PENANCE OF PERUVIANS. 339 



mitting great cruelties and martiring themselves for the LlB - v 

 Divell, and all to be reputed great fasters and penitents. 



They did vse to discipline themselves with cordes full of 

 knottes, and not they onely, but the people also vsed this 

 punishment and whipping in the procession and feast they 

 made to the idoll Tezcatlipuca, 1 the which (as I have said 

 before) is the god of penance ; for then they all carried in 

 their hands new cordes of the threed of Maguey a fadome 

 long, with a knot at the end, and therewith they whipped 

 themselves, giving great lashes over their shoulders. The 

 Priests did fast five daies together before this feast, eating 

 but once a day, and they lived apart from their wives, not 

 going out of the Temple during those five daies; they did 

 whip themselves rigorously in the manner aforesaid. The 

 lesuites which have written from the Indies treate amply of 

 the penances and exceeding rigor the Bonzes 2 vse, all which 

 was but counterfait, and more in shew then in trueth. In 

 Peru, to solemnize the feast of thoYtu 3 which was great, all the 

 people fasted two daies; during the which they did not ac 

 company with their wives, neyther did they eate any meato 

 with salt or axi, 4 &quot; nor drinke chicha. They did much vse 

 this kindo of fasting for some sinnes, and did penance, whip 

 ping themselves with sharp stinging nettles, and often they 

 strooke themselves over the shoulders with certain stones. 

 This blinde nation, by the perswasion of the Divell, did 

 transport themselves into craggy inountaines, where some 

 times they sacrificed themselves, casting themselves downo 

 from some high rocke. All which are but snares and de- 

 ceites of him that desires nothing more then the losso and 

 ruiuo of man. 



1 Tezcatlipoca was the most important of the Mexican gods. The 

 prayers to him are given by Sahagun. His principal image was cut out 

 of obsidian. Bonzes, Buddhist Priests. 



3 llatuu is &quot;great&quot; in Quichua. 4 Chile popper. 



* 2 



