118. CRANIA AMERICANA. 



shores of the Maragnon for several hundred leagues, and extended themselves 

 quite to the Atlantic, appear to have been a Peruvian colony, both from analogy 

 of language and customs ; for they w^ere in the practice of moulding the heads of 

 their children so as to give them the high and lunated shape in use among the 

 Connivos.* 



I presume De Pauw alludes to the Omaguas w^hen he tells us, that "certain 

 Indians on the borders of the Maragnon, have square or cubic heads : in other 

 words they are flattened on the face, on the crow^n, on the occiput, and on the 

 temples, thus presenting the acme of human extravagance."! 



Peru, like the co-existent feudal states of Europe, contained two classes of 

 people wholly unlike each other, viz : the exotic Inca family, with its numberless 

 ramifications, which held all the honor and advantage in their own hands ; and 

 the native plebeian multitude, who were in as low a state of degradation as the 

 selfish policy of their superiors could devise and establish. 



To the former of these classes was confined whatever was known of science, 

 art or refinement. The members of the royal family prided themselves on their 

 skill in architecture, astronomy and the national literature; and it will be observed 

 that whenever an individual was named as pre-eminent in any of these departments 

 of knowledge, he belonged to the dominant caste. In fact, the plebeian class was 

 excluded from any participation in literature and science, except only when they 

 could be employed as musicians and artisans. The Incas thus held alike the 

 power and the knowledge in their own hands. 



Their principal intellectual attainments were in geometry, music, poetry and 

 architecture ; but a people having no written language, and transmitting only 

 by tradition their attainments in these branches of knowledge, cannot at this late 

 period be fully appreciated, and much less can they be fairly compared in these 

 respects with Europeans. 



Architecture is one of the earliest attributes of civilisation, and in this the 

 Peruvians had made surprising progress. Their temples, palaces and tombs bear 



* La Condamine, Mem. de PAcad. Roy. des Sc. Tome 62, p. 427.— Ulloa, Hist, del Viage, T. I, 

 p. 505. — Does the following fragment of history refer to these Omaguas ? "When Francisco Pizarro, 

 Diego Almagro, and others, conquered the said empire of Peru, and had put to death Atabahpa, one 

 -of the younger sons of Guaynacapa fled out of Peru, and took with him many thousands of those 

 soldiers of the empire called Orejones, and with those and many others that followed him, he van- 

 quished all that tract and valley of America which is situate between the great rivers of the Amazons 

 and Baraquan, otherwise called Orinoco and Maragnon."— Sir W. Raleigh, Fby. to Guiana, p. 25. 

 t Rescherches sur les Americaines, I, p. 146. 



