Answer:
As powerful deities who should be feared.
Explanation:
To be brief, they believed in a lot of gods, but some were below others. (Deities) And they were associated with the sun, moon, and stars. Anything astral related. They where feared instead of loved like we see in other religions. The gods lived at ease while the people worked for what they had.
The weather affected the building of the Panama Canal quite negatively because the hot, humid weather made the work exhausting. The workers had to take long pauses until it was suitable for them to work again, because it was scorching hot in Panama so that no work could be done. This greatly slowed the process of building the Panama Canal because the workers didn't have the required conditions under which to work properly.
