areas), which in many cases represent survivals of the pre-
Conquest Andean religious world, represent a third source
of documentation.
SUBSISTENCE AND RELIGION. The peoples of the Andes are
predisposed toward mysticism and ceremonial; even today,
Andeans are steeped in an elaborate religious tradition. A sig-
nificant part of their intense religiosity may be explained by
ecological factors: No other agricultural society in the world
has had to face a more hostile environment than that of the
Andes region, with its vast areas of desert, its enormous
wastes, and the heavy tropical vegetation that covers the
mountains’ rugged eastern flanks. All physical effort, all orga-
nization of human labor, and all technological solutions are
insufficient to counter the environment, to whose ordinary
harshness are added nature’s frequent scourges, especially
droughts. This endemic state of crisis could only be exor-
cised, it seems, through intense magico-religious practices;
only through manipulation of supernatural powers have An-
dean peoples believed it possible to guarantee their existence.
The dramatic situation imposed by the environment
perhaps explains why Andean religiosity appears to have been
unencumbered by the moralizing of other religious tradi-
tions. Rules such as “Thou shalt not steal” and “Thou shalt
not commit adultery” were of course enforced, but theft and
adultery were considered social offenses: It was the duty of
the administrators of state law to punish offenders. There
was no concept of a future expiation. The relationship be-
tween religion and morality was closest in regard to behavior
toward the deities; if their worship was not properly carried
out, they were affronted, resulting in a series of calamities
that could be checked through prayers, weeping, and sacri-
fices. The hostility of nature in the Andes led to a perma-
nently febrile state of religiosity.
GODS OF SUSTENANCE. Andean deities jointly governed
both individual and collective existence by providing suste-
nance. Soil fertility plays a significant role in Andean reli-
gion, as demonstrated by the profuse worship given to the
deities that personified and controlled the forces of nature.
The gods, though individualized, form a hieratic unit and
share one focus: the economic state of the people. They are
conceived in the image of nature, which simultaneously sepa-
rates and conjoins the creative forces, masculine and femi-
nine. Thus the first basic division appears in the opposition
of Inti-Viracocha-Pachacámac and Quilla-Pachamama. Both
of these deity-configurations are creative forces, but in accor-
dance with the social order of the sexes, the supremacy of the
former, masculine element is asserted. The powerful Illapa
(“thunder, weather”) is also integrated into the sphere of
Inti-Viracocha-Pachacámac, but, above all his other func-
tions, Illapa directly provides life-giving rain.
Viracocha. Glimpses of a culture hero on whom divine
attributes have been superimposed can be seen in the figure
of Viracocha, and therefore Pierre Duviols (1977) and María
Rostworowski de Diez Canseco (1983) correctly deny him
the character of a creator god. Because of these same divine
attributes, however, Viracocha was thought by the sixteenth-
century Spaniards to resemble the God of Christianity, al-
though Christian-Andean syncretism preserved some aspects
of Viracocha’s indigenous origin. Thus, according to the sto-
ries told about him, Viracocha molded humans in clay or
sculpted them in stone. (They finally spring from the womb
of Pachamama, “mother earth,” which is sometimes repre-
sented as a cave.) On the other hand, stories about Viracocha
also portray him as entering into confrontations with other
divine beings and as engaged in other tasks ordinarily associ-
ated with culture heroes (for example, “teaching the created
people”). Evidence of Viracocha’s original character as a god
of sustenance may be found in the prayer to him that was
transcribed by the seventeenth-century chronicler Cristobal
de Molina, in which Viracocha is presumed to be based “in
thunder and tempests.” Franklin Pease (1973) assigns to him
outright solar and fertility attributes.
Pachacámac. The myth of Pachacámac (“animator of
the world”) links this Andean deity even more strongly than
Viracocha with the creation of the first generation of human
beings. This deity is characterized, above all, as bringing to
humankind the food necessary for survival as a result of the
entreaties of a primordial woman, Mother Earth. The provi-
sion of edible plants is shown in other myths: In one of these,
Pachacámac disguises himself, taking the form of the sun (in
some instances, the son, the brother, or even the father of
Pachacámac, according to the chronicler Francisco Lopez de
Gómara), who with his rays fertilizes the primordial woman,
perhaps the incarnation of Pachamama. In another myth,
Pachacámac kills what he has created, and this action may
be interpreted as the institution of human sacrifice to nour-
ish the food and fertility deities. When the victim is buried,
his teeth sprout maize, his bones become manioc, and so on.
Inti. According to both the surviving mythic literature
and the images discovered by archaeologists, the masculine
creative force was incarnated in Inti, the sun. He offers heat
and light, and his rays possess fertilizing powers, as is evident
in the myth of Pachacámac. Mythic literature testifies to the
Andeans’ reliance on the power of the sun and to their anxi-
ety that he may disappear, causing cataclysm and the destruc-
tion of humankind (an event that would be followed by the
creation of a new generation of humans). This anxiety ex-
plains the redoubled prayers and supplications during solar
eclipses—rituals that ended with loud cries and lamentations
(even domestic animals were whipped to make them howl!).
Archaeological evidence of another form of magico-religious
defense against this premonition of the tragic disappearance
of the sun is found in stone altars called intihuatanas, a word
revealingly translated as “the place where the sun is tied.” Inti
was also associated with fertility through water, as when the
sun ceases to give light, yielding to clouds and rain (which
would seem a contradiction were it not for the fact that the
thunder and weather god Illapa was conjoined with the sun).
In visual representations, particularly those at Chavín and
Tiahuanaco, Inti appears with big teardrops that surely sym-8600 SOUTH AMERICAN INDIANS: INDIANS OF THE ANDES IN THE PRE-INCA PERIOD