MAN FROM THE FARTHEST PAST 
tories, dramas, poems, and other works, though these 
could only be memorized and were not written down until 
after the Spanish conquest. 
As might be expected among a people so devoted to the 
worship of the heavenly bodies, the Incas had made con- 
siderable progress in astronomy. A fairly accurate calen- 
dar had been worked out, based originally on the phases 
of the moon, but later corrected and modified by observa- 
tions of the sun. For the Incas, like other early agricul- 
tural peoples the world over, attached great importance 
to periodical ceremonies performed to insure an abundant 
harvest. And these must be held at the right time every 
year if they were to do the most good. The accurate 
dating of historical events, which seems so important to 
us, was only an afterthought with the peoples who 
originated calendars. 
Thus the civilization of the ancient Peruvians was 
bound up with acts of worship to an extent hard for us 
to realize. They drew no line between things secular 
and things religious. Everything centered about the 
adoration of the sun and of his earthly representative, the 
Inca sovereign. Temples existed in various places, the 
principal one, naturally, at Cuzco, the Inca capital, in its 
valley in the Andes over 11,000 feet above the sea. Here 
solid gold and jewels covered the walls, and at one end 
shone a huge circular plate of the same metal, representing 
the sun. This disappeared at the time of the Spanish 
conquest and has never since been found. 
The Incas also worshiped the moon, the planets, the 
rainbow, the earth, and, along the coast, the sea, in addi- 
tion to many minor divinities. They held gorgeous festi- 
vals and occasionally offered human sacrifices, although 
to nothing like the extent that prevailed among the 
Aztecs. 
Attached to the temples were convents in which dwelt 
“virgins of the sun’’—girls chosen for their beauty from 
all over the empire, some destined for the Inca ruler’s 
[ 346 ] 
