Legend has it that the god Viracocha created a world without light and gave life to giants who did not respect or obey it.
Dissatisfied with the result of his creation, Viracocha sent a flood that plunged the earth completely transforming it.
Once the giants disappeared, Viracocha decided to create men of a size similar to his own.
In order for men to appreciate his work, he resolved to illuminate the earth through the sun, the moon and the stars. I also create plants trees and animals.
Viracocha brought up his envoy, Viracochan, a man who imposed respect, to instruct men on how to conduct themselves in order to live in peace and harmony. He taught them how to grow and when to harvest. The herbs they could use as medicine, and the dresses they should wear. He taught them with kindness and patience.
Despite all the benefits that Virocochan's teachings brought to them, many men insulted him and laughed at him because he was wearing a ragged robe. They were turned into stones. There were those who tried to escape their fury, but were hit by volcanic fire. Only there they realized that they were before a powerful being to whom they owed obedience and respect.
Viracochan went a long way. When he arrived in a beautiful valley he created a person he called Alcaviza and named that place Cuzco. Then he cried out, “After Alcaviza, the Inca apricots will come. My wish is that they will be respected.
This was a foretaste of the arrival in Cusco of Ayar Manco and Mama Ocllo, founders of the Inca Empire
Viracochan had many names: Tumupa, Tarapacá, Viracochan, Pachayachicachan, Bichaycamayoc, Cunacuycamayoc, Pachacan. All these names mean: Viracocha's envoy, his source, the preacher, the attendant of the present or the connoisseur of time.
When Viracochan arrived near the Equator, he anticipated many things to happen to men and then entered the sea walking on the water.
Once upon a time there was a very fertile valley surrounded by very high mountains. This valley was located in the territory that today occupies northern Bolivia and southern Peru.
The men who lived there lived happily without worries.
The Apus, gods of the mountains, provided them with everything they needed, from food to shelter. They also protected them from all dangers and anguish.
The Apus had made all these goods available to men on one condition: that no man should ever climb the mountain where the sacred fire burned.
Men had always obeyed the command of their protective gods, but one day, the devil, annoyed with seeing so much peace and quiet, began to incite men to compete among themselves to find out which of them was the bravest. The show of courage was to challenge the gods.
One day, the men decided to climb the mountain where the sacred fire was burning, but the Apus surprised them halfway. Seeing that the men had disobeyed his mandate, they decided to exterminate them. Under the order of the gods, hundreds of pumas that populated the mountain of sacred fire came out of their caves and began to devour them.
The men asked for help from the devil, but he ignored them because he had already achieved what he intended.
From the top of the sky, Inti, the sun-god watched the massacre with sadness. So much was his pain that he wept bitterly for forty days. So profuse was his cry that his tears flooded the valley completely.
All the men died except a man and a woman who were in a reed boat.
When the sun shone again, they saw that they were sailing over a huge lake. And over the waters of the lake could be seen drowned pumas transformed into stone statues.
This couple called the lake Titicaca which means the lake of the Pumas de Piedra.
To the north of Lake Titicaca there was a region where men lived like wild animals. Their houses were caves in the mountain. They feed by killing animals and ripping fruits from trees. For them there were no laws or justice or gods.
One day, the sun-god, Inti, decided that these men should be instructed and civilized.
Inti summoned his son Ayar Manco and his daughter Mama Ocllo and asked them to descend to the earth and create an empire.
Among their duties, they were to instruct their inhabitants in the arts of cultivating and harvesting. They should also teach them to respect each other and to worship their creator god, the sun. He also ordered them to found the capital of the new empire. To do this, he entrusted them with a golden cane and said to them: When they reach the lake, they must walk north each time they stop, they must put the cane on the ground. When the staff sinks without difficulty, it is because they have arrived at the right place to found the great city that will be the capital of the empire. That city will be called Cuzco and from that place they will rule the empire of the sun.
The next day, the brothers, richly dressed, descended upon the lake. The men and women who saw them were dazzled and convinced that they were supernatural beings and followed them in the distance.
The brothers began their long trek north by leaning the staff on the ground every time they stopped.
The days passed, but as the staff did not sink, they kept walking.
One day they arrived in a beautiful and fertile valley. When they sat and watched it, they supported the golden cane and it sank without resistance. That was the signal they were waiting for. There they would build the capital of the empire, the Cuzco which means the navel of the world.
Ayar Manco instructed the men to cultivate and harvest. To build their homes and to hunt.
Mama Ocllo took care of women. I teach them how to spin and knit with the wool of flames. To cook and keep order in their homes.
Ayar Manco was renamed Manco Capac. Together with his sister Mama Ocllo, who became his wife, he ruled the empire of the sun.
From that moment on all successive emperors were descendants of Manco Capac and ruled the empire with their sisters becoming wives.