Stamp of Bolivia - 1960 - Colnect 229987 - Gate of the Sun

Viracocha (also Wiraqocha, Huiracocha;

Quechua Quechua may refer to: *Quechua people, several Indigenous ethnic groups in South America, especially in Peru *Quechuan languages, an Indigenous South American language family spoken primarily in the Andes, derived from a common ancestral language ...

Wiraqucha) is the

creator Creator or The Creator may refer to: Film and television * ''Creator'' (film), a 1985 film starring Peter O'Toole, Vincent Spano, Mariel Hemingway, and Virginia Madsen * ''The Creator'' (1999 film), a French film written and directed by and sta ...

and

supreme deity {{broad-concept article A supreme deity, supreme god or supreme being is the conception of the sole deity of monotheistic religions or, in polytheistic or henotheistic religions, the paramount deity or supernatural entity which is above all other ...

in the pre-Inca and

Inca mythology Inca mythology of the Inca Empire was based on pre-Inca beliefs that can be found in the Huarochirí Manuscript, and in pre-Inca cultures including Chavín, Paracas, Moche, and the Nazca culture. The mythology informed and supported Inca re ...

in the

Andes The Andes ( ), Andes Mountains or Andean Mountain Range (; ) are the List of longest mountain chains on Earth, longest continental mountain range in the world, forming a continuous highland along the western edge of South America. The range ...

region of South America. According to the myth Viracocha had human appearance and was generally considered as bearded. According to the myth he ordered the construction of

Tiwanaku Tiwanaku ( or ) is a Pre-Columbian archaeological site in western Bolivia, near Lake Titicaca, about 70 kilometers from La Paz, and it is one of the largest sites in South America. Surface remains currently cover around 4 square kilometers and in ...

. It is also said that he was accompanied by men also referred to as Viracochas. It is often referred to with several

epithets An epithet (, ), also a byname, is a descriptive term (word or phrase) commonly accompanying or occurring in place of the name of a real or fictitious person, place, or thing. It is usually literally descriptive, as in Alfred the Great, Suleima ...

. Such compound names include Ticsi Viracocha (''T'iqsi Wiraqocha''), Contiti Viracocha, and, occasionally, ''Kon-Tiki Viracocha'' (the source of the name of Thor Heyerdahl's raft). Other designations are "the creator", Viracochan Pachayachicachan, Viracocha Pachayachachi or Pachayachachic ("teacher of the world"). For the

Inca The Inca Empire, officially known as the Realm of the Four Parts (, ), was the largest empire in pre-Columbian America. The administrative, political, and military center of the empire was in the city of Cusco. The History of the Incas, Inca ...

the Viracocha cult was more important than the sun cult. Viracocha was the most important deity in the Inca pantheon and seen as the creator of all things, or the substance from which all things are created, and intimately associated with the sea.:56 Viracocha was immediately followed by

Inti Inti is the ancient Inca mythology, Inca solar deity, sun god. He is revered as the national Tutelary deity, patron of the Inca state. Although most consider Inti the sun god, he is more appropriately viewed as a cluster of solar aspects, since t ...

, the Sun. Viracocha created the universe, sun, moon, and stars, time (by commanding the sun to move over the sky) and civilization itself. Viracocha was worshipped as god of the

sun The Sun is the star at the centre of the Solar System. It is a massive, nearly perfect sphere of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core, radiating the energy from its surface mainly as visible light a ...

and of storms. So-called

Staff God In "Southern Andean Iconographic Series" the Staff God pose is a religious icon and a standardized pose reminiscent in its way of the standardized poses in Byzantine art. The pose shows a front-facing human or human-like figure with vertical att ...

s do not all necessarily fit well with the Viracocha interpretation.

Cosmogony according to Spanish accounts

According to a myth recorded by

Juan de Betanzos ''Juan'' is a given name, the Spanish and Manx versions of '' John''. The name is of Hebrew origin and has the meaning "God has been gracious." It is very common in Spain and in other Spanish-speaking countries around the world and in the Phili ...

, Viracocha rose from Lake

Titicaca Lake Titicaca (; ; ) is a large freshwater lake in the Andes mountains on the border of Bolivia and Peru. It is often called the highest navigable lake in the world. Titicaca is the largest lake in South America, both in terms of the volume of ...

(or sometimes the cave of

Paqariq Tampu In Inca mythology, one of the main Incan creation myths was that of the Ayar Brothers, who emerged from a cave called Paqariq Tampu (also spelled Paqariqtampu) (Quechua language, Quechua ''paqariy'' 'to dawn, to be born', ''-q'' a suffix, ''Tambo ...

) during the time of darkness to bring forth light. He made the sun, moon, and the stars. He made mankind by breathing into stones, but his first creation were brainless giants that displeased him. So, he destroyed them with a flood and made humans, beings who were better than the giants, from smaller stones. After creating them, they were scattered all over the world. Viracocha eventually disappeared across the Pacific Ocean (by walking on the water), and never returned. He wandered the earth disguised as a beggar, teaching his new creations the basics of civilization, as well as working numerous miracles. Many, however, refused to follow his teachings, devolving into warfare and delinquency; Viracocha wept when he saw the plight of the creatures he had created. It was thought that Viracocha would re-appear in times of trouble.

Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa (1532–1592) was a Spanish adventurer, author, historian, mathematician, and astronomer. He was named the governor of the Strait of Magellan by King Philip II of Spain, Philip II in 1580. His birthplace is not certain ...

wrote that Viracocha was described as "a man of medium height, white and dressed in a white robe like an

alb An Alb is a liturgical vestment. ALB, Alb or alb may also refer to: * Alb, Alpine transhumance in Allemannic German Places * Alb (Upper Rhine), a tributary of the Upper Rhine in northern Black Forest near Eggenstein-Leopoldshafen, Germany * Al ...

secured round the waist and that he carried a staff and a book in his hands." In one legend he had one son,

, and two daughters,

Mama Killa Mama Quilla ( Quechua "Mother Moon", Hispanicized spelling ''Mama Quilla''), in Inca mythology and religion, was the third power and goddess of the moon. She was the older sister and wife of Inti, daughter of Viracocha and mother of Manco C� ...

and

Pachamama Pachamama is a goddess revered by the Indigenous peoples of the Andes. In Inca mythology she is an " Earth Mother" type goddess, Dransart, Penny. (1992) "Pachamama: The Inka Earth Mother of the Long Sweeping Garment." ''Dress and Gender: Makin ...

. In this legend, he destroyed the people around Lake Titicaca with a

Great Flood A flood myth or a deluge myth is a myth in which a great flood, usually sent by a deity or deities, destroys civilization, often in an act of divine retribution. Parallels are often drawn between the flood waters of these myths and the primeva ...

called ''

Unu Pachakuti In Inca mythology, Unu Pachakuti is the name of a flood that Viracocha caused to destroy the people around Lake Titicaca, saving two to bring civilization to the rest of the world. The process of destruction is linked with a new construction. I ...

'', lasting 60 days and 60 nights, saving two to bring civilization to the rest of the world. These two beings are

Manco Cápac Manco Cápac (before ; Quechua: ''Manqu Qhapaq'', "the royal founder"), also known as Manco Inca and Ayar Manco, was, according to some historians, the first governor and founder of the Inca civilisation in Cusco, possibly in the early 13th ce ...

, the son of Inti (sometimes taken as the son of Viracocha), which name means "splendid foundation", and Mama Uqllu, which means "mother fertility". These two founded the Inca civilization carrying a golden staff, called 'tapac-yauri'. In another legend, he fathered the first eight civilized human beings. In some stories, he has a wife called

Mama Qucha Mama Qucha or Mama Cocha (Quechua: "Mother Sea" , "Mother Lake", or just "sea") is the ancient Incan goddess of sea and fishes, guardian of sailors and fishermen, wife of Wiraqucha, mother of Inti and Mama Killa. She was commonly worshipped t ...

. In another legend, Viracocha had two sons, Imahmana Viracocha and Tocapo Viracocha. After the Great Flood and the Creation, Viracocha sent his sons to visit the tribes to the northeast and northwest to determine if they still obeyed his commandments. Viracocha traveled North. During their journey, Imaymana and Tocapo gave names to all the trees, flowers, fruits, and herbs. They also taught the tribes which of these were edible, which had medicinal properties, and which were poisonous. Eventually, Viracocha, Tocapo and Imahmana arrived at Cusco (in modern-day Peru) and the Pacific seacoast, where they walked away across the water until they disappeared. The word "Viracocha" literally means "Sea Foam."

Etymology

''Tiqsi Huiracocha'' (Spanish:''Ticsi Viracocha'') may have several meanings. In the

Quechuan languages Quechua (, ), also called (, 'people's language') in Southern Quechua, is an indigenous language family that originated in central Peru and thereafter spread to other countries of the Andes. Derived from a common ancestral " Proto-Quechua" ...

, ''tiqsi'' means "origin" or "beginning", ''wira'' means fat, and ''qucha'' means lake, sea, or reservoir. Viracocha's many epithets include ''great'', ''all knowing'', ''powerful'', etc. Some people state that ''Wiraqucha'' could mean ''"Fat (or foam) of the sea"'', etymology that has been discarded for grammatical considerations (constituent order in

) at least since

Inca Garcilaso Inca Garcilaso de la Vega (12 April 1539 – 23 April 1616), born Gómez Suárez de Figueroa and known as El Inca, was a chronicler and writer born in the Viceroyalty of Peru. Sailing to Spain at 21, he was educated informally there, where he li ...

. According to German archeologist

Max Uhle Friedrich Max Uhle (25 March 1856 – 11 May 1944) was a German archaeologist, whose work in Peru, Chile, Ecuador and Bolivia at the turn of the Twentieth Century had a significant impact on the practice of archaeology of South America. Biograp ...

, "foam lake" is an incomprehensible name. He points out that ''Vira'' (''Huira'') can also be derived from the Quechua word ''huyra'' ("the end of all things"), and that ''Ticsi Viracocha'' therefore could have the meaning "lake of origin and of the end of all things". Some linguists think that linguistic, historical and archaeological evidence suggest that the name could be a borrowing of Aymara ''Wila Quta'' (''wila'' "blood"; ''quta'' "lake"), due to the sacrifices of

camelid Camelids are members of the biological family (biology), family Camelidae, the only currently living family in the suborder Tylopoda. The seven extant taxon, extant members of this group are: dromedary, dromedary camels, Bactrian camels, wild Bac ...

s that were celebrated at Lake Titiqaqa by pre-Incan Andean cultures that spoke Aymara.

Controversy over "White God"

The first Spanish chroniclers from the 16th century made no mention of any identification with Viracocha. The first to do so was

Pedro Cieza de León Pedro Cieza de León ( Llerena, Spain c. 1518 or 1520 – Seville, Spain July 2, 1554) was a Spanish conquistador and chronicler of Peru and Popayán. He is known primarily for his extensive work, ''Crónicas del Perú'' (The Chronicle of Peru), ...

in 1553. Similar accounts by Spanish chroniclers (e.g.

) describe Viracocha as a "white god", often with a beard. The whiteness of Viracocha is however not mentioned in the native authentic legends of the Incas and most modern scholars therefore had considered the "white god" story to be a post-conquest Spanish invention. MocheBeardedMen

Similarly to the

Incan The Inca Empire, officially known as the Realm of the Four Parts (, ), was the largest empire in pre-Columbian America. The administrative, political, and military center of the empire was in the city of Cusco. The Inca civilisation rose fr ...

god Viracocha, the

Aztec The Aztecs ( ) were a Mesoamerican civilization that flourished in central Mexico in the Post-Classic stage, post-classic period from 1300 to 1521. The Aztec people included different Indigenous peoples of Mexico, ethnic groups of central ...

god Quetzalcoatl and several other deities from Central and South American pantheons, like the

Muisca The Muisca (also called the Chibcha) are indigenous peoples in Colombia and were a Pre-Columbian culture of the Altiplano Cundiboyacense that formed the Muisca Confederation before the Spanish colonization of the Americas. The Muisca spe ...

god

Bochica Bochica (also alluded to as Nemquetaha, Nemqueteba and Sadigua) is a mythical figure in the religion of the Muisca, who inhabited the ''Altiplano Cundiboyacense'' before the Spanish invasion by conquistadors in the central Andean highlands of pre ...

are described in legends as being bearded.Siemens, William L. "Viracocha as God and Hero in the Comentarios Reales." Hispanic Review 47, no. 3 (1979): 327–38. doi:10.2307/472790. The beard, once believed to be a mark of a prehistoric European influence and quickly fueled and embellished by spirits of the colonial era, had its single significance in the continentally insular culture of Mesoamerica. The ''Anales de Cuauhtitlan'' is a very important early source which is particularly valuable for having been originally written in Nahuatl. The ''Anales de Cuauhtitlan'' describes the attire of Quetzalcoatl at Tula: In this quote the beard is represented as a dressing of feathers, fitting comfortably with academic impressions of Mesoamerican art. The story, however, does not mention whether Quetzalcoatl had facial hair or not with the point of outfitting him with a mask and symbolic feathered beard being to cover his unsightly appearance because as Quetzalcoatl said "If ever my subjects were to see me, they would run away!" While descriptions of Viracocha's physical appearance are open to interpretation, men with beards were frequently depicted by the Peruvian

Moche culture The Moche civilization (; alternatively, the Moche culture or the Early, Pre- or Proto-Chimú culture, Chimú) flourished in northern Peru with its capital near present-day Moche, Trujillo, Peru from about 100 to 800 AD during the Cultural peri ...

in its famous pottery, long before the arrival of the Spanish. Modern advocates of theories such as a pre-Columbian European migration to Peru cite these bearded ceramics and Viracocha's beard as being evidence for an early presence of non-Amerindians in Peru. Although most Indians do not have heavy beards, there are groups reported to have included bearded individuals, such as the

Aché people The Aché ( ) are an indigenous people of Paraguay. They are hunter-gatherers living in eastern Paraguay. From the earliest Jesuit accounts of the Aché in the 17th century until their peaceful outside contacts in the 20th century, the Aché wer ...

Paraguay Paraguay, officially the Republic of Paraguay, is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the Argentina–Paraguay border, south and southwest, Brazil to the Brazil–Paraguay border, east and northeast, and Boli ...

, who also have light skin but who are not known to have any admixture with Europeans and Africans. When the

Southern Paiute The Southern Paiute people () are a tribe of Native Americans who have lived in the Colorado River basin of southern Nevada, northern Arizona, and southern Utah. Bands of Southern Paiute live in scattered locations throughout this territory an ...

were first contacted by Europeans in 1776, the report by fathers

Silvestre Vélez de Escalante Silvestre is a Spanish and Portuguese given name or surname, or a French surname. Notable people with the name include: Surname * Cindy Silvestre (born 1993), French kickboxer * Franck Silvestre (born 1967), retired French footballer * Isac Sil ...

and

Francisco Atanasio Domínguez Francisco is the Spanish and Portuguese form of the masculine given name ''Franciscus''. Meaning of the name Francisco In Spanish, people with the name Francisco are sometimes nicknamed " Paco". San Francisco de Asís was known as ''Pater Comm ...

noted that "Some of the men had thick beards and were thought to look more in appearance like Spanish men than native Americans". cites: , pages=187–193

Rock formation at Ollantaytambo

A rock formation in the small village of

Ollantaytambo Ollantaytambo () is a town and an Inca archaeological site in southern Peru some by road northwest of the city of Cusco. It is located at an altitude of above sea level in the district of Ollantaytambo, province of Urubamba, Cusco region. D ...

in southern Peru is said by local legend to be a naturally formed or carved representation of the messenger of Viracocha named Wiracochan or Tunupa. Ollantaytambo, located in the

Cusco Region Cusco, also spelled Cuzco (; ), is a department and region in Peru and is the fourth-largest department in the country, after Madre de Dios, Ucayali, and Loreto. It borders the departments of Ucayali on the north; Madre de Dios and Puno ...

, makes up a chain of small villages along the Urubamba Valley. Known as the

Sacred Valley The Sacred Valley of the Incas (; ), or the Urubamba Valley, is a valley in the Andes of Peru, north of the Inca capital of Cusco. It is located in the present-day Peruvian region of Cusco. In colonial documents it was referred to as the "Vall ...

, it was an important stronghold of the

Inca Empire The Inca Empire, officially known as the Realm of the Four Parts (, ), was the largest empire in pre-Columbian America. The administrative, political, and military center of the empire was in the city of Cusco. The History of the Incas, Inca ...

. Facing the ancient Inca ruins of Ollantaytambo in the rock face of ''Cerro Pinkuylluna'' is the 140-metre-high formation said to be a figure of Wiracochan. Inca ruins built on top of the face are also considered to represent a crown on his head. Artists' impressions of the rock face also include a heavy beard and a large sack upon his shoulders. This legend became fashionable after a 1995 book by Fernando and Edgar Elorrieta Salazar. Wiracochan, the pilgrim preacher of knowledge, the master of time, is described as a person with superhuman power—a bearded, tall man dressed as a priest or astronomer.

Conversion to Christianity

Spanish scholars and chroniclers provide many insights regarding the identity of Viracocha. #

Bartolomé de las Casas Bartolomé de las Casas, Dominican Order, OP ( ; ); 11 November 1484 – 18 July 1566) was a Spanish clergyman, writer, and activist best known for his work as an historian and social reformer. He arrived in Hispaniola as a layman, then became ...

states that viracocha means "creator of all things"Itier, César. ''Viracocha o El Océano: Naturaleza y Funciones De Una Divinidad Inca''. Lima: IFEA; IEP, 2012. Print. #

confirms the above in saying that "We may say that Viracocha is God"Betanzos, Juan de, María del Carmen Martín Rubio, and Digitalia (Firm).
Suma y narración De Los Incas [Electronic Resource
/nowiki>">lectronic Resource">Suma y narración De Los Incas Sarmiento de Gamboa, Blas Valera">lectronic Resource
/nowiki>''.Web. # Polo, Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa">Sarmiento de Gamboa, Blas Valera and Acosta all reference Viracocha as a creator # Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala">Guamán Poma Felipe Guamán Poma de Ayala (Fane, 165after 1616), also known as Huamán Poma or Waman Poma, was a Quechua nobleman known for chronicling and denouncing the ill treatment of the natives of the Andes by the Spanish Empire after their conquest of ...

Cosmogony according to Spanish accounts

Etymology

Controversy over "White God"

Rock formation at Ollantaytambo

Conversion to Christianity

See also

References