Something Old and Something New: Illustrating Spousal Ceremonies in "Religious Ceremonies of the Known World"

An Incan Wedding

It is an interesting choice for Bernard and Picart to include the marriage ceremonies of those they call the Incans. By the time of the writing of Religious Ceremonies in the eighteenth century, the Incan empire had long fallen to the Spanish. One possible explanation of the choice comes from the availability of sources. Just like historians today, Bernard and Picart had little written records to create a narrative of the culture of South Americans. Garcilaso de la Vega, Spanish writer who grew up in Perú during the time of the Incas, was one of the only accessible authors to them, and so, Bernard wrote about Incan marriages. Again because of sources, Bernard spends most of his time commenting on royal Incan marriages. It appears—though it is not entirely clear—that Picart follows him and illustrates a royal rather than common Incan marriage.

            The “Same Blood”: Incans were prohibited from marrying anyone outside of their own city or community. While lower-class Incans often married a cousin or more distant relation, it was apparently more common for a future Incan king to marry his own sister, “for said they, since the sun took the moon his sister to wife… ‘twas but reasonable the same order should be observed with regard to the king’s eldest children.” If the future king had no sister, he would marry the next closest relation.
 

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