The young maiden was torn remorselessly from the arms
of her family to gratify the passion of her brutal conqueror. The
sacred houses of the Virgins of the Sun were broken open and
violated, and the cavalier swelled his harem with a troop of Indian
girls, making it seem that the crescent would have been a more
fitting emblem for his banner than the immaculate cross."
With the inexorable conqueror came the more inexorable priest.
"Attendance at Roman Catholic worship was made compulsory. Men and
women with small children were compelled to journey as much as
thirty-six miles to attend mass. Absentees were punished, therefore
the Indian feared to disobey." [Footnote: Neely, "Spanish America."]
As is well known, the ancient inhabitants worshipped the sun and the
moon. The Spanish priest, in order to gain proselytes with greater
facility, did not forbid this worship, but placed the crucifix
between the two. Where the Inca suns and moons were of solid gold and
silver, they were soon replaced by painted wooden ones. The crucifix,
with sun and moon images on each side, is common all over Bolivia
to-day.
Now, four hundred years later, see the Indian under priestly rule.
The following is taken from an official report of the Governor of
Chimborazo: "The religious festivals that the Indians celebrate - not
of their own will, but by the inexorable will of the priest - are,
through the manner in which they are kept, worse than those described
to us of the times of Paganism, and of monstrous consequences to
morality and the national welfare ... they may be reckoned as a
barbarous mixture of idolatry and superstition, sustained by infamous
avarice. The Indian who is chosen to make a feast either has to use
up in it his little savings, leaving his family submerged in misery,
or he has to rob in order to invest the products of his crime in
paying the fees to the priest and for church ceremonies. These are
simply brutal orgies that last many days, with a numerous attendance,
and in which all manner of crimes and vices have free license."
"For the idols of the aborigines were substituted the images of the
Virgin Mary and the Roman saints. The Indians gave up their old
idols, but they went on with their image-worship. Image-worship is
idolatry, whether in India, Africa, or anywhere else, and the worship
of Roman images is essentially idolatry as much as the worship of any
other kind of images. Romanism substituted for one set of idols
another set. So the Indians who were idolaters continued to be
idolaters, only the new idols had other names and, possibly, were a
little better-looking." [Footnote: Neely, "South America."]
What has Romanism done for the Indians of Bolivia in its four hundred
years of rule? Compare the people of that peaceful, law-keeping
dynasty which the Spaniards found with the Bolivian Indian of to-day!
Now the traveller can report: "The Indians are killing the whites
wherever they find them, and practising great cruelties, having bored
holes in the heads of their victims and sucked the brains out while
they were yet alive. Sixteen whites are said to have been killed in
this way! These same Indians are those who have been Christianized by
the Roman priests for the past three centuries, but such cruelties as
they have been practising show that as yet not a ray of Christ's love
has entered their darkened minds." How can the priest teach what he
is himself ignorant of?
Where the Indian has been civilized, as well as Romanized, Mr. Milne,
of the American Bible Society, could write:
"Since the Spanish conquest the progress of the Indians has been in
the line of deterioration and moral degradation. They are oppressed
by the Romish clergy, who can never drain contributions enough out of
them, and who make the children render service to pay for masses for
deceased parents and relatives. Tears came to our eyes as Mr.
Penzotti and I watched them practising their heathen rites in the
streets of La Paz, the chief city of Bolivia. They differ from the
other Indians in that they are domesticated, but they know no more
of the Gospel than they did under the rule of the Incas."
What is to be the future of these natives? Shall they disappear from
the stage of the world's history like so many other aborigines,
victims of civilization, or will a hand yet be stretched out to help
them? Civilization, after all, is not entirely made up of greed and
lust, but in it there is righteousness and truth. May the day soon
dawn when some of the latter may be extended to them ere they take
the long, dark trail after their fathers, and have hurled the last
malediction at their cursed white oppressors!
"We suffer yet a little space
Until we pass away,
The relics of an ancient race
That ne'er has had its day."
For four hundred years Bolivia has thus been held in chains by Romish
priestcraft. Since its Incan rulers were massacred, its civilization
has been of the lowest. Buildings, irrigation dams, etc., were
suffered to fall into disrepair, and the country went back to
pre-Incan days.
The first Christian missionaries to enter the country were imprisoned
and murdered. Now "the morning light is breaking." A law has been
passed granting liberty of worship.
Bolivia, with its vast natural riches, must come to the forefront,
and already strides are being taken forward. She can export over five
million dollars' worth of rubber in one year, and is now spending
more than fifty million dollars on railways. So Bolivia is a country
of the past and the future.
