Peruvian antiquities / by Mariano Edward Rivero and John James von Tschudi ; translated by Francis L. Hawks.

  • Mariano Eduardo de Rivero y Ustariz
Date:
1854
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Peruvian antiquities / by Mariano Edward Rivero and John James von Tschudi ; translated by Francis L. Hawks. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    in festivities. We will relate some of the most important ones only. The first day of the moon was always celebrated with sacrifices, music, dancing, and inebriation. In the month of April came the feasts of the harvest and of the i/wac, (see the sixth chapter); in June the military ones, preceded by exercises and parades; in August the Yupay- Asitua, or supplemental balls, as a continuation of the feasts of the preceding month ; in September was solemnized the Coya-raymi, or dance of the Coy as [princesses], marrying on a fixed day the princesses of the royal family, and on the following, all the brides of the empire; and finally, the feast of the enumeration of the inhabitants of the state. In October took place the feast in commemoration of the deceased; and in November, that of the termination of the year and the end of seed-time. A solemn day throughout the province of Cuzco, was one, on which the Inca with all the Cavaliers of the court went out to the camp and pierced the earth, after the manner of the Chinese emperors, with an instrument of gold which corresponded with our plough. The magnates followed the example of the emperor, and this ceremony inaugurated the cultivation of the earth. We have already said that throughout the empire, they celebrated the feasts of the Iluacas one or more times during the year, according to the dignity of them ; but these festi- vities, indefinite in number, were partial only, and the entire nation participated in the four great ones only, which we have described, and but slightly in the others spoken of. The offerings which the Indians presented to the Sun and other deities, consisted of that which was produced both by nature and art. At times, the sacrifices consisted of human victims, although Garcilasso de la Vega pretends to say several times in his Eoyal Commentaries that not only were the Incas opposed to so horrible a holocaust, but that they
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