They 4iad fixed army and war regulations. They accumulated the heads of the enemy and made them into drinking-cups and ornaments. Necklaces were not unfrequently made of the teeth of enemies. All large cities were fortified, and there were besides many fortresses, generally erected on rocky heights, surmounted by a citadel and surrounded by concentric walls. The ruins of such a fortification situated south-east of Lake Titicaca are shown on Plate 53 (fic. 19).
highroads, their bridges, their palace and temple structures, are famous. While their private houses in the numerous populous cities were built of unhurnt brick (adobes), and sometimes of cane or stone—the number of apartments being greater or less according to the means of the owner—they yet built their temples and palaces of ashlar, often of huge stones, whose joints were generally made invisible by polishing. The doors are always very high, and narrower at the top; sculptured ornaments occurred rarely. A temple-structure of this kind is portrayed on Plate 52 (fig. 2), and the remains of one of the innumer able Inca palaces, with six encircling walls, on Plate 52 (fig. 3). Plate 5o (fitr. 4) illustrates the present architecture of the Onichuas.
Music. —Their music is highly praised; their instruments consisted of Pan's flutes (.6/. 53, fig. kettledrums OM 51, I), zithers, etc.; while the Moxos had long bamboo tubes, which they beat (pl. 51, fig. 5). Some of their dances of the present day and the strange costume worn at them are depicted on Plate 51 (jigs. I, 5).
scientific aecomplishments'also were not insignificant. They seem to have had an elementary and rude kind of hieroglyphics, although the interpretation of their various stone sculptures is not quite clear (for instance, /5/. 53, 9). Of great importance were the quifius (,O/. 53, Jig. 12), which consisted of heavy cords, front which variously colored thinner ones branched off, and which were knotted once, twice, or three times. The colors signified different objects, red denoting war or soldiers; green, maize, etc.; the single knots represented to, the double ones too, and the treble ones moo. In this manner the quipus served as the record of complicated transactions and accounts. Their use and explanation constituted a special science and occupied learned professors. Other specialists were in possession of astronomical learning: they had a very ingenious time measurement; others, again, had knowledge of medicine, geography, and so on. There were also professional poets, and the works of the Quichuas in poetry and eloquence are not unim portant.
They believed in immortality, recompense after death, and either buried the dead or entombed them in various structures, which were some times shaped like towers, sometimes like ovens (p/. 49, 5; 151.50, jig. background). These contained the dead either singly or in greater num bers; in the latter case the corpses were distributed in larger chambers and placed along the walls. The corpses, to which artificial eyes (p7. 47, fig. ro) made of a yellow shining substance were sometimes given, were gener ally placed in a crouching posture, because this was the posture•of prayer, and were thickly wound about with cloth. The dead Incas were embalmed and placed on golden chairs in the temple of the sun. Many other corpses
have been preserved by the peculiar condition of the soil and the dry air (p1. figs. 5-8). Valuable articles were often deposited in the graves. Numerous slaves were slain at the tombs of the nobles, and sometimes the wives became willing victims of the death-sacrifice.
General Conclusions.—Our description has shown so many common customs and so similar a physical structure from Cape Barrow to Cape Horn that we are led to the conclusion that the population of this wide expanse was of the same race throughout; and this conclusion is all the more evident as we have not specially sought to bring together the sim ilarities. The fundamental traits of these peoples are also in unison, espe cially if we consider the different circumstances in which they lived. The Eskimos, separated into single, independent families scattered over an immense and inhospitable region, and chiefly depending on animal nour ishment, cannot possess the taciturn, solemn earnestness of the Indians whose mode of life is conventional. But neither in the Indians nor in the aborigines of Mexico and Peru did that exterior seriousness exclude a cheerful temperament, which could enjoy a game such as the ball-play ing that was so popular in Mexico.
All Americans are hospitable, brave, proud, and sensitive; at the same time they have powerful passions and lasting, deep feelings. These traits are exhibited in their religious and family life and in their tribal rela tions, by their devoted faithfulness and gratitude, as well as by their vehe ment revengefulness. Grave offences rarely occur. Cleanliness, which was often found among the barbarous or half-civilized tribes, was a permanent quality of the civilized peoples. The very depth of the American charac ter accounts for the earnestness which the Indian easily assumes, and also for the readiness with which he yields to indolence; and its darkest shadow is not cruelty to an enemy, which we have accounted for, but the treat ment of women.
The intellectual capacities of the American races are of a high order, as has been proved by our entire description; this is true not only of the Peruvians and Mexicans, but also of many other North American tribes, as the Eskimos, and of many in South America, as the Caribs and the Araucanians. The Americans should not be judged by their present con dition nor by single degraded individuals, as is so often done. The fault was not wholly theirs if they have been hostile to European culture, which almost everywhere they manifested a capacity for adopting. And if many tribes have passed away without apparently accomplishing anything for the benefit of mankind, others deserve great credit.
Mexican and Peruvian civilization is annihilated, and impartial his tory knows by what means; but the fact that the Spaniards could so tnsily and in so short. a time establish new kingdoms and civilizations was mainly due to the merit of the destroyed peoples. These had pre pared the soil on which the European prospered, and yet the culture attained by the latter was comparatively inferior to that which the natives had reached by their own unaided exertions.