I was looking through 1491 by Charles Mann the other day, looking for what I thought was a passage in there about priests with the conquistadors forbidding the group to cross suspension bridges because they thought they were magic (and thus, works of the devil). I couldn’t find it. Did I make that up? I thought it was in the part where he talks about different inventions and how surprising it was that, for example, the Inca didn’t have wheeled transportation, even though there were toys with wheels on them.
Well, I can’t vouch about whether you saw that passage or not, nor would I ever say that every single priest ever has had an IQ above room temperature, but Spain is full of legends about this or that work of engineering being “the devil’s work” (mostly Roman works which people in the Middle Ages didn’t know how to build) and those items were very much in use.
That would surprise me, but only a little. The story as I’ve heard it is that when the Spanish encountered Inca cities, especially their close-fitting stonework, they attributed the work to the devil because they didn’t believe “savages” were capable of such work. I have not read Mann’s book, so I can’t tell you what’s there, but an Amazon search reveals a footnote in Chapter 3 which describes a Spanish viceroy’s opinion that Incan buildings were “the work of the Devil…for it does not seem possible that the strength and skill of men could have made it.”
I have heard no such stories about their bridges.
Most of these “work of the devil” things are part of the black legend of middle ages Spain (not that they don’t have their long list of bona fide crap).
It is in many cases more an expression of incredulity about “savages’” ability to do something complex, but after a while when they saw thm actually build or repair the stuff they changed theur minds.
Also, if you claim the existing bridge is the work of the devil, you might get the contract for building the new one:p