Although the first and principal invocations were addressed to the Creator, prayers were also offered up to the Sun and Moon, to the Thunder, and to ancestors who were called upon to intercede with the Deity.[1181] The latter worship formed a very distinctive feature in the religious observances of nearly all the Incarial tribes. The _Paccarina_, or forefather of the _ayllu_, or lineage, was often some natural object converted into a _huaca_, or deity. The _Paccarina_ of the Inca family was the Sun; with his sister and spouse, the Moon. A vast hierarchy was set apart to conduct the ceremonies connected with their worship, and hundreds of virgins, called _Aclla-cuna_, were secluded and devoted to duties relating to the observances in the Sun temples. Worship was also offered to the actual bodies of the ancestors, called _malqui_, which were preserved with the greatest care, in caves called _machay_. On solemn festivals each _ayllu_ assembled with its _malqui_. The bodies of the Incas were all preserved, clothed as when alive, and surrounded by their special furniture and utensils. Three of these Inca mummies, with two mummies of queens, were discovered by Polo de Ondegardo, then corregidor of Cuzco, in 1559, and were sent by him to Lima for interment. Those who saw them[1182] reported that they were so well preserved that they appeared to be alive; that they were in a sitting posture; that the eyes were made of gold, and that they were arrayed in the insignia of their rank.[1183] The _Paccarina_, or founder of the family, and the _malquis_, or mummies of ancestors, thus formed the objects of a distinct belief and religion, based undoubtedly on the conviction that every human being has a spiritual as well as a corporeal existence; that the former is immortal, and that it is represented by the _malqui_. The appearance of the departed in dreams and visions was not an unreasonable ground for this belief, which certainly was the most deeply rooted of all the religious ideas of the Peruvian people. The _paccarina_, or ancestral deities, were innumerable. There was one or more that received worship in every _tribe_, and was represented by a rock, or some other natural object. Many were believed to be oracles. Some, such as _Catequilla_, or _Apu-catequilla_,[1184] the oracle of the Conchucu tribe, have been brought into undue prominence through being mentioned by Spanish writers. [Illustration: ZODIAC OF GOLD FOUND AT CUZCO. [After a drawing by Mr. Markham of the plate itself, made at Lima in 1853. Mr. Markham’s drawing is reproduced in Bollaert’s _Antiquarian Researches_, p. 146. The disk is 5-3/10 inches in diameter. The signs in the outer ring are supposed to represent the months.—ED.]]