No one but the Inca, and
the Coya or queen, might enter the consecrated precincts. The greatest
attention was paid to their morals, and visitors were sent every year to
inspect the institutions, and to report on the state of their discipline.41
Woe to the unhappy maiden who was detected in an intrigue! By the
stern law of the Incas, she was to be buried alive, her lover was to be
strangled, and the town or village to which he belonged was to be razed
to the ground, and "sowed with stones," as if to efface every memorial of
his existence.42 One is astonished to find so close a resemblance
between the institutions of the American Indian, the ancient Roman, and
the modern Catholic! Chastity and purity of life are virtues in woman,
that would seem to be of equal estimation with the barbarian and with the
civilized.--Yet the ultimate destination of the inmates of these religious
houses was materially different.
The great establishment at Cuzco consisted wholly of maidens of the
royal blood, who amounted, it is said, to no less than fifteen hundred.
The provincial convents were supplied from the daughters of the curacas
and inferior nobles, and, occasionally, where a girl was recommended by
great personal attractions, from the lower classes of the people.43 The
"Houses of the Virgins of the Sun" consisted of low ranges of stone
buildings, covering a large extent of ground, surrounded by high walls,
which excluded those within entirely from observation.
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