CHAPTER 5

OF THE IDOLATRY PRACTICED BYTHE INDIANS WITH PARTICULAR THINGS

Not content with causing those blind Indians to worship the sun and moon and stars, and earth and sea, and other general features in nature, the devil went further and gave them to them as gods and subjected them to things of no importance, many of which were very vile. No one need be surprised by this blindness in the heathen if he remembers what the Apostle says of the sages and philosophers, that having known God they did not glorify him or give thanks to him as God, but became vain in their thoughts, and their foolish heart was darkened, and they exchanged the glory and godhood of the eternal God for images and figures of things that are perishable and corruptible, such as men and birds and beasts and creeping things. The dog Osiris, whom the Egyptians worshiped, is well known, and the cow Isis, and the sheep Amon; and in Rome the goddess Februa of the fevers, and the Goose of the Tarpeian Rock; and in Athens the wise woman, the crow, and the cock. And the histories of the heathen are full of such vileness and travesties, and men have incurred great ignominy because they would not subject themselves to the law of their true God and Creator, as Saint Athanasius learnedly discusses when he writes against idolaters.

But among the Indians, especially those of Peru, the sinfulness and perdition involved in all this was exaggerated to the point of folly; for they worship rivers, fountains, ravines, rocks, large stones, hills, and the mountain peaks that they call apachitas and consider them worthy of great devotion. And, last, they worship anything in nature that seems to them notable and different from others, as if recognizing some special deity in it. In Cajamarca de la Nasca they showed me a large hill of sand, which was the particular place of worship, or huaca, of the ancients. When I asked what divinity was there, they told me that they worshiped the wonderful circumstance that a very tall hill of sand existed among others that were all rocks. And indeed it was astonishing to think how such a great hill of sand was placed in the middle of massive hills made of stone. In Ciudad de los Reyes we needed a large amount of good firewood to cast a bell, and a large distorted tree was cut, which, owing to its age and size, had for many years been a temple and huaca of the Indians. Thus they thought that anything strange among things of its kind was divine, and they did this with pebbles and metals, and even roots and products of the earth, as, for example, among the roots that they call papas there are some of strange shape, which they call llallahuas, and kiss and worship them. They also worship bears, lions, tigers, and snakes to prevent them from harming them.

And because such absurd things are their gods the objects that they offer them in worship are equally absurd. When they travel they are wont to toss onto the roads or at crossroads, on the hills, and especially on the peaks that they call apachitas old shoes and feathers and chewed coca (which is an herb that they make much use of) . And when they have nothing else they will toss a stone, and all this is like an offering to allow them to pass and give them strength, and they say that they pay with this, as is reported in the Provincial Council of Peru. And so on the roads there are great piles of the stones that have been offered as well as the other sorts of rubbish that have been mentioned. Such folly is like that employed by the ancients, of whom it is said in the Book of Proverbs, "As he that casteth a stone into the heap of Mercury, so is he that giveth honor to a fool." This means that no more result or usefulness is obtained from the second than from the first, for the Mercury fashioned of stone does not recognize the offering, nor does the fool appreciate the honor done to him. They make another offering that is no less absurd, which is to pull out their eyelashes or eyebrows and offer them to the sun, or to the hills and apachitas, to the winds or other things that they fear. The pitiful condition in which many Indians have lived, and still live today, enables the devil to make them believe, like children, in anything he wishes no matter how absurd it may be, as Saint Chrysostom in a homily makes a similar comparison about the heathen .

But the servants of God who occupy themselves with the Indians' instruction and salvation ought not to scorn these childish practices, for they are sufficient to entrap the Indians into eternal perdition; rather, they must undeceive them, with good and simple arguments, of such great manifestations of ignorance. For indeed it is worth noting how submissive they are to those who bring them to reason. Among corporeal creatures there is nothing more splendid than the sun, which is the entity that all heathen customarily adore. A wise captain, and a good Christian, told me how he had convinced the Indians by a sound argument that the sun was not a god but had only been created by God, and did so as follows: he asked the chief and principal lord to give him a swift Indian to send a letter; he gave him one, and then the captain asked the chief, "Tell me, who is the lord and chief, that Indian who is carrying the letter, or you who have commanded him to take it?" The chief answered, "I, without a doubt, for he does only what I command.' "Exactly this;" replied the captain, "happens between the sun that we see and the Creator of all. For the sun is only a servant of that infinitely high Lord, who by his commandment moves swiftly and untiringly, carrying light to all peoples. And so you will see how it is unreasonable, and a lie, to give to the sun that honor that is owed to its Creator and the Lord of all." They were all much impressed by the captain's reasoning, and the chief and the Indians who were with him said that it was indeed true and that they had derived much pleasure from understanding it. It is told of one of the Inca kings, a man of very fine intelligence, that when he observed that all his ancestors had worshiped the sun, he said that he did not think that the sun was God, nor could it be. For God is a great lord and does all that he does with great tranquility and authority, and the sun never stopped moving; and that it did not seem to him that anything so restless could be a god. It was well said. And, if their misapprehensions and blindness are presented to the Indians with gentle reasoning that can be grasped easily, they will soon be convinced and will recognize the truth.