Canchu, Canahuisa, Layca, and Yarcacaes in other ways. The Macsa cured by enchantment.
There was an elaborate system of sacrifices, entailing an enormous expenditure. The victims were llamas, huanacus, vicuñas and their lambs, pumas, antas or tapirs, birds and their plumes, maize, edible roots, coca, shells, cloth, gold, silver, sweet woods, guinea-pigs, dogs, in short everything they valued. The sacrificing priest was called Tarpuntay; the lay brother who cut up the victims, Nacac; and the recorder, Uilca Camayoc. The sacrifice itself was called Arpay. There remains the question of human sacrifices, or Ccapac Cocha. The idea of sacrifice is the offering of what is most prized. The sacrificer says to his god: 'What I loved best to thee I gave.'
Abraham was ready to sacrifice his son, the king of Moab actually did so. It is the logical outcome of sacrificial doctrine. Was this logical conclusion reached by the Peruvians, either habitually or in extreme cases? The weight of evidence is certainly against the accusation, which was first made by the licentiate Polo de Ondegardo in 1554, when he was conducting inquiries at Cuzco. He says that grown men and children were sacrificed on various occasions, and that 200 boys were sacrificed at the accession of Huayna Ccapac. Valera denies the value of Polo's evidence, who, he says, scarcely knew anything of the language, had no interpreters at that time,[1] and was without
- ↑ They had fled owing to the insurrection of Giron.
