had fallen, an indication that the fish god and its oracle had lost their importance under the Incas. Astete tells us that the name of the principal chief was Tauri-chumbi. Because this idol was called Pachacamac an erroneous idea has prevailed that the Supreme Being was worshipped at this place. Pacha means the earth, and Camac, maker or creator. The name was given to their chief idol and oracle, but there is no valid reason for the conjecture that it conveyed any abstract belief in a Supreme Being. On the contrary, the coast people had degraded the primitive and pure religion of megalithic times into a mass of legendary lore, and a system of local image worship combined with divination, soothsaying, and sorcery.
Father Pablo Joseph de Arriaga, a Jesuit, was busily employed, like Avila, in the extirpation of idolatry on the coast and in Conchucos, and his report to the Royal Council of the Indies was published at Lima in 1621.[1] He tells us that each ayllu had an idol common to the whole tribe, as well as special idols for families, with sacrificial priests. The people long clung to their custom of preserving the bodies of their relations in rocky or desert places, even taking them from the churchyards, where the curas had ordered them to be buried, in the dead of night. They said that they did this 'cuyaspa,' for the love they had for them.
- ↑ Extirpation de la idolatria de Peru, dirigido al Rey N. S. en su real consejo de Indias por el Padre Pablo Joseph de Arriaga de la Compania de Jesus (Lima, 1621), p. 137.
