The origin of the native inhabitants of Chili is involved in impenetrable obscurity. They had traditions respecting their ancestors, which were so vague and uncertain as not to merit notice; so that nothing can be advanced concerning the history of Chili, prior to about the middle of the fifteenth century. In the year 1450, the country was occupied by fifteen independent tribes, governed by caciques or ulmens; they were named Copiapins, Coquimbans, Quillotans, Mapochians, Promaucians, Cures, Cauques, Pencones, Araucanians, Cunches, Chilotes, Chiquilanians, Pehuenches, Puelches, and Huilliches. The Peruvians were at this period governed by the Inca Yupanqui, who having extended his empire to the borders of their country, was ambitious to possess a territory, of which his subjects gave a highly favourable report. He accordingly moved southward to Atacama, and dispatched Sinchiruca, a Peruvian prince, from thence with a large army, to the northern territories of Chili; this general reduced the Copiapins, Coquimbans, Quillotans, and Mapochians, but was interrupted in his career by the Promaucians, who defeated his forces in a sanguinary battle. From henceforward the Peruvians were foiled in all their attempts to proceed southward, and a fort being erected on the Rapel river, the four first tribes became tributaries to the Incas. Though the Peruvian form of government was never introduced into their territories, which were still presided over by the Ulmens or caciques. On the arrival of the Spaniards at Cuzco, the Chilese were mostly an agricultural nation, subsisting on the plants their labour had brought to perfection; they had aqueducts to irrigate their fields, and they turned up the soil with a rude sort of plough, which they pushed forwards by a handle opposed to the breast. The Peruvian camels were used as beasts of burden, and these people made bread, fermented liquors, and boiled or cooked their victuals in earthen pots of their own manufacture. The Chilese lived in large or small villages, and they knew and practised the laws and rights of hereditary property; they had also advanced so far in the knowledge of some of the useful arts, that they were able to form hatchets and implements of copper, vases of marble, and they worked mines of gold, silver, copper, tin and lead. Their religion consisted in the acknowledgement of a Supreme Being, whom they named PILLAN, from pilli, the soul; and for whom they had also names equivalent to the Great Being, the Thunderer, the Eternal, the Creator, the Omnipotent, &c. Pillan was said to be the king of Heaven, the lord of all the inferior spirits, who were both males and females, and whose offices consisted in guiding the destinies of man in battle, in peace, &c.; and in producing harvests; each person had his attendant spirit or genius, who protected them from Guecebu the evil one.