CHAPTER XXII - THE HONOURABLE BADGES WHICH THE YNCA GAVE TO HIS FOLLOWERS

Summary

In the above affairs, and in other similar occupations, the Ynca Manco Ccapac was occupied during many years, conferring benefits on his people; and, having experienced their fidelity and love, and the respect and adoration with which they treated him, he desired to favour them still farther by ennobling them with titles, and badges such as he wore on his own head, and this was after he had persuaded them that he was a child of the Sun. The Ynca Manco Ccapac, and afterwards his descendants, in imitation of him, were shorn, and only wore a tress of hair one finger in width. They were shaven with stone razors, scraping the hair off, and only leaving the above-mentioned tress. They used knives of stone, because they had not invented scissors, shaving themselves with great trouble, as any one may imagine. When they afterwards experienced the facility and ease afforded by the use of scissors, one of the Yncas said to an old schoolfellow of mine:—“If the Spaniards, your fathers, had done nothing more than bring us scissors, looking-glasses, and combs, we would have given all the gold and silver there is in our land, for them.”