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Show Peruvians Had Ancient Cat God Indians Kin to Incas Ruled by Feline Deity WASHINGTON, D.C. A great cat god dominated the people of Peru's northern coast in prehistoric times. The various pebples whose religion re-ligion and art centered in this feline deity are described by Dr. Raphael Larco Hoyle, director of the museum mu-seum of archeology at Trujillo, Peru, in a handbook on South American Amer-ican Indians issued by the Smithsonian Smith-sonian Institution's bureau of American Ameri-can ethnology. Most advanced of these people, probably vaguely related to the Indians In-dians who developed the Inca civil ization in the Andes, were the Mochi-cas. Mochi-cas. Presumablv this rat snd ed as a local deity, but among the Mochicas he was elevated into a supreme divinity. He is shown in Mochica art as a man with grea' fangs, a wrinkled face, and catliks whiskers spreading from the nose. This supreme god, Dr. Larcc says, apparently was considered as ruling the destinies of the world, but he lived like people and could reveal himself both as a man and as a god. That he is a human embodiment embodi-ment of divinity is shown by the paintings on vessels with four faces, on which human and feline faces are back to back and where the cat eyes are those of the divinity. Numerous pottery vessels show the deity receiving sacrificed human hu-man beings who are being thrown from a high cliff. He sits at the foot of the cliff, receiving the blood oi the victim as a precious offering. He is shown in other pottery designs de-signs as a farmer shelling corn as a fisherman in a small balsa boat a uocior, ana as a musician anc a hunter He is pictured also hold-ing hold-ing up the rainbow in the form oi a two-headed serpent, and as a god of war whose Intervention is nee essary for victory. f,ffhlaPerS0nif!Cati0n cf eod he fights demons pictured as vampire bats in the form of men, sea demons se Tn hTdf -,dragn WUh one head .eMn his tad. and a serpent with A court is often shown surround ing the cat deity. round- |