upon as gods."[1] Garcilasso, of course, does not use the North American word totem (or ote or otem) for the family badge which represented the family ancestors. He calls these things, as a general rule, pacarissa. The sun was the pacarissa of the Incas, as it was of the chief of the Natchez. The pacarissa of other stocks was the lion, bear, frog, or what not. Garcilasso accounts for the belief accorded to the Incas, when they claimed actual descent from the sun, by observing[2] that "there were tribes among their subjects who professed similar fabulous descents, though they did not comprehend how to select ancestors so well as the Incas, but adored animals and other low and earthly objects." As to the fact of the Peruvian worship of beasts, if more evidence is wanted, it is given, among others, by Cieza de Leon,[3] who contrasts the adoration of the Roman gods with that offered in Peru to brutes. "In the important temple of Pachacamac (the spiritual deity of Peru) they worshipped a she-fox or vixen and an emerald." The devil also "appeared to them and spoke in the form of a tiger, very fierce." Other examples of totemism in South America may be studied in the tribes on the Amazon.[4] Mr. Wallace found the Pine-apple stock, the Mosquitoes, Woodpeckers, Herons, and other totem kindreds. A curious example of similar ideas is discovered among the Bonis of Guiana. These people were originally West Coast Africans imported as slaves, who have won their freedom with the sword. While they
- ↑ Comm. Real., i. 102.
- ↑ Ibid., i. 83.
- ↑ Cieza de Leon (Hakluyt Society), p. 183.
- ↑ Acuna, p. 103; Wallace, Travels on Amazon (1853), pp. 481–506.
