Note 330 — Chapter LXIII

The obsequies of the Yncas at Cuzco were celebrated with great pomp. The bodies were embalmed with such extraordinary skill that they appeared to be alive, and were seated on thrones within the great temple of the sun. The bowels were deposited in golden vases, and preserved in a temple at Tampu (twelve miles from the capital); just as the Emperors of Austria have their bodies buried in one church at Vienna, their hearts kept in silver pots in another, and their bowels deposited in St. Stephen’s. The corregidor Polo de Ondegardo found five bodies of Yncas at Cuzco, three of men and two of women, said to have been those of the Ynca Huira-ccocha, with hair white as snow, of the great Tupac Ynca Yupanqui, of Huayna Ccapac, of Huira-ccocha’s queen Mama Runtu, and of Ccoya Mama Ocllo, the mother of Huayna Ccapac. These bodies were so well preserved that all the hair, eyebrows, and even eyelashes remained intact. They were dressed in royal robes, with the llautu, or royal fringe round their foreheads. They seem to have excited much curiosity, were conveyed by order of the viceroy Marquis of Cañete to Lima, and finally buried in the courtyard of the hospital of San Andres in that city.

The chiefs were buried in tombs of stone masonry on the mountain heights round Cuzco. A very peculiar kind of maize is often found in the tombs, now little cultivated, called Zea rostrata. The bodies, which are in a squatting posture with the knees forced up to the head, are found enveloped in many folds of cloth, over which is placed a mat of reeds, secured by a strong net. The covering next the body is generally of fine cotton; round the neck there is almost invariably a small household god, called Conopa in Quichua, made of clay, stone, silver, or gold; and a piece of copper, gold, or silver is often found in the mouth. The hair is, in most instances, well preserved, but the skin is withered up. None of the thousands of bodies that have been examined, show any signs of having been embalmed. It seems clear that this operation was only resorted to in the case of the Yncas themselves. G. de la Vega; Rivero, Antiq. Per.; Personal Observation.