A Basic Introduction to Inca Mythology
This is the final entry in my basic introductions to Mesoamerican mythology (the previous ones being for the Maya and for the Aztecs). Like the previous entries, this has an appended list of the most significant books I used, should you be interested in finding out more.
Like their northern counterparts the Aztecs, the Incas were newcomers onto the Mesoamerican scene, heirs to a tradition that had included the brilliant civilisations of Chavin, Moche and Tiwanaku. At its height, their Empire stretched from the north of Ecuador to the south of Chile--but it had come from the very humble beginnings of the city-state of Cuzco, founded in the 12th century.
Like the Aztecs but to a deeper degree, the Incas assimilated the mythology of the people they had conquered, making Inca mythology a complex tapestry of sometimes contradictory tales.
Inca creation: the Founding of Cuzco
The Incas had a creation myth that is surprisingly close to the Maya myth--despite the fact that the Incas likely never met the Mayas, or the Aztecs for that matter. It is likely something taken from the Andean civilisations that had preceded them.
At the beginning of time, the creator god Viracocha arose from the waters of Lake Titicaca, and made the first world--a world without light. He then made giant beings in his image and told them to worship him--which they proved incapable of. As a punishment, he turned them to stone.
Viracocha then returned to Lake Titicaca, and, determined to make his creation more perfect, decided to make human beings closer to his stature. His new men were sculpted from the pliable clay of the lakeshore; he divided them into groups and gave each their own costumes, hairstyles and jewellery. He then scattered them over the four quarters of the world, to wait until called forth to inhabit the land. Accompanied by his two helpers, he travelled the land, to order the nations to worship him--and finally reached the end of his journey on the north-west coast, where he made a boat out of his cloak and disappeared.
The myth of the founding of Cuzco is uniquely Inca: it describes how four brothers and four sisters emerged from a cave in the mountain Tambo Toco. Led by Ayar Manco, those eight led the people of Tambo Toco on a migration to find new land to settle. They went north; and Ayar Manco regularly tested the fertility of the soil by thrusting a golden bar into it. Their progress was slow, and interrupted by numerous events: the conception of a son by Ayar Manco and his sister Mama Ocllo, the imprisonment of the impish brother Ayar Cachi....
When they arrived over the Cuzco Valley, the bar of gold sank all the way into the soil, and a rainbow appeared over the valley: signs that this would be their new homeland. Ayar Manco became Manco Capac, “The Supreme Rich One”, and the first Sapa Inca, ruler of the Inca Empire.
Inca gods, or Andean syncretism
Like the Aztecs, the Incas exalted their tribal god Inti (the Sun) over all others, but they did keep a pantheon which mostly predated them. Inti’s wife Pachamama in particular, the benevolent Goddess of the Earth, appears throughout the Andes; she was responsible for the fertility of the soil, and llamas were sacrificed to her to ensure her goodwill.
In other versions of the myth, Inti is married to his sister Mama Quilla, the Moon. Unlike other civilisations of the Andes which held the moon and sun to be equal, here Mama Quilla was clearly in subordination to her husband. Her symbol was a silver disk, just as a golden disk symbolised the sun.
Two gods sit uncomfortably astride the Inca pantheon, remnants from earlier cultures: the first is Viracocha, the creator god (and his two sons/helpers Imaymana and Taguapaca), who clearly predates Inca culture. The Incas sometimes referred to him as the father of the sun, but sometimes he is identified as the sun, making him another aspect of Inti (just as Tonatiuh, the Aztec Sun God, was another aspect of the tribal war-god Huitzilpochtli).
The second one, Pachacamac (Earth-Shaker) who gave his name to an Inca Emperor, is also a creator god, whose network of shrines dates back to the 6th century. In some myths, he is opposed to Viracocha, and credited with changing the first humans into various animals; in other myths he and Viracocha are the same being. In Inca times, he was the god of earthquakes, and the least tremor was attributed to him. He is also said to be a son of Inti (but his wife Pachamama is confusingly attributed either to Pachacamac or to Inti).
Finally, jaguar-deities, probably originating from the Amazonian jungle, are prominent in most Andean cultures--and the Incas were no exception. As with the Aztecs, the jaguar symbolises the fierce warriors; and there is also a strong tradition of were-jaguars, shamans who can take on the shape of their protector.
Inca worship
The Inca cult was centred around the Sun God Inti; the Sapa Inca or the Emperor being regarded as the earthly embodiment of Inti. The centre of the cult was the Coricancha Temple in Cuzco, and numerous festivals took place there and elsewhere to affirm the power of Inti over the Empire.
Festivals of note were Inti Raymi, which marked the summer solstice , as well as the coming of age for the children Inca nobles; and Capacocha ceremonies, in which children sent from all the Inca provinces would be taken to high mountaintops and killed in various manners (strangling, a blow to the head, or exposure to cold) after being intoxicated by chicha, a thick beer made from fermented corn.
The priestly hierarchy was headed by the Sapa Inca, followed by the head of the Coricancha Temple (villac-umu, “sorcerer who speaks”, a title reminiscent of Aztec title of tlatoani or “Revered Speaker” for the Emperor). Priests practised divination, cared for the sick, and presided over the ritual ceremonies.
One other feature of the religious hierarchy were the acllas, the Chosen Women--who in many ways were similar to the Roman Vestals. Picked by Inca officials at the age of ten, they received a harsh education within a network of temples, where the preservation of their virginity was enforced. When they reached adulthood, they could either become secondary wives to the Inca or foreign dignitaries, or temple attendants, keeping the fire burning in the shrines of Inti. The vast majority of them, though, seem to have been part of the Inca network of production, weaving clothes and producing food such as chicha beer.
Inca cosmology
Like the Aztecs and the Mayas, the Incas divided the world into four quarters (their land was called Tawantinsyu, “the land of the four united quarters"): because of the peculiar orientation of Cuzco, though, those quarters were not based on the cardinal points, but on North-West, North-East, South-West and South-East.
The Incas, like the Aztecs and the Mayas, had a terrific grasp of astronomy--but they were peculiar in basing their calendar on the rotation of Mayu, the Milky Way, which allowed them to date precisely not only their agricultural calendar, but also the appearances and disappearances of numerous planets and stars. Unlike the Greeks or the Chinese (or indeed most of the world), the Incas did not think of constellations as the patterns made by stars, but rather the dark spaces between the stars. Constellations included Yacana, the dark cloud llama, who descended to earth at midnight to drink water--and thus prevent the Earth from flooding.
On the ground, the cosmological order was translated into huacas, a network of sacred places that ranged from the resting place of sacred mummies to particular scenic spots. The huacas were places of worship, but could also materialise the occurrence of a particular astronomical event: for instance during the equinoxes, the sun sits precisely on top of the Intihuatana stone at Machu Picchu. Some huacas were on the network of ceremonial roads known as ceques, which radiated from Cuzco towards each quarter of the world.
Bibliographical note
Unlike the Aztecs and the Mayas, the Incas did not have a writing system: their records were kept on quipu knots, requiring the presence of a special reader (a quipucamayoc) to be deciphered. When the Empire fell in 1533, most knowledge of how to read the quipus was lost, leaving us with scant evidence on the Inca culture.
The Lost History of the Incas
The Ancient Sun Kingdoms of the Americas: Aztec, Maya, Inca
ALIETTE DE BODARD’s short fiction credits include Aztec mysteries ("Obsidian Shards”, published in Writers of the Future XXIII) and other stories inspired by Mesoamerican culture. Her short stories have appeared or are forthcoming in Realms of Fantasy, Interzone and Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show. Visit her website or her blog for more information.
