]
[Footnote 2: _Relacion Anonyma, de los Costumbres Antiguos de los
Naturales del Piru_, p. 138. 1615. (Published, Madrid, 1879).]
Invisible and incorporeal himself, so, also, were his messengers (the
light-rays), called _huaminca_, the faithful soldiers, and _hayhuaypanti_,
the shining ones, who conveyed his decrees to every part.[1] He himself
was omnipresent, imparting motion and life, form and existence, to all
that is. Therefore it was, says an old writer, with more than usual
insight into man's moral nature, with more than usual charity for a
persecuted race, that when these natives worshiped some swift river or
pellucid spring, some mountain or grove, "it was not that they believed
that some particular divinity was there, or that it was a living thing,
but because they believed that the great God, Illa Ticci, had created and
placed it there and impressed upon it some mark of distinction, beyond
other objects of its class, that it might thus be designated as an
appropriate spot whereat to worship the maker of all things; and this is
manifest from the prayers they uttered when engaged in adoration, because
they are not addressed to that mountain, or river, or cave, but to the
great Illa Ticci Viracocha, who, they believed, lived in the heavens, and
yet was invisibly present in that sacred object.
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