Subcategories
Inca Deities
6 of 731 entries in Deities. Click any to see everything it connects to.
Citation Formats
General Reference
APA Style
BibTeX
The gods of the Inca and the wider Andean world, known from Spanish colonial accounts, from surviving Quechua tradition, and from the archaeology of shrines and sacred places. The Inca state religion was layered over older local cults, and the sources that record it were written by the people who suppressed it.
Facts
Attestation
Era of AttestationThe state cult is attested archaeologically from the imperial expansion of the fifteenth century. The textual record is entirely post-conquest, running from the chronicles of the 1550s to Guaman Poma in 1615. 2 Veneration TodayPachamama and the mountain apus continue to receive offerings in Andean communities, alongside and within Catholic practice. 3 Veneration TodayThe Inca state cult ended with the Spanish conquest and the execution of Tupac Amaru in 1572. 2 Overview
What Defines This GroupingThe gods of the Inca state and of the wider Andean world it governed. There was no pre-conquest writing in the Andes, so every text is colonial: Spanish chroniclers, and indigenous and mestizo authors writing under Spanish rule. The Inca state cult was also superimposed on older and more widespread Andean belief, several elements of which outlasted it. 2 Learn More
The gods of the Inca
This group holds the deities of the Inca empire of the Andes, recorded mainly by Spanish chroniclers and indigenous writers after the conquest, and overlapping with older and wider Andean belief. Inca religion centred on the sun, the sacred landscape and the divine status of the ruler.
The browser will find the creator Viracocha, the sun-god Inti (ancestor of the ruling dynasty), the moon Mama Killa, the thunder-and-weather god Illapa, and the earth-mother Pachamama, who remains venerated in Andean communities. The atlas notes the colonial filter of the sources and the continuity of some beliefs in present-day Andean practice.
Sources
Reader Challenges (0 open reader challenges)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.
Sign in to dispute this or suggest a correction.
View At A Past Year
The atlas records no dated fact of its own for this entry, so there is no other year to choose.