Incas built other structures, including storehouses and an Acllahuasi (house of
the chosen women).
As for the meaning of Pachacamac, the deity, the term is composed of two
Quechua roots. The first, pacha-, may be glossed as “space/earth/time”; The root
camac—the agentive form of the verb camay—may be glossed as “maker,
organizer, or ‘vivifier’ (i.e., one who gives life, or organizes matter/s).” A
“camac” entity is a generative force, one that gives life, and organizes matters to
arrive at a productive state of affairs. The combination of these glosses, which
suggests a power to shape and reshape earth and time, in the name of a deity—
Pachacamac—helps us to understand why this was the identity of the great and
powerful Andean earthquake deity. In one of our few indigenous sources on
Native Andean religion, the Huarochirí Manuscript (see Avila, Francisco de), it
was said of Pachacamac—and may also have implicated the powerful oracle that
bore his name—that “When he gets angry, earth trembles / When he turns his
face sideways, it quakes / Lest that happen he holds his face still / The world
would end if he ever rolled over” (Avila 1991 [1598–1608]).
Therefore, one may speak of Pachacamac the pilgrimage center and of
Pachacamac the oracle and earthquake deity; however, it is important to
recognize that the two referents of this title inform or implicate one another,
attesting to the wide-ranging significance and importance of this concept in the
Andean and Inca universe.
Further Reading
Eeckhout, Peter. “Reyes del Sol y Señores de la Luna: Inkas e Ychsmas en Pachacamac.” Chungará,
Revista de Antropología Chilena 36, no. 2: 495–503, 2004.
———. “Inca Storage and Accounting Facilities at Pachacamac.” Andean Past 10:213–39, 2012.
Patterson, Thomas C. “Pachacamac—An Andean Oracle under Inca Rule.” In Recent Studies in Andean
Prehistory and Protohistory: Papers from the Second Annual Northeast Conference on Andean
Archaeology and Ethnohistory, edited by D. Peter Kvietok and Daniel H. Sandweiss, 159–76. Ithaca, NY:
Cornell University Latin American Studies Program, 1983.
Rowe, John H. “The Origins of Creator Worship among the Incas.” In Culture in History, edited by Stanley
Diamond, 408–29. New York: Columbia University Press, 1960.
Salomon, Frank. “Introductory Essay: The Huarochirí Manuscript.” In The Huarochirí Manuscript: A
Testament of Ancient and Colonial Andean Religion. Translation from the Quechua by Frank Salomon
and George L. Urioste, 1–38. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1991.
Shimada, Izumi. “Pachacamac Archaeology: Retrospect and Prospect.” In Max Uhle, Pachacamac: A
Reprint of the 1903 Edition. University Museum Monographs 62. Philadelphia: University Museum of
Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania, 1991.
■GARY URTON