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 Huarochir 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 Cristbal 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 Sau (modern San
Sebastin). 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 Aucas 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 Lurn 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 Huarochir 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 Sau 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 Huarochir. 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 Len, 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, Bernab. 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.