Iraca

The iraca, sometimes spelled iraka,[1][2] was the ruler and high priest of Sugamuxi in the confederation of the Muisca who inhabited the Altiplano Cundiboyacense; the central highlands of the Colombian Andes.

[1][2][3] Important scholars who wrote about the iraca were Lucas Fernández de Piedrahita, Alexander von Humboldt and Ezequiel Uricoechea.

In the centuries before the Spanish conquistadores entered central Colombia in the 1530s, the valleys of the Eastern Ranges were ruled by four main leaders and several independent caciques.

[5] The iraca was both a political and a religious leader (priest), in the religion of the Muisca said to have descended from Idacansás and educated by messenger god Bochica.

[5][8] The Sun Temple was destroyed by fire from the torches of soldiers in the army of Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada, the conquistador who made first contact with the Muisca in September 1537 in search of El Dorado.