This
scheme ignominiously failed, as every attempt to fetter the liberty of
conscience must and should. The later Incas finally indulged publicly in
heterodox remarks, and compromised the matter by acknowledging a
divinity superior even to their brother, the sun, as we have seen in a
previous chapter.
The myths of creation never represent the sun as anterior to the world,
but as manufactured by the "old people" (Navajos), as kindled and set
going by the first of men (Algonkins), or as freed from some cave by a
kindly deity (Haitians). It is always spoken of as a fire; only in Peru
and Mexico had the precession of the equinoxes been observed, and
without danger of error we can merge the consideration of its worship
almost altogether in that of this element.[143-1]
The institutions of a perpetual fire, of obtaining new fire, and of
burning the dead, prevailed extensively in the New World. In the present
discussion the origin of such practices, rather than the ceremonies with
which they were attended, have an interest.
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