]
[Footnote 10: Garcilasso's assertion, that these heavenly bodies
were objects of reverence as holy things, but not of worship,
(Com. Real., Parte 1, lib. 2, cap. 1, 23,) is contradicted by
Ondegardo, Rel. Seg., Ms., - Dec. de la Aud. Real., Ms., -
Herrera, Hist. General, dec. 5, lib. 4, cap. 4, - Gomara, Hist.
de las Ind., cap. 121, - and, I might add, by almost every writer
of authority whom I have consulted. It is contradicted, in a
manner, by the admission of Garcilasso himself, that these
several objects were all personified by the Indians as living
beings, and had temples dedicated to them as such, with their
effigies delineated in the same manner as was that of the Sun in
his dwelling. Indeed, the effort of the historian to reduce the
worship of the Incas to that of the Sun alone is not very
reconcilable with what he else where says of the homage paid to
Pachacamac, above all, and to Rimac, the great oracle of the
common people. The Peruvian mythology was, probably, not unlike
that of Hindostan, where, under two, or at most three, principal
deities, were assembled a host of inferior ones, to whom the
nation paid religious homage, as personifications of the
different objects in nature.]
In addition to these, the subjects of the Incas enrolled among
their inferior deities many objects in nature, as the elements,
the winds, the earth, the air, great mountains and rivers, which
impressed them with ideas of sublimity and power, or were
supposed in some way or other to exercise a mysterious influence
over the destinies of man.
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