CHAPTER 6

OF ANOTHER KIND OF IDOLATRY WITH THE DEAD

Another kind of idolatry, very different from those I have described, is the kind that the heathen have employed with the dead whom they loved and respected. And, although it appears that the sage gives us to understand that this was the beginning of idolatry, saying,

For the beginning of fornication is the devising of idols: and the invention of them is the corruption of life. For neither were they from the beginning, neither shall they be forever. For by the vanity of men they came into the world: and therefore they shall be found to come shortly to an end. For a father, being afflicted with bitter grief, made to himself the image of his son who was quickly taken away: and him who then had died as a man, he began now to worship as a god, and appointed him rites and sacrifices, among his servants. Then in process of time, wicked custom prevailing, this error was kept as a law, and statues were worshiped by the commandments of tyrants. And those whom men could not honor in presence, because they dwelt far off, they brought their resemblance from afar, and made an express image of the king whom they had a mind to honor: that by this their diligence they might honor as present him that was absent. And to the worshiping of these, the singular diligence also of the artificer helped to set forward the ignorant. For he, being willing to please him that employed him, labored with all his art to make the resemblance in the best manner. And the multitude of men, carried away by the beauty of the work, took him now for a god that a little before was but honored as a man. And this was the occasion of deceiving human life: for men serving either their affection, or their kings, gave the incommunicable name to stones and wood.¹

All this is from the Book of Wisdom, which is worthy of notice; and anyone who is curious about searching out antiquities will find that the origin of idolatry was precisely these images and statues of the dead. I am speaking of the idolatry that involves worshiping idols and images because it is not certain that the other kind of idolatry, that of adoring creatures like the sun and the host of heaven, mentioned by the prophets, came after, although there is no doubt that making statues and idols in honor of the sun and moon and earth did so.

To return to our Indians, they reached the pinnacle of their idolatries by the same process that is described in Scripture. First, they tried to preserve the bodies of their kings and great lords, and they were kept whole, without smelling or corrupting, for more than two hundred years. This was the way the Inca kings of Cuzco were kept, each in his chapel and temple. The viceroy, Marques de Canete, in order to extirpate idolatry, had three or four of them removed and brought to Ciudad de los Reyes, and it caused great astonishment to see human bodies so many years old with such a beautiful appearance and completely whole. Each of these Inca kings left all his treasures and assets and revenues to support his temple, where his body was placed along with those of many of his ministers and all his family dedicated to his cult. No subsequent king usurped the treasures and precious vessels of his predecessor but instead gathered new treasures for himself and his palace. They were not content with this idolatrous worship of dead bodies but also made statues of them; and each king during his lifetime had a stone idol or statue of himself made, which was called guanoiqui, meaning "brother;" for both in life and death the same veneration had to be paid to that statue as to the Inca himself. These statues were taken to war and carried in procession to pray for rain and good growing seasons, and different feasts and sacrifices were made to them. There were a great many of these idols in Cuzco and its district, but it is believed that the superstitious practice of worshiping these stones has entirely or almost entirely ceased since they were discovered by the efforts of Licentiate Polo, and the first of them was that of Inca Roca, chief of the tribe of Hanan Cuzco. Other tribes likewise have great respect for the bodies of their ancestors, together with their statues, which they worship and venerate.

1. Book of Wisdom 14:12.