Polaris and Ursa
Minor.

Let us now return to Peru and examine whether there is any proof that the
"Teacher or Guide of the World," the Supreme Being of the Incas, was
identical with the "Lord who guides" revered by the Mexican navigators.

I have already demonstrated that in ancient America the native scheme of
religion and government was but the natural outcome of certain ideas
suggested by the observation of Polaris and the circumpolar
constellations. I have likewise quoted the remarkable qualification of a
supreme divinity made by Inca Yupanqui, who raised a temple in Cuzco to
the Creator who, superior to the sun, could rest and light the world from
one spot. It is an extremely important and significant fact that the
principal doorway of this temple opened to the north,(32) and that the
"true Creator" is alluded to as an invisible power, the knowledge of which
was transmitted by the Incas from father to son. Thus Salcamayhua records
that on one occasion the young Inca Ccapac Yupanqui exclaimed "I now feel
that there is another Creator of all things [than that worshipped in the
Andes], as my father Mayta Ccapas Inca has indeed told me."(33)
Considering that in the latitude of Cuzco, situated as it is 14 deg. below the
equator, Polaris is invisible, the conditions thus recorded as existing in
Peru are exactly those which might be expected to exist if a religion
founded on pole-star worship had been carried southward to a region in
which the star itself was invisible. The orientation of the temple would
designate the north as the sacred region and the star-god would become an
invisible power whose very existence would have become traditional and
necessarily be accepted on faith by native-born Peruvians and converted
sun- and moon-worshippers.

It is a remarkable fact that a descendant of the Incas has furnished us
with actual proof that the Supreme Creator revered at Cuzco was not only
associated with a star, but also with the figure of a cross, each branch
of which terminated in a star. We are indebted to the native chronicler
Salcamayhua for some extremely curious drawings, which are reproduced here
from his account of the Antiquities of Peru.(34) In treating of the
primitive astronomy in America in my special paper on the native calendar,
I shall refer to these in greater detail. For my present purpose it
suffices to designate the following figures.

Salcamayhua records that the founder of the Peruvian Empire, M