INDIAN PAINTINGS. 



237 



superior a manner the Mojos Indian employs carpenter's tools. The 

 mountain Indians have been praised for their natural talent in painting. 

 Some of the productions in Trinidad would amuse the critic ; yet the 

 highest taste is found here. The lesson in colors is nowhere more plainly 

 set before the eye. We have seen in the hand of a Mojos Indian a bird 

 the size of a sparrow, with seven distinct colors among its feathers ; pro- 

 bably there is no part of the world where there are a greater variety of 

 beautifully-colored birds than in the Madeira Plate. 



The aptness of these people in learning is not second to those of the 

 mountains. They cultivate the sugar-cane quite as well as the others 

 do the barley, and when we examined the woollen goods of the moun- 

 tain girls, and compared them with the white cotton dresses of the fair 

 ones on the banks of the rivers in the lowlands, both made by their own 

 hands, we must give preference to the manufactures of Mojos, with all 

 deference to the memory of Manco Capac's wife, who taught the moun- 

 tain girls to net and knit, to spin and to weave. The Mojos women are 

 few in number, and the people of the next tribe being as exclusive as 

 those of Japan, the manufacturers of the one tribe had no opportunities 

 to exchange with them ideas. 



The Mojos Indians have a natural fondness for painting human figures 

 and representing birds and animals, particularly the common chicken 

 and the cow. The latter seems to have made a deep impression upon 

 them at first sight ; they often paint the cow fighting or chasing a man. 

 These Indians describe the novel sights. I have not seen a single paint- 

 ing of an Indian or of an animal which originally belonged on this pampa. 

 The white man, the cow, and chicken cock, are their favorite studies. 

 On the white walls of their houses, inside and out, such figures appear 

 as a decoration. In the rooms of the government houses the best artist 

 displayed his talent, and those drawings on the walls of the market- 

 place are admired by all who go there. So much taste and caution have 

 the boys and little children, that none of them are known to disfigure 

 any of these paintings in the public market-place. 



The Indians of Cuzco have had some of the most beautiful, lar^e. 

 and costly paintings hung before them in the churches of that ancient 

 city. The church encourages this taste ; yet we saw nothing there like 

 what we find among these people who have never had lessons set them, 

 and the natural scenery here is less calculated to draw upon the imagina- 

 tion. The whole country is a dead level ; the view only extends to the 

 horizon, the sky above, and one continued sheet of herd grass below. 



The Mojos Indian makes a scene for himself, and describes it with 

 colored paints. On a windy day he strikes light and puts fire to the 



