Who is Perkins from The Age of Wire and String and what is their importance?

Perkins is the term used to describe the body of Thompson, but he is also defined in the text as the first god of territory, and the head of a "shelter cult." His disciplines forbade sleeping near, in, or on their houses, because they believed the sleeper was the first to be attacked by "the fiend," who fossilized sleepers and ate them.