THE MENTOR 1918.03.15, No. 151,
The Incas
LEARN ONE THING
EVERY DAY
MARCH 15 1918
SERIAL NO. 151
THE
MENTOR
THE INCAS
By
OSGOOD HARDY, M. A.
DEPARTMENT OF
HISTORY
VOLUME 6
NUMBER 3
TWENTY CENTS A COPY
WORSHIPERS OF THE SUN
The deity whose worship the Incas especially inculcated, and whichthey never failed to establish wherever their banners were known topenetrate, was the Sun. It was he who, in a particular manner, presidedover the destinies of man; gave light and warmth to the nations, and lifeto the vegetable world; whom they reverenced as the father of their royaldynasty, the founder of their empire; and whose temples rose in everycity and almost every village throughout the land.
Besides the Sun, the Incas acknowledged various objects of worship,in some way or other connected with this principal deity. Such wasthe Moon, his sister-wife; the Stars, revered as part of her heavenly train,though the fairest of them, Venus, known to the Peruvians by the nameof Chasca, or the “youth with the long and curling locks,” was adored asthe page of the Sun, whom he attends so closely in his rising and in hissetting. They dedicated temples also to the Thunder and Lightning, inwhom they recognized the Sun’s dread ministers, and to the Rainbow,whom they worshiped as a beautiful emanation of their glorious deity.
In addition to these, the subjects of the Incas enrolled among theirinferior deities many objects in nature, as the elements, the winds,the earth, the air, great mountains and rivers, which impressed themwith ideas of sublimity and power, or were supposed in some way or otherto exercise a mysterious influence over the destinies of man.
But the worship of the Sun constituted the peculiar care of the Incas,and was the object of their lavish expenditure. The most renownedof the Peruvian temples, the pride of the capital, and the wonder of theempire, was at Cuzco, where, under the munificence of successive sovereigns,it had become so enriched that it received the name of “The Place of Gold.”It consisted of a principal building and several chapels and inferior edifices,covering a large extent of ground in the heart of the city, and completelyencompassed by a wall, which, with the edifices, was all constructed of stone.