Note 2 — Chapter IX · The Last Four Incas

The principal shrine of the Inca is described by Father Calancha as follows: “Close to Vitcos [or Uiticos] in a village called Chuquipalpa, is a House of the Sun, and in it a white rock over a spring of Page 189water where the Devil appears as a visible manifestation and was worshipped by those idolators. This was the principal mochadero of those forested mountains. The word ‘mochadero’2 is the common name which the Indians apply to their places of worship. In other words it is the only place where they practice the sacred ceremony of kissing. The origin of this, the principal part of their ceremonial, is that very practice which Job abominates when he solemnly clears himself of all offences before God and says to Him: ‘Lord, all these punishments and even greater burdens would I have deserved had I done that which the blind Gentiles do when the sun rises resplendent or the moon shines clear and they exult in their hearts and extend their hands toward the sun and throw kisses to it,’ an act of very grave iniquity which is equivalent to denying the true God.”