The partridge, lluthu, played a prominent role in Inca and Andean mythology and was situated very close to the South Celestial Pole. One of the roles it played was the Monster Who Ate The Ancestors. How such an innocuous bird might have played such a dramatic role is understood when one looks at the precessional movements of the sky. The partridge had once been over the South Celestial Pole, but as over the centuries it moved away, and in similar fashion, the Milky Way slipped from rising with the midwinter solstice sun, robbing the Ancestors of a bridge back to earth for a religious festival. Judging by surviving texts, the Incas seem to have blamed the partridge for this celestial movement. See The House Of The Sky for more details about this.