Proponents of the Cochineros images as primarily representing Inca aggression point to figures which could suggest ritual sacrifice. There are several human figures on the stones of Chincheros with objects which some have considered tumis, sometimes holding llamas by a cord in the other hand. These have been interpreted as priests preparing for divination, the ritual sacrifice of a llama and the examination of its entrails to predict the future.
A dominant image on the southern, down river face of the Retama rock. First impression suggest a frontal human figure holding objects in either hand. But what is the complex figure in the left hand, and is the right arm actully visible?
The procedure is well known from several sources. Garcilaso de la Vega, the son of an Inca princess and a Spanish conquistador, describes the divinations at Inti Raimi, the most important of Cuzco´s four annual festivals, the June Summer Solstice.
“The priests brought in the animals to be sacrificed, which were lambs, rams and sterile ewes. The first animal sacrificed was either a black or dark brown lamb, these being considered…entirely pure and unmixed. They looked for omens by examining the heart and lung of this lamb, as they did in all important circumstances…Three or four men held the animal with its head turned towards the east…they then slit it open on its left flank…and the priest took out the heart, lungs, and all the interior organs, taking sure that they should be in one piece, without being torn…they would blow air into the viscera, then…watch the way the air filled…the lungs even unto the tiniest vessels…the sacrifice of the lamb, if it did not give good omens, was followed by that of the sheep and lastly, that of the sterile ewe. ”