He had
witnessed in his youth the ancient ceremonies and usages of his
countrymen, understood the science of their quipus, and mastered many
of their primitive traditions. With the assistance he now obtained from
his Peruvian kindred, he acquired a familiarity with the history of the
great Inca race, and of their national institutions, to an extent that no
person could have possessed, unless educated in the midst of them,
speaking the same language, and with the same Indian blood flowing in
his veins. Garcilasso, in short, was the representative of the conquered
race; and we might expect to find the lights and shadows of the picture
disposed under his pencil so as to produce an effect very different from
that which they had hitherto exhibited under the hands of the
Conquerors.
Such, to a certain extent, is the fact; and this circumstance affords a
means of comparison which would alone render his works of great value
in arriving at just historic conclusions. But Garcilasso wrote late in life,
after the story had been often told by Castilian writers. He naturally
deferred much to men, some of whom enjoyed high credit on the score
both of their scholarship and their social position. His object, he
professes, was not so much to add any thing new of his own, as to correct
their errors and the misconceptions into which they had been brought by
their ignorance of the Indian languages and the usages of his people.
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