INHABITANTS OF PERU. 



307 



Besides tte seed-corn, and the dole in case of famine, the State also distributed 

 every two years wool and leather on the uplands, and cotton in the hot regions. 

 Each family had to make its own clothes and foot-gear, also under Government 

 commissioners, scrupulously returning all remnants to the public stores. The 

 livestock was similarly common property ; that is to say, the administration 

 appointed the herdsmen, regulated the conditions of slaughter, and on special 

 occasions even the distribution of meat. 



All the national customs and institutions were thus transformed by the State 

 to rigid laws, until the whole people had finally become mere serfs of the 

 " divine " family of the Incas. Manco Capac, founder of the dynastj'^, was 

 supposed to have suddenly appeared on an island in Lake Titicaca, unless he fell 

 from heaven, like the gold, silver and copper eggs whence sprang the chiefs, the 



Fig. 118. — Steing of Quipos. 



nobles and the common people. But according to another legend the first Inca 

 emerged from the ocean like the divine Yiracocha (" Sea Foam "), whose name 

 was transferred to the Spanish conquerors also arriving like gods from the 

 high seas. 



During the four or five centuries of the "mild sway" to which the nation 

 was subjected it ended by adapting itself to the yoke, and obedience became 

 " blind," as required by the laws. Even culprits came forward for the most part 

 to denounce themselves. All men were held to military service, death being the 

 penalty of any act of insubordination. 



All conquered peoples were obliged to accept the national religion, the feasts 

 and ceremonies of which w^ere strictly regulated by the State ; the least change in 

 the traditional rites would, in fact, have seemed more than a crime. The public 

 worship, however, as well as the common tenure of land, at least kept alive the 



