CHAPTER XII
RITUALISTIC OBSERVANCES
Formal ceremonialism, or ritualism, was developed to an unusual degree in the New World. The high poetic feeling of the natives and their fondness for symbolism is strikingly reflected in their tribal mythologies. This also finds expression in formal and ritualistic procedures, usually in connection with songs. However, before entering into generalizations on American ritualism we must review some of its typical forms.
In the regions of higher culture we find the political organization closely paralleled by a priestly hierarchy. Thus, in Peru, the priest of the sun at Cuzco, a near relative of the ruler, was the head of the religious system, and for each province another member of the family served as a sub-priest. Under each of the latter was a complex of priestly offices and functions. The ruler himself was a sacred person not to be looked upon by common men. The supreme power was conceived as resting in a culture hero, commonly passing under the name, Viracocha, though a number of other names appear in the literature of the subject, with somewhat contradictory attributes, seemingly due to original differences between the older creator gods for the several localities, differences which the Inca conquest could not entirely eradicate. The true Viracocha seems to have been a white man with a long gray beard, whose acts and disappearance have a curious resemblance to those of similar characters in the mythologies of the wilder peoples of both continents. That Viracocha was a highly personal and spiritual being is shown by one of the Inca prayers to him as translated by Sir Clements Markham.[1]
Next in rank to Viracocha were the heavenly bodies of which the sun was the most significant. The moon, the earth (All Mother), and on the coast, the sea (Mother Sea), were also of
- ↑ Markham, 1910. I, p. 100.
