On traveling in the cordillera there are invocations to Pachamama designed to avoid fatigue and soroche,or mountain sickness. To propitiate the evil spirits of the cordillera an offering is made on passing or stopping at an apacheta, or a stone is carried from a ravine or valley and placed on the apacheta to add to those that have been accumulated in like manner through the centuries. Christian influence is seen in the crosses, sometimes twisted about with red wool and planted in an apacheta. Special care is given to the wool used in this way. A translation of the Quechua formula in salutation to an apacheta runs as follows: “ Father Apacheta, receive this, my offering of colored wool, these leaves of coca. Deign to help me in all my labors!" A translation of the prayer for re- assembling sheep or llamas when they have become frightened and have dispersed runs substantially as follows: “They have disappeared. Where can they be found? Is it possible that they can be found? Where are they? Are they far? When shall I be able to overtake my sheep? I have already met them. All are here. A lamb is missing. A fox has taken it from me.’ There are invocations to Pachamama relating to the shearing of the sheep; a prayer that they may breed abun- dantly; another with reference to the marking of sheep; and a ceremony of marriage between two young llamas, a male and a female, attached to each other, the whole accom- panied by suitable invocation.
The ancient Peruvians worshiped as divinities and as oracles certain high mountains, certain sources of water, certain rocks, certain trees. All these are called Auacas, a name also applied to idols of stone or of wood worshiped as divine protectors of a tribe or of a province. The places where the idols are kept are supposed to be the residences of the divinities, and these are also called huacas; the tombs and the bodies of their ancestors likewise. ‘The Indians of the Puna de Atacama still believe in huacas in the first sense of the word, that is, as the supernatural inhabitants of certain localities. They relate that one such huaca is in Salinas Grandes, that persons have suddenly died on secing it, and that others have lost their reason. This is an enormous black bull with eyes of fire.
