were as successful as the Egyptians in the miserable attempt to perpetuate
the existence of the body beyond the limits assigned to it by nature.49

They cherished a still stranger illusion in the attentions which they
continued to pay to these insensible remains, as if they were instinct with
life. One of the houses belonging to a deceased Inca was kept open and
occupied by his guard and attendants, with all the state appropriate to
royalty. On certain festivals, the revered bodies of the sovereigns were
brought out with great ceremony into the public square of the capital.
Invitations were sent by the captains of the guard of the respective Incas
to the different nobles and officers of the court; and entertainments were
provided in the names of their masters, which displayed all the profuse
magnificence of their treasures,--and "such a display," says an ancient
chronicler, "was there in the great square of Cuzco, on this occasion, of
gold and silver plate and jewels, as no other city in the world ever
witnessed." 50 The banquet was served by the menials of the respective
households, and the guests partook of the melancholy cheer in the
presence of the royal phantom with the same attention to the forms of
courtly etiquette as if the living monarch had presided! 51

The nobility of Peru consisted of two orders, the first and by far the most
important of which was that of the Incas, who, boasting a common
descent with their sovereign, lived, as it were, in the reflected light of his
glory. As the Peruvian monarchs availed themselves of the right of
polygamy to a very liberal extent, leaving behind them families of one or
even two hundred children, 52 the nobles of the blood royal, though
comprehending only their descendants in the male line, came in the course
of years to be very numerous.53 They were divided into different
lineages, each of which traced its pedigree to a different member of the
royal dynasty, though all terminated in the divine founder of the empire.