These Women Never Went Out, But Were Perpetually
Employed In Spinning Cotton And Wool, Which They Wove Into Cloth, And Then
Burned Along With The Bones Of White Sheep, Throwing The Ashes Into The
Air In Honour Of The Sun.
These women were consecrated to perpetual
celibacy, and were put to death if found to be with child, unless they
could swear that their child was begotten by the sun.
Every year, at the season of the maize harvest, the mountaineer Peruvians
had a solemn festival; on which occasion they set up two tall straight
trees like masts, on the top of which was placed the figure of a man
surrounded by other figures and adorned with flowers. The inhabitants went
in procession armed with bows and arrows and regularly marshalled into
companies, beating their drums and with great outcries and rejoicings,
each company in succession discharging their arrows at the dressed up
figure. After which the priests set up an idol at the bottom of the masts,
before which they sacrificed a man or a sheep, sprinkling the idol with
the blood of the victim; and having inspected the heart and entrails of
the sacrifice, they reported the signs they had discovered to the people,
who were sad or rejoiced according as these were good or bad. The whole of
this festival was usually spent in dancing and drinking, and in various
games and sports, some of which were warlike exercises, with maces, clubs,
axes and other arms.
All the caciques and other principal inhabitants of Peru are reposited
after their death in a kind of vaults, clothed in all their richest
dresses, and seated in a kind of chairs which they name _duos_. It was
customary also to bury along with them one or two of their best beloved
wives, and on this occasion the honour was frequently contested among the
wives of the deceased, unless when the husband had previously settled who
were to be chosen to accompany him in the tomb.
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