Inca Gods

Imahmana Viracocha and Tocapo Virachocha

Son of the creator Viracocha. After the Great Flood and the Creation, Viracocha sent his son Imaymana Viracocha together with his brother Tocapo Viracocha to visit the tribes and see if they still followed the commandments they had been given. As they went, Imaymana and Tocapo gave names to all the trees, flowers, fruits and herbs, and taught the people which of these could be eaten, which could cure, and which could kill.

Inti

Sun god. Inti's image is a golden disk with a human face surrounded by bright rays. Every day Inti soars across the sky to the western horizon, plunges into the sea, and swims under the earth back to the east. Inti's sons are Wirakocha, Pachacomac, and Manco Capac.

Konira Wirakocha

The great god Wirkocha diguised as a traveler in rags. A trickster, a prankster. No one knew who he was, and the people he passed called him names. Yet as he walked, he created. With a word he made the fields and terraced hillsides. Dropping a reed blossom, he made water flow.

Mama Quilla

Goddess of the moon. Protector of married women. Her image is a silver disc with a human face.

Manco Capac

The son of Inti, also a solar god. The youngest of four brothers, Manco Capac defied the eldest brother who greedily demanded all of creation for himself. Sealing the eldest brother forever in a cave, Manco Capac murdered another and frightened the third into fleeing, never to be seen again. Thus gaining power over all the world, Manco Capac founded the city of Cuzco and was worshipped as the Son of the Sun.

Pachamac

God of the earth, creator god. Prior to the Incan conquest, the Peruvians worshipped Pachamac as the supreme being. For political purposes, the Incas were forced to adopt Pachamac into their own pantheon, but his position was never very secure. The great Inca Atahualpa treated Pachamac's priests with cold indifference, explaining to the Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro that the god's oracle had made three ruinously inaccurate prophecies. The Great Sun King even incited the Spaniards to defile and loot the god's temple. They accepted the invitation enthusiastically.

Supai

God of death. A god of insatiable greed. The Incas sacrificed over a hundred children a year to Supai and still he would not leave them alone.

Viracocha

Literally, Sea-Foam. The Creator. The teacher of the world. After the Great Flood, which covered even the highest mountains and destroyed all life, Virococha molded new people out of clay at Tia Huanaco. On each figure of clay he painted the many features, clothes and hairstyles of the many nations, and gave to them their languages, their songs and the seeds they were to plant. Bringing them to life, Viracocha ordered them to travel underground and emerge at different places on the earth. Then Viracocha made the sun and the moon and the stars, and assigned them to their places in the sky. Raising up smaller Viracocha, the God ordered them to go about the world and call forth the people, and see to it that they mulitplied and followed the commandments they had been given. Some of the little viracocha went south, some went southeast, while the God's two sons traveled northeast and northwest. Viracocha himself traveled straight north. Some tribes had rebelled, and these Viracocha punished by turning the people into stone. At Pucara, forty leagues north of Cuzco, Viracocha called down fire from the sky upon those who had disobeyed his commandments. Arriving at last at Cuzco and the seacoast, Viracocha gathered together his two sons and all the little viracocah, and they walked across the water until they disappeared.

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