feeding of it, the conversing with it, and the attending to its needs and wishes.
The mestizo (half-indigenous/half-Spanish) chronicler Garcilaso de la Vega
produced the following characterization:
Huaca . . . means “a sacred thing,” such as . . . idols, rocks, great stones or trees which the enemy [i.e.,
the devil] entered to make the people believe he was a god. They also gave the name huaca to things
they have offered to the Sun, such as figures of men, birds, and animals. . . . The same name is given to
all those things which for their beauty or excellence stand above other things of the same kind. . . . On
the other hand they give the name huaca to ugly and monstrous things . . . everything that is out of the
usual course of nature, as a woman who gives birth to twins . . . double-yolked eggs. (Garcilaso 1966
[1609])As Garcilaso’s account suggests, virtually any object could be bestowed with
huaca identity and, thereby, be accorded the respect and worship, including
sacrifices, appropriate to this status. The object, however, had to be a particularly
striking, unusual, or wondrous example of its type in order to be considered to
possess the supernatural quality of huaca. That is, not just an ear of corn, but a
double ear of corn; not just a stone, but a stone believed to be possessed by
special powers, such as the gift of making oracular pronouncements (via a
human medium devoted to the care and feeding of the stone; see Oracles); not
just a human, but a human with a harelip; and not just a bend in a canal, but a
point in the landscape attached to wondrous mythological events. Such objects
and places were named; accorded regular sacrifices (i.e., they were regularly
“fed” specific objects, such as feathers, ground Spondylus shell, llama fat, etc.);
endowed with herds and agricultural fields; considered to have kinship relations
with a host of other such entities; and attended by devotees dedicated to their
well-being and the care of their property.
The chronicler Bernabé Cobo wrote the most detailed account of the huaca
network that composed Cuzco’s ceque system. This was an arrangement of some
328–350 named huacas located along 41 imaginary lines (ceques) radiating
outward from the Temple of the Sun, the Coricancha, throughout Cuzco and the
surrounding valley. The care and tending of these huacas, one per day, by
members of Cuzco’s different panacas and ayllus provided the framework for
the city’s annual ritual calendar.
Further Reading
Bray, Tamara L., ed. The Archaeology of Wak’as: Explorations of the Sacred in the Pre-Columbian Andes.
Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 2015.
Cobo, Bernabé. Inca Religion and Customs. Translated and edited by Roland Hamilton. Austin: University
of Texas Press, 1990 [1653].