Handbook of Inca Mythology

Paul R. Steele & Catherine J. Allen,

2004

ABC-CLIO, Santa Barbara, California

(Pag. 235) PETRIFACTION AND PURURAUCA

The ability of individuals to transform into lithic form and vice versa has remained a

fundamental aspect of ideology in the Andean world. The ethnohistoric sources

frequently ascribed this trait to characters who existed in a primordial time or when the

founding ancestors were active on the earth. For instance, the Huarochirí Manuscript

provided many instances of animals as well as people transformed into stone. In his

struggle with Huallallo Carhuincho, the deity of the Yauyos people, Paria Caca struck

the giant two-headed amaru with his golden staff, and the beast froze stiff.

In Cuzco, Betanzos was told that the first people lived in a time of darkness at

Tiahuanaco. Here they did a disservice to their creator, Viracocha, who promptly turned

them into stone. While the act of lithification has been compared to the Christian

concept of divine sin and punishment, the chroniclers discovered that Andean founding

ancestors were frequently endowed with this special ability. The chronicler Cristóbal de

Molina described the sacred places (huacas) as existing “in memory of the origin of

their lineage which proceeded from them. . . . They say that the first who was born from

that place was there turned into stones, others say the first of their lineage were turned

into falcons, condors, and other animals and birds” (1989, 51).

The Apu Yavira was one of the Inca ancestors who was believed to have been converted

into stone. The Incas considered this stone to be a petrified male ancestral sibling;

today locals interpret it as a woman with a baby on her back. (Photo courtesy of Paul

Steele)

On the journey to Cuzco, the Inca Ayar ancestors were transformed into lithified form.

Ayar Uchu was converted into stone at the hill Huanacauri or in Sañu (modern San

Sebastián). Ayar Auca became the lithified ancestor on the site of the future Temple of

the Sun in Cuzco. Ayar Auca was told to fly to a stone pointed out by his brother,

Manco Capac. He lowered himself onto a crag and was immediately turned into a stone,

marking possession of the locality. (Pag. 236) The heap of stones was subsequently

called “Cuzco,” and the Incas had a proverb, “Ayar Auca Cuzco huanca, or, Ayar Auca

a heap of marble.” Then Manco Capac wept, and, owing to his sorrow and to the

fertility of his brother, he gave the name Cuzco, which signified “sad as well as fertile”

(Sarmiento de Gamboa 1999, chap. 13, 55). Thus, this lithified ancestor was considered

to be not only a stone of possession but also a guardian associated with the fertility of

that place.

Ayar Auca’s alternative name includes the word huanca, a term applied to lithified

founding ancestors in other parts of Peru. Stone huancas were associated in particular

with the people who identified themselves as Huari. Andean stone ancestors were also

known as chacara-yoc (field specialist/guardian) or marca-yoc (town

specialist/guardian). These stones are still visible in fields today, and can be considered

as phallic markers symbolizing the fertilization of the land and the reproduction of

humans, animals, and plants. Cavillaca, the daughter of Pachcamac and Urpay Huachac,

was transformed into stone at the mouth of the Lurín River Valley and was identified

specifically with two offshore guano islands. She was chased downriver by the

inseminating male force of Cuniraya Viracocha, which can be associated with the

fertilizing action of that river over the increasingly arid landscape.

As a visible presence on the landscape, these stones also served as territorial markers.

The Inca tradition of origins probably incorporated a spatial progression associated with

the lithified Ayars. Ayar Uchu transformed into stone on the hill Huanacauri that

overlooked the Cuzco Valley and represented the periphery or boundary between the

Inca heartland and what was considered to be non-Inca. He can be associated with the

non-Inca nobles of privileged status known as the Incas-by-privilege. Ayar Auca, who

was converted into stone in Cuzco, represented the Inca elite in Cuzco. Other

fragmentary accounts of Cuzco origins also recorded lithified ancestors whose location

possibly reflected a territorial component. For instance, an ancestor, the Apu Yavira,

was converted into stone on Piccho Hill, overlooking Cuzco from the northwest. An

unnamed Ayar was converted into stone in Tococachi, overlooking Cuzco from the

northeast. Possession of the land also included the resources of that land such as the

watercourses, natural and man-made. The Huarochirí Manuscript recorded that a man,

Anchi Cara, resided by a spring, but a woman arrived and sat in this spring, refusing to

allow the water to flow. After arguing, the two had sexual relations, and they both

transformed into stone where they can be seen today. In general, descriptions of male

petrifaction were more common than female. None of the sisters/wives of the Ayar

ancestors were described in lithified form.

The chroniclers described the process of metamorphosis as an instantaneous act,

occurring the moment the ancestor Ayar physically touched the sacred crag. Ayar Uchu

courageously lowered himself on to the huaca of Sañu and (Pag. 237) the soles of his

feet became attached to the shoulders of the huaca. Uchu was still able to talk to his

siblings, who could do nothing to unfasten their brother. Adopting the lithic form was a

way of perpetuating divinity or making sacred an individual, but the lithic form of Uchu

did not prevent him from communicating with his siblings (Rostworowski 1999, 13–

14).

The opposite process, whereby stones become animate, was part of the tradition of the

Inca-Chanca conflict. The Chanca armies moving toward Cuzco were confronted by

stones that transformed into supernatural warriors known as Pururaucas (savage

enemies) that fought on the side of Pachacuti Inca. After the Inca victory, these warriors

reverted back again to their lithic state. To commemorate this, Pachacuti Inca ordered

some of the stones brought to the Coricancha while others were located on the Cuzco

ceque system, giving them their own names and retinues of caretakers. Cobo glossed the

name Pururauca as “hidden traitors” and said that they were regarded with great

reverence: “[Viracocha Inca] made his people believe that . . . in all the wars he waged

from then on these pururaucas reverted back to their own human form, and armed as he

had seen them for the first time, they accompanied him and were the ones who would

throw the enemy into confusion. This illusion had such an effect on the Indians that they

all started to become fearful of the Incas” (1990, bk. 13, chap. 8, 35). The Andean belief

in the potential animacy of all objects is expressed in the well-known scenes from

Moche iconography that portrayed objects such as utensils revolting against their human

masters.

Many rural communities identify huge boulders and rock outcrops as transformed actors

in mythic traditions reminiscent of Huarochirí. For example, above Lake Qesqay in

Paucartambo Province sits Sipas Qaqa (Girl Rock), the kind girl who served food to a

ragged beggar (who turned out to be God the Father) when he was rejected from a

wedding party. Sent away from the town, she looked back as she stopped to urinate, and

at that moment the town was flooded and she, along with the whole wedding party,

turned into stone. The tradition that ancestors exist in a hard and durable form also

persists with the modern stories of the machu (or gentiles). The hard, calcified remains

of those machus who failed to escape the heat of the sun are visible on the landscape

today.

See also Ceque System; Chancas; Cuniraya Viracocha; Huanacauri; Inca Origins;

Mallqui; Moche; Mountains; Pachacuti Inca; Paria Caca; Tiahuanaco; Viracocha

Suggested Reading

Bauer, Brian. 1998. The Sacred Landscape of the Inca: The Cusco Ceque System.

Austin: University of Texas Press.

Cieza de León, Pedro de. 1976. The Incas. Translated by Harriet de Onis and edited by

V. W. von Hagen. 1553-1554. Reprint, Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.

(Pag. 238)

Cobo, Bernabé. 1990. Inca Religion and Customs. Translated and edited by Roland

Hamilton. Foreword by John Rowe. 1653. Reprint, Austin: University of Texas Press.

Niles, Susan. 1999. The Shape of Inca History. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press.