one of these other regional ancestors and “creators,” a divine
figure named Chinchaycama. He was revered by the Yunga
people at a certain rock from which the divinity was said to
have emerged. And Chinchaycama had hardly been the only
huaca of the Yunga. He was, rather, one of a number “who
responded” to the requests and entreaties of his people. Ac-
cording to what the Dominicans learned and could express
about this set of relationships, the Yunga made choices and
assigned precedence according to their own changing re-
quirements (including economic and environmental stress,
and also political necessity). They effectively moved between
huacas “who responded” and “this not always but only when
they had need of them.” This apparently selective horizon-
tality did not much impress Spanish commentators, and
it has struck at least one modern historian as an approach
that treated “matters of religion somewhat casually” (Castro
and Ortega Morejón, [1558] 1938; MacCormack, 1991,
p. 155).
In fact, such glimpses of Chinchaycama’s place within
a broader picture, and of Yunga attitudes towards their hua-
cas, suggest fundamental Andean religious notions. When
the Incas entered this coastal region in force, with settlers
from other zones, they built a shrine to their principal divini-
ty the Sun and impressed upon others the importance of this
divinity’s attributes and consecration of themselves as his
children. But Inca expansionism tended to incorporate rath-
er than erase existing cults, effectively smoothing over neces-
sary conflict and injecting themselves into longer regional
mythohistoric trajectories. Cieza found that the cult of
Chinchaycama continued for the natives of Chincha, operat-
ing alongside those of other divinities, including those fa-
vored by the arriving Incas (Cieza de León, [1553] 1995,
p. 220). Later fragments of learning, while steadily reflecting
more Cuzco-centered understandings of the historical and
spiritual interrelationships between Andean divinities and
the Sun, point in similar directions. Plastic and practical rela-
tionships between divine beings and between huacas and
their peoples marked something of a ruling principle.
One such multiply informative bit of colonial learning
was produced by the lawyer Hernando de Santillán amid a
1563 response to a royal cédula inquiring about Inca taxa-
tion. Along his purposeful way, Santillán rendered an oral
tradition about Topa Inca Yupanqui on the eve of Inca ex-
pansion into the coastal valleys of the Yunga. While Mama
Ocllo was pregnant with the child who would become Topa
Inca, his voice was said to have issued from within her belly
to inform her that a great “creator of the earth” lived on the
coast, in the “Irma valley” (today the valley of Lurín, south
of Lima). When Topa Inca was older, his mother told him
of the experience, and he set out to find this creator. His
wanderings led him to the sacred place of Pachacámac. Once
in the presence of the great huaca, the story stresses, the
Inca’s gestures were those of a respectful supplicant, for he
spent “many days in prayer and fasting.”
After forty days, Pachacámac was said to have broken
the silence, speaking from a stone. He confirmed that he was
the “maker of the earth” whom Topa Inca sought. Yet Pacha-
cámac also explained that he was not alone as this kind of
force. He explained that while he had made (literally “given
being”) to all things “down here,” that is to say on the coast;
the Sun, who “was his brother,” had performed the same cre-
ative function “up there,” in the highlands. Delighted to hear
that such an understanding had been struck, the Inca and
his traveling companions sacrificed llamas and fine clothing
in honor of Pachacámac. Their tone, according to Santillán’s
report, continued as gratitude, “thanking him [Pachacámac]
for the favour he had bestowed.” The Inca even asked Pacha-
cámac if there was anything else he particularly desired. The
great coastal divinity replied that since he had a “wife and
children,” the Inca should build him a house. Topa Inca
promptly had a “large and sumptuous” house for the huaca
constructed. But the gifting in the interests of his progeny
had only begun. Pachacámac also spoke of his “four chil-
dren.” They, too, would require houses, shrines. One was in
the valley of Mala just to the south, another in Chincha, and
there was a third in the highlands, in Andahuaylas near
Cuzco. A fourth child of Pachacámac was conveniently por-
table and would be given to Topa Inca for his safekeeping
while he traveled about so that he could “receive responses
to that for which he asked” (Santillán, [1563] 1968, p. 111;
Rostworowski, 1992; Patterson, 1985).Santillán’s story merits both caution and close attention.
Notably, privilege is granted to an Incan point of view, and
to the origin of relatively recent Incan constructions at an
oracular cultic center that was over half a millennium old.
One is being treated to an explanatory narrative of political
and religious incorporation in the interest of Incan overlord-
ship. Scholars from a variety of disciplines have added differ-
ent perspectives to show this kind of action to have been rep-
resentative of how the Incas adopted certain oracular huacas
in accordance to their need for effective regional influence
and advice (Patterson, 1985; Gose, 1996; Topic et al., 2002).
Yet there is a simultaneous demonstration here of the corre-
sponding benefits of Inca sponsorship for Pachacámac and
his cult: alliance and support were the surest ways to ensure
that Pachacámac’s “children,” or new expressions, would
spread across the land. In Pachacámac’s case, one such ex-
pression needs no place and is to be carried about by the trav-
eling Inca, ready to be consulted if the ruler should require
a response.
The story invites us to contemplate what Andean huacas
were and how they related to one another (Julien, 1998, esp.
pp. 64–65). The matter of just how huacas’ multiple perso-
nae, diffusions, and relationships with other divine figures
might remain operative in colonial times—in cases where
huacas endure and especially where Christian personalities
enter the picture—must simply hover about us for the mo-
ment. Pachacámac’s power continued to spread well beyond
the regional landscape in which he was revered as a founder
and creator because of developing relationships of cultic in-
terdependence and his ability to replicate himself across timeSOUTH AMERICAN INDIANS: INDIANS OF THE COLONIAL ANDES 8607