Page:The Incas of Peru.djvu/274

236 On festivals they assembled by ayllus, each one with its mummies, offering to them clothes, plumes, jars, vases, skins of lions and deer, shells and other things. They invoked the ocean as Mamacocha, especially those who came down from the mountains, the earth as Mamapacha at seed-time, to yield good harvests, the Puquios or fountains when water was scarce. Hills and rocks were worshipped and had special names, with a thousand fables about their having once been men who were turned into stones. Many huacas (or gods) were of stone carved in the shape of men, women, and animals. All had special names, and there was not a boy in the ayllu but knew them. Those which were the guardians of the villages were called Marcaparac or Marcacharac. Their Penates or household gods were called Conopa or Huasi-camayoc. Large stones in fields called Chichic or Huanca, and other stones in the irrigating channels; received sacrifices. Then there were the Saramamas and Cocamamas, or the 'mother,' i.e. representative deity of sara (maize) and coca. Besides the sacrificing priests there were hosts of diviners and soothsayers. Arriaga and his colleague Avendaño boasted of having destroyed 603 huacas, 617 malquis (mummies), 3418 conopas, 189 huancas, and 45 mamasaras.

The coast people were steeped in superstitious observances, as this report sufficiently proves, but, nevertheless, they were laborious and