_How they made great festivities and sacrifices at the grand and solemn feast called Hatun Raymi._ The Incas held many festivals during the year, at which they offered great sacrifices according to their custom; but to notice them all would require a separate volume. It is also well not to dwell long on the sorceries and follies that were practised on these occasions; but only to describe the feast of Hatun Raymi, which is very famous. It was kept in many provinces, and was the principal ceremony of the whole year, and the occasion on which the greatest number of sacrifices was offered up. This festival was celebrated in the end of August, when the maize harvest had been got in, as well as the potatoes, _quinuas_,[146] _ocas_,[147] and the other seeds that they sow. They call this feast Hatun Raymi, which in our language means “a very solemn festival”; and in it they had to offer up thanks and praise to God, the Creator of Heaven and Earth, whom they called, as has often been mentioned before, Ticiviracocha, as well as to the Sun, to the Moon, and to their other gods, for having granted them a good harvest of food for their support. In order to celebrate this festival with greater devotion and solemnity, it is said that they fasted for ten or twelve days, abstaining from too much food, and from intercourse with women; drinking _chicha_ only in the morning, which is the time when they eat, and at other times only water; abstaining from the use of _aji_ and from carrying anything in the mouth, and practising other usages such as were observed on these occasions of fasting. This time of fasting being over, the people brought to Cuzco a great number of lambs, of sheep, of doves and _cuys_, and of other birds and beasts which were killed for the sacrifices. Having killed a vast number, they anointed the statues and figures of their gods, or rather devils, with the blood, as well as the doors of the temples and oracles. After an interval, the soothsayers and diviners looked for omens in the entrails, announcing what they prognosticated, to which the people gave great credit. When the sacrifice was finished, the High Priest, with the other priests, went to the temple of the Sun; and, after reciting their accursed psalms, they ordered the _mama conas_, or virgins, to come forth richly dressed, with the great store of _chicha_ they had prepared; and all those who were in the great city of Cuzco ate of the sheep and birds which had been killed for the vain sacrifices, and drank of that _chicha_ which was held to be sacred. It was contained in jars of silver, out of the great numbers there were in the temple; and they drank it out of cups of gold.