South America | Page 2

SKETCH-MAP OF SOUTH AMERICA 293

SOUTH AMERICA
CHAPTER I
THE CONTINENT IN PRE-SPANISH DAYS
The discovery of South America stands as one of the most dramatic
events in history. From the time of its occurrence until the present so
deeply has this event impressed itself on men's minds that the previous
state of the Continent has been a somewhat neglected topic. The Incas
and their civilization, it is true, have attracted no small share of
attention to themselves, and the subject has become more or less
familiar to the average English reader through the medium of the work
of Prescott, who has been followed by a number of later writers, many
of whom have dealt very exhaustively with this subject. Yet, after all,
the Incas, for all their historical importance, occupied but a very small
portion of the territories of the Southern Continent. Beyond the western
fringe of the Continent which was theirs by heritage, or by conquest,
were other lands--mountainous in parts, level in others, where the great
river basins extended themselves--which were the chosen hunting and
fishing grounds of an almost innumerable number of tribes.
The degree of civilization, or, more accurately speaking, of savagery
which characterized these as a whole necessarily varied to a great
extent in the case of each particular tribe. Nevertheless, from the
comparatively high culture of the Incas down to the most intellectually
submerged people of the forests and swamps, there were certain

characteristics held in common by all. This applied not only to a
marked physical likeness which stamped every dweller in the great
Continent, but to customs, religious ceremonies, and government as
well. Concerning the origin of the South American Indians
interminable disputes have now raged for generations, but that in the
case of all the various tribes the origin was the same has never, I think,
been controverted. The most common theory concerning the origin of
the South Americans is that this was Mongolian.
This idea would certainly seem one of the most feasible of the many
put forward. Those who have delved sufficiently deeply into the matter
have found many striking analogies in customs, religious ceremonies,
and even in language between the inhabitants of South America and
those of Eastern Asia; and there are even those who assert that the
similarity between the two peoples extends to the designs on domestic
pottery. The majority of those who have devoted themselves to this
subject of the South American aborigines have been obliged to work
largely in the dark. Considering the great extent of the ruins bequeathed
by the Incas to the later ages, it might be thought curious that so few
precise data are available. The reason for this lies in the zeal which the
conquistadores displayed in the stamping out of the various pagan
religions. No sooner had the Spaniards obtained possession of the chief
cities of the Incas than every symbol, image, or, indeed, any object
suggestive of sun-worship or anything of the kind, was smashed into
fragments, and every trace of its significance so far as possible
obliterated.
There is no doubt that in the course of this wholesale destruction a
multitude of objects perished which would have given an historical clue
to much of what now remains doubtful. It is owing to this obliterative
enthusiasm that such scanty historical knowledge exists concerning the
earlier period of the Inca race, and of that highly civilized nation which
preceded the later Children of the Sun.
It is, moreover, largely on account of this vagueness and uncertainty
that some curiously wild theories have been propounded concerning the
origin of the South Americans, and more especially of the Incas. Thus,

in 1843, George Jones, a writer who had indulged in some
extraordinarily enthusiastic researches, published a work the object of
which was to prove that not only the Mexicans, but all the tribes of
Southern America, were the descendants of some old Tyrians who,
fleeing from their enemies, abandoned Phoenicia and, sailing westward,
landed in Central America, some 332 years before the birth of Christ! It
must be admitted that the structure--even though it is purely of the
imagination--thus built up by the fertile author is sufficiently ingenious,
and the number of Biblical data, similarities, and general phenomena,
which he has brought to bear on the subject are impressive, if not
convincing.
Peru was admittedly the richest country of South America, so far as
historical relics are concerned. Yet even here it is difficult in the
extreme to glean any accurate information concerning the actual
primitive inhabitants of the country. Astonishingly little tradition of any
kind exists, and the little to be met with is rendered comparatively
valueless by the vivid imagination of the Indian; thus this period cannot
be considered as historical in the real sense of the word. A