Page:Native Religions of Mexico and Peru.djvu/232

 LECTURE VI.

PERUVIAN CULTUS AND FESTIVALS.—MORALS AND THE FUTURE LIFE.—CONCLUSIONS.

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To complete my account of the native religion of Peru, I have still to speak of the cultus, the festivals, the religious ethics, and the ideas of a future life.

I.

The Peruvian cultus had given birth to the temple; and, indeed, it is highly interesting to witness what one may call the "genesis of the temple" on this soil, so different from those of the Old World. There were temples, indeed, before the Incas, but they differed both in style and in signification from those reared under their patronage. In Peru, as in Mexico, the temples were originally