Ayar Inca

AYAR INCA (Inca Spirit)

Inca Spirit takes its name from the legend of the four Ayar Inca brothers. In most of their performances they have four musicians to symbolize each of the Ayar brothers. Ayar in Quechwa means spirit: Mango means stone, Cachi means salt, Uchu means hot pepper, Auca means fighter. Stone spirit, Salt spirit, Hot pepper spirit and Fighter spirit.

The four brothers, Ayar Manco, Ayar Cachi, Ayar Uchu and Ayar Auca, lived inside Pacariqtambo (Inn of Dawn). The four pairs of brothers and their sisters were created by Viracocha (fat or large lake=ocean) to rule the world. They emerged from four windows from the entrails of Mount Tamputoco, in Pacariqtambo. The whole world was living in an unruly, uncivilised manner. The Ayar brothers began with organising mankind and divided tribal people into eight large communities. Leading the new ayllus (small family cell) the brothers set off in search of fertile land to sustain themselves. They planted the seeds they borought with them and lived in valleys after the harvest they moved on towards Cuzco. (Qosqo means belly button or center of something) They carried Sunturpaucar, a long golden staff adorned with colorful jungle feathers, a cage with a sun-bird who could talk and give advice and a sacred golden Kero (a large cup). Ayar Cachi's powerful Honda (sling shot) could make earthquakes and make valleys and mountains rise. His strength and violent streaks worried his brothers. Ayar Cachi’s brothers deceived him into returning into the cave of Tamputoko to obtain forgotten Kero vases. They then sealed the cave entry with massive boulders.
As they traveled, Ayar Auca sprouted large Condor wings. He flew to Qorikancha (now the Golden Temple of the Sun) and was finally transformed into stone. Arriving near Cuzco, Ayar Uchu was turned also into a stone figure on the Huanacauri mountain. These stone figures were revered as gods and protector guardians. That left just one survivor, Ayar Manco, he was told by the talking bird to through in the air the golden staffs. The staffs landed in fertile land and sank. This was the sign to establish a village, which he named Qosqo(Center of the world).

Ayar Manco conceived Cuzco as a major administrative and ceremonial center. The city was erected on the slopes of a hill (the summit being reserved for the great fortress of Sacsayhuamán) and adopted the puma as its totemic symbol. The city’s shape is that of a Puma, Flanked by two rivers; between these, the succeeding Incas built palaces, squares, streets and public buildings, which have survived through the centuries to this day.

The Inca empire went on for 432 years. Its 14 successive rulers or Incas encouraged the development of skills and knowledge and steadily expanded the kingdom's territory. As the capital of the Inca, or Tahuantisuyo empire (four regions), Cuzco was the heart of a political system that controlled a large portion of South America.

Following the Spanish conquest, Cuzco was for some time the seat of colonial rule. Cuzco transformed its appearance. As churches and other major edifices were built, the new residents strived to show the best of their abilities. Indigenous and mestizo craftsmen not only innovated on European art by adding an American perspective; they created a distinctive new school for New World art - the Cuzco School of art and painting. Cuzco thus witnessed the encounter between the European and native American civilisations. The cultural fusion and ethnic miscegenation that ensued from that encounter has had enormous consequences.

How to interpret the Ayar Inca myth?

(Excerpted from: Rostworowski de Díez Canseco, María 1988. História del Tahuantinsuyu. Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos.)

In addition to the myth of the Ayar brothers there is the Manco Capak myth. This legendary first Inca with his wife Mama Ocllo emerge out from the waters of lake Titicaca. They teach and organize humans into four tribes and settle in Cuzco.

María Rostworowski de Díez Canseco argues that the creation of the Inca state is introduced already in the creation myths (Rostworowski 1988: 31-34). Although originally they seemed to function as creation stories about Tiahuanaco culture, they were later apparently customised by the Inca for ideological purposes. The origin of the Inca from the cultural centre around Lake Titicaca has been supported by archaeological data. Editing seems most apparent in accounts of introducing the first legendary ruler Manco Capak, on the one hand, and in dividing the world in four parts, on the other. The Inca state Tahuantinsuyu was also divided into four large provinces ruled by governors.

Both versions say that the main character Ayar Manco or Manco Capak had arrived from south and settled in the Cuzco Valley. The part of the story suggests the Tiahuanaco origin of the Inca as well as the flight of the Quechuan elite from the Aymaran invaders.
Leaving Lake Titicaca could serve as a hypothesis that the home of the Inca was located in La Isla del Sol or Sun Island in Lake Titicaca - according to archaeologists it might have been one of the residences of the upper class Tiahuanaco people. The hypothesis would also explain why Manco Capak was sent by the sun god, as the island became to be called the Isle of Sun only after the sun worship had become the Inca state religion.

In the original version the four Ayar brothers are sent to teach and organize people by Viracocha, which suggests even the earlier modification of the story from the time when Viracocha was revered as the main god. The four pairs of brothers-sisters in the original version refers to the four Quechuan tribes who left Tiahuanaco. The married couple consisting of a brother and a sister, in its turn, could be explained by the fact that the Quechuan tribe was exogamous and consisted of two fraterias: in exogamous societies men belong to one frateria and women to another. This could be inferred also from the myth version concerning the division of Cuzco in two - the High and Lower fraterias. Hanan cuzco and Urin Cuzco.

The disposing of all the other Ayar brothers on the journey in the original version refers either to their settling to different places or the feud for power between the tribes of Manco and the rest of his brothers. Different accounts confirm that the Inca led to the Cuzco Valley by Manco Capak had to drive local tribes from the land in order to establish themselves there. People from the droughty Altiplano had to search for humid soils necessary for cultivating corn. Therefore, Manco's golden stick was supposed to point to the land where corn could be grown. For settling in the new place a fight had to take place. In fact, chronicler Sarmiento do Gamboa's expression «gloomy and fertile» might refer to the gory battles fought for the fertile valley.

Both versions end with the account of building the city by Manco in the name of Viracocha the Creator and Inti the sun god. The former was originally the sky god of the ancient Tiahuanaco people, whose cult was later abandoned. Inti, on the other hand, was the tribal deity of the Inca who later became the highest ranking god in the pantheon. The fact that in the later version the instigator of refining people
was Inti, and also that a temple to the sun god was first erected in Cuzco suggests that the journey from Altiplano to the Cuzco Valley must have taken a long time, at least a couple of centuries. (archaeological data supports the fact that Tiachuanaco was destroyed by the Aymarans in the 10th century, and the Inca reached the Cuzco Valley at the end of the 12th century). Thus, during this period
one deity was substituted for another: Viracocha became deus otiosus, Inti, on the other hand became so popular that the first temple was built for him.

As I mentioned before, the supreme god was given a new name - Pachacamak. From then on, Viracocha was associated with the myth of a culture hero, because:

1.the fact that the Tiachuanaco people had spread the cult of Viracocha widely in Peru was never forgotten;
2.the sc. civilisational emigration of the Inca really did take place;
3.the abandoning of the sky god's cult is reflected by the account of Viracocha's set-off to the ocean;
4.Viracocha's promise to return refers to the fact that the sky god's cult never really disappeared, and in greatest troubles the Inca still addressed their sky god, as is common for deus otiosus

(Kulmar 1999: 101-109).Thus, Ayar mango or Manco Capak who supposedly ruled the Inca at the time of their arrival at the Cuzco Valley, became the first half-legendary ruler of the country and started the official Inca dynasty. Certainly, he was nothing more than a tribal chief - it took another two centuries for the Inca civilisation to reach its golden era under the rule of the first emperor Pachacutek Yupanqui (Busto II 1981: 22).

The founding of city in the name of two gods could be interpreted in a manner uniquely provident and theocratic for the history of the Andean state Tahuantinsuyu: the supreme god Viracocha had provided that Manco's tribe will rule the world, and Manco started to carry it out at the will and guidance of Inti, the sun god. Thus, the civilisational mission of the Inca found a theological explanation as well (see also Soriano 1990: 483-499).

Finally, these origin myths also reveal the ethnocentric world-view of the Quechuans: the Inca believed in the inherent superiority and wisdom of their own people, thinking they were destined to refine the mankind whether other peoples accepted it or not. That could be inferred also from the names of the country and its capital. The name of the Inca empire Tahuantinsuyu stands for «the country of four
points of compass» (Vega 1988: 17). Most chroniclers (except for Sarmiento) argue that Cuzco means «pole» (Busto II 1981: 8), i.e. the centre of the world or the world pole.

The analysis of the history and society of the Inca state has confirmed that it was the first and only totalitarian state on the American continent and Pre-Columbian America (Kulmar 1989: 74-76; Soriano 1990: 483-499). The ethnocentric and imperialist origin myth formed the ideological foundation for establishing such a scheme of society, determining also the mentality of its nation by education and in
everyday life. Thus, the Inca built their historical studies and regulations on the ancient Tiahuanaco myths, having customised them according to their own need.

References:

Busto I = Busto Duthurburu, José Antonio del I s.a. Perú Pre-Incaico. Lima: Editorial Universo S.A.
Busto II = Busto Duthurburu, José Antonio del II 1981. Perú Incaico. Lima: Libreria Studium S.A.
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Kulmar, Tarmo 1989. Märkmeid totalitaarsest riigist. Vikerkaar, nr. 2.
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Rostworowski de Díez Canseco, María 1988. História del Tahuantinsuyu. Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos.
Séjourné, Laurette 1992. Altamerikanische Kulturen. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Verlag.
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Vega, Inca Garcilaso de la 1988. Comentarios reales de los Incas. T. 1. Lima: Editorial Mercurio S.A.