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.He writes, It was the treasure of Peru that relieved the Spanishpeople of the necessity of wresting a national revenue out of soil by agriculture;which abrogated the auxiliary of agriculture, manufactures; which precludedthe possibility of the corollary of the other two, commerce.It was the treasureof Peru that permitted the Spanish people to indulge that passion for religiousbigotry which was stifling to liberty and throttling to development.It wasthe treasure of Peru that kindled the fires of the Inquisition in which the bestblood of the nation lighted it to its downfall. At the time of the Spanish conquest, an immense emerald crystal (thesize of an ostrich egg), cut into the shape of a torso, was adored by thePeruvians in the city of Manta.This was the emerald goddess named Umina,the goddess of health, who was exhibited only on high feast days.Her imagewas an enormous emerald crystal, and smaller emeralds were said to be herdaughters.(The Spanish were mistaken in thinking the Incas worshippedthe actual stone.) Incan priests developed a rather clever scheme to get theirhands on more emeralds, pointedly suggesting that the people bring emeralds The Mystique of Origins and the Great Emeralds 83as a donation to Umina.The priests explained that smaller emeralds were thechildren of the big emeralds and so could be brought to her for sacrifice insteadof the people s children.Apparently, this ruse worked.Large, oddly shapedemeralds are the invention of Hollywood mythmakers too.In the 1984 filmRomancing the Stone, a heart-shaped emerald, El Corazon ( The Heart ), isdiscovered in Mexico and pursued by a Colombian.Michael Douglas andKathleen Turner have a rip-roaring time as well.They fall in love.The emeralds prized by the Inca were obtained through their northernmostand least stable holding Ecuador, although it is more likely that the sourcewas Colombian.Even today the few emeralds mined in Ecuador are called Inca emeralds. There have long been rumors of a lost emerald mine inEcuador.These were laughed at until the discovery of the Emerald Mandiscussed earlier, but now people are giving it more serious consideration.The Inca (and the Maya too, for that matter) believed that their gems werenot just ornaments, but precious gifts given to them by their gods.Revealingthe source of the stones would have been an act of apostasy.And that s whatgot them into even more trouble with the Spanish.At the time of the conquest of Peru, the Spanish army sacked the Temple ofthe Sun and ripped off a huge collection of emeralds, but there is no record oftheir finding the Umina mother emerald. The Incas weren t telling.Somesay that the emerald was hidden by Peruvian priests so efficiently it has neverbeen found to this day.Even Umina s special temple has disappeared.The Emeralds of ConquestIt is very popular to dump upon the Conquistadors, but like everyoneelse, the motives that drove them were complex.It is safe to say, however,that the Spanish had no appreciation for the art of the native Americans.Artifacts of gold and silver were valued only by their weight.If they found artobjects made of gold or silver, they usually just melted them down for moreconvenient shipping back to Spain.(Luckily, a few native artifacts eludedthem.) Assuredly, they took all the emeralds they could garner, but their mainuse was for trade only.They traded them for yet more gold and silver.Soonthere was a glut on the European market and emeralds were everywhere.When one thinks of the conquest of South America, one thinks of theConquistadors.And when one thinks of the Conquistadors, the name Pizarrostands out (not necessarily in a good way).Francisco Pizarro (1475 1541)was born in Trujillo, Spain.His father was an army captain, unfortunately(perhaps) not married to Pizarro s mother.There was a rumor that he wassuckled by a sow, although this is almost certainly not true.Pizarro was raised 84 From Satan s Crown to the Holy Grailby poor relations and he never received a good education in fact he remainedilliterate all his life, never even learning how to sign his own name.This issomewhat of an anomaly all the other Conquistadors could read and write,whatever their other failures.He left Spain in 1502 for Hispaniola, the chief Spanish port in the NewWorld (his father and brother were already there).His main job was to helpsuppress the Taino Indians, who were reluctant to become Christians, paygold, and do all the Spaniards dirty work.When the Spanish first arrived,there were perhaps 50,000 Tainos, possessed of a rich, elaborate culture.By 1544, only 60 individuals were left.There are none now.Earlier theTaino had suffered depredations from the fierce Carib Indians, who attackedthem with poison-tipped arrows and enslaved many.Some apologists for theSpanish suggest that the warlike Caribs set the tone for the conquest of theAmericas and had they been more peaceable, undoubtedly the Spanish wouldhave cozied up to the natives and everything would have gone along justswimmingly.No one really believes this, but it s fairly safe to blame an extinctpeople, especially ones rumored to be fierce, for starting all the trouble.In 1509, Pizarro took part in the first exploration of the Caribbean coastof the area, and in 1513 walked across the Isthmus of Panama with Balboa,thus becoming one of the first Europeans to see the Pacific Ocean
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