The History of Initiation - The Masonic Trowel

IN AMERICA. 209
tion of benevolent spirits, whose intervention would
preserve them from every species of calamity in this
life; and convey them, after death, to a happy and
flourishing country; blest with perpetual pi-.-ici- and
plenty; abounding with game and fish; free from storms
and tempests, blight and mildew, and all the terrible
judgments inflicted on the wicked by the agency and
wrath of the vindictive
Tescalipuca.
"The Incas of Peru boasted of their descent from the
two great luminaries of heaven ; or, in other words, from
Noah and the Ark, worshipped in conjunction with the
Sun and Moon." 72 The rites of initiation were essentially
the same as those of other nations; varied, indeed, in a
succession of ages from the system of the original planters.
They were said to have been introduced by Manco
Capac and Mama O cello, 73 who were descended from one
74
of the persons saved at the Deluge. They taught the
natives to worship a god called Pacha-Camac a name
so venerable, that those who were intrusted with it were
bound by solemn oaths never to expose it to profanation.
They termed the Creator Viracocha, 75 which signifies
76
"the froth of the sea;" and the evil power Cupai.
72 Fab.
"
Mys. c. Cab., 4. They worshipped every object in Nature
from which they derived any advantage ; mountains, the sources of
rivers, rivers themselves,
and the fountains which watered and fer-
tilized the earth; the trees which afforded them fuel; those animals
of a gentle and timid nature upon which they fed ;
the sea abounding
with fish, and which they denominated their Nurse. But objects of
terror had the most numerous votaries. Whatever was hideous, or
horrible, they converted to a god, as if man delighted to terrify him-
self. They worshipped the tiger, the lion, the vulture, and large
snakes ; they adored the elements, tempests, the winds, thunder,
caverns, and precipices ; they prostrated themselves before torrents,
the noise of which depressed them with fear ; before gloomy forests,
and at the foot of those dreadful volcanos, which cast forth upon them
torrents of flame and rocks of fire." (Incas, vol. ii., p. 4, 5.)
73 Abbe Raynal, Hist. Ind., vol. iii., p. 17. Garcil., b. i.,
c. 15.
These personages were the Osiris and Isis, Bacchus and Rhea, Hu
and Ceridwen. &c., of the old world.
74
They say also that Manco Capac, like Mithras, was born from a
Rock or Cave (Purch. Pilgr., b. ix., c. 9) ; but in all nations there
was such an intimate connection between a cave and the Ark, that the
one was frequently mistaken for the other.
75 To this god the father of a family would offer his son as a vicarious
sacrifice to avert sickness from his family. (Acosta, p. 380.) He was
also identified with the Sun. (Purch., b. ix., c. 10.
76 Cerem. of Var. Nat., p. 329.
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