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■MARY VAN BUREN
MOLINA, CRISTÓBAL DEBorn in Baeza, Jaén, Spain sometime earlier than 1529 (d. 1585), Molina
arrived in Cuzco before 1556. He served in the Hospital de los Naturales
(Hospital for Native People) and was the first priest of the hospital parish,
founded in 1572, during the administration of Viceroy Francisco de Toledo.
Toledo may also have appointed Molina general preacher (predicador
general) of the Natives of Cuzco. The Bishop of Cuzco commissioned
Molina to write a history of the Incas and an account of their religion. Molina
wrote the former sometime around 1572 and the latter around 1576. Only his
account of Inca religion survives, a work titled Relación de las fábulas i ritos
de los Ingas (Account of the Fables and Rites of the Incas).
Some have argued that Molina’s role as both priest and author of a treatise
on Inca religion skewed his work so much that he portrayed certain aspects of
Inca religion as being compatible with Christianity. This included a possible
notion of a trinity of sacred identities that together composed the principal
Inca deity, Viracocha (see Religion). Molina also included a number of
prayers (oraciones) to Viracocha, which have been important texts for the
study of Inca verse and poetry.
Molina’s chronicle is an important source of information on the annual
religious festivals and ceremonies of the Incas in Cuzco. His account has been
used by numerous scholars over the years to attempt to reconstruct the
sequences of events and astronomical periodicities (especially those of the
moon) regulating the capital’s ritual calendar. Molina gives detailed accounts
of the festivals of Aymoray, a harvest festival in April-May; Inti Raymi, the
winter solstice (in the southern hemisphere) festival in June; Citua, a festival