Huarochirí Manuscript
The main roles in the myth are played by mountain deities (Huacas), including the rivals Paryaqaqa and Wallallu Qarwinchu, who also act as protectors of regional ethnicities (Huarochirí, Huanca).
This text is an important monument of early colonial Quechua literature, because it is unique in its detailed description of the traditional beliefs of the indigenous Andean population of the former Inca Empire.
[1] Scholars have drawn comparisons between the Huarochirí Manuscript and the early twentieth-century Entablo Manuscript, also from Huarochirí (specifically, the village of San Pedro de Casta), which describes San Pedro de Casta's ritual water laws in predominantly Spanish language from a local point of view.
The Huarochirí manuscript is the only surviving written source that records a prehispanic religious tradition of the Andes in an Andean language.
As it was recorded decades after the entry of European colonists into the region, the retellings of these religious traditions were influenced by the preceding seventy years of colonial turbulence, including forced conversion and persecution.
It has been argued by Jorge Sanchez-Perez, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Alberta, that de Ávila's purpose was to use the myths recorded to prove the supposed superiority of the Christian faith, and to profess that he had been given foresight of these beliefs when attempting the conversion of indigenous peoples.
"The two supplementary chapters of the manuscript have been analysed by Sarah Bennison of the University of St Andrews (Scotland, UK).
These supplements describe the traditions of the indigenous population (specifically the "San Damián Checa" kin group) in relation to the significance of twin births and babies born with distinctive hair growth patterns (a double crown, as proposed by Bennison).
According to this scholar, these two strands of customs (ie rituals for twins and for double crowns) are intimately related, both being indicative of lightning worship.
This reincarnation meant that the population grew rapidly and people had to migrate into the mountains to find a place to live.
He was combination of a local huaca, Cuniraya, and Huiracocha, who was the Incan creator God, widely known but not universally venerated.
Prompted by other huacas' scorn for his appearance, he miraculously tills the fields and construct andenes merely by speaking, and digs irrigation ditches with the brush of a reed flower.
[7] Finally Cuniraya reached the coast, near the temple of Pachacamac, but neither Cahuillan nor her son were there; they had become two islands, which remain to this day.
They contain themes familiar to the Catholics who produced the manuscript: surviving the great flood, as in the story of Noah's Ark, and a period of darkness, like that which followed the death of Jesus.
The frustrated owner threw a deseeded cob (coronta) of choclo corn at it, and commanded it to eat.
[8] As soon as they arrived at the mountain, where all the animals had congregated, the ocean flooded over the land, submerging everything but the peak of Huillcacoto.
He lived in a house covered by parrot wings, and owned blue, red and yellow llamas.
He was heading for the mountain Condorcoto to witness the birth of Pariacaca his father (a strange concept, not explained in the text).
The mountain fox went on to reveal the strange cause of Tantañamca's illness: in his house, a grain of maize flew out of a cooking pot and touched his wife's genitals.
The youngest daughter of Tantañamca, Chaupiñamca, told him about her father's illness, and he replied that he would cure it, but only if she would be his partner.
The offer, and its acceptance, enraged the husband of Tantañamca's oldest daughter, who didn't want a poor man to join the family.
Naturally, Huatiacuri then remembered the purpose of his journey—to witness the birth of Pariacaca—and hurriedly resumed his journey, now accompanied by Chaupiñamca.
