I, Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca, traveled west to the great pyramids. I came to three pyramids, and there was a crowd bowing in prostration before the center structure. I walked up the steps of this pyramid and found a man holding a knife above the belly of a pregnant virgin. He stood before his sun god with the sacrificial offering. The men and women who bowed before him put their sins upon the virgin and her charge. Sins floated up and descended upon the head of the unborn infant, a heavy burden coming down in weighty black waves. For his sun god the priest with the knife laid his sins upon the child; for his sun god the priest stabbed his knife through the virgin's belly and through the head of the infant therein.

And the Perfect Man lay in grief; and the Perfect Woman was worshipped no more; and the sun rose and fell, a dead gassy mass; and the stars held no more wonder within them.

I saw a beast-monkey; and the beast-monkey looked upon the moon in fear, for it didn't make sense; and the beast-monkey

looked upon the stars with fear, for they didn't make sense; and the beast-monkey

looked upon the sun with fear, for it didn't make sense; and the beast-monkey

looked upon the dead with fear, for death didn't make sense; and the beast-monkey's dreams haunted him, and his life stirred wonder in his heart, and existence was a mystery, and the beast-monkey finally took to worship, took to worship; the beast-monkey sought the Perfect Man, feared the heavens, hoped in his sacrifice, and prayed to his dead . . . and he was still a beast, still a beast-monkey, and a killer. The beast-monkey opened the door to Kali.