Narratives of the Rites and Laws of the Yncas

The publications of the Hakluyt Society (founded in 1846) made available edited (and sometimes translated) early accounts of exploration. The first series, which ran from 1847 to 1899, consists of 100 books containing published or previously unpublished works by authors from Christopher Columbus to Sir Francis Drake, and covering voyages to the New World, to China and Japan, to Russia and to Africa and India. This 1873 volume was the second on the history of Peru to be translated and edited by Clements R. Markham, Secretary of the Society. It contains four manuscript accounts of the rites and laws of the Incas which throw light on many aspects of Inca and pre-Inca society. All were written by people who had lived and worked in Peru in the sixteenth and early seventeenth century and had access to indigenous sources and traditions. The book includes a contextualising introduction and several indexes.