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168 boy or girl ceased to be nursed. This event was called huarachicu for a boy, and quicuchicu for a girl. The greatest festival of the year was at harvest time, when the puric hung the fertile stalks of maize on the branches of trees, and his family sang and danced the ayrihua beneath them. The people were taught to worship the sun and the heavenly bodies, but the chief trust of the labouring classes was in their conopas or household gods, representing, as they believed, the essential essences of all that they depended upon for their well-being—their llamas, their maize, or their potatoes. These they prayed to fervently, not forgetting the huacas or idols of which there were some in every district, and above all never neglecting the ceremonial burial of llama idols, with small offerings, in the fields, to propitiate the good earth deity.

A proof of the general well-being of the people is the large and increasing population. The andeneria or steps of terraced cultivation extending up the sides of the mountains in all parts of Peru, and now abandoned, are silent witnesses of the former prosperity of the country. The people were nourished and well cared for, and they multiplied exceedingly. In the wildest and most inaccessible valleys, in the lofty punas surrounded by snowy heights, in the dense forests, and in the sand-girt valleys of the coast, the eye of the central power was ever upon them, and the never-failing brain, beneficent though inexorable, provided for all their wants, gathered in their tribute, and