The Making of Religion eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 426 pages of information about The Making of Religion.

The Making of Religion eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 426 pages of information about The Making of Religion.

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 natives who had taken part in the ancient services, and collected their evidence.  He calls the Creator (’not born of woman, unchangeable and eternal’) by the name Pachayachachi.  ‘Teacher of the world’ and ‘Tecsiviracocha,’ which Garcilasso dismisses as meaningless.[20] He also tells the tale of the Inca Yupanqui and the Lord of the Sun, but says that the Incas had already knowledge of the Creator.  To Yupanqui he attributes the erection of a gold image of the Creator, utterly denied by Garcilasso.[21] Christoval declares, again contradicted by Garcilasso, that sacrifices were offered to the Creator.  Unlike the Sun, Christoval says, the Creator had no woman assigned to him, ’because, as he created them, they all belonged to him’ (p. 26), which, of course, is an idea that would also make sacrifice superfluous.

Christoval gives prayers in Quichua, wherein the Creator is addressed as Uiracocha.

Christoval assigns images, sacrifice, and even human sacrifice, to the Creator Uiracocha.  Garcilasso denies that the Creator Pachacamac had any of these things, he denies that Uiracocha was the name of the Creator, and he denies it, knowing that the Spaniards made the assertion.[22] Who is right?  Uiracocha, says Garcilasso, is one thing, with his sacrifices; the Creator, Pachacamac, without sacrifices, is another, is GOD.

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The Making of Religion from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.