THE ANCIENT PERUVIANS. 103 



be withiD the walls of Cuzco at a time, lest they should attempt some revo- 

 lutionary enterprise. It therefore appears that no means were left untried to 

 subdue and exterminate the people of Colla;* yet how far such a system, persisted 

 in at intervals for more than two centuries, could have annihilated a whole nation, 

 I shall not attempt to decide. 



When the Spaniards took possession of these provinces, they found them 

 inhabited by barbarous tribes, and the islands in the lake Titicaca, which had 

 once been highly cultivated, were then waste and vacant. Upon the lake were 

 seen rafts made of the reed called by the natives totora^ and on these rafts whole 

 families made their home, tossed here and there upon the waters by every change 

 of wind. They were in so brutalised a state that when asked to what nation of 

 people they belonged, they replied, " We are not men, but Uros," as if they did 

 not consider themselves as belonging to the human species.f Were these Uros 

 (for so they named their tribe) the remains of the savage colonies sent from other 

 parts of Peru to supplant the Collas ? This inference bears at least the stamp of 

 probability, but it still does not aid us in ascertaining whether the Collas them- 

 selves were the remains of the primitive civilised Peruvians.f 



It may be added, that Garcilaso describes the Peruvian tribes near the sea 

 coasts, to whom he applies the collective name of Yuncas, as living in the utmost 

 barbarism at the advent of the Incas. In proof of this statement he adduces their 

 mythology, which accorded divine attributes to every thing in which they observed 

 any dominant excellence. Thus, says he, they worshipped the fox for his cunning, 

 the deer for his swiftness, and the eagle for the perfection of his sight. These 

 superstitions, however, are not more surprising than those of the primitive ages of 

 civilisation in the old world ; and there appears throughout the Spanish historian 

 an evident disposition to depreciate the character of the ancient tribes of Peru, in 

 order to palliate the cruel measures which were resorted to by the Incas for their 

 subjugation. Garcilaso himself describes a remarkable temple at Pachacamac, 

 which was erected by the Yuncas ; and the Chimuyans, who were something 

 farther to the south, appear to have possessed extensive and regular edifices, 

 together with some other attributes of civilisation. The inhabitants of Chimu 

 resisted the Incas with great valor, and appear to have been very superior to most 



* Garcilaso de la Vega, Comment. Lib. Ill, cap. 3. 



t AcosTA, Hist, de las Indias, Lib. Ill, cap. 6. — De Laet, Novlis Orbis, Lib. XL 

 X Indian tradition relates that the Collas were all destroyed at once, but attributes this catastrophe 

 to an inundation. See Herrera, Dec. Ill, Lib. IX, c. L 



