INDIAN CORN. 35 



During the high feast, Capacrayni^ held in the first 

 month, Rayjnij agreeing with our December, no stran- 

 ger was suffered to lodge in Cuzco, to which they 

 again all assembled as soon as the festival was over, to 

 receive cakes made of maize and the warm blood of a 

 white alpaca, by the Mamacunas, (select virgins,) and 

 distributed by certain priests, who, in carrying them 

 about in dishes of gold, gave each of the Indians one, 

 saying as they delivered it. " If you do not reverence 

 the sun and Inca, this food will bear witness 

 against you to your ruin ; but if you worship them, 

 then their bodies, by this pledge, will be united to 

 yours." After which, those that had eaten of the 

 cakes, promised obedience, and thanked the sun and 

 Inca for their food. 



In the beginning of the month Hatuncuzqui, which 

 corresponds to our May, the Peruvians gathered 

 their maize and kept the feast Ay moral. They re- 

 turned home, singing from the fields, carrying with 

 them a large heap of maize, which they called Perwa, 

 wrapping it up in rich garments. They continued their 

 ceremonies for three nights, imploring the perua to 

 preserve their harvest of maize from any damage that 

 might chance to befall it, and also to cause that to grow 

 prosperously which they should next plant. Lastly, 

 their sorcerers consulted their gods whether the perua 

 could last till the next year; and if they did not 

 answer in the affirmative, they carried it into the 

 fields and burned, or parched it with the jriew of 

 making a new perua, which they bore to their gra- 

 naries in great triumph, and mingled it with other corn. 

 The corn-plant, or its fruit, also entered into the 

 forms, the ceremonies, and the mythology of many 

 other tribes, which, from the limited length of this 

 memoir, and the want of accurate information on the 

 subject, are necessarily omitted. The following alle- 

 gory, however, which was related to Mr. Schoolcraft 

 by the Odjibwas, will be read with interest by all 

 who have a fondness for this branch of literature : 

 A young man went out into the woods to fast, at that 

 period of life when youth is exchanged for manhood- 



