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| Mama Quilla | |
|---|---|
| Name | Mama Quilla |
| Type | Incan goddess |
| Cult center | Cusco, Tahuantinsuyo |
| Domain | lunar deity, marriage, menstrual cycle |
| Consort | Inti |
| Parents | Viracocha (var.) |
Mama Quilla is the principal lunar deity of the Inca Empire and an important goddess in the pantheon of the Andean civilizations. She was venerated across the highlands of the Central Andes and played roles in calendrical regulation, marriage rites, and state ritual practice under rulers of Cusco and officials of the Tawantinsuyu. Accounts of her cult appear in writings by chroniclers such as Garcilaso de la Vega and Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa, and she features in colonial-era accounts compiled by missionaries linked to institutions like the Society of Jesus.
The name derives from Quechua honorifics and kinship terminology recorded by Spanish chroniclers such as Juan de Betanzos and Bernabé Cobo. Variants attested in colonial sources include renderings influenced by Spanish Empire orthography and by regional Quechua dialects used in territories administered from Lima and Cusco. Comparative terms appear in ethnographic records from Bolivia, Peru, and Ecuador and are cited alongside other Andean deity names in the compilations of José de Acosta and Fray Martín de Murúa.
In mythic narratives preserved in sources like Inca Garcilaso de la Vega and Titu Cusi Yupanqui’s testimonies, she functions as consort and complement to the sun deity often identified with Inti and as a regulator of fertility cycles that affected rulership in Cusco and provincial ayllus documented in reports to the Viceroyalty of Peru. Chroniclers associated her with lineage narratives of rulers from dynasties recorded alongside events such as the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire and the campaigns of Francisco Pizarro. Colonial legal petitions by indigenous elites to institutions like the Real Audiencia of Lima sometimes referred indirectly to traditional obligations tied to lunar rites.
Colonial-era illustrations in manuscripts connected to scribes and artists influenced by the Cusco School and by European ateliers in Lima depict lunar emblems, crescent forms, and female figures linked to other deities like Pachamama and to symbols used in state regalia held in the courts of Sapa Inca rulers. Archaeological material culture from sites in the Sacred Valley and artifacts recorded in collections in Madrid and Lima show crescent motifs, metalwork, and textile patterns interpreted by scholars such as John Murra and W. H. Prescott to reference lunar cults. Ethnohistoric sources compare her emblematic role with iconography found on ceramics excavated at sites like Machupicchu and Tipón.
She was central to month names and intercalary practices described in colonial calendars preserved by chroniclers like Guaman Poma de Ayala and in bureaucratic accounts addressed to the Viceroyalty of Peru. Festivals in her honor were timed with lunar phases important to agriculture in the Altiplano and to matrimonial cycles among kin groups or ayllus recorded in petitions archived by the Real Audiencia of Charcas. Ritual specialists including those comparable to figures noted in missionary reports—such as local amautas and priests mentioned by Fray Bernardino de Sahagún in different Mesoamerican contexts—performed offerings, processions, and sacrificial rites synchronized with lunar observances described in reports to colonial authorities and later in ethnographies by Alfred Metraux.
Her cult adapted through the expansion of the Inca Empire across diverse provinces, interacting with local lunar traditions of peoples in regions later administered by the colonial state centered in Lima. Spanish colonial policies, missionary activity by orders such as the Franciscans and Dominicans, and administrative reforms under viceroys reshaped public expression of lunar worship as recorded in legal petitions and chronicles by authors including Pedro Cieza de León and Diego de Trujillo. Postcolonial and modern revival movements in Peru and Bolivia reference these colonial narratives alongside archaeological syntheses by researchers like Mario Polia and Sylvia Tamara to reconstruct continuities between prehispanic ritual calendars and contemporary Andean festivals celebrated in places such as Cusco and rural communities in the Andes.
Scholars have compared her functions to lunar deities in neighboring traditions such as the Moche pantheon documented in iconographic studies at Sipán, ethnohistoric parallels in Aymara-speaking regions, and broader Andean cosmologies discussed by analysts influenced by theories from Claude Lévi-Strauss and practitioners of historical anthropology affiliated with institutions like the National University of San Marcos. Debates engage comparative materials from colonial chronicles, archaeological assemblages from sites curated in institutions like the Museo Larco and interpretive frameworks developed by historians such as Titu Cusi Yupanqui’s descendants, anthropologists including Michael E. Moseley, and linguists specializing in Quechua and Aymara.
Category:Inca deities