Divested of their sandals the Inca and his suite spent some time in prayer. Occasionally a human victim--a maiden or a beautiful child--was offered up in sacrifice, but happily this was a rare occurrence, and only took place on great public occasions, such as a coronation, or the celebration of a national victory. These sacrifices never ended in cannibal feasts, as did those of the Aztecs. Grain, flowers, animals, and aromatic gums were the usual sacrificial offerings of the Peruvians. The Citua Raymi was the festival of the spring, and fell in September. It was known as the Feast of Purification. The country must be purified from pestilence, and to secure this, round cakes, kneaded in the blood of children, were eaten. To secure this blood the children were merely bled above the nose, and not slaughtered, as with the more ferocious Aztecs--almost an example of the substitution of the part for the whole. These cakes were also rubbed upon the doorways, and the people smeared them all over their bodies as a preventive against disease. The circuit of the state of Cuzco was then made by relays of armed Incas, who planted their spears on the boundaries as talismans against evil. A torchlight procession followed, after which the torches were cast into the river as symbolic of the destruction of evil spirits. The festival of the Aymorai, or harvest, fell in May, when a statue made of corn was worshipped under the name of Pirrhua, who seems to be an admixture of Manco Capac and Viracocha in his rôle of fertiliser. The fourth great festival, Capac Raymi, fell in December, when the thunder-god shared the honours paid to the Sun. It was then that the younger generation of Incas after a vigorous training received an honour equivalent to that of knighthood. The Peruvians possessed a fully developed conventual system. A number of maidens, selected for their beauty and their birth, were dedicated to the deity as 'Virgins of the Sun.' Under the guidance of _mamacones_, or matrons, these maidens were instructed in the nature of their religious duties, which chiefly consisted in the weaving of priestly garments and temple-hangings. They also watched over the sacred fire which had been kindled at the feast of Raymi. No communication with the outside world was permitted to them, and detection in a love-affair meant living burial, the execution of the lover, and the entire destruction of the place of his birth. In the convent of Cuzco were lodged between one and two thousand maidens of the royal blood, and at a marriageable age these became brides of the Sun in his incarnate shape of the Inca, the most beautiful being selected for the harem of the monarch. Sorcery and divination were frequently employed by the Peruvians, and the _Huacarimachi_, 'They who make the gods speak,' were held in great veneration by the ignorant masses. The oracles in the valleys of Lima and Rimac were much resorted to, and auguries of all descriptions were in popular favour.