or even a whisper is to be heard amongst them. After this manner they continue till night, which ends in singing, dancing, and the greatest joy imaginable.”(493) In this account the description of the frantic manner assumed by the person whose duty it was to wound the king’s son reminds us of the frenzy of King Athamas when he took or attempted the lives of his children.(494) The same feature is said to have characterised the sacrifice of children in Peru. “When any person of note was sick and the priest said he must die, they sacrificed his son, desiring the idol to be satisfied with him and not to take away his father’s life. The ceremonies used at these sacrifices were strange, for they behaved themselves like mad men. They believed that all calamities were occasioned by sin, and that sacrifices were the remedy.”(495) An early Spanish historian of the conquest of Peru, in describing the Indians of the Peruvian valleys between San-Miguel and Caxamalca, records that “they have disgusting sacrifices and temples of idols which they hold in great veneration; they offer them their most precious possessions. Every month they sacrifice their own children and smear with the blood of the victims the face of the idols and the doors of the temples.”(496) In Puruha, a province of Quito, it used to be customary to sacrifice the firstborn children to the gods. Their remains were dried, enclosed in vessels of metal or stone, and kept in the houses.(497) The Ximanas and Cauxanas, two Indian tribes in the upper valley of the Amazon, kill all their firstborn children.(498) If the firstborn is a girl, the Lengua Indians invariably put it to death.(499)