ritual went.

In Garcilasso's book we have to allow for his desire to justify the creed
of his maternal ancestors. His criticism of Spanish versions is acute, and
he often appeals to his knowledge of Quichua, and to the direct traditions
received by him from his uncle. Against his theory of Pachacamac as a
result of philosophical thought, it may be urged that similar conceptions,
or nearly similar, exist among races not civilised like the Incas, and not
provided with colleges of learned priests. In fact, the position of
Pachacamac and the Sun is very nearly that of the Blackfoot Creator Na-pi,
and the Sun, or of Shang-ti and the Heaven, in China. We have the Creative
Being whose creed is invaded by that of a worshipped aspect of nature, and
whose cult, quite logically, is _nil_, or nearly _nil_. There are also, in
different strata of the Inca empire, ancestor-worship, or mummy-worship,
Totemism and polytheism, with a vague mass of _huaca = Elohim, kalou,
wakan._

Perhaps it would not be too rash to conjecture that Pachacamac is not a
merely philosophical abstraction, but a survival of a Being like Na-pi or
Ahone. Cieza de Leon calls Pachacamac 'a devil,' whose name means
'creator of the world'![17] The name, when it _was_ uttered, was spoken
with genuflexions and signs of reverence. So closely did Pachacamac
resemble the Christian Deity, that Cieza de Leon declares the devil to
have forged and insisted on the resemblance![18] It was open to Spanish
missionaries to use Pachacamac, as to the Jesuits among the Bantu to use
Mpungu, as a fulcrum for the introduction of Christianity. They preferred
to regard Pachacamac as a fraudulent fiend. Now Nzambi Mpungu, among the
Bantu, is assuredly not a creation of a learned priesthood, for the Bantu
have no learned priests, and Mpungu would be useless to the greedy
conjurers whom they do consult, as he is not propitiated. On grounds of
analogy, then, Pachacamac may be said to resemble a savage Supreme
Being, somewhat etherealised either by Garcilasso or by the Amautas, the
learned class among the subjects of the Incas. He does not seem, even so,
much superior to the Ahone of the Virginians.

We possess, however, a different account of Inca religion, from which
Garcilasso strongly dissents. The best version is that of Christoval de
Molina, who was chaplain of the hospital for natives, and wrote between
1570 and 1584.[19] Christoval assembled a number of old priests and other
nativ