CHAPTER 25

OF THE CONFESSION ANDC ONFESSORS USED BY THE INDIANS

That same father of lies also tried to mimic the sacrament of confession and to make himself honored by his worshipers in a ceremony very similar to the one used by the faithful. In Peru they believed that all adversities and illnesses came from sins they had committed and had recourse to sacrifices in order to atone for these; moreover, they also confessed orally in almost all the provinces, and they had both greater and lesser confessors appointed for this purpose and sins reserved for the greater confessor. They received penances, sometimes harsh ones, especially if the person who committed the sin was a poor man and had nothing to give the confessor; and this office of confessor was also exercised by women. This use of confessors who are sorcerers (whom they call ichuri or ichuiri) was and is most universal in the provinces of Collasuyo. They believe that it is a grave offense to hide some sin during confession, and the ichuris, or confessors, discover, either by casting lots or by examining the entrails of some animal, whether they are concealing some sin; and they punish this by striking the person's back many times with a stone until he confesses everything, and then they give him the penance and perform the sacrifice. They also use this confession when their children or husbands or wives are ill, or their chiefs, or when they are in great difficulties; and when the Inca was ill all the provinces confessed, especially the Collas. The confessors were bound to secrecy but with certain limitations. The sins that they chiefly confessed were, first of all, killing someone outside of war, also stealing, also taking someone else's wife, also administering herbs or spells to do evil. And carelessness in offering reverence to their huacas, violating festivals, speaking ill of the Inca, and not obeying him were considered very great sins.

They did not accuse themselves of secret sins and actions, but, according to what some of the priests have reported since the Christians came to the land, they do accuse themselves even of thoughts to their ichuris or confessors. The Inca confessed his sins to no man but only to the sun, so that the sun would tell them to Viracocha and pardon him. After the Inca had confessed he performed a ritual bath to cleanse himself wholly of his faults, and it took place as follows: entering a running stream, he spoke these words: "I have told my sins to the sun; thou, river, receive them and carry them to the sea, and may they never more appear" The others who confessed also used these ritual baths, in a ceremony very similar to the one the Moors use, which they call guadai and the Indians call opacuna. And when it happened that a man's sons died he was held to be a great sinner and was told that it was because of his sins that the son died before the father. And such men, when they performed the ritual bath called opacuna (as has been said) following their confession, had to be beaten with certain nettles by some Indian who was a monstrosity: humpbacked, for example, or deformed from infancy. If the sorcerers or soothsayers established from the casting of lots or from omens that some sick person was going to die, they did not hesitate to kill his only son, even though he had no other; and they believed that he would regain his health by this, saying that he offered his son as a sacrifice in his place. And even since the Christians came into that land this form of cruelty has been found in some places. The persistence of this custom of confessing secret sins and doing such severe penances as fasting, giving away clothing, gold, and silver, going up into the mountains, or receiving heavy blows on the back, is certainly amazing; and the fathers of our society say that even today they stumble upon this plague of confessors, or ichuris, in the province of Chucuito and that many sick folk go to them. But by the Lord's grace they are gradually seeing the light and now recognize the great benefit of our sacramental confession and come to it with great devotion and faith. And in part it has been the Lord's providence to permit that past usage, to the end that confession would not be difficult for them; and so the Lord is glorified in everything and that trickster the devil is tricked in his turn.

Because it is to the point here, I will speak of the remarkable use of confession that the devil brought to Japan, according to a letter received from there, which reads as follows: "In Osaka there are some very large cliffs, so tall that there are crags in them more than two hundred cubits high, and among those cliffs there is one with an overhanging promontory so awesome that as soon as the xamabuxis (which is what they call pilgrims) reach it their flesh begins to tremble and their hair to stand on end, so terrible and frightening is the place. Here on this promontory is placed, with remarkable skill, a large iron beam three cubits or more in length, and on the tip of this beam is fastened a sort of balance whose pans are so large that a man can sit in one of them; and the goquis (who are demons in human shape) make these pilgrims enter one by one until none are left, and with a device moved by a wheel cause the beam to move outward, the balance going with it, so that at last both are hanging in the air with one of the xamabuxis sitting in it. And because the pan in which the man is sitting has no counterweight in the other it soon descends, and the other pan rises until it strikes the beam; then the goquis call out from the cliffs for the man to confess and speak all his sins, as many as he has committed and can remember, and in a voice loud enough for everyone to hear. And then he begins to confess, and some of the bystanders laugh at the sins they hear and others groan. And for each sin that they utter the other pan descends a little until finally, when all their sins are confessed, the empty pan is on the same level as the one in which the unhappy penitent is sitting. And when the pan is at last level with the other, the goquis make the wheel turn again and bring in the beam, and place another pilgrim on the scale until all have passed through. One of the Japanese recounted this after having become a Christian; he had made this pilgrimage seven times and sat in the scale an equal number, where he had confessed publicly. Moreover, he said that if by chance one of the pilgrims, when sitting in that place, did not confess his sins or concealed them, as sometimes happened, the empty pan did not descend. And if after having been urged to confess he persisted in his unwillingness to confess his sins, the goquis would let him fall from the pan, whereupon he was immediately dashed to pieces. But this Christian, whose name was Juan, told us that usually the fear and trembling of that place is so great for all who arrive there, and the danger that each one sees is so near at hand, of falling from that scale and being dashed on the rocks below, that very seldom is there anyone who does not confess all of his sins. Another name for that place is sangenotocoro, which means "place of confession." This account makes it very clear that the devil has tried to usurp divine worship for himself by turning the confession of sins that the Savior instituted to save men into a diabolical superstition intended for their greatest harm, no less among the heathens of Japan than in the provinces of Collao in Peru.