Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 2.djvu/54

 ASUNCION

32

ATAVISM

Astruc himself did not intend to deny the Mosaic authorship of Genesis; but his work created an era in Biblical inquiry, occasioning the modern critical theories.

Kaulen in Kirchenlericcm, 2d ed. (Freiburg. 1S82); Guil- LEREAU in ViGOUROUX, Diet, de la Bible (Paris. 1S951; Kitto, Cycl. of Bibl. Lit 3d ed. (Philadelphia, 1886); Osgood, in Presbyt. and Ref. Review (Jan. 1892), 83 sq.

A. J. iLvAS.

Asuncion. See Paragu.w.

Asylum, Right of. See Right op Asylum; Buildings, Ecclesi.\stic.\l.

Atahuallpa, properly Atau-huallpa (etymology usually given as from hiiallpa, the name of some indigenous bird), son of the Inca war chief Huaj-na Capac and an Indian woman from Quito hence (descent being in the female line) not an Inoa, but an Indian of Ecuador. The protracted wars, dur- ing which the Incas overpowered the Ecuadorian tribes, having brought about the permanent lodg- ment of Inca war parties in Ecuador, led to inter- marriages with women of that countrj-, and the formation of a new tribe composed of Inca men with women and children from Quito. Collisions ensued between this tribe and the descendants of Inca women, and in the strife, Atau-huallpa figured as the leader of the former, whilst the latter recognized Huascar, duly elected war chief at Cuzco. Atau- huallpa acted with great cruelty, nearly exterminat- ing such Ecuadorian tribes as resisted. He finally prevailed, and sent his warriors southward along the backbone of the mountains, against Cuzco. When Pizarro landed at Tumbez (northern Peruvian coast) in 1.532, the Quito people had already overthro'mi the Inca tribe at Cuzco, taken the settlement, and committed the most horrible cruelties, chiefly against the keepers of ancient traditions whom they attempted to exterminate, so as to wipe out the remembrance of the past of Cuzco and begin a new era. Atau- huallpa himself remained with a numerous war party at Caxamarca. There he awaited the whites, whom he despised. The Spaniards found Caxamarca de- serted, and the warriors of Atau-huallpa camping three miles from the place. Pizarro recognized that a trap had been set for him, and prepared for the worst.

On the evening of the 16th of November, 1532, Ataa-huallpa entered the square of Caxamarca with a great retinue of men carrj'ing their weapons con- cealed. They packed the court densely. Pizarro had placed on the roof of the building his artillery (two pedereros) that could not be pointed except horizontally. When the Indians thronged into the square, a Dominican friar, Fray Vicente Valverde, was sent by Pizarro to inform Atau-huallpa, through an interpreter, of the motives of the Spaniards' ap- pearance in the countrj-. This emba.«sy was received with scorn, and the friar, seeing the Indians ready to begin hostilities, warned Pizarro. His action has been unjustly criticised; Valverde did what was his imperative duty under the circumstances. Then, not waiting for the Indians to attack, the Spaniards took the offensive. The sound of cannon and mus- ketrj-, and the sight of the horses frightened the Indians so that they fled in dismay, leaving Atau- huallpa a prisoner in the hands of Pizarro, who treated him with proper regard. The stories of a terrible slaughter of the Indians are inordinate ex- aggerations. While a prisoner, Atau-huallpa caused the greater portion of the gold and silver at Cuzco to be turned over to the Spaniards, at the same time he had Huascar murdered, and laid plans for surpris- ing the Spaniards and having them massacred. When this was discovered Pizarro had him executed, on the 29th of August, 1633. The execution was not unjustifiable. Atau-huallpa, at the time of his death, was about thirty years of age.

Modern works, like those of Prescott, Robertson. Helps, Markham, and others, are mostly inspired by bitter prejudice against the Catholic Church and Spain, and written without adequate knowledge of the sources, of Indian character, and of the localities. But the reports of eyewitnesses deserve particular attention. See especially Francisco pe Xerez, Verdadera Relacidn de la Conquista del Peril (1534\ of which there is a good English translation by Markham in Publica- tions of the Hackluyt Society; Anon., La Conauista del Peru llamada la nueva Costilla (Seville, April, 1534); Pedro Sancho Relazione per sua Mcesta. (14 July. 1534), Ramusio, III, 1565: Hernando Pizarro, Carta a la Audiencia de Santo Domingo, in Oviedo, Historia natural y general de las Indias; Pedro Plz.\RRO, Relacidn del Descubrimiento y Conquista del Peru. published in vol. V of the Doc. para la Histona de Espafia; Cristobal Molina, Conquista y Poblacim del Peru; Anon. MS., Relacidn del Primer Descubrimiento de la Costa y Mar del Sur. On the events at Cuzco preceding the arrival of the Spaniards, Discurso sohre la Descendencia y Gobiemo de tos Incas (1542). published in 1S92 by Ji.menez de la F.spada under the title of Una Antigualla Peruana. Later authorities, like Cieza, Gar- ciLASO DE la Vega, Gi'TiERREZ deS.anta Clara, and others, have not the merit of the above-mentioned eyewitnesses, al- though indispensable for the study of the subject.

Ad. F. B.vndelier.

Atahualpa, Ju.\n S.intos, an Indian from Cuzco who, being in the ser\'ice of a Jesuit, went to Spain with his master. Vpon his return, having committed a murder at Guamanga (.\yacucho in Peru), he fled to the forests on the eastern slopes of the Andes. There, in 1742, he persviaded the Indians that he was a descendant of the Inca head-chiefs and as- sumed the title of "Atahualpa Apu-Inca". He claimed to have been sent by God to drive the Spaniards from western South America. As he was able to read and wTite Latin, as well as Spanish, he readily made the forest tribes believe him to be a powerful wizard and induced them to follow him, abandoning the towns which the Franciscans had established suceessfullj^ at Ocopa and further east. To his influence was due the ruin of the prosperous missions throughout the Pampa del Sacramento in eastern Peru. I'nder his direction the forest tribes became very aggressive, and the missions were partly destroyed. Efforts against liim proved a failure, o\\nng partly to the natural obstacles presented by the impenetrable forests, partly to the inefficiency of the officers to whom the suppression of his re\olt was entrusted. The uprising caused by his appeal to Indian superstition, was the severest blow dealt to the Christianization of the forest Indians in Peru, and it took decades of sacrifice and toil to recover the territorj' lost. To this day, according to reliable testimony, the Indians included under the generic name of Chunchos (properly Campas) claim to pre- serve the corpse of Santos Atahualpa, hidden from the whites, in a wooden, or M-illow, casket, as their most precious fetish.

Fray Jose .\mich. Compendia Htsldrico, etc. (Paris. 1854); VON Tschudi. Peru. Reiseskizzen (St. Gall, 1846); Mendiburv, Diccionario (Lima, 1874). I.

Ad. F. Bandelier.

Atargatis. See Phcenicia.

Atavism [Lat.,a(ar!/,s,a great-grandfather's grand- father, an ancestor]. — Duchesne introduced the word to designate those cases in which species revert spon- taneously to what are presumably long-lost charac- ters. Atavism and reversion are used by most authors in the same sense.

I. The term atarism is employed to express the re- appearance of character, physical or psychical, in the individual, or in the race, which are supposed to have been possessed at one time by remote ancestors. Verj' often these suddenly reappearing characters are of the monstrous type, e. g. the three-toed horse. The appearance of such a monster is looked upon as a harking back to Tertiarj' times, when the ancestor of the modern horse possessed three toes. The three- toed condition of the monstrous horse is spoken of as atavistic. The employment of the term in con- nection with teratology is often abused; for many cases of so-called atavistic monstrosities have little