Looked at from the standpoint of an agricultural people who needed the sun to bring their food crops to fruition and keep them from hunger, it was of the utmost importance to placate him with sacrifices and secure the good effects of his smiling face.  If he delayed his coming or kept himself hidden behind the clouds, the maize would mildew and the ears would not properly ripen.  If he did not shine with his accustomed brightness after the harvest, the ears of corn could not be properly dried and kept over to the next year.  In short, any unusual behavior on the part of the sun meant hunger and famine.  Consequently their most beautiful daughters were consecrated to his service, as “Virgins” who lived in the temple and ministered to the wants of priests and rulers.  Human sacrifice had long since been given up in Peru and its place taken by the consecration of these damsels.  Some of the Virgins of the Sun in Cuzco were captured.  Others escaped and accompanied Manco into the inaccessible canyons of Uilcapampa.

It will be remembered that Father Calancha relates the trials of the first two missionaries in this region, who at the peril of their lives urged the Inca to let them visit the “University of Idolatry,” at “Vilcabamba Viejo,” “the largest city” in the province.  Machu Picchu admirably answers its requirements.  Here it would have been very easy for the Inca Titu Cusi to have kept the monks in the vicinity of the Sacred City for three weeks without their catching a single glimpse of its unique temples and remarkable palaces.  It would have been possible for Titu Cusi to bring Friar Marcos and Friar Diego to the village of Intihuatana near San Miguel, at the foot of the Machu Picchu cliffs.  The sugar planters of the lower Urubamba Valley crossed the bridge of San Miguel annually for twenty years in blissful ignorance of what lay on top of the ridge above them.  So the friars might easily have been lodged in huts at the foot of the mountain without their being aware of the extent and importance of the Inca “university.”  Apparently they returned to Puquiura with so little knowledge of the architectural character of “Vilcabamba Viejo” that no description of it could be given their friends, eventually to be reported by Calancha.  Furthermore, the difficult journey across country from Puquiura might easily have taken “three days.”

Finally, it appears from Dr. Eaton’s studies that the last residents of Machu Picchu itself were mostly women.  In the burial caves which we have found in the region roundabout Machu Picchu the proportion of skulls belonging to men is very large.  There are many so-called “trepanned” skulls.  Some of them seem to belong to soldiers injured in war by having their skulls crushed in, either with clubs or the favorite sling-stones of the Incas.  In no case have we found more than twenty-five skulls without encountering some “trepanned” specimens among them.  In striking contrast is the result of the excavations at Machu Picchu, where