THE MAMAS
presided over the fortunes of the maize, and ensured that a sufficient supply of rain should be forthcoming. Great numbers of these agricultural fetishes were destroyed by the zealous commissary Hernandez de Avendaño.
The Mamas
Spirits which were supposed to be instrumental in forcing the growth of the maize or other plants were the mamas. We find a similar conception among many Brazilian tribes to-day, so that the idea appears to have been a widely accepted one in South American countries. The Peruvians called such agencies "mothers," adding to the generic name that of the plant or herb with which they were specially associated. Thus acsumama was the potato-mother, quinuamama the quinua-mother, saramama the maize-mother, and cocamama the mother of the coca-shrub. Of these the saramama was naturally the most important, governing as it did the principal source of the food-supply of the community. Sometimes an image of the saramama was carved in stone, in the shape of an ear of maize. The saramama was also worshipped in the form of a doll, or huantaysara, made out of stalks of maize, renewed at each harvest, much as the idols of the great corn-mother of Mexico were manufactured at each harvest-season. After having been made, the image was watched over for three nights, and then sacrifice was done to it. The priest or medicine-man of the tribe would then inquire of it whether or not it was capable of existing until that time in the next year. If its spirit replied in the affirmative it was permitted to remain where it was until the following harvest. If not it was removed, burnt, and another figure took its place, to which similar questions were put.
