Page:The Incas of Peru.djvu/124



is very difficult to obtain a correct and clear idea of the religious beliefs of a people like the Peruvians, whose thoughts and traditions were entirely different from those of the nations of the old world. Besides the inherent difficulty of comprehending the bent of their minds, which resulted in the religious practices recorded of them, there are many others. The record was made by very superstitious priests, with strong prejudices against the beliefs of the conquered people, and with only a general knowledge of the language. There was but one important authority who had known the language from childhood. The manuscripts were often incorrectly transcribed by ignorant clerks, so that mistakes and misspellings crept into the texts, and there were contradictions among the authorities. On the whole it is fortunate that there should have been such painstaking and conscientious writers as Blas Valera, Cieza de Leon, and Molina, upon whose evidence reliance can be placed as, at all events, the impartial impressions of the writers.