be some error in this description of the custom. Probably it was the dressed-up bunch of maize, not the granary (Pirua), which was worshipped by the Peruvians and regarded as the Mother of the Maize. This is confirmed by what we know of the Peruvian custom from another source. The Peruvians, we are told, believed all useful plants to be animated by a divine being who causes their growth. According to the particular plant, these divine beings were called the Maize-mother (Zara-mama), the Quinoa-mother (Quinoa-mama), the Cocoa-mother (Coca-mama), and the Potato-mother (Axo-mama). Figures of these divine mothers were made respectively of ears of maize and leaves of the quinoa and cocoa plants; they were dressed in women’s clothes and worshipped. Thus the Maize-mother was represented by a puppet made of stalks of maize, dressed in full female attire; and the Indians believed that “as mother, it had the power of producing and giving birth to much maize.”[1] Probably, therefore, Acosta misunderstood his informant, and the Mother of the Maize which he describes was not the granary (Pirua) but the bunch of maize dressed in rich vestments. The Peruvian Mother of the Maize, like the harvest Maiden at Balquhidder, was kept for a year in order that by her means the corn might grow and multiply. But lest her strength might not suffice to last out the year, she was asked in the course of the year how she felt, and if she answered that she felt weak, she was burned and a fresh Mother of the Maize made, “to the end the seede of Mays
- ↑ W. Mannhardt, Mythol. Forsch. p. 342 sq. Mannhardt’s authority is a Spanish tract (Carla pastoral de exortacion e instruccion contra las idolatrias de los Indios del arçobispado de Lima) by Pedro de Villagomez, Archbishop of Lima, published at Lima in 1649, and communicated to Mannhardt by J. J. v. Tschudi.
