As might be expected in such a state of culture, woman held among the Peruvians a high place; one that might, in a further rough estimate, be regarded as equal to the status of woman among the Aztecs. In this comparison, however, the advantage is again found on the side of the Peruvians, woman being, in some respects, in higher estimation among them than among their northern compeers. Without pushing the comparison,--indeed, it is less dangerous to speak positively,--let us glance at the chief features of feminine life among the people of the Incas. In the first place, we find that even in the religion of the Peruvians woman held an honored place. The sun was the chief personage in the theogony of the Peruvians; but he had his satellites, and among them the most important was the moon, his sister and wife. In this union of a god to his sister we are reminded of the Egyptian cult, wherein Osiris was married to Isis, and it is somewhat curious that in both nations, Egyptian and Peruvian, wherein there obtained this feature of incest elevated to sacred places, there was also the introduction of the same offence against nature in the royal house; for both Peruvian Inca and Egyptian Pharaoh were given to marrying their sisters, that the royal race might be preserved uncontaminated by any alien strain.
The religion thus acknowledged the status of woman by giving her a place among its deities; nor did it stop at this point, though, as is so frequently to be found in primitive cults, it mingled the sacred and the profane in a manner rather confusing to our more complex modern thought. The institution of the "Virgins of the Sun" was in some ways a most singular reproduction of the Roman Vestal and the Catholic nun, and in others the exact opposite of the intentions of these European types. The Virgins of the Sun were young maidens who from their infancy had been dedicated to the service of their deity, and who, when very young, were placed in convents. Here they were instructed by elderly matrons called _mamaconas_, who taught them religious theory and duty as well as the material arts of spinning, embroidery, and other occupations suited to their sex and situation. These maidens were usually selected from those of royal blood or from the daughters of the greater nobles, though a girl of great beauty would sometimes be raised from the ranks of the commonalty to the high dignity of a Virgin of the Sun. Their life was strictly conventual; no one but the Inca himself, or his queen, could enter the consecrated precincts without having duties to call them thither. Chastity was most strongly inculcated, and it is said that no lapse was ever known on the part of an inmate of these convents. This is not so surprising when the provisions of the law of the Incas on this subject are recalled. The offending virgin was to be buried alive, her lover was to be strangled, and the town or village in which he resided was to be utterly destroyed and "sown with stones," that it might be effectually forgotten. It would take an enterprising and desperate lover indeed to dare such results, even could he have overcome the difficulties of access and the reluctance of his mistress.
