During the high feast, Capacrayni, held in the first month, Raymi, agreeing with our December, no stranger was suffered to lodge in Cuzco, to which they again all assembled as soon as the festival was over, to receive cakes made of maize and the warm blood of a white alpaca, by the Mamacunas, (select virgins,) and distributed by certain priests, who, in carrying them about in dishes of gold, gave each of the Indians one, saying as they delivered it, “If you do not reverence the sun and Inca, this food will bear witness against you to your ruin; but if you worship them, then their bodies, by this pledge, will be united to yours.” After which, those that had eaten of the cakes, promised obedience, and thanked the sun and Inca for their food.
In the beginning of the month Hatuncuzqui, which corresponds to our May, the Peruvians gathered their maize and kept the feast Aymorai. They returned home, singing from the fields, carrying with them a large heap of maize, which they called Perua, wrapping it up in rich garments. They continued their ceremonies for three nights, imploring the perua to preserve their harvest of maize from any damage that might chance to befall it, and also to cause that to grow prosperously which they should next plant. Lastly, their sorcerers consulted their gods whether the perua could last till the next year; and if they did not answer in the affirmative, they carried it into the fields and burned, or parched it with the view of making a new perua, which they bore to their granaries in great triumph, and mingled it with other corn.
The corn-plant, or its fruit, also entered into the forms, the ceremonies, and the mythology of many other tribes, which, from the limited length of this memoir, and the want of accurate information on the subject, are necessarily omitted. The following allegory, however, which was related to Mr. Schoolcraft by the Odjibwas, will be read with interest by all who have a fondness for this branch of literature:—A young man went out into the woods to fast, at that period of life when youth is exchanged for manhood.
