Note 792 — Chapter XVI · FATHER JOVE AND MOTHER VESTA

Garcilasso de la Vega, Royal Commentaries of the Yncas, pt. i. bk. iv. chaps. 1-3, bk. vi. chaps. 20-22 (vol. i. pp. 292-299, vol. ii. pp. 155-164, Markham’s translation); P. de Cieza de Leon, Travels, p. 134 (Markham’s translation); id., Second Part of the Chronicle of Peru, pp. 85 sq. (Markham’s translation); Acosta, Natural and Moral History of the Indies, bk. v. chap. 15 (vol. ii. pp. 331-333, Hakluyt Society). Professor E. B. Tylor discredits Garcilasso’s description of these Peruvian priestesses on the ground that it resembles Plutarch’s account of the Roman Vestals (Numa, 9 sq.) too closely to be independent; he thinks that “the apparent traces of absorption from Plutarch invalidate whatever rests on Garcilasso de la Vega’s unsupported testimony.” See his Researches into the Early History of Mankind, 3rd Ed., pp. 249-253. In particular, he stumbles at the statement that an unfaithful Peruvian priestess was buried alive. But that statement was made by Cieza de Leon, who travelled in Peru when Garcilasso was a child, and whose book, or rather the first part of it, containing the statement, was published more than fifty years before that of Garcilasso. Moreover, when we understand that the punishment in question was based on a superstition which occurs independently in many parts of the world, the apparent improbability of the coincidence vanishes. As to the mode of kindling the sacred fire, Professor Tylor understands Plutarch to say that the sacred fire at Rome was kindled, as in Peru, by a burning-glass. To me it seems that Plutarch is here speaking of a Greek, not a Roman usage, and this is made still clearer when his text is read correctly. For the words ὑπὸ Μήδων, περὶ δὲ τὰ Μιθριδιατικά should be altered to ὑπὸ Μαίδων περὶ τὰ Μιθριδιατικά. See H. Pomtow in Rheinisches Museum, N. F. li. (1896) p. 365, and my note on Pausanias, x. 19. 4 (vol. v. p. 331). Thus Plutarch gives two instances when a sacred fire was extinguished and had to be relit with a burning-glass; but both instances are Greek, neither is Roman. The Greek mode of lighting a sacred fire by means of a crystal is described also in the Orphic poem on precious stones, verses 177 sqq. (Orphica, ed. E. Abel, p. 115). Nor were the Greeks and Peruvians peculiar in this respect. The Siamese and Chinese have also been in the habit of kindling a sacred fire by means of a metal mirror or burning-glass. See Pallegoix, Description du royaume Thai ou Siam, ii. 55; A. Bastian, Die Völker des östlichen Asien, iii. 516; J. H. Plath, “Die Religion und der Cultus der alten Chinesen,” Abhandlungen der k. bayer. Akademie der Wissen, i. Cl. ix. (1863) pp. 876 sq. Again, the full description of the golden garden of the Peruvian Vestals, which may sound to us fabulous, is given by Cieza de Leon in a work (the Second Part of the Chronicle of Peru) which it is unlikely that Garcilasso ever saw, since it was not printed till 1873, centuries after his death. Yet Garcilasso’s brief description of the garden agrees closely with that of Cieza de Leon, differing from it just as that of an independent witness naturally would—namely, in the selection of some other details in addition to those which the two have in common. He says that the virgins “had a garden of trees, plants, herbs, birds and beasts, made of gold and silver, like that in the temple” (vol. i. p. 298, Markham’s translation). Thus the two accounts are probably independent and therefore trustworthy, for a fiction of this kind could hardly have occurred to two romancers separately. A strong confirmation of Garcilasso’s fidelity is furnished by the close resemblance which the fire customs, both of Rome and Peru, present to the well-authenticated fire customs of the Herero at the present day. There seems to be every reason to think that all three sets of customs originated independently in the simple needs and superstitious fancies of the savage. On the whole, I see no reason to question the good faith and accuracy of Garcilasso.