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Regarding the origins of the Incas, only two myths or legends have survived to this day and through oral tradition. These legends are "The myth of the Ayar brothers" and the "Legend of Manqu Qhápaq and Mama Uqllu."

The Ayar Brothers

The Spanish chroniclers who, immediately after the conquest, questioned the Incas about their origins have collected numerous accounts of the history of the dominant ethnic group. The most widespread legend, in the opinion of all the Iberian writers of the time, was the one about the Ayar brothers and their wives-sisters. Almost all authors have transcribed these stories in more or less detail, but only one has left a complete and exhaustive account. This is Juan de Betanzos, a connoisseur of Quechua and interpreter of Francisco Pizarro. Besides being the husband of the Inca ñusta, Kushi Rimay Uqllu, linked to the lineage of the Hatun Ayllu.

Through his work "Suma y narración de los Incas" published in 1551, he narrates this story (Chapters III, IV and V):

"Before the Inkas, Cuzco was a town with 30 houses inhabited by 30 ayllus, whose "lord and cacique of this town was called Alcaviza". The rest were swamps. At 7 leagues from this town is the Tampu T'uqu hill with 3 caves. From one of them, Paqariq Tampu ("House of Production", "Inn of Dawn" or "House of Hiding"), came four pairs of brothers and their tribes: Ayar Kachi and Mama Waku, Ayar Uchu and Mama Ipakura or Kura, Ayar Awka and Mama Rawa and Manqu Qhapaq and Mama Uqllu. At the back of the Wanakawri hill (a league and a half from Qusqo), they planted potatoes; from the summit of Wanakawri, Ayar Kachi with his sling shot a stone against a hill and turned it into a ravine, then he did the same with three more hills, completing the 4 cardinal points. His brothers saw his strength and distrusted him and "sent him to bring gold objects from Paqariq Tampu and locked him up." After getting rid of Ayar Kachi, they lived one year in Wanakawri. Mama Waku, became another "wife of Ayar Manqu." After a year, they agreed that the site did not suit them and they went half a league further towards Cuzco, in another ravine where they stayed another year, from the hill called Matagua, they looked at the valley of Cuzco and the inhabitants and subjects of Alcaviza. As it seemed to them a good place, they agreed to conquer and populate it. They also agreed that one of them had to stay in Wanakawri, become a wak'a, to intercede before the "sun, their father, so that he would protect them, improve them, give them children, and send them good weather". "Ayar Uchu showed large wings" and offered himself. They returned to the Wanakawri hill and Ayar Uchu flew away." "After being in the heavens, Ayar Uchu returned and told Ayar Manqu to rename himself Manqu Qhapaq, because that was the Sun's command, and to go to the place they had seen that the settlers would receive them well and to settle there; that he would give him his wife Mama Kura to serve him and that he would take Ayar Awka with him." Having said this, Ayar Uchu "turned into stone with wings".

Manqu Qhapaq, Ayar Awka and the four women and their ayllus, went to Qusqo to see Alcaviza. Before entering their lands, in a nearby village called Acamama, Mama Waku hit an Indian with "a haybinto (bolas) and killed him and opened him suddenly and took out his cheeks and heart, and in the sight of the rest of the people he inflated the cheeks blowing them...". The fearful Indians fled to the valley of the Guallas. From there they went to Qusqo, where they spoke with Alcaviza, who accepted them.

They made their house, where "the convent of Santo Domingo is located", for "the two and the four women". With seeds that "they brought from Paqariq Tampu", they planted corn. Two years later, Ayar Awka, who had no children, died.

Manqu Qhapaq and Mama Uqllu, had only one son, Sinchi Ruq'a. When this prince was 15 or 16 years old, Manqu Qhapaq died. Five years later, Alcaviza died. When Sinchi Ruq'a was 20 years old, he married Mama Kuka, "daughter of a cacique Lord of a town that is one league from Cuzco, called Zañu, in which lady Mama Kuka and Sinchi Ruq'a had a son called Lluq'i Yupanki."

Main Variants

Most of the accounts of this ancestral myth do not provide for substantial differences except for the names of the protagonists, which have sometimes been written with slight differences.

Bernabé Cobo in his "History of the New World" mentions several versions that differ, above all, in the manner of the premature end of the three brothers of Manqu, but substantially confirms the version of Betanzos.
Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa in his "Historia Indica" briefly examines the myth at the beginning of his work and agrees with Betanzos, except for the end of Ayar Awka which he believes would have occurred by natural death.
Martín de Murúa in his "General History of Peru" narrates the legend of the Ayar in a way that conforms to that of Sarmiento with the only difference of attributing the facts of Ayar Kachi to Ayar Awca and vice versa.
Pedro Cieza de Leon also examines the myth of the Ayar in his work "The Lordship of the Incas". According to this author, the brothers were only three and Ayar Kachi after being imprisoned in the cave of Paqariq Tampu would reappear to his murderers with colored wings. Before their astonishment and the fear of a possible revenge, he would have reassured them assuring them that the Sun had sent him to predict them a radiant destiny. On the other hand, he would have asked that the rite of initiation of the young Inka (Warachikuy) be instituted in his honor. Later, he and Ayar Uchu would turn into stone and become the idol of Wanakawri, the most worshipped wak'a of the Tawantinsuyu
Juan de Santa Cruz Pachacuti Yamqui Salcamaygua is a chronicler of indigenous origin who recounts the myth in question in his work ("Relación de las antigüedades deste Reino del Perú"). His account seems less articulated than that of Betanzos, however, it substantially covers the main scenarios with the exception of attributing the end of two of the brothers to the wak'a of the town of Sañuc against which Manqu himself would have fought in vain.
An important exception is instead in the reports given by the indigenous elders, experts in quipu on the occasion of the writing of the "Informaciones a Vaca de Castro". According to these wise men, the Ayar brothers were not created by Wiraqucha, but by Inti, the Sun god who, with his rays, would have fertilized the earth inside the mythical cave.
Cristóbal de Molina in his "Relación de las fábulas y ritos de los Incas" offers a version that could reconcile the opposing theories. According to him, Wiraqucha, after having formed the Sun, the Moon and the Stars, before initiating the celestial movement would have also created the generation of the Incas, or the Ayar brothers. These would have come out of the window of Tampu T'uqu just when the Sun began to shine in the sky and therefore would have been identified as the children of the luminous star.

Manqu Qhapaq and Mama Uqllu

This legend was made known by the Inca Garcilaso de la Vega. The mestizo chronicler was the son of the Spanish captain Sebastián Garcilaso de la Vega and the ñusta Isabel Chimpu Ocllo Suárez Yupanqui, granddaughter of Tupaq Inka Yupanki'. His old uncle was the one who provided him with the most information. Putting the story in his uncle's mouth, Garcilaso relates this legend.

"Our father the Sun, seeing the men in the state they were in, took pity and had pity on them and sent from heaven to earth a son Manqu Qhapaq and a daughter Mama Uqllu to civilize the settlers. With this order and command our father the sun put these sons of his in Lake Titiqaqa, which is 80 leagues from here. And he told them to go wherever they wanted and, wherever they stopped to eat or sleep, they should try to sink in the ground a golden rod that he gave them as a sign and sample: That where that rod would sink with just one blow, there our father the sun wanted them to stop and make their seat and court....

They left Titiqaqa and walked to the north. And all along the way, wherever they stopped, they tried to sink the gold bar and it never sank. Thus, they entered a small inn or dormitory, which is seven or eight leagues to the south of this city, which today they call Paqariq Tampu... It is one of the towns that this prince ordered to populate later and its inhabitants today boast greatly of the name, because it was imposed by our Inka.

From there Manco Qhapaq and Mama Uqllu, our queen, arrived in this valley of Cuzco, which at that time was made up of mountains. The first stop they made in this valley was in the hill called Wanakawri, at noon of this city. There he tried to sink the gold bar in the ground, which easily sank at the first blow they gave it, and they saw it no more. Then our Inka said to his sister and wife: In this valley our father the sun commands that we stop and make our seat and dwelling to fulfill his will....

From the Wanakawri hill our first kings went out, each one in his turn, to summon the people... The prince went to the north and the princess to the south. To all the men and women they found in those heathlands, they spoke and said that their father the sun had sent them from heaven to be teachers and benefactors of the inhabitants of all that land, taking them out of the ferocious life they had and showing them how to live like men....

Who, seeing those two persons dressed and adorned with the ornaments that our father the sun had given them and their ears pierced and as open as their descendants bring them..., marveling on the one hand at what they saw, and on the other hand, astonished at the promises they made to them, they gave them full credit for everything they said. And they worshipped and reverenced them as children of the sun and obeyed them as kings.

Our princes, seeing how many people were coming together, gave orders that some of them should take care of providing food for everyone in the countryside, so that the famine would not spread them over the mountains again.

He ordered others to work in making huts and houses, giving the Inca the layout as they had to do. In this way they began to populate this imperial city of ours, divided into two halves which they called Hanan Qusqo (upper part) and Hurin Qusqo (lower part).

Those that the king wanted to populate Hanan Cuzco, and for that reason they called him "the high one". And those that the queen summoned, that they should populate Hurin Qusqo, and for that reason they called him "the low". ... and commanded that among them there should be only one difference and recognition of superiority: that those of the high Cuzco should be respected and held as first-born elder brothers and those of the low as second sons, And, in short, that they should be like the right arm and the left arm in any preeminence of place and office for having been those of the high attracted by the male and those of the low by the female.

Similar to this there was later this same division in all the large or small towns of our Inca Empire, which divided them by districts or lineages saying Hanan ayllu and Hurin ayllu, which is the high and low lineage, Hanan suyu and Hurin suyu, which is the high and low district...".

The biographies of Betanzos and Garcilaso were linked to the most important imperial panakas. Betanzos to that of Hatun Ayllu, lineage of Pachakuti and Atawallpa; and Garcilaso, to the dynasty of Qhapaq Ayllu, of Tupaq Inka Yupanki and Waskar. This makes us notice a very particular vision of each ayllu about the origin of the empire. It could be said that the "Myth of the Ayar brothers" is the vision of the creation of the Empire of the Hatun Ayllu; and, the "Legend of Manqu Qhapaq and Mama Uqllu", the vision of the creation of the Empire of the Qhapaq Ayllu.

Buxus

The Ayar Brothers

Main Variants

Manqu Qhapaq and Mama Uqllu

See also

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