of archæology by this
eminent and learned traveller. In this he luckily proved but the pioneer of
future discoverers. He then described but Mitla, or the Vale of the Dead,
Xoxichalco, and the great pyramidal Temple of Cholula. But, after him came
Stephens, Catherwood, and Squier; and, in Peru, D'Orbigny and Dr. Tschuddi.
Since then, numerous travellers have visited and given us accurate details of
many of the antiquities. But, how many more yet remain not only unexplored, but
even unknown, no one can tell. As regards prehistoric buildings, both Peru and
Mexico are rivals of Egypt. Equalling the latter in the immensity of her
cyclopean structures, Peru surpasses her in their number; while Cholula exceeds
the grand
pyramid of Cheops in breadth, if not in height. Works of public
utility, such as walls, fortifications, terraces, water-courses, aqueducts,
bridges, temples, burial-grounds, whole cities, and exquisitely paved roads,
hundreds of miles in length, stretch in an unbroken line, almost covering the
land as with a net. On the coast, they are built of sun-dried bricks; in the
mountains, of porphyritic lime, granite and silicated sandstones. Of the long generations
of peoples who built them, history knows nothing, and even tradition is silent.
As a matter of course, most of these lithic remains are covered with a dense
vegetation. Whole
forests have grown out of the broken hearts of the cities, and,
with a few exceptions, everything is in ruin. But one may judge of what once
was by that which yet remains.
With a most flippant unconcern, the Spanish historians refer nearly
every ruin to Incal times. No greater mistake can be made. The hieroglyphics
which sometimes cover from top to bottom whole walls and monoliths are, as they
were from the first, a dead letter to modern science. But they were equally a
dead letter to the Incas, though the history of the latter can be traced to the
eleventh century They had no clue to the meaning of these inscriptions, but
attributed all such to their
unknown predecessors; thus barring the presumption of their own
descent from the first civilizers of their country. Briefly, the Incal history
runs thus:--Inca is the Quichua title for chief or emperor, and the name of the
ruling and most aristocratic race or rather caste of the land which was
governed by them for an unknown period, prior to, and until, the Spanish
Conquest. Some place their first appearance in Peru from regions unknown in
1021; others, also, or conjecture, at five centuries after the Biblical
"flood," and according to the modest notions of Christian theology.
Still the latter theory is undoubtedly nearer truth than the former. The Incas,
judged by their exclusive privileges,
power and "infallibility," are the antipodal counterpart
of the Brahminical
caste of India. Like the latter, the Incas claimed direct descent
from the Deity, which, as in the case of the Sûryavansa dynasty of India, was
the Sun.
According to the sole but general tradition, there was a time when
the whole of the population of the now New World was broken up into
independent, warring, and barbarian tribes. At last, the "Highest"
deity--the Sun--took pity upon them, and, in order to rescue the people from
ignorance, sent down upon earth, to teach them, his two children Manco Capac,
and his sister and wife, Mama Ocollo Huaco--the counterparts, again, of the
Egyptian Osiris, and his sister and wife, Isis, as well as of the several Hindu
gods and demi-gods and their wives. These
two made their appearance on a beautiful island in Lake
Titicaca--of which we will speak further on--and thence proceeded northward to
Cuzco, later on the capital of the Incas, where they at once began to
disseminate civilization. Collecting together the various races from all parts
of Peru, the divine couple then divided their labor. Manco Capac taught men
agriculture, legislation, architecture and arts; while Mama Ocollo instructed
the women in weaving, spinning, embroidery and house-keeping. It is from this
celestial pair that the Incas claimed their descent; and yet, they were utterly
ignorant of the people
who built the stupendous and now ruined cities which cover the
whole area of their empire, and which then extended from the Equator to over 37
degrees of Latitude, and included not only the western slope of the Andes, but
the whole mountain chain with its eastern declivities to the Amazon and Orinoco.
As the direct descendants of the Sun, they were exclusively the high priests of
the state religion, and at the same time emperors and the highest statesmen in
the land: in virtue of which, they, again like the Brahmans, arrogated to
themselves a divine superiority over the ordinary mortals, thus founding like
the
"twice-born" an exclusive and aristocratic caste--the
Inca race. Considered as the son of the Sun, every reigning Inca was the high
priest, the oracle, chief captain in war, and absolute sovereign; thus
realizing the double office of Pope and King, and so long anticipating the
dream of the Roman Pontiffs. To his command the blindest obedience was exacted;
his person was sacred; and he was the object of divine honours. The highest
officers of the land could not appear
shod in his presence; this mark of respect pointing again to an
Oriental origin; while the custom of boring the ears of the youths of royal
blood and inserting in them golden rings "which were increased in size as
they advanced in rank, until the distention of the cartilege became a positive
deformity," suggests a strange resemblance between the sculptured
portraits of many of them that we find in the more modern ruins, and the images
of Buddha and of some deities, not to mention our contemporary dandies of Siam,
Burmah, and Southern India. In
that, once more like in India, in the palmy days of the Brahmin
power, no one had the right to either receive an education or study religion
except the privileged Inca caste. And, when the reigning Inca died, or as it
was termed, "was called home to the mansion of his father," a very
large number of his attendants and his wives were made to die with him, during
the ceremony of his obsequies, just as we find in the old annals of Rajesthan,
and down to the but just abolished custom of Sutti. Taking all this into
consideration, the archæologist cannot remain satisfied with the brief remark
of certain historians that "in this tradition we trace only another
version of the story of the civilization common to all primitive nations, and
that imposture of a celestial relationship whereby designing rulers and cunning
priests have sought to secure their ascendency among men." No more is it
an explanation to say that "Manco
Capac is the almost exact counterpart of the Chinese Fohi, the
Hindu Buddha, the terrestrial Osiris of Egypt, the Quetzalcoatl of Mexico, and
Votan of Central America"; for all this is but too evident. What we want
to learn is how came these nations, so antipodal to each other as India, Egypt,
and America, to offer such extraordinary points of resemblance, not only in
their general religious, political, and social views, but sometimes in the
minutest details.
The much-needed task is to find out which one of them preceded the
other; to explain how these people came to plant at the four corners of the
earth nearly identical architecture and arts, unless there was a time when, as
assured by Plato and believed in by more than one modern
archæologist, no ships were needed for such a transit, as the two
worlds formed but one continent.
According to the most recent researches, there are five distinct
styles of architecture in the Andes alone, of which the temple of the Sun at
Cuzco was the latest. And this one, perhaps, is the only structure of
importance which, according to modern travellers, can be safely attributed to
the Incas, whose imperial glories are believed to have been the last gleam of a
civilization dating back for untold ages. Dr. E. R. Heath, of Kansas (U.S.A.),
thinks that "long before Manco Capac, the Andes had been the
dwelling-place of races, whose beginning must have been coëval with the savages
of Western Europe. The gigantic
architecture points to the cyclopean family, the founders of the
Temple of Babel, and the Egyptian pyramids. The Grecian scroll found in many
places is borrowed (?) from the Egyptians; the mode of burial and embalming
their dead points to Egypt." Further on, this learned traveller finds that
the skulls taken from the burial-grounds, according to craniologists, represent
three distinct races: the Chinchas, who occupied the western part of Peru from
the Andes to the Pacific; the Aymaras, dwellers of the elevated plains of Peru
and Bolivia, on the southern shore of Lake Titicaca; and the Huancas, who "occupied
the plateau
between the chains of the Andes, north of Lake Titicaca to the 9th
degree of South Latitude." To confound the buildings of the epoch of the
Incas in Peru, and of Montezuma and his caciques, in Mexico, with the
aboriginal monuments, is fatal to archaeology. While Cholula, Uxmal, Quiché,
Pachacamac, and Chichen were all perfectly preserved and occupied at the time
of the invasion of the Spanish banditti, there are hundreds of ruined cities
and works which were in the same state of ruin even then; whose origin was
unknown to the conquered Incas and
caciques as it is to us; and which are undoubtedly the remains of
unknown and now extinct peoples. The strange shapes of the heads, and profiles
of the human figures upon the monoliths of Copan are a warrant for the
correctness of the hypothesis. The pronounced difference between the skulls of
these races and the Indo-European skulls was at first attributed to mechanical
means, used by the mothers for giving a peculiar conformation to the head of their
children during infancy, as is often done by other tribes and peoples. But, as
the same author
tells us, the finding in "a mummy of a fœtus of seven or eight
months having the same conformation of skull, has placed a doubt as to the
certainty of this fact." And besides hypothesis, we have a scientific and
an unimpeachable proof of a civilization that must have existed in Peru ages
ago. Were we to give the number of thousands of years that have probably
elapsed since then, without first showing good reasons for the assumption, the
reader might feel like holding his breath. So let us try.
The Peruvian guano (huano), that precious fertilizer, composed of
the excrement of sea-fowls, intermixed with their decaying bodies, eggs,
remains of seal, and so on, which has accumulated upon the isles of the Pacific
and the coast of South America, and its formation are now well-known. It was
Humboldt who first discovered and drew the world's attention to it in 1804.
And, while describing the deposits as covering the granite rocks of the Chincas
and other islands to the depth of 50 or 60 feet, he states that the
accumulation of the preceding 300
years, since the Conquest, had formed only a few lines in
thickness. How many thousands of years, then, it required to form this deposit
60 feet deep, is a matter of simple calculation. In this connection we may now
quote something of a discovery spoken of in the Peruvian Antiquities.2
"Buried 62 feet under the ground, on the Chinca islands, stone-idols and
water-pots were found, while 35 and 33 feet below the surface were wooden
idols. Beneath the guano on the Guanapi islands, just south of Truxillo, and
Macabi just north, mummies, birds, and birds' eggs, gold and silver ornaments
were taken. On the Macabi the labourers found some large valuable golden vases,
which they broke up and divided among themselves, even though offered weight
for weight in gold coin,
and thus relics of greater interest to the scientist have been ever
lost.
He--who can determine the centuries necessary to deposit thirty and
sixty feet of guano on these islands, remembering that since the Conquest,
three hundred years ago, no appreciable increase in depth has been noted--can
give you an idea of the antiquity of these relics."
If we confine ourselves to a strictly arithmetical calculation,
then allowing 12 lines to an inch, and 12 inches to a foot, and allowing one
line to every century, we are forced to believe that the people who made these
precious gold vases lived 864,000 years ago! Leave an ample margin for errors,
and give two lines to a century--say an inch to every 100 years--and we will
yet have 72,000 years back a civilization which--if we judge by its public
works, the durability of its constructions, and the grandeur of its
buildings,--equalled, and in some things certainly surpassed, our own.
Having well defined ideas as to the periodicity of cycles, for the
world as well as for nations, empires, and tribes, we are convinced that our
present modern civilization is but the latest dawn of that which already has
been seen an innumerable number of times upon this planet. It may not be exact
science, but it is both inductive and deductive logic, based upon theories far
less hypothetical and more palpable than many another theory, held as strictly
scientific. To express it in the words of Professor T. E. Nipher, of St. Louis,
"we are not the friends of theory, but of truth," and until truth is
found, we welcome every new theory, however unpopular at first, for fear of
rejecting in our ignorance the stone which may in time become the very
corner-stone of the truth. "The errors of scientific men are well nigh
countless, not because they
are men of science, but because they are men," says the same
scientist; and further quotes the noble words of Faraday--"occasionally,
and frequently the exercise of the judgment ought to end in absolute
reservation. It may be very distasteful and a great fatigue to suspend a
conclusion, but as we are not infallible, so we ought to be cautious."
(Experimental Researches, 24th Series.)
It is doubtful whether, with the exception of a few of the most
prominent ruins, there ever was attempted a detailed account of the so-called
American antiquities. Yet, in order to bring out the more prominently a point
of comparison, such a work would be absolutely necessary. If the history of
religion and of mythology and--far more important--the origin, developing and
final grouping of the human species are ever to be unravelled, we have to trust
to archaeological research, rather than to the hypothetical deductions of
philology. We must begin by massing together the concrete imagery of the early
thought, more eloquent in its stationary form than the verbal expression of the
same, the latter being but too liable, in its manifold
interpretations, to be distorted in a thousand ways. This would afford us an
easier and more trustworthy clue. Archaeological Societies ought to have a
whole cyclopædia of the world's remains, with a collation of the most important
of the speculations as to each locality. For, however fantastic and wild some
of these hypotheses may seem at first glance, yet each has a chance of proving
useful at some time.
It is often more beneficial to know what a thing is not than to
know what it is, as Max Müller truly tells us.
It is not within the limits of an article in our paper that any
such object
could be achieved. Availing ourselves, though, of the reports of
the Government surveyors, trustworthy travellers, men of science, and, even our
own limited experience, we will try in the future issues to give to our Hindu
readers, who possibly may never have heard of these antiquities, a general idea
of them. Our latest informations are drawn from every reliable source; the
survey of the Peruvian antiquities being mostly due to Dr. Heath's able paper,
above mentioned.
II
Evidently we, THEOSOPHISTS, are not the only iconoclasts in this
world of mutual deception and hypocrisy. We are not the only ones who believe
in cycles and, opposing the Biblical chronology, lean towards those opinions
which secretly are shared by so many, but publicly avowed by so few. We,
Europeans, are just emerging from the very bottom of a new cycle, and
progressing upwards, while the Asiatics--Hindus especially--are the lingering
remnants of the nations which filled the world in the previous and now departed
cycles. Whether the Aryans sprang from the archaic Americans, or the latter
from the prehistorical Aryans, is a question which no living man can decide.
But that there must have been an intimate connection at some time between the
old Aryans, the prehistoric inhabitants of America--whatever might have been
their name--and the ancient Egyptians, is a matter more easily proved than
contradicted. And probably, if there ever was such a connection, it must have
taken place at a time when the Atlantic did not yet divide the two hemispheres
as it does now.
In his Peruvian Antiquities (see the Theosophist for March) Dr.
Heath, of Kansas City--rara avis among scientific men, a fearless searcher, who
accepts truth wherever he finds it, and is not afraid to speak it out in the
very face of dogmatic opposition--sums up his impressions of the Peruvian
relics in the following words:--"Three times the Andes sank hundreds of
feet beneath the ocean level, and again were slowly brought to their present
height. A man's life would be too short to count even the centuries consumed in
this operation. The coast of Peru has risen eighty feet since it felt the tread
of Pizarro. Supposing the
Andes to have risen uniformly and without interruption, 70,000
years must have elapsed before they reached their present altitude."
"Who knows, then, but that Jules Verne's fanciful idea3
regarding the lost continent Atlanta may be near the truth? Who can say that,
where now is the Atlantic Ocean, formerly did not exist a continent, with its
dense population, advanced in the arts and sciences, who, as they found their
land sinking beneath the waters, retired part east and part west, populating
thus the two hemispheres? This would explain the similarity of their
archæological structures and races, and their differences, modified by and
adapted to the character of their respective climates and countries. Thus would
the llama and camel differ, although of the same species; thus the algoraba and
espino trees; thus the Iroquois Indians of North America and the most ancient
Arabs call the
constellation of the 'Great Bear' by the same name; thus various
nations, cut off from all intercourse or knowledge of each other, divide the
zodiac into twelve constellations, apply to them the same names, and the
Northern Hindus apply the name Andes to their Himalayan mountains, as did the
South Americans to their principal chain.4 Must we fall in the old rut, and
suppose no other means of populating the Western Hemisphere except 'by way of
Behring's Strait'? Must
we still locate a geographical Eden in the East, and suppose a
land, equally adapted to man and as old geologically, must wait the aimless
wanderings of the 'lost tribe of Israel' to become populated?"
Go where we may, to explore the antiquities of America--whether of
Northern, Central, or Southern America--we are first of all impressed with the
magnitude of these relics of ages and races unknown, and then with the
extraordinary similarity they present to the mounds and ancient structures of
old India, of Egypt and even of some parts of Europe.
Whoever has seen one of these mounds has seen all. Whoever has
stood before the cyclopean structures of one continent can have a pretty
accurate idea of those of the other. Only be it said--we know
still less of the age of the antiquities of America than even of
those in the Valley of the Nile, of which we know next to nothing. But their
symbolism--apart from their outward form--is evidently the same as in Egypt,
India, and elsewhere. As before the great pyramid of Cheops in Cairo, so before
the great mound, 100 feet high, on the plain of Cahokia,--near St. Louis
(Missouri)--which measures 700 feet long by 800 feet broad at the base, and
covers upwards of eight acres of ground, having 20,000,000 cubic feet of
contents, and the mound
on the banks of Brush Creek, Ohio, so accurately described by
Squier and Davis, one knows not whether to admire more the geometrical
precision, prescribed by the wonderful and mysterious builders in the form of
their monuments, or the hidden symbolism they evidently sought to express. The
Ohio mound represents a serpent, upwards of l ,000 feet long. Gracefully coiled
in capricious curves, it terminates in a triple coil at the tail. "The embankment
constituting the effigy, is upwards of five feet in height, by thirty feet base
at the centre of the body, slightly diminishing towards the tail."5 The
neck is stretched out and
its mouth wide opened, holding within its jaws an oval figure.
"Formed by an embankment four feet in height, this oval is perfectly
regular in outline, its transverse and conjugate diameters being 160 and 8 feet
respectively," say the surveyors. The whole represents the universal
cosmological idea of the serpent and the egg. This is easy to surmise. But how
came this great symbol of the Hermetic wisdom of old Egypt to find itself
represented in North America? How is it that the sacred buildings found in Ohio
and elsewhere, these squares, circles, octagons, and other geometrical figures,
in which one recognizes so
easily the prevailing idea of the Pythagorean sacred numerals, seem
copied from the Book of Numbers? Apart from the complete silence as to their
origin, even among the Indian tribes, who have otherwise preserved their own
traditions in every case, the antiquity of these ruins is proved by the
existence of the largest and most ancient forests growing on the buried cities.
The prudent archæologists of America have generously assigned them 2,000 years.
But by whom built, and whether their authors migrated, or disappeared beneath
victorious arms, or were swept out of existence by some direful epidemic, or a
universal
famine, are questions, "probably beyond the power of human
investigation to answer," they say. The earliest inhabitants of Mexico, of
whom history has any knowledge--more hypothetical than proven--are the Toltecs.
These are supposed to have come from the North and believed to have entered
Anahuac in the 7th century A.D.
They are also credited with having constructed in Central America,
where they spread in the eleventh century, some of the great cities whose ruins
still exist. In this case it is they who must also have carved the
hieroglyphics that cover some of the relics. How is it, then, that the pictorial
system of writing of Mexico, which was used by the conquered people and learned
by the conquerors and their missionaries, does not yet furnish the keys to the
hieroglyphics of Palenque and Copan, not to mention those of Peru? And these
civilized Toltecs
themselves, who were they, and whence did they come? And who are
the Aztecs that succeeded them? Even among the hieroglyphical systems of
Mexico, there were some which the foreign interpreters were precluded the
possibility of studying. These were the so-called schemes of judicial astrology
"given but not explained in Lord Kingsborough's published
collection," and set down as purely figurative and symbolical,
"intended only for the use of the priests and diviners and possessed of an
esoteric significance." Many of the hieroglyphics on the monoliths of
Palenque and Copan are of the same character. The "priests and
diviners" were
all killed off by the Catholic fanatics,--the secret died with
them.
Nearly all the mounds in North America are terraced and ascended by
large graded ways, sometimes square, often hexagonal, octagonal or truncated,
but in all respects similar to the teocallis of Mexico, and to the topes of
India. As the latter are attributed throughout this country to the work of the
five Pandus of the Lunar Race, so the cyclopean monuments and monoliths on the
shores of Lake Titicaca, in the republic of Bolivia, are ascribed to giants,
the five exiled brothers "from beyond the mounts." They worshipped
the moon as their progenitor and lived before the time of the "Sons and
Virgins of the Sun." Here, the
similarity of the Aryan with the South American tradition is again
but too obvious, and the Solar and Lunar races--the Sûrya Vansa and the Chandra
Vansa--re-appear in America.
This Lake Titicaca, which occupies the centre of one of the most
remarkable terrestrial basins on the whole globe, is "160 miles long and
from 50 to 80 broad, and discharges through the valley of El Desagvadero, to
the south-east into another lake, called Lake Aullagas, which is probably kept
at a lower level by evaporation or filtration, since it has no known outlet.
The surface of the lake is 12,846 feet above the sea, and it is the most
elevated body of waters of similar size in the world." As the level of its
waters has very much decreased
in the historical period, it is believed on good grounds that they
once
surrounded the elevated spot on which are found the remarkable
ruins of
Tiahuanaco.
The latter are without any doubt aboriginal monuments pertaining to
an epoch which preceded the Incal period, as far back as the Dravidian and
other aboriginal peoples preceded the Aryans in India. Although the traditions
of the Incas maintain that the great law-giver and teacher of the Peruvians,
Manco Capac--the Manu of South America diffused his knowledge and influence
from this centre, yet the statement is unsupported by facts. If the original
seat of the Aymara, or "Inca race" was there, as claimed by some, how
is it that neither the Incas, nor the Aymaras, who dwell on the shores of the
Lake to this day, nor yet
the ancient Peruvians, had the slightest knowledge concerning their
history?
Beyond a vague tradition which tells of "giants" having
built these immense structures in one night, we do not find the faintest clue.
And, we have every reason to doubt whether the Incas are of the Aymara race at
all. The Incas claim their descent from Manco Capac, the son of the Sun, and
the Aymaras claim this legislator as their instructor and the founder of the
era of their civilization.
Yet, neither the Incas of the Spanish period could prove the one,
nor the Aymaras the other. The language of the latter is quite distinct from
the Inichua--the tongue of the Incas; and they were the only race that refused
to give up their language when conquered by the descendants of the Sun, as Dr.
Heath tells us.
The ruins afford every evidence of the highest antiquity. Some are
built on a pyramidal plan, as most of the American mounds are, and cover
several acres; while the monolithic doorways, pillars and stone-idols, so
elaborately carved, are "sculptured in a style wholly different from any
other remains of art yet found in America." D'Orbigny speaks of the ruins
in the most enthusiastic manner. "These monuments," he says,
"consist of a mound raised nearly 100 feet, surrounded with pillars--of
temples from 600 to 1,200 feet in length, opening precisely towards the east,
and adorned with colossal angular columns--of porticoes of a single stone,
covered with reliefs of skilful execution, displaying symbolical
representations of the Sun, and the condor, his messenger--of basaltic statues
loaded with bas-reliefs, in which the design of the carved head is half
Egyptian--and lastly, of the interior of a palace formed of enormous blocks of
rock, completely hewn, whose dimensions are often 21 feet in length, 12 in
breadth, and 6 in thickness. In the temples and palaces, the portals are not
inclined, as among those of the Incas, but perpendicular; and their vast
dimensions, and the imposing masses, of which they are composed, surpass in
beauty and grandeur all that were afterwards built by the sovereigns of
Cuzco." Like the rest of his fellow-explorers, M. D'Orbigny believes these
ruins to have been the work of a race far anterior to the Incas.
Two distinct styles of architecture are found in these relics of
Lake Titicaca. Those of the island of Coati, for instance, bear every feature
in common with the ruins of Tiahuanaco; so do the vast blocks of stone
elaborately sculptured, some of which, according to the report of the
surveyors, in 1846, measure: "3 feet in length by 18 feet in width, and 6
feet in thickness"; while on some of the is lands of the Lake Titicaca
there are monuments of great extent, "but of true Peruvian type, believed
to be the remains of temples destroyed by the Spaniards." The famous
sanctuary, with the human figure in it, belongs to the former. Its doorway 10
feet high, 13 feet broad, with an opening 6 feet 4
inches, by 3 feet 2 inches, is cut from a single stone. "Its
east front has a cornice, in the centre of which is a human figure of strange
form, crowned with rays, interspersed with serpents with crested heads. On each
side of this figure are three rows of square compartments, filled with human
and other figures, of apparently symbolic design. . . . "
Were this temple in India, it would undoubtedly be attributed to
Shiva; but it is at the antipodes, where neither the foot of a Shaiva nor one
of the Naga tribe has ever penetrated to the knowledge of man, though the Mexican
Indians have their Nagal, or chief sorcerer and serpent worshipper. The ruins
standing on an eminence, which, from the
watermarks around it, seem to have been formerly an island in Lake
Titicaca, and "the level of the Lake now being 135 feet lower, and its
shores, 12 miles distant, this fact, in conjunction with others, warrants the
belief that these remains antedate any others known in America."6 Hence,
all these relics are unanimously ascribed to the same "unknown and
mysterious people who preceded the Peruvians, as the Tulhuatecas or Toltecs did
the Aztecs. It seems to have been the seat of the highest and most ancient
civilization of South America and of a people who have left the most gigantic
monuments of their power and skill" . . .
And these monuments are all either Dracontias--temples sacred to
the Snake, or temples dedicated to the Sun.
Of this same character are the ruined pyramids of Teotihuacan and
the monoliths of Palenque and Copan. The former are some eight leagues from the
City of Mexico on the plain of Otumla, and considered among the most ancient in
the land. The two principal ones are dedicated to
the Sun and Moon, respectively. They are built of cut stone,
square, with four stories and a level area at the top. The larger, that of the
Sun, is 221 feet high, 680 feet square at the base, and covers an area of 11
acres, nearly equal to that of the great pyramid of Cheops. And yet, the
pyramid of Cholula, higher than that of Teotihuacan by ten feet according to
Humboldt, and having 1,400 feet square at the base, covers an area of 45 acres!
It is interesting to hear what the earliest writers--the historians
who saw them during the first conquest--say even of some of the most modern of
these buildings, of the great temple of Mexico, among others. It consisted of
an immense square area "surrounded by a wall of stone and lime, eight feet
thick, with battlements, ornamented with many stone figures in the form of
serpents," says one. Cortez shows that 500 houses might be easily placed
within its enclosure. It was paved with polished stones, so smooth, that
"the horses of the Spaniards could not move over them without
slipping," writes Bernal Diaz. In connection with this, we must remember
that it was not the Spaniards who conquered the Mexicans, but their horses. As
there never was a horse seen before
by this people in America, until the Europeans landed it in the
coast, the
natives, though excessively brave, "were so awe-struck at the
sight of horses and the roar of the artillery," that they took the
Spaniards to be of divine origin and sent them human beings as sacrifices. This
superstitious panic is sufficient to account for the fact that a handful of men
could so easily conquer incalculable thousands of warriors.
According to Gomera, the four walls of the enclosure of the temple
correspond with the cardinal points. In the centre of this gigantic area arose
the great temple, an immense pyramidal structure of eight stages, faced with
stone, 300 feet square at the base and 120 feet in height, truncated, with a
level summit, upon which were situated two towers, the shrines of the
divinities to whom it was consecrated--Tezcatlipoca and Huitzlipochtli. It was
here that the sacrifices were performed, and the eternal fire maintained.
Clavigero tells us, that besides this great pyramid, there were forty other
similar structures consecrated to various divinities. The one called
Tezcacalli, "the House of the
Shining Mirrors, sacred to Tezcatlipoca, the God of Light, the Soul
of the World, the Vivifier, the Spiritual Sun." The dwellings of priests,
who, according to Zarate, amounted to 8,000, were near by, as well as the
seminaries and the schools. Ponds and fountains, groves and gardens, in which
flowers and sweet smelling herbs were cultivated for use in certain sacred
rites and the decoration of altars, were in abundance; and, so large was the
inner yard, that "8,000 or 10,000 persons had sufficient room to dance in
it upon their solemn festivities"--says Solis. Torquemada estimates the
number of such temples in the Mexican empire at 40,000 but Clavigero, speaking
of the majestic Teocalli (literally, houses of God) of. Mexico, estimates the
number higher.So wonderful are the features of resemblance between the ancient
shrines of the Old and the New World that Humboldt remains unequal to express
his surprise. "What striking analogies exist between the monuments of the
old continents and those of the Toltecs who . . . built these colossal
structures, truncated pyramids, divided by layers, like the temple of Belus at
Babylon! Where did they take the model of these edifices?"--he exclaims.
The eminent naturalist might have also enquired where the Mexicans
got all their Christian virtues from, being but poor pagans. The code of the Aztecs,
says Prescott, "evinces a profound respect for the great principles of
morality, and as clear a perception of these principles as is to be found in
the most cultivated nations." Some of these are very curious inasmuch as
they show a similarity to some of the Gospel ethics. "He who looks too
curiously on a woman, commits adultery with his eyes," says one of them.
"Keep peace with all; bear injuries with humility; God, who sees, will
avenge you," declares another. Recognizing but one Supreme Power in Nature,
they addressed it as the deity "by whom we live, Omnipresent, that knoweth
all thoughts and giveth all gifts, without whom man is as nothing; invisible,
incorporeal, one of perfect perfection and purity, under whose wings we find
repose and a sure defence."
And, in naming their children, says Lord Kingsborough, "they
used a ceremony strongly resembling the Christian rite of baptism, the lips and
bosom of the infant being sprinkled with water, and the Lord implored to wash
away the sin that was given to it before the foundation of the world, so that
the child might be born anew." "Their laws were perfect; justice,
contentment and peace reigned in the kingdom of these benighted heathens,"
when the brigands and the Jesuits of Cortez landed at Tabasco. A century of
murders, robbery, and forced conversion, were sufficient to transform this
quiet, inoffensive and wise people into what they are now. They have fully
benefited by dogmatic Christianity. And he, who ever went to Mexico, knows what
that means. The country is full of blood-thirsty Christian fanatics, thieves,
rogues, drunkards, debauchees, murderers, and the greatest liars the world has
ever produced! Peace and glory to your ashes, O Cortez and Torquemada! In this
case at least, will you never be permitted to boast of the enlightenment your
Christianity has poured out on the poor, and once virtuous heathens!
III
The ruins of Central America are no less imposing. Massively built,
with walls of a great thickness, they are usually marked by broad stairways,
leading to the principal entrance. When composed of several stories, each
successive story is usually smaller than that below it, giving the structure
the appearance of a pyramid of several stages. The front walls, either made of
stone or stuccoed, are covered with elaborately carved, symbolic figures; and
the interior divided into corridors and dark chambers, with arched ceilings,
the roofs supported by overlapping courses of stones, "constituting a
pointed arch, corresponding in type with the earliest monuments of the old
world." Within several chambers at Palenque, tablets, covered with
sculptures and hieroglyphics of fine design and artistic execution, were
discovered by Stephens. In Honduras, at Copan, a whole city--temples, houses
and grand monoliths intricately carved--was unearthed in an old forest by
Catherwood and Stephens. The sculpture and general style of Copan are unique,
and no such style or even anything approaching it has been found anywhere else,
except at Quirigua, and in the islands of Lake Nicaragua. No one can decipher
the weird hieroglyphical inscriptions on the altars and monoliths. With the
exception of a few works of uncut stone, "to Copan, we may safely assign
an antiquity higher than to any of the other monuments of Central America with
which we are acquainted," says the New American Cyclopædia. At the period
of the Spanish conquest, Copan was already a forgotten ruin, concerning which
existed only the vaguest traditions.
No less extraordinary are the remains of the different epochs in
Peru. The ruins of the temple of the Sun at Cuzco are yet imposing,
notwithstanding that the deprecating hand of the Vandal Spaniard passed heavily
over it. If we may believe the narratives of the conquerors themselves, they
found it, on their arrival, a kind of a fairy-tale castle. With its enormous
circular stone wall completely encompassing the principal temple, chapels and
buildings, it is situated in the very heart of the city, and even its remains
justly provoke the admiration of the traveller. "Aqueducts opened within
the sacred inclosure; and within it were gardens, and walks among shrubs and
flowers of gold and silver, made in imitation of the productions of nature. It
was attended by 4,000 priests." "The ground," says La Vega,
"for 200 paces around the temple, was considered holy, and no one was
allowed to pass within this boundary but with naked feet." Besides this
great temple, there were 300 other inferior temples at Cuzco. Next to the
latter in beauty, was the celebrated temple of Pachacamac. Still another great
temple of the Sun is mentioned by Humboldt; and, "at the base of the hill
of Cannar was formerly a famous shrine of the Sun, consisting of the universal
symbol of that luminary, formed by nature upon the face of a great rock."
Roman tells us "that the temples of Peru were built upon high grounds or
the top of the hills, and were surrounded by three and four circular
embankments of earth, one within the other." Other remains seen by myself
especially mounds--are surrounded by two, three, and four circles of stones.
Near the town of Cayambe, on the very spot which Ulloa saw and
described an ancient Peruvian temple "perfectly circular in form, and open
at the top," there are several such cromlechs. Quoting from an article in
the Madras Times of 1876, Mr. J. H. Rivett-Carnac gives, in his Archaeological
Notes, the following information upon some curious mounds in the neighborhood
of Bangalore:--7 "Near the village there are at least one hundred
cromlechs plainly to be seen. These cromlechs are surrounded by circles of
stones, some of them with concentric circles three and four deep. One very
remarkable in appearance has four circles of large stones around it, and is
called by the natives 'Pandavara Gudi' or the temples of the Pandas. . . . This
is supposed to be the first instance, where the natives popularly imagine a
structure of this kind to have been the temple of a by-gone, if not of a
mythical, race. Many of these structures have a triple circle, some a double,
and a few single circles of stone round them." In the 35th degree of
latitude, the Arizona Indians in North America have their rude altars to this
day, surrounded by precisely such circles, and their sacred spring, discovered
by Major Alfred R. Calhoun, F.G.S., of the United States Army Survey
Commission, is surrounded with the same symbolical wall of stones, as is
found in Stonehenge and elsewhere.
By far the most interesting and full account we have read for a
long time upon the Peruvian antiquities is that from the pen of Mr. Heath of
Kansas, already mentioned. Condensing the general picture of these remains into
the limited space of a few pages in a periodical,8 he yet manages to present a
masterly and vivid picture of the wealth of these remains. More than one speculator
has grown rich in a few days through his desecrations of the
"huacas."
The remains of countless generations of unknown races, who had
slept there undisturbed--who knows for how many ages--are now left by the
sacrilegious treasure-hunter to crumble into dust under the tropical sun. Mr.
Heath's conclusions, more startling, perchance, than his discoveries, are
worthy of being recorded. We
will repeat in brief his descriptions:--
"In the Jeguatepegue valley in Peru in 70° 24' S. Latitude,
four miles north of the port of Pacasmayo is the Jeguatepegue river. Near it,
beside the southern shore, is an elevated platform 'one-fourth of a mile square
and forty feet high, all of adobes or sun-burnt bricks. A wall of fifty feet in
width connects it with another'; 150 feet high, 200 feet across the top, and
500 at the base, nearly square. This latter was built in sections of rooms, ten
feet square at the base, six feet at the top and about eight feet high. All of
this same class of mounds--temples to worship the sun, or fortresses, as they
may be--have on the northerly side an incline for an entrance. Treasure-seekers
have cut into this one about half-way, and it is said 150,000 dollars' worth of
gold and
silver ornaments were found." Here many thousands of men were
buried and beside the skeletons were found in abundance ornaments of gold,
silver, copper, coral beads, &c. "On the north side of the river, are
the extensive ruins of a walled city, two miles wide by six long. . . . Follow
the river to the mountains. All along you pass ruin after ruin and huaca after
huaca" (burial places). At Tolon there is another ruined city. Five miles
further, up the river, "there is an isolated boulder of granite, four and
six feet in its diameters, covered with hieroglyphics; fourteen miles further,
a point of mountain at the junction of two ravines is covered to a height of
more than fifty feet with the same class of hieroglyphics--birds, fishes,
snakes, cats, monkeys, men, sun, moon, and many
odd and now unintelligible forms. The rock, on which these are cut,
is a silicated sandstone, and many of the lines are an eighth of an inch deep.
In one large stone there are three holes, twenty to thirty inches deep, six
inches in diameter at the orifice and two at the apex. . . . At Anchi, on the
Rimac river, upon the face of a perpendicular wall 200 feet above the
river-bed, there are two hieroglyphics, representing an imperfect B and a
perfect D. In a crevice below them, near the river, were found buried 25,000
dollars' worth of gold and silver; when the Incas learned of the murder of
their chief, what did they do with the gold they were bringing for his ransom?
Rumour says they buried it. . . . May not these markings at Yonan tell
something, since they are on the road and near to the Incal city?"
The above was published in November, 1878, when in October, 1877,
in my work "Isis Unveiled" (Vol. I, p. 595), I gave a legend, which,
for circumstances too long to explain, I hold to be perfectly trustworthy,
relating to these same buried treasures for the Inca's ransom, a journal more
satirical than polite classed it with the tales of Baron Munchausen. The secret
was revealed to me by a Peruvian. At Arica, going from Lima, there stands an
enormous rock, which tradition points to as the tomb of the Incas. As the last
rays of the setting sun strike the face of the rock, one can see curious
hieroglyphics inscribed upon it. These characters form one of the land-marks
that show how to get at the immense treasures buried in subterranean corridors.
The details are given in "Isis," and I will not repeat them. Strong
corroborative evidence is now found in more than one recent scientific work;
and the statement may be less pooh-poohed now than it was then. Some miles
beyond Yonan, on a ridge of a mountain 700 feet above the river, are the walls
of another city. Six and twelve miles further are extensive walls and terraces;
seventy-eight miles from the coast, "you zigzag up the mountain side 7,000
feet then descend 2,000" to arrive at Coxamolca, the city where, unto this
day, stands the house in which Atahualpa, the unfortunate Inca, was held
prisoner by the treacherous Pizzaro.
It is the house which the Inca "promised to fill with gold as
high as he could reach, in exchange for his liberty" in 1532; he did fill
it with 17,500,000 dollars' worth of gold, and so kept his promise. But
Pizzaro, the ancient
swineherd of Spain and the worthy acolyte of the priest Hernando de
Lugues, murdered him, notwithstanding his pledge of honor. Three miles from
this town, "there is a wall of unknown make. Cemented, the cement is
harder than stone itself. . . . At Chepen, there is a mountain with a wall
twenty feet high, the summit being almost entirely artificial. Fifty miles
south of Pacaomayo, between the seaport of Huanchaco and Truxillo, are the
ruins of Chan-Chan, the capital city of the Chimoa kingdom. . . . The road from
the port to the city crosses these ruins, entering by a causeway about four
feet from the ground, and leading from one great mass of ruins to another;
beneath this is a tunnel." Be they forts, castles, palaces or burial
mounds called "huacas," all bear the name
"huaca." Hours of wandering on horseback among these
ruins give only a confused idea of them, nor can any explorers there point out
what were palaces and what were not. . . . The highest enclosures must have
cost an immense amount of labour.
To give an idea of the wealth found in the country by the
Spaniards, we copy the following, taken from the records of the municipality in
the city of Truxillo by Mr. Heath. It is a copy of the accounts that are found
in the book of Fifths of the Treasury in the years 1577 and 1578, of the
treasures found in the "Huaca of Toledo" by one man alone.
First.--In Truxillo. Peru, on the 22nd of July 1577, Don Garcia
Gutierrez de Toledo presented himself at the royal treasury, to give into the
royal chest a-fifth. He brought a bar of gold 19 carats ley and weighing 2,400
Spanish dollars, of which the fifth being 708 dollars, together with 11/2 per
cent to the chief assayer, were deposited in the royal box.
Secondly.--On the 12th of December, he presented himself with five
bars of gold, 15 and 19 carats ley, weighing 8,918 dollars.Thirdly.--On the 7th
of January 1578, he came with his fifth of large bars and plates of gold, one
hundred and fifteen in number, 15 to 20 carats ley, weighing 153,280 dollars.
Fourthly.--On the 8th of March, he brought sixteen bars of gold, 14
to 21 carats ley, weighing 21,118 dollars.
Fifthly.--On the fifth of April, he brought different ornaments of
gold, being little belts of gold and patterns of corn-heads and other things,
of 14 carats ley, weighing 6,272 dollars.Sixthly.--On the 20th of April, he
brought three small bars of gold, 20 carats ley, weighing 4,170 dollars.
Seventhly.--On the 12th of July, he came with forty-seven bars, 14
to 21 carats, weighing 777,312 dollars.
Eighthly.--On the same day he came back with another portion of
gold and ornaments of corn-heads and pieces of effigies of animals, weighing
4,704
dollars.
"The sum of these eight bringings amounted to 278,174 gold
dollars or Spanish ounces. Multiplied by sixteen gives 4,450,784 silver
dollars. Deducting the royal fifth--985,953.75 dollars--left 3,464, 830.25
dollars as Toledo's portion! Even after this great haul, effigies of different
animals of gold were found from time to time. Mantles, also adorned with square
pieces of gold, as well as robes made with feathers of divers colours were dug
up. There is a tradition that in the huaca of Toledo there were two treasures,
known as the great and little fish. The smaller only has been found. Between
Huacho and Supe, the latter being 120 miles north of Callao, near a point
called Atahuangri, there are two enormous mounds, resembling the Campana and
San Miguel, of the Huatic Valley, soon to be described. About five miles from
Patavilca tsouth, and near Supe) is a place called 'Paramonga' or the fortress
The ruins of a fortress of great extent are here visible, the walls
are of tempered clay, about six feet thick. The principal building stood on an
eminence, but the walls were continued to the foot of it, like regular
circumvallations; the ascent winding round the hill like a labyrinth, having
many angles which probably served as outworks to defend the place. In this
neighbourhood, much treasure has been excavated, all of which must have been
concealed by the pre-historic Indian, as we have no evidence of the Incas ever
having occupied this part of Peru after they had
subdued it."
Not far from Ancon, on a circuit of six to eight miles, "on
every side you see skulls, legs, arms and whole skeletons lying about in the
sand. . . . At Parmayo, fourteen miles further down north," and on the
sea-shore, is another
great burying-ground. Thousands of skeletons lie about, thrown out
by the treasure-seekers. It has more than half a mile of cutting through it. .
. . It extends up the face of the hill from the sea-shore to the height of
about 800 feet. . . . Whence come these hundreds and thousands of peoples, who
are buried at Ancon? Time and time again the archæologist finds himself face to
face with such questions, to which he can only shrug his shoulders and say with
the natives--"Quien Sabe?"--who knows?
Dr. Hutchinson writes, under date of Oct. 30, 1872, in the South
Pacific "Times":--"I am come to the conclusion that Chancay is a
great city of the dead, or has been an immense ossuary of Peru; for go where
you will, on a mountain top or level plain, or by the seaside, you meet at
every turn skulls and bones of all descriptions."
In the Huatica Valley, which is an extensive ruin, there are
seventeen mounds, called "huacas," although, remarks the writer,
"they present more the form of fortresses, or castles than
burying-ground." A triple wall surrounded the city.
These walls are often three yards in thickness and from fifteen to
twenty feet high. To the east of these is the enormous mound called Huaca of
Pando . . . and the great ruins of fortresses, which natives entitle Huaca of
the Bell. La compana, the Huacas of Pando, consisting of a series of large and
small mounds, and extending over a stretch of ground incalculable without being
measured, form a colossal accumulation. The mound "Bell" is 110 feet
high. Towards Callao, there is a square plateau (278 yards long and 96 across)
having on the top eight gradations of declivity, each from one to two yards
lower than its neighbour, and making a total in length and breadth of about 278
yards, according to the calculation of J. B. Steere, of Michigan, Professor of
Natural History.
The square plateau first mentioned at the base consists of two
divisions . . . each measuring a perfect square 47 to 48 yards; the two
joining, form the square of 96 yards. Besides this, is another square of 47 to 48
yards. On the top returning again, we find the same symmetry of measurement in
the multiples of twelve, nearly all the ruins in this valley being the same,
which is a fact for the curious. Was it by accident or design? . . . The mound
is a truncated pyramidal form, and is calculated to contain a mass of
14,641,820 cubic feet of material. . . . The "Fortress" is a huge
structure, 80 feet high and 150 yards in measurement. Great large square rooms
show their outlines on the top but are
filled with earth. Who brought this earth here, and with what object was the
filling-up accomplished? The work of obliterating all space in
these rooms with loose earth must have been almost as great as the construction
of the building itself. . . . Two miles south, we find another similar
structure, more spacious and with a greater number of apartments. . . . It is
nearly 170 yards in length, and 168 in breadth, and 98 feet high. The whole of
these ruins . . . were enclosed by high walls of adobes--large mud bricks, some
from 1 to 2 yards in thickness, length and breadth. The "huaca" of
the "Bell" contains about 20,220,840 cubic feet of material, while
that of "San Miguel" has 25,650,800.
These two buildings with their terraces, parapets and bastions,
with a large number of rooms and squares--are now filled up with earth! Near
"Mira Flores," is Ocheran--the largest mound in the Huatica valley.
It has 95 feet of elevation and a width of 55 yards on the summit, and a total
length of 428 yards, or 1,284 feet, another multiple of twelve. It is enclosed
by a double wall, 816 yards in length by 700 across, thus enclosing 117 acres.
Between Ocharas and the ocean are from l5 to 20 masses of ruins like those
already described.
The Inca temple of the Sun, like the temple of Cholula on the
plains of Mexico, is a sort of vast terraced pyramid of earth. It is from 200
to 300 feet high, and forms a semi-lunar shape that is beyond half a mile in
extent. Its top measures about 10 acres square. Many of the walls are washed
over with red paint, and are as fresh and bright as when centuries ago it was
first put on. . . . In the Canete valley, opposite the Chincha Guano Islands,
are extensive ruins, described by Squier. From the hill called "Hill of
Gold," copper and silver pins were taken like those used by ladies to pin
their shawls; also tweezers for pulling out the hair of the eyebrows, eyelids
and whiskers, as well as silver cups.
"The coast of Peru," says Mr. Heath, "extends from
Tumbey to the river Loa, a distance of 1,233 miles. Scattered over this whole
extent, there are thousands of ruins besides those just mentioned, while nearly
every hill and spire of the mountains have upon them or about them some relic
of the past, and in every ravine, from the coast to the central plateau, there
are ruins of walls, cities, fortresses, burial-vaults, and miles and miles of
terraces and water-courses.
Across the plateau and down the eastern slope of the Andes to the
home of the wild Indian, and into the unknown impenetrable forest, still you
find them. In the mountains, however, where showers of rain and snow with the
terrific thunder and lightning are nearly constant, a number of months each
year, the ruins are different. Of granite, porphyritic lime and silicated
sand-stone, these massive, colossal, cyclopean structures have resisted the
disintegration of time, geological transformation, earthquakes, and the
sacrilegious destructive hand of the warrior and treasure-seeker. The masonry
composing these walls, temples, houses, towers, fortresses, or sepulchres, is
uncemented, held in place by the incline of the walls from the perpendicular,
and adaptation of each stone to the
place destined for it, the stones having from six to many sides,
each dressed, and smoothed to fit another or others with such exactness that
the blade of a small penknife cannot be inserted in any of the seams thus
formed, whether in the central parts entirely hidden, or on the internal or
external surfaces.
These stones, selected with no reference to uniformity in shape or
size, vary from one-half cubic foot to 1,500 cubic feet solid contents, and if
in the many, many millions of stones you could find one that would fit in the
place of another, it would be purely accidental. In 'Triumph Street,' in the
city of Cuzco, in a part of the wall of the ancient house of the Virgins of the
Sun, is a very large stone, known as 'the stone of the twelve corners,' since
it is joined with those that surround it, by twelve faces, each having a
different angle. Besides these twelve faces it has its internal one, and no one
knows how many it has on its back that is hidden in the masonry. In the wall in
the centre of the Cuzco fortress there are stones 13 feet high, 15 feet long,
and 8 feet thick, and all have been quarried miles away. Near this city there
is an oblong smooth boulder, 18 feet in its longer axis, and 12 feet in its
lesser. On one side are large niches cut out, in which a man can stand and, by
swaying his body, cause the stone to rock. These niches apparently were made
solely for this purpose. One of the most wonderful and extensive of these works
in stone is that called Ollantay-Tambo, a ruin situated 30 miles north of
Cuzco, in a narrow ravine on the bank of the river Urubamba. It consists of a
fortress constructed on the top of a sloping, craggy eminence. Extending from
it to the plain below, is a stony stairway. At the top of the stairway are six
large slabs, 12 feet
high, 5 feet wide, and 3 feet thick, side by side, having between
them and on top narrow strips of stone about 6 inches wide, frames as it were
to the slabs, and all being of dressed stone. At the bottom of the hill, part
of which was made by hand, and at the foot of the stairs, a stone wall 10 feet
wide and 12 feet high extends some distance into the plain. In it are many
niches, all facing the south."
The ruins in the Islands in Lake Titicaca, where Incal history
begins, have often been described.At Tiahuanaco, a few miles south of the lake,
there are stones in the form of columns, partly dressed, placed in line at certain
distances from each other, and having an elevation above the ground of from 18
to 20 feet. In this same line there is a monolithic doorway, now broken, 10
feet high by 13 wide. The space cut out for the door is 7 feet 4 inches high by
3 feet 2 inches wide. The whole face of the stone above the door is engraved.
Another similar, but
smaller, lies on the ground beside it. These stones are of hard
porphyry, and differ geologically from the surrounding rock; hence we infer
they must have been brought from elsewhere.
At "Chavin de Huanta," a town in the province of Huari,
there are some ruins worthy of note. The entrance to them is by an alleyway, 6
feet wide and 9 feet high, roofed over with sandstone partly dressed, of more
than 12 feet in length.
On each side there are rooms 12 feet wide, roofed over by large
pieces of sandstones, 11/2 feet thick and from 6 to 9 feet wide. The walls of
the rooms are 6 feet thick, and have some loopholes in them, probably for
ventilation. In the floor of this passage there is a very narrow entrance to a
subterranean passage that passes beneath the river to the other side. From this
many huacas, stone drinking-vessels, instruments of copper and silver, and a
skeleton of an Indian sitting, were taken. The greater part of these ruins were
situated over aqueducts. The bridge to these castles is made of three stones of
dressed granite, 24 feet long, 2 feet wide by 11/2 thick. Some of the granite
stones are covered with hieroglyphics.
At Corralones, 24 miles from Arequipa, there are hieroglyphics
engraved on masses of granite, which appear as if painted with chalk. There are
figures of men, llamas, circles, parallelograms, letters as an R and an O, and
even remains of a system of astronomy.
At Huaytar, in the province of Castro Virreina, there is an edifice
with the same engravings.
At Nazca, in the province of Ica, there are some wonderful ruins of
aqueducts, four to five feet high and 3 feet wide, very straight,
double-walled, of unfinished stone, flagged on top.
At Quelap, not far from Chochapayas, there have lately been
examined some extensive works. A wall of dressed stone, 560 feet wide, 3,660
long, and 150 feet high. The lower part is solid. Another wall above this has
600 feet length, 500 width, and the same elevation of 150 feet. There are
niches over both walls, three feet long, one-and-a-half wide and thick,
containing the remains of those ancient inhabitants, some naked, others
enveloped in shawls of cotton of distinct colours and well embroidered. . . .
Following the entrances of the second and highest wall, there are
other sepulchres like small ovens, six feet high and twenty-four in
circumference; in their base are flags, upon which some cadavers reposed. On
the north side there is on the perpendicular rocky side of the mountain, a
brick wall, having small windows, 600 feet from the bottom. No reason for this,
nor means of approach, can now be found. The skillful construction of utensils
of gold and silver that were found here, the ingenuity and solidity of this
gigantic work of dressed stone, make it also probably of pre-Incal date. . . .
Estimating five hundred ravines in the 1,200 miles of Peru, and ten miles of
terraces of fifty tiers to each ravine which would only be five miles of
twenty-five tiers to each side, we have 250,000 miles of stone wall, averaging
three to four feet high--enough to encircle this globe ten times. Surprising as
these estimates may seem, I am fully convinced that an actual measurement would
more than double them, for these ravines vary from 30 to 100 miles in length.
While at San Mateo, a town in the valley of the River Rimac, where the
mountains rise to a height of 1,500 or 2,000 feet above the river bed, I
counted two hundred tiers, none of which were less than four and many more than
six miles long.
"Who then," very pertinently enquires Mr. Heath,
"were these people, cutting through sixty miles of granite; transplanting
blocks of hard porphyry, of Baalbic dimensions, miles from the place where
quarried, across valleys thousands of feet deep, over mountains, along plains,
leaving no trace of how or where they carried them; people (said to be)
ignorant of the use of wood, with the feeble llama their only beast of burden;
who after having brought these stones fitted them into stones with Mosaic
precision; terracing thousands of miles of mountain side; building hills of
adobe and earth, and huge cities; leaving works in clay, stone, copper, silver,
gold, and embroidery, many of which cannot be duplicated at the present age;
people apparently vying with Dives in riches, Hercules in strength and energy,
and the ant and bee in
industry?"
Callao was submerged in 1746, and entirely destroyed. Lima was
ruined in 1678; in 1746 only 20 houses out of 3,000 were left standing, while
the ancient cities in the Huatica and Lurin valleys still remain in a
comparatively good state of preservation. San Miguel de Puiro, founded by
Pizzaro in 1531, was entirely destroyed in 1855, while the old ruins near by
suffered little. Arequipa was thrown down in August, 1868, but the ruins near
show no change. In engineering, at least, the present may learn from the past.
We hope to show that it may in
most things else.
IV
To refer all these cyclopean constructions then to the days of the
Incas is, as we have shown before, more inconsistent yet, and seems even a
greater fallacy than that too common one of attributing every rock-temple of
India to Buddhist excavators. As many authorities show--Dr. Heath among the
rest--Incal history only dates back to the eleventh century, A.D., and the
period, from that time to the Conquest, is utterly insufficient to account for
such grandiose and innumerable works; nor do the Spanish historians know much
of them. Nor again, must we forget that the temples of heathendom were odious
to the narrow bigotry of the Roman Catholic fanatics of those days; and that,
whenever the chance offered, they either converted them into Christian churches
or razed them to the ground. Another strong objection to the idea lies in the
fact that the Incas were destitute of a written language, and that these
antique relics of bygone ages are covered with hieroglyphics. "It is
granted that the Temple of the Sun, at Cuzco, was of Incal make, but that is
the latest of the five styles of architecture visible in the Andes, each
probably representing an age of human progress."
The hieroglyphics of Peru and Central America have been; are, and
will most probably remain for ever as dead a letter to our cryptographers as
they were to the Incas. The latter like the barbarous ancient Chinese and
Mexicans kept their records by means of a quipus (or knot in Peruvian)--a cord,
several feet long, composed of different colored threads, from which a
multicolored fringe was suspended; each color denoting a sensible object, and
knots serving as ciphers.
"The mysterious science of the quipus," says Prescott,
"supplied the Peruvians with the means of communicating their ideas to one
another, and of transmitting them to future generations. . . ." Each
locality, however, had its own method of interpreting these elaborate records,
hence a quipus was only intelligible in the place where it was kept. "Many
quipus have been taken from the graves, in excellent state of preservation in
color and texture," writes Dr. Heath; "but the lips, that alone could
pronounce the verbal key, have for ever ceased their function, and the
relic-seeker has failed to note the exact spot where each was found, so that
the records, which could tell so much we want to know, will remain sealed till
all is revealed at the last day." . . . if anything at all is revealed
then. But what is certainly as good as a revelation now, while our brains are
in function, and our mind is acutely alive to some pre-eminently suggestive
facts, is the incessant discoveries of archaeology, geology, ethnology and
other sciences.
It is the almost irrepressible conviction that man having existed
upon earth millions of years--for all we know,--the theory of cycles is the
only plausible theory to solve the great problems of humanity, the rise and
fall of numberless nations and races, and the ethnological differences among
the latter. This difference--which, though as marked as the one between a
handsome and intellectual European and a digger Indian of Australia, yet makes
the ignorant shudder and raise a great outcry at the thought of destroying the
imaginary "great gulf between man and brute creation"--might thus be
well accounted for. The digger Indian, then in company with many other savage,
though to him superior, nations, which evidently are dying out to afford room
to men and races of a superior kind, would have to be regarded in the same
light as so many dying-out specimens of animals--and no more. Who can tell but
that the forefathers of this flat-headed savage--forefathers who may have lived
and prospered amidst the highest civilization before the glacial period--were
in i the arts and sciences far beyond those of the present civilization--though
it may be in quite another direction'? That man has lived in America, at least
50,000 years ago, is now proved scientifically and remains a fact beyond doubt
or cavil. In a lecture delivered at Manchester, in June last, by Mr. H. A.
Allbutt, Honorary Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Society, the
lecturer stated the following:--"Near New Orleans, in one part of the
modern delta, in excavating for gas works, a series of beds, almost wholly made
up of vegetable matter, were dug through. In the excavation, at a depth of 16
feet from the upper surface, and beneath four buried forests, one on the top of
the other, the labourers discovered some charcoal and the skeleton of a man,
the cranium of which was reported to be that of the type of the aboriginal Red
Indian race. To
this skeleton Dr. Dowler ascribed an antiquity of some 50,000
years." The irrepressible cycle in the course of time brought down the
descendants of the contemporaries of the late inhabitant of this skeleton, and
intellectually as well as physically they have degenerated, as the present
elephant has degenerated from his proud and monstrous forefather, the
antediluvian Sivatherium whose fossil remains are still found in the Himalayas;
or, as the lizard has from the plesiosaurus. Why should man be the only
specimen upon earth which has never changed in form since the first day of his
appearance upon this planet? The fancied superiority of every generation of
mankind over the preceding one is not yet so well established as to make it
impossible for us to learn some day that, as in everything else, the theory is
a two-sided question--incessant progress on the one side and an as irresistible
decadence on
the other of the cycle. "Even as regards knowledge and power,
the advance, which some claim as a characteristic feature of humanity, is
effected by exceptional individuals who arise in certain races under favourable
circumstances only, and is quite compatible with long intervals of immobility,
and even of decline,"9 says a modern man of science.
This point is corroborated by what we see in the modern degenerate
descendants of the great and powerful races of ancient America--the Peruvians
and the Mexicans. "How changed! How fallen from their greatness must have
been the Incas, when a little band of one hundred and sixty men could
penetrate, uninjured, to their mountain homes, murder their worshipped kings
and thousands of their warriors, and carry away their riches, and that, too, in
a country where a few men with stones could resist successfully an army!
Who could recognize in the present Inichua and Aymara Indians their
noble ancestry?" . . . Thus writes Dr. Heath, and his conviction that
America was once united with Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia, seems as firm
as our own. There must exist geological and physical cycles as well as
intellectual and spiritual; globes and planets, as well as races and nations,
are born to grow, progress, decline and--die. Great nations split, scatter into
small tribes, lose all remembrance of their integrity, gradually fall into
their primitive state and--disappear, one after the other, from the face of the
earth. So do great continents. Ceylon must have formed, once upon a time, part
of the Indian continent. So, to all appearances, was Spain once joined to
Africa, the narrow channel between Gibraltar and the latter continent having
been once upon a time dry land. Gibraltar is full of large apes of the same
kind as those which are found in great numbers on the opposite side on the
African coast, whereas nowhere in Spain is either a monkey or ape to be found
at any place whatever.
And the caves of Gibraltar are also full of gigantic human bones,
supporting the theory that they belong to an antediluvian race of men. The same
Dr. Heath mentions the town of Eten in 70 S. latitude of America, in which the
inhabitants of an unknown tribe of men speak a monosyllabic language that
imported Chinese labourers understood from the first day of their arrival. They
have their own laws, customs and dress, neither holding nor permitting
communication with the outside world. No one can tell whence they came or when;
whether it was before or after the Spanish Conquest. They are a living mystery
to all, who chance to visit them. . . .
With such facts before us to puzzle exact science herself, and show
our entire ignorance of the past verily, we recognise no right of any man on
earth--whether in geography or ethnology, in exact or abstract sciences--to
tell his neighbour--"so far shalt thou go, and no
further!"
But, recognizing our debt of gratitude to Dr. Heath of Kansas,
whose able and interesting paper has furnished us with such a number of facts
and suggested such possibilities, we can do no better than quote his concluding
reflections. "Thirteen thousand years ago," he writes, "Vega or
a Lyræ, was the north polar star; since then how many changes has she seen in
our planet! How many nations and races spring into life, rise to their zenith
of splendour, and then decay; and when we shall have been gone thirteen
thousand years, and once more she
resumes her post at the north, completing a 'Platonic or Great
Year,' think you that those who shall fill our places on the earth at that time
will be more conversant with our history than we are of those that have passed?
Verily might we exclaim, in terms almost psalmistic, 'Great God, Creator and
Director of the Universe, what is man that Thou art mindful of him'!"Amen!
ought to be the response of such as yet believe in a God who is "the
Creator and Director of the Universe."
____________________
NOTES ON "A LAND OF MYSTERY"
To the Editor of the THEOSOPHIST--I have read with much pleasure
your excellent article on the "Land of Mystery." In it you show a
spirit of inquiry and love of truth which are truly commendable in you and
cannot fail to command the approbation and praise of all unbiased readers. But
there are certain points in it, in which I cannot but join issue with you. In
order to account for the most striking resemblances that existed in the
manners, customs, social habits and traditions of the primitive peoples of the
two worlds, you have recourse to the old Platonic theory of a land-connection
between them. But the recent researches in the Novemyra have once for all
exploded that theory. They prove that, with the exception of the severance of
Australia from Asia, there never was a submersion of land on so gigantic a
scale as to produce an Atlantic or a Pacific Ocean, that, ever since their
formation, the seas have never changed their ancient basins on any very large
scale. Professor Geike, in his physical geography holds that the continents
have always occupied the positions they do now, except that, for a few miles,
their coasts have sometimes advanced into and receded from the sea.
You would not have fallen into any error, had you accepted M.
Quatrefages' theory of migrations by sea. The plains of Central Asia are
accepted by all monogenists as the centre of appearance of the human race. From
this place successive waves of emigrants radiated to the utmost verge of the
world. It is no wonder that the ancient Chinese, Hindus, Egyptians, Peruvians
and Mexicans--men who once inhabited the same place--should show the strong
resemblances in certain points of their life. The proximity of the two
continents at Behring Straits enabled immigrants to pass from Asia to America.
A little to the south is the current of Tassen, the Kourosivo or black stream
of
the Japanese, which opens a great route for Asiatic navigators. The
Chinese have been a maritime nation from remote antiquity and it is not
impossible that their barges might have been like those of the Portuguese
navigator, Cabral, in modern times, driven by accident to the coast of America.
But, leaving all questions of possibilities and accidents aside, we know that
the Chinese had discovered the magnetic needle even so early as B.C. 2,000.
With its aid and that of the current of Tassen, they had no very considerable
difficulty to cross to America. They established, as Paz Soldan informs us in
his Geografia del Peru, a little colony there; and Buddhist missionaries
"towards the close of the fifth century sent religious missions to carry
to Fou-Sang (America) the doctrines of Buddha."
This will no doubt be unpleasant to many European readers. They are
averse to crediting a statement that takes the honour of the discovery of
America from them and assigns it to what they are graciously pleased to call
"a semi-barbarous Asiatic nation." Nevertheless, it is an
unquestionable truth. Chapter XVIII or the Human Species by A. De Quatrefages
will be an interesting reading to any one who may be eager to know something of
the Chinese discovery of America, but the space at his command being small, he
gives a very meagre account of it in his book. I earnestly hope you will
complete your interesting article by adverting to this and giving us full
particulars of all that is known about it. The shedding of light on a point,
which has hitherto been involved in mysterious darkness, will not be unworthy
of the pen of one, the be-all and end-all of whose life is the search of truth
and, when found, to abide by it, be it at whatever cost it may be.
AMRITA
LAL BISVAS.
Calcutta, 11th
July.Scant leisure this month prevents our making any detailed
answer to the objections to the Atlantan hypothesis intelligently put forth by
our subscriber. But let us see whether--even though based upon "recent
researches" which "have once for all exploded that theory"--they
are as formidable as at first sight they may appear.
Without entering into the subject too deeply, we may limit ourselves
to but one brief remark. More than one scientific question, which at one time
has seemingly been put at rest for ever, has exploded at a subsequent one over
the heads of theorists who had forgotten the danger of trying to elevate a
simple theory into an infallible dogma. We have not questioned the assertion
that "there never was a submersion of land on so gigantic a scale as to
produce an Atlantic or a Pacific Ocean," for we never pretended to suggest
new theories for the formation of oceans. The latter may have been where they
now are since the time of their first appearance, and yet whole continents been
broken into fragments partially engulfed, and left innumerable islands, as
seems the case with the submerged Atlantis. What we meant was that, at some
pre-historic time and long after the globe teemed with civilized nations, Asia,
America and perhaps Europe were parts of one vast continental formation,
whether united by such narrow strips of land as evidently once existed where
now is Behring Strait (which connects the North Pacific and Arctic Oceans and
has a depth of hardly more than twenty to twenty-five fathoms) or by larger
stretches of land. Nor shall we fight the monogenists who claim Central Asia as
the one cradle place of humanity--but leave the task to the polygenists who are
able to do it far more successfully than ourselves. But, in any case, before we
can accept the theory of monogenesis, its advocates must offer us some
unanswerable hypothesis to account for the observed differences in human types
better than that of "divarication caused by difference of climate, habits
and religious culture." M. Quatrefages may remain, as ever, indisputably a
most distinguished naturalist--physician, chemist and zoologist--yet we fail to
understand why we should accept his
theories in preference to all others. Mr. Amrita Lal Bisvas
evidently refers to a narrative of some scientific travels along the shores of
the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, by this eminent Frenchman,
entitled--"Souvenirs d'un Naturaliste." He seems to regard M.
Quatrefages in the light of an infallible Pope upon all scientific questions:
we do not, though he was a member of the French Academy and a professor of
ethnology. His theory, about the migrations by sea, may be offset by about an
hundred others which directly oppose it. It is just because we have devoted our
whole life to the research of truth--for which complimentary admission we thank
our critic--that we never accept on faith any authority upon any question
whatsoever; nor, pursuing, as we do, TRUTH and progress through a full and
fearless enquiry, untrammelled by any consideration, would we advise any of our
friends to do otherwise.Having said so much, we may now give a few of our
reasons for believing in the alleged "fable" of the submerged
Atlantis--though we explained ourselves at length upon the subject in Isis
Unveiled (Vol. I, pp. 590, et seq.). First.--We have as evidence the most
ancient traditions of various and widely-separated peoples--legends in India,
in ancient Greece, Madagascar, Sumatra, Java, and all the principal isles of
Polynesia, as well as those of both Americas. Among savages, as in the
traditions of the richest literature in the world--the Sanskrit literature of
India--there is an agreement in saying that, ages ago, there existed in the
Pacific Ocean, a large continent which, by a geological upheaval, was engulfed
by the sea. And it is our firm belief--held, of course, subject to
correction--that most, if not all of the islands from the Malayan Archipelago to
Polynesia, are fragments of that once immense submerged continent. Both Malacca
and Polynesia, which lie at the two extremes of the Ocean and which, since the
memory of man, never had nor could have any intercourse with, or even a
knowledge of each other, have yet a tradition, common to all the islands and
islets, that their respective countries extended far, far out into sea; that
there were in the world but two immense continents, one inhabited by yellow,
the other by dark men; and that the ocean, by command of the gods and to punish
them for their incessant quarrelling, swallowed them up.
2. Notwithstanding the geographical fact that New Zealand, and
Sandwich and Easter Islands, are at a distance, from each other, of between 800
and 1,000 leagues; and that, according to every testimony, neither these nor
any other intermediate islands, for instance, the Marquesan, Society, Feejee,
Tahitian, Samoan and other islands, could, since they became islands, ignorant
as their people were of the compass, have communicated with each other before
the arrival of Europeans; yet, they, one and all, maintain that their
respective countries extended far toward the west, on the Asian side. Moreover,
with very small differences, they all speak dialects evidently of the same
language, and understand each other with little difficulty; have the same
religious beliefs and superstitions; and pretty much the same customs. And as
few of the Polynesian islands were discovered earlier than a century ago, and
the Pacific Ocean itself was unknown to Europe until the days of Columbus, and
these islanders have never ceased repeating the same old traditions since the
Europeans first set foot on their shores, it seems to us a logical inference
that our theory is nearer to the truth than any other. Chance would have to
change its name and meaning, were all this due but to chance alone.
Theosophist, March, April,
June, August, 1880
1 See Stephens' Central America.
2 A paper published by Mr. E. R. Heath in the Kansas City Review
of Science and Industry, Nov., 1878.
3 This "idea" is plainly expressed and asserted as a
fact by Plato in his
Banquet: and was taken up by Lord Bacon in his New Atlantis.
4 "The name America," said I, in Isis Unveiled, (Vol.
2, p. 591) three years ago, "may one day be found closely related to Meru,
the sacred mount in the centre of the seven continents." When first
discovered, America was found to bear among some native tribes the name of
Atlanta. In the States of Central America we find the name Amerih, signifying,
like Meru, a great mountain. The origin of the Kamas Indians of America is also
unknown.
5 Smithsonian contributions to Knowledge, Vol. 1.
6 New American Cyclopaedia, Art, "Teotihuacan,"
7 On Ancient Sculpturing on Rocks in Kumaon. India, similar to
those found on monoliths and rocks in Europe. By J. H. Rivett-Carnac,
Civil Service, C. I. E., F. S. A., M. R. A. S. F. G. S., &c
8 See Kansas City Review of Science and Industry, November,
1878.
9 Journal of Science for February, Article--The Alleged
Distinction between Man and Brute."
______________________
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