The religion of the Incas consisted in the worship of the supreme being of the earlier dynasties, the Illa Ticsi Uira-cocha of the Pirhuas. This simple faith was overlaid by a vast mass of superstition, represented by the cult of ancestors and the cult of natural objects. To this was superadded the belief in the ideals or souls of all animated things, which ruled and guided them, and to which men might pray for help. The exact nature of this belief in ideals, as it presented itself to the people themselves, is not at all clear. It prevailed among the uneducated. Probably it was the idea to which dreams give rise,—the idea of a double nature, of a tangible and a phantom being, the latter mysterious and powerful, and to be propitiated. The belief in this double being was extended to all animated nature, for even the crops had their spiritual doubles, which it was necessary to worship and propitiate. But the religion of the Incas and of learned men, or Amautas, was a worship of the Supreme Cause of all things, the ancient God of the Titicaca myth, combined with veneration for the sun[1179] as the ancestor of the reigning dynasty, for the other heavenly bodies, and for the _malqui_, or remains of their forefathers. This feeling of veneration for the sun, closely connected with the beneficent work of the venerated object as displayed in the course of the seasons, led to the growth of an elaborate ritual and to the celebration of periodical festivals. The weight of evidence is decisively in the direction of a belief on the part of the Incas that a Supreme Being existed, which the sun must obey, as well as all other parts of the universe. This subordination of the sun to the Creator of all things was inculcated by successive Incas. Molina says, “They did not know the sun as their Creator, but as created by the Creator.” Salcamayhua tells us how the Inca Mayta Ccapac taught that the sun and moon were made for the service of men, and that the chief of the Collas, addressing the Inca Uira-cocha, exclaimed, “Thou, O powerful lord of Cuzco, dost worship the teacher of the universe, while I, the chief of the Collas, worship the Sun.” The evidence on the subject of the religion of the Incas, collected by the Viceroy Toledo, showed that they worshipped the Creator of all things, though they also venerated the sun; and Montesinos mentions an edict of the Inca Pachacutec, promulgated with the object of enforcing the worship of the Supreme God above all other deities. The speech of Tupac Inca Yupanqui, showing that the sun was not God, but was obeying laws ordained by God, is recorded by Acosta, Blas Valera, and Balboa, and was evidently deeply impressed on the minds of their Inca informers. This Inca compared the sun to a tethered beast, which always makes the same round; or to a dart, which goes where it is sent, and not where it wishes. The prayers from the Inca ritual, given by Molina, are