MYTH-601 Lessons

Students enter the classroom today only to be greeted by a mountainous stack of papers perched ominously on the desk in the front of the room. However, everyone seems to know better than to ask Professor Wessex, barely visible over the top of the pile, any questions about them. The blonde woman pays the towering stack no mind as she walks around to the front of the desk to begin the lesson, either completely unaware or uncaring of the distraction the tests are causing.

Introduction
Finally, we come to your last Mythology lesson of the year. As you know, we will be finishing up our discussion of the Inca, this time more focusing on the myths themselves, rather than the people, gods, creatures, and overall traditions of the culture. You will see numerous connections between these myths today and the topics covered last week. That is, you will if you have been paying attention. At the conclusion of the lesson, the other half of the Mythology team will be arriving to assist with your finals for this year. We have quite a bit to cover before that, though. Let us begin.

The Creation of The Universe
As always, it is best to begin at the beginning. Like nearly all other ancient civilizations, the Inca have provided their own explanation of how the universe, and existence in general, began. The myth opens in a time when the world was covered in darkness, when suddenly the creator god appeared, Con Tiqui Viracocha. He was “born” through the waters of what is known in today’s world as Lake Titicaca, and rose up from the lake to begin shaping the world.

After Viracocha rose out of the water, the first humans came out after him, and it is these persons who were able to record and witness his feats. First, he created the Sun -- his offspring Inti -- as well as the Moon -- Mama Quilla -- and the stars. From there, he found rocks that lined the shore and the depths of the lake and made more humans, notably women, fashioning the large stones into women that were already heavy with children. He then sent the humans out in pairs to populate the world, but kept one pair with him where he resided in the city of Cusco.

However, there exists another contradictory myth that says that while Con Tiqui Viracocha did all these things, humans quickly turned against their creator and therefore Viracocha punished them, withholding rain and causing them to suffer. Then, a lesser known god, Pachacamac, stepped in to overthrow Viracocha and provide rain again.¹ However, he turned the ungrateful, failed humans into monkeys, as he agreed that they needed to be punished. He made his own human beings.

The Legend of the Ayar Brothers
The next big event in human history came after the world had been properly settled. The humans made at the beginning of the universe had spread over the world and reproduced. However, Viracocha felt that humans were not living the way that they should. Therefore he sent Ayar Manco, Ayar Cachi, Ayar Acua, Ayar Uchu, and their wives to show the people how to live, as well as find the perfect location to live. They were given a magical staff that would sink into the ground when they knew they were in the right place. It would be there that the eight of them would start the perfect civilization and show the humans how best to live.

Ayar Cachi was the strongest of all the brothers, the other three jealousy conspired against him. They devised a trap for him as they knew they could not overpower him. Instead, they asked him to go into a cave and search for food there. But when he entered, the three other gods used their combined might to trap him inside, sealing both him and his wife in with an enormous rock. Myth says that his screams of anger still make the earth shake on occasion.

With Ayar Cachi out of the way, the six continued on their journey, coming next to Wanakawri Mountain². There they found a stone idol. While the other two brothers were wary of it, Ayar Uchu attempted to destroy it, which immediately turned he and his wife to stone.

At this point, the two remaining brothers and their wives were concerned. They had been given a task and it was imperative to succeed. Therefore, the remaining pair decided they must split up to search more effectively. Ayar Acua and his wife grew wings and flew away from the mountain in search of such a place, but were never seen again, though legend says they made it as far as Pampa del Sol where he landed and was immediately turned into stone. 

And so it fell to Manco Capac (also known as Ayar Manco, as discussed in the last lesson) and his wife, Mama Ocllo. Coming down from Wanakawri Mountain, they traveled to the city of Cusco and struck the staff on the ground, and found that it sunk in. It was this place they called the “Navel of the World” and where they built their great civilization. Manco Capac taught the men how to farm, to fish and hunt, and taught them of the gods. Meanwhile, Mama Ocllo taught the women the great skill of weaving textiles and how to labor in the fields and the home.

The Great Flood
As it is seen in many cultures and mythologies, floods are seen as enormously destructive events, usually signalling that one god or another is unhappy with humankind in some way. This comes as no surprise, as floods can completely devastate an entire civilization, particularly those with an agricultural focus.

More than one myth depicts a great flood during the Inca’s lifetime, though reasons for the flood vary. In some accounts, Viracocha sends the flood to destroy the giants who have become quarrelsome and humans are just accidental victims. In other myths, the gods orchestrated the flood together, as they saw that humans had become cruel and barbaric, despite Mama Ocllo and Manco Capac’s teachings. In all accounts, however, the waters were high enough to cover all but the highest peaks of the Andes Mountains, and there were very few survivors, usually those who were wise and listened to the warnings the gods had sent. It was from those survivors that humankind continued. Many historians, magical and Muggle alike, point to similarities between these myths and Christianity’s stories of biblical floods as evidence of the Spaniards influencing the myths post-contact. However, it is difficult to know for sure if the similarities in these myths are coincidental, or the product of attempts to evangelize the remnant native population.

The Pachas
Here we will take a brief interlude from discussing the pseudo-linear history of the Inca to discuss a concept that pervades many myths: the three pachas. The more astute of you will remember that term immediately, as the word “pacha” shows up frequently: in names of deities like Pachamama and Pachacamac as well as in locations like ukhu pacha, the underworld realm.

At this moment, we are going to specifically speak of the realms associated with this term. According to Inca mythology, there are, in fact, three realms: hanan pacha, kay pacha, and ukhu pacha (though each of these have multiple alternate spellings, as most things do). As we covered last week, ukhu pacha is the realm of Supay and his denizens, and it was also where the dead went. Prior to Catholic and Spanish contact, this is where all of the dead resided, and was not necessarily seen as a negative place.

In the middle, there was kay pacha, or the world that we see around us. The gods were able to traverse kay pacha and Viracocha frequently did so in disguise to observe the humans. There were many bridges between kay pacha and the other two realms. For example, caves and underground springs served as connections and blurred the physical borders between kay pacha and ukhu pacha. On the other hand, a human could potentially (albeit briefly) physically access or get a glimpse into the “upper world,” via natural phenomena like lightning or rainbows.

Lastly, we have hanan pacha, or the upper world. It was here that the gods resided. When the Spaniards arrived with evangelical teachings, this realm was styled to be much more like the Christian concept of heaven, but initially, it did not factor into the human afterlife at all.

Inkarri
Before we end class for the day and the year, we will look at one more tale: the myth of the Inkarri. Fittingly, this is the last myth, chronologically speaking, in Inca mythology and takes place just as the Inca Empire was being taken over by the Spanish.

The myth is a short one, but impactful. It focuses on the last ruler of the Inca, Atahualpa. In their attempt to destabilize the Inca Empire, the Spaniards made sure to focus on their ruler, and when Atahualpa showed no interest in cooperating, he was tortured and executed. Myths record him as being defiant up until his last breath, saying that one day he would return to avenge his people and overthrown the Spanish. Likely to avoid this, the Spaniards are said to have cut up his body into multiple pieces, burying each piece separately, many miles away from each other. For example, his head is said to be buried under the present-day Palacio de Pizarro in Lima, Peru, whereas his arms are supposedly buried in Cusco, roughly 700 miles away.

The focal point of the myth revolves around the fact that the various parts of Atahualpa are said to be determinedly growing ever closer to each other until the day that they are completely reunited and the last emperor -- called the “Inca Rey” or Incan king, by the Spaniards -- can fulfill his ominous promise.

Closing
And so another year at Hogwarts comes to an end. I certainly hope you have been paying attention, as there was quite a bit covered this year. However, you will find it is no longer simply enough to regurgitate facts, but to be able to do something with that information or to draw conclusions from and notice patterns in those facts. This is hopefully something you have already been doing, though perhaps not consciously. In any case, your final should test this ability thoroughly.

With that, Professor Morgan -- who seems to have appeared when no one was paying attention -- joins the petite woman to stand beside her. With a cheery smile, a wink, and a wave of her wand, the tests on the edge of the Mythology classroom desk whisk to each students’ desk.

Footnotes

1. Pachacamac was not listed in the pantheon yesterday as it is impossible to incorporate him into the already complex and varied chart. In the alternative creation myth, Inti is Pachacamac’s son (not Viracocha’s), and Manco Capac is Pachacamac’s brother, completely changing the levels of the pantheon. While it is unclear which came first, it is suspected that Viracocha (or Con Tiqui Viracocha) was the original creator god, as the rest of the mythology seems to neatly follow the family lines set out in the pantheon described last week.
2. As an aside, this mountain was the site of much magiarchaeological interest in the late 1700s, though it has since been cleared for Muggle discovery.

Original lesson written by Professor Wessex
Image credits here and here