IK) CIVILIZATION OF AYMARA INDIANS. Chap. VII. 



" Other images," says Father Calancha, " in Europe and 

 Asia perform miracles in theii' own towns or provinces, but 

 this picture of Copacabana performs them all over the new 

 world, and in parts of Europe !"* 



Thus the Spanish conquerors supplied the Aymara Indians 

 of the shores of lake Titicaca with an object of devotion in 

 the shape of this old picture ; which was to replace their 

 former simple worship of the Sun and Moon on the sacred 

 islands of the lake. It will be interesting to examine briefly 

 the way the Spaniards treated the people they subjected, in 

 other resj^ects, and to glance at the kind of government 

 which they substituted for the mild rule of the Incas. 



The forefathers of the present Aymara Indians established 

 a civilization of which we have no record save the silent 

 evidence of those cyclopean ruins which have just been 

 described. Subsequently, for nearly four centuries, from the 

 middle of the twelfth to the sixteenth, they formed a part of 

 the empire of the Incas, and their land Avas then called 

 Collasuyu. During this period the Incas followed their 

 constant policy of superseding the language of the conquered 

 land by their own more polished Quichua ; and they so far 

 succeeded that the Aymara, which once extended and was 

 spoken all over the Collao, as far as the pass of Ayavu'i, on 

 the road to Cuzco, has been entirely superseded in all parts 

 north of Puno by the Quichua, and is now only spoken 

 between Puno and La Paz, and farther south. Nevertheless 

 the peojDie enjoyed a long period of tranquillity and prosperity 

 during the happy rule of the Incas, and the population con- 

 tinued to increase. With the introduction of Spanish rule 

 a blight fell upon them : and we shall now see how the 

 beneficent laws of the sovereigns of Castile were administered 

 by their imworthy servants. 



■• Cronica Moralizada de la Pro- I Agustin, por el Padre Fray Antonio de 

 vincia del Peru, del Orden de San la Cala)icha. Lima, 1G53. 



