The Prehistoric World: or, Vanished Races, page 589 by E.A. Allen
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by the Toltecs is the sedentary tribes of Indians, either of the Nahua or Maya stock. The only value we would assign to the story of their dispersion is that it is a traditional statement that the migration of the sedentary Indians has been in a direction from north to south.
Illustration of Ruins at Pachacamac.---------------
We have no means of knowing when the first tribes arrived in the country, or of their state of culture. It was doubtless at a very early date, and the tribes were probably not far advanced. We have no reason to suppose the culture of Peru was influenced from outside sources at all. We can not detect any evidence of a succession of races in Peru. The distinguished author to whom we have already referred<13> speaks of what he calls the ancient Peruvians as distinguished from the modern tribes that acknowledged the government of the Incas.<14> We think that all the evidence points to a long continued residence of the same race of people.
We may suppose that in the fertile valleys of the coast, and in the bolsons of the interior, tribes of rude people were slowly moving along the line of progress that conducts at last to civilization. There is no reason to suppose that this progress was a rapid one. Under all circumstances this development is slow. We must not forget the natural features of the country. The inhabited tracts were isolated, hence would arise numerous petty tribes, having no common aims or mutual interests. Each would pursue their own way, and would keep about equal pace through the stages of Barbarism.<15>
In process of time geographical and climatic causes would produce those effects, from which there is no escape, and some tribes would distinguish themselves as being possessed of superior energy, and the same results would follow there as elsewhere; that is, the dominion of the strong over the weak. All other circumstances being equal, we would look for this result in a section where a mild climate and fertile soil enabled man to p