The celestial pair,
brother and sister, husband and wife, advanced along the high plains in
the neighborhood of Lake Titicaca, to about the sixteenth degree south.
They bore with them a golden wedge, and were directed to take up their
residence on the spot where the sacred emblem should without effort sink
into the ground. They proceeded accordingly but a short distance, as far
as the valley of Cuzco, the spot indicated by the performance of the
miracle, since there the wedge speedily sank into the earth and
disappeared for ever. Here the children of the Sun established their
residence, and soon entered upon their beneficent mission among the rude
inhabitants of the country; Manco Capac teaching the men the arts of
agriculture, and Mama Oello 8 initiating her own sex in the mysteries of
weaving and spinning. The simple people lent a willing ear to the
messengers of Heaven, and, gathering together in considerable numbers,
laid the foundations of the city of Cuzco. The same wise and benevolent
maxims, which regulated the conduct of the first Incas, 9 descended to
their successors, and under their mild sceptre a community gradually
extended itself along the broad surface of the table-land, which asserted
its superiority over the surrounding tribes. Such is the pleasing picture of
the origin of the Peruvian monarchy, as portrayed by Garcilasso de la
Vega, the descendant of the Incas, and through him made familiar to the
European reader.
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