ASTRONOMY OF THE INCAS. 827 



in conjurations to avert the catastrophe. As long as the eclipse 

 continued they kept exclaiming, " Mama-quilla, Mama-quilla ! " 

 which might be paraphrased, " God save us ! " and they suppli- 

 cated the sun to aid them. After the eclipse had passed away 

 they sang in chorus the praises of the god Pachacamac, who had 

 cured the pale star of night. Garcilaso adds to this story that 

 these practices were all still in vogue in his time that is, a half 

 century after the conquest. 



Mention is made in the Memoirs of Garcilaso of a comet which 

 appeared at the time of the death of the Inca Huascas, and of 

 another which was visible some time afterward, while Atahualpa 

 was a prisoner of the Pizarros. These apparitions were regarded 

 as annunciations of imminent woe. So, likewise, were shooting 

 stars, of which an extraordinary fall took place during the reign 

 of the same Inca.* Montesinos speaks of the appearance of two 

 comets during the reign of Yupanqui one had the form of a lion, 

 the other of a serpent. " The sun/' he wrote, " had sent these two 

 animals to destroy the moon. So the Indians directed a hailstorm 

 of stones at the lion and serpent to veil their light and prevent 

 them from tearing the moon to pieces, for if they succeeded in 

 carrying out their purpose everything on the earth would be 

 changed into savage and hideous beasts, women's hair into vipers, 

 and other things into bears, tigers, and similar evil creatures." 

 The Indians still believe that the shooting stars drop from the 

 sky, and utter prayers for deliverance when they see them. 



The Inca year was originally divided into twelve lunations, 

 each of which had its special name. But experience having 

 shown that this lunar year was ten or twelve days shorter than 

 the solar year, a reform was determined upon. Montesinos asserts 

 that an assembly of amantas in the reign of Agay Manco thor- 

 oughly rearranged the calendar, dividing the year into three 

 months of thirty days each, and the month into three weeks 

 of ten days each, and adding to complete the solar year a half 

 week of five days, which was made six days every fourth year. 

 The Inca Yahnar Huquiz, grand astronomer, soon discovered that 

 an error of one day would appear after four hundred years in the 

 calendar thus instituted ! The Indians reckoned time by this sys- 

 tem till the Spaniards came.f Garcilaso says that the Inca Tapac 

 Yupunpuy discovered, three centuries before the conquest, that 

 the period between the solstices was three hundred and sixty-five 

 days and a quarter, and that he caused the intercalation of ten 

 days and a quarter, distributed among the lunations, in order to 

 make the lunar and solar years agree. Is it not strange to see the 

 Gregorian calendar invented and applied by the Incas three hun- 



* Garcilaso, Book I, chap, xxxiv. f Montesinos, chapters xi and xii. 



