Dr de Tschudi on the Ancient Peruvians. 251 



lower one, and through it we come to the upper story, the 

 roof of which forms that of the whole house, and consists of 

 very solid masonry. The upper story is generally lower than 

 the other, and probably served as a store-room. I once, how- 

 ever, found in it the well-preserved mummy of a child. The 

 family lived on the ground-floor. We can distinguish very 

 clearly the place where they used to cook. The one imme- 

 diately above was the sleeping-room ; a great flagstone is often 

 found in it, which served to cover the opening. The old Indian 

 fortification Hinckay is of entirely similar structure, though 

 on a grander scale. I have felt very comfortable in these small 

 and narrow dwellings ; they frequently protected me for hours 

 from violent rain, after I had expelled a fox or a zorillo from 

 them. 



I have often found in these houses the best preserved mum- 

 mies and other antiquities. Only a small part of the dead 

 were buried in tombs of masonry, in the so-called Huaca, or 

 more correctly Aya-huaci (Dead house). Near the coast the 

 bodies were laid, many together, in certain places in the sand ; 

 in the mountains, however, in caves, in fissures of the rocks, 

 or in their own houses. When the last was the case, I ob- 

 served the following arrangement. Immediately below the 

 surface, and only covered with a thin stratum of earth, the 

 bodies are placed, more or less preserved, mostly, but not 

 always, in a sitting posture. The head, in this case, is sup- 

 ported by the hands, the elbows by the thighs, and all the 

 fingers of each hand are tied together with a string, which, 

 running across the neck, connects both hands. 



If we remove the bodies and clear away the second stratum 

 of earth, we arrive at the domestic implements of the Indians, 

 cooking and water-pots of clay, calabayos, huallcas, imple- 

 ments of war and hunting. Below this stratum there followed 

 the third and last, which contain the gods ; they are mostly 

 made of clay, but sometimes also of silver and gold ; such 

 idols have been found in different places, which contained from 

 twenty-five to thirty pounds of the finest gold. 



On the eastern side of the Cordilleras, large huacas are 

 very scarce ; but they are frequently met with in the coast 

 districts of Peru. The mummies deposited in the fissures of 



