614 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
an early stage of the transition from the idea of divine proprietor- ship in women, as expressed in sexual acts, to the developed form of this idea expressed in the practice of perpetual virginity. The parallelism between the virgins dedicated to the Sun and the virgins dedicated to the Inca, as seen in the following citations from Garcillasso del Vega, is of itself the best exposition of this transition. Attached to every temple of the Sun was a house of virgins called the house
of the chosen ones, because they were selected by reason either of their lineage or of their beauty. They were obliged to be virgins; and to insure their being so, they were set apart at the age of eight years and under."
At the house at Cuzco there were usually as many as fifteen hundred virgins. These virgins lived
in perpetual seclusion to the end of their lives, and preserved their virginity; and they were not permitted to converse, or have intercourse with, or to see any man, nor any woman who was not one of themselves. For it was said that the women of the Sun should not be made common by being seen of any ; .... The principal duty of the virgins of the Sun was to weave and to make all that the Inca wore on his person, and likewise all the clothes of his legitimate wife the Ccoya. They also wove all the very fine clothes which were offered as sacrifices to the Sun. 14
[They] made all these things with their own hands, in great quantities for the Sun, their husband; but, as the Sun could not dress nor fetch the ornaments, they sent them to the Inca, as his legitimate son and heir, that he might wear them."
As those things were made by the hands of the Ccoyas, or wives of the Sun, and were made for the Sun, and as these women were by birth of the same blood as the Sun, 1 * for all these reasons their work was held in great veneration. So that the Inca could not give the thing made by the virgins to any person whatever who was not of the blood royal, because they said that it was unlawful for ordinary mortals to use divine things. The Incas were prohibited from giving them to the Curacas, or captains, how great soever
their services might have been, unless they were relations [The virgins
had also] to make the bread called cancu at the proper season, for the sacrifices that were offered up to the Sun at the great festivals called Raymi and Situa. They also made the liquor which the Inca and his family drank on those occasions."
All the furniture of the convent, down to the pots, pans, and jars, were
u Royal Commentaries, Vol. I, p. 292.
14 Ibid., pp. 293, 296. 1S See below.
" Ibid., p. 297. " Loc cit., pp. 297, 298.
