BOOK FOUR OF THE FIRST PART

CHAPTER I

The house of the virgins dedicated to the Sun.

THE INCA kings had in their vain and heathen religion some great things worthy of much consideration. One of these was the profession of perpetual virginity observed by women in many conventual houses built for them in various parts of the empire. In order that it shall be understood what these women were, to whom they were dedicated, and how they occupied themselves, I shall now say how all this was, for the Spanish historians who mention it have passed over the surface. like a cat on hot bricks, as the saying goes. We refer especially to the house in Cuzco, since those established later in the rest of Peru were modelled on it.

A quarter of the city of Cuzco was called Acllahuaci, "house of the chosen women." The quarter is between two streets that run from the main square to the convent of St. Dominic, which used to be the. house of the Sun. One of those streets goes out of the corner of the square to the left of the cathedral and runs north and south. When I left Cuzco in 1560 this was the main shopping street. The other leaves the middle of the square, where the prison was, and runs parallel toward the same Dominican convent. The front of the house faced the square between these two streets, and its back gave onto a street running across them east and west, so that it occupied an island site between the square and these three streets. Between it and the temple of the Sun there was a large block of houses and a big square which is in front of the temple. This shows how far off the mark were these historians who say that the virgins were in the temple of the Sun, that they were priestesses and that they aided the priests in the sacrifices. In fact the house and the temple are a great distance apart, and the chief object of the Inca kings was that men should not enter the nunnery, or women the temple of the Sun. They called it "the house of the chosen" because the nuns were chosen for their rank or beauty; they must be virgins, and to ensure this, they were set apart at the age of eight years or under.

As the virgins of the house of Cuzco were dedicated to the Sun, they had to be of his own blood, or daughters of Incas, either of the king or of members of his family, and legitimate and free from all foreign blood. Those with any taint of foreign blood, or bastards, were not admitted into the house in Cuzco of which we speak. The reason they gave was that as only incorrupt virgins were set aside for the Sun, so it would have been unlawful to offer to him a bastard with any taint of foreign blood. They reasoned that the Sun would have children and that they must not be bastards with a mixture of human with their divine blood. The women devoted to the Sun must therefore be of the legitimate royal blood, which was that of the Sun himself. There were usually more than fifteen hundred nuns, but there was no established limit of number.

Within the house there were senior women who had grown old in their vocation. If they had entered it long ago the were called mamacuna because of their age and of the office they performed. Superficially this word means "matron," but its real significance is a woman entrusted with the duties of a mother: it is composed of mama, "mother," and the particle cuna, with no fixed meaning, but in this compound implying what we have said, though it has many other senses in diverse compounds. The name was appropriate, for the functions of some were those of abbesses, and others were mistresses of the novices whom they indoctrinated in the divine worship of their idolatry and in handiwork connected with it such as spinning, weaving, and sewing. Others were portresses and stewardesses, who had to obtain whatever was required: this was provided in great abundance from the estates of the Sun, whose women they were.

CHAPTER II

The rules and duties of the chosen virgins.

THEY LIVED in perpetual seclusion to the end of their days and preserved their virginity. They had no locutory or hatch or any other place where they could see or speak to men or women except one another.As women of the Sun they were not to be made common by being seen by anyone. Their seclusion was so absolute that even the Inca never used the privilege he might have had as king of seeing or speaking to them, lest anyone else should have ventured to seek the same privilege. Only the coya, or queen, and her daughters had leave to enter the house and converse with the nuns, both young and old.

The Inca sent the queen and her daughters to visit them and ask how they were and what they needed. I saw this house intact, for only its quarter and that of the temple of the Sun, and four other buildings that had been royal palaces of the Incas were respected by the Indians in their general rebellion against the Spaniards. Because they had been the house of the Sun, their god, and of his women, and of their kings, they did not burn them down as they burnt the rest of the city. Among other notable features of this building there was a narrow passage wide enough for two persons that ran the whole length of the building. The passage had many cells on either side which were used as offices where women worked. At each door were trusted portresses, and in the last apartment at the end of the passage where no one entered were the women of the Sun. The house had a main door as convents do in Spain, but it was only opened to admit the queen or to receive women who were going to be nuns.

At the beginning of the passage which was the service-door for the whole house, there were a score of porters to fetch and carry things needed in the house as far as the second door. The porters could not pass this second door under pain of death, even if they were called from within, and no one was allowed to call them in under the same penalty. The nuns and their house were served by five hundred girls, all maidens and daughters of Incas by privilege, those whom the first Inca had reduced to his service and not those of the royal blood. They did not enter the house as women of the Sun, but only as servants. Daughters of foreigners were not admitted for this service, but only those of Incas by privilege. These maids had also their mamacunas of their own rank and also virgins, who told them what to do. These mamacunas were those who had grown old in the house, and who on reaching this seniority were granted the title and responsibility, as if to say: "Now you can be a mother and mistress of the house."In the division the Spaniards made of the royal houses of Cuzco to supply themselves with dwellings, half of this convent fell to Pedro del Barco, whom we shall mention later. This was the part of the offices. The other half went to Licentiate de la Gama, whom I met as a child, and after passed to Diego Ortiz de Guzmán, a gentleman from Seville whom I knew. He was still alive when I came to Spain.

The various duties of the women of the Sun were spinning, weaving, and making all the clothes and headwear the Inca and the coya, his legitimate wife, wore on their persons. They also made the fine garments that were offered as sacrifices to the Sun. The Inca wore on his head a band, the llautu, which was as broad as the little finger and very thick, so as to be almost square, being passed four or five times around the head, and the scarlet fringe which stretched across his temples. His dress was a tunic falling to the knees, the uncu. The Spaniards call it cusma, but this is not in the general language but a word from some provincial dialect. He wore also a blanket two piernas square instead of a cloak, the yacolla. The nuns also made for the Inca a kind of pouch, about a quarter of a vara square. These pouches are carried under the arm on a highly embroidered band, two fingers in width and passed like a bandolier from the left shoulder to the right side. They are called chuspa. They were used only to carry the coca herb which the Indians chew. It was not then as common as it is now, for only the Inca and his kinsmen and some curacas, to whom the king sent a few baskets every year as a special mark of favor, used it.

They also made some small tassels of two colors, yellow and scarlet, called paicha, which were attached to a thin band about a fathom long. These were not for the Inca, but for those of the royal blood, and were worn on the head, the tassels falling over the right temple.

CHAPTER III

The veneration they had for things made by the virgins and the law against those who might violate them.

ALL THESE things were made by the nuns in great quantities for their bridegroom the Sun. As the Sun could not wear these garments, they were sent to the Inca as his legitimate son and legal heir that he might wear them. He received them as sacred things, and he and his whole empire held them in greater veneration than the Greeks and Romans would have done if the goddesses Juno, Venus, and Pallas had made them.For these gentiles of the New World, being simpler than those of antiquity, worshipped with extreme veneration and heartfelt affection everything they held sacred and divine in their false faith. Because these things were made by the hands of coyas, wives of the Sun, and made for the Sun, and the women who made them were of the Sun's own blood, they held them in the greatest veneration. The Inca likewise could not give them to anyone not of his own blood and kin, for they held that divine things could not be put to human purposes without sacrilege, and it was therefore prohibited even to the king to offer them to curacas and captains, however well they had served him, unless they were of his blood. We shall later say what garments the Inca did give to the curacas and viceroys, governors and captains when he wished to show them great honor and favor.

In addition the nuns occupied themselves in due season in making the bread called çancu for the sacrifices they offered to the Sun at the great festivals of Raimi and Citua. They also brewed the drink the Inca and his kinsfolk drank on the festivals, called in their language aca, the last syllable being pronounced in the gullet, for if it is said as the Spanish letters sound, it means "dung." All the vessels of the house, even pots, pitchers, and vats, were of silver and gold, as in the house of the Sun, for they were his wives and were worthy of it by their rank. There was also a garden of trees and plants, herbs and flowers, birds and animals, done in gold and silver like those in the temple of the Sun.

The things we have mentioned were the main occupations of the nuns of Cuzco. Otherwise they lived and conversed like women dedicated to perpetual seclusion and perpetual virginity. There was a law that a nun who forfeited her virginity should be buried alive and her accomplice hanged. As they thought it was a small punishment merely to kill a man for so grave an offence as venturing to violate a woman dedicated to the Sun, their god and father of their kings, the law provided that the guilty man's wife, children, and servants should be slain too, together with his kinsmen, his neighbors, and his fellow townsmen, and all his flocks, without leaving a babe or suckling, as the saying is. His village was destroyed and strewn with rocks, and the home and birthplace of so wicked a son left forsaken and desolate and the place accursed, to remain untrodden by the foot of man or beast, if possible.

This was the law. But it was never applied, for no one ever transgressed it. As we have said, the Peruvian Indians were very fearful of breaking the laws and extremely observant of them, especially those relating to their religion or their king. But if anyone did transgress, the law was applied literally without any remission, as if it were merely a matter of killing a puppy. The Incas never made laws to frighten their subjects or to be mocked by them, but always with the intention of applying them to anyone who dared to break them.

CHAPTER IV

There were many other houses of chosen virgins; the strict application of their laws is proved.

ALL THIS applied to the house of the virgins dedicated to the Sun in Cuzco. There were many like it in the chief provinces, where the Inca had ordered them to be built as an honor and privilege. Into these were admitted maidens of all ranks, both those of the legitimate royal blood and those called bastards of mixed descent. As a great favor and honor, the daughters of curacas, the chiefs of vassals, were allowed to enter; and there were also daughters of the common people chosen for their beauty as wives or concubines of the Inca, but not of the Sun. Their parents held it to be the greatest happiness to have their daughters chosen as wives of the king, and so did the girls themselves.

These girls were guarded with the same care and vigilance as the women of the Sun. They had serving-girls, maidens like the others. They were supported out of the Inca's revenues, for they were his wives. They had the same occupations as the women of the Sun: spinning, weaving, and making a great quantity of garments for the Inca. They also did all the other things we have mentioned. The Inca shared the fruit of their handiwork with the members of the royal family, the lords of vassals, the captains of his armies, and all others on whom he wished to bestow honors and favors. These he was not prohibited from giving away because they were made by his wives and not those of the Sun; and they made them for him and not for the Sun.

These houses also had their mamacunas, who governed them like those at Cuzco. In brief, they might have been the same house except that entry to that of Cuzco was for women of the Sun who were of the legitimate royal blood and remained permanently cloistered, while into the other houses throughout the country women of all kinds were admitted so long as they were maidens and beautiful, for they were for the Inca. When he asked, the most beautiful of them were selected to be sent wherever he might be as his concubines.

The same strict law against the violation of the houses of the Inca's women existed as in the case of the house of the Sun, for the crime was considered to be the same, but it was never applied because no one transgressed it. In confirmation of what we have said about the severity of the law against offenders against the women of the Sun or of the Incas, the treasurer Agustín de Zárate, speaking of the causes of the violent death of Atahuallpa (Book II, ch. vii), has the following passage which illustrates this matter and is quoted word for word:

As the evidence about this came from the mouth of Felipillo himself, he interpreted it according to his own intentions. These motives were never dearly understood, but were probably one of two: either this Indian had an intrigue with one of Atahuallpa's women and desired by his death to enjoy her in safety, but Atahuallpa had wind of this and complained to the governor, saying that he felt this insult more deeply than his imprisonment or all the other disasters that had befallen him, even though they should lead to his death—that an Indian of such base birth should scorn and outrage him, knowing the law that existed for such a crime. For if he were found guilty of it, or even merely of attempting it, he would have been burnt alive with the woman, if she were guilty; and his parents, children, brothers, and sisters, and the rest of his near relatives would have been killed, even down to his flocks, and his birthplace would have been depopulated and sown with salt, all the trees and houses being
destroyed and other great punishments inflicted in memory of the crime.

This is from Agustín de Zárate, who makes it plain that he had had a full account of the severity of this law. I found the passage after I had written what I myself knew of it. I was very glad to find the law so fully recorded by a Spanish gentleman who thus confirms me with his authority, for although the other historians speak of this law, all they say is that the delinquents were killed, without mentioning that the same penalty was applied to their children, parents, relatives, and fellow townsfolk, even to the extent of killing animals, pulling up trees, laying waste the birthplace, and strewing it with stones or with salt, which amounts to the same thing. All this was contained in the law so as to place due emphasis on the gravity of the offence. And so did it appear to the wretched Inca Atahuallpa when he said he felt it to be a greater outrage than his arrest or all his adversities, even though they led to his death.

Those who had once been sent out as concubines of the king could not again return to the convent, as being now impure. They served in the royal households as ladies or servants to the queen until they were retired or allowed to return to their own country, where they were given houses and lands and served with great veneration, for every tribe took the greatest honor in have one of the Inca's women with it. Those who did not attain the honor of being the king's concubines remained in the house until they were very old, then were given permission to return to their homes where they were treated as we have said, or they remained in the convent until they died.

Reference

Royal Commentaries of the Incas by Garcilaso de la Vega, El Inca., In 2 Volumes, University of Texas Press, 1966.