Encyclopedia of the Incas

across their principal public plaza in Cuzco, so turning it into a symbolic
“ocean” in microcosm.
The Incas’ rapid expansion in the fourteenth and^ fifteenth centuries along the
spine of the Andes was inextricably linked with the myth of an archetypal
journey made by the creator god Viracocha from the southeastern reaches of the
empire to his disappearance “across the waves” in the far northwest. There are
varying versions of this myth that end with different points of departure on the
Pacific coast, ranging from Acarí in southern Peru, to Manta on the coast of
Ecuador. The variant accounts mirror the expanding frontier of the Inca Empire,
bringing it into contact with coastal fishing communities that had honed their
seafaring skills over many millennia. It is said that the Inca Topa Inca Yupanqui,
in his conquests toward the coast of Ecuador, eventually reached Manta (Jocay),
the principal town of the coastal polity of Jocay, and scaled a local mountain in
order to “discover the sea” for the first time. The Inca king exercised his royal
prerogative of discovery and worship of the Pacific Ocean by naming the ocean
Mamacocha (mother of the lakes) to emphasize the links between highland lakes
and the ocean. Topa Inca Yupanqui is also said to have been accompanied by a
“vast retinue” on a long sea voyage to the islands of Auchumbi and Ninachumbi
and these journeys likely entailed visiting offshore island shrines.