Inkarrí
The myth of Inkarri (also: Inkarrí , with final emphasis) is widespread in different versions among the Quechua-speaking population in the southern Andean highlands of Peru . The name developed from the Spanish name Inca Rey ("Inca King") by adapting it to the Quechua pronunciation.
The myth probably goes back to the traumatic experience of the former Inca subjects as a result of the multiple executions of an Inca by the Spanish conquistadors : In 1533 Inca Atawallpa was killed by the Garrotte on the orders of Francisco Pizarro in Cajamarca after he was killed in the so-called Battle of Cajamarca in Captured and held hostage to the Spaniards for several months. The successor Túpac Huallpa appointed by Pizarro died after a few months under unexplained circumstances on the march to Cusco . The last Inca, Túpac Amaru, also died in Cusco in 1572 by beheading on the orders of Francisco de Toledo . After a failed uprising, the indigenous rebel leader José Gabriel Condorcanqui (also known as Túpac Amaru II) was quartered in Cusco in 1781 .
At the heart of the myth is an Inca prophecy before his assassination by the Spaniards, after which he would return and restore order to the Inca Empire. In general, the death of the Inca is always depicted as a decapitation in the myth, just as Waman Puma de Ayala has drawn. The body parts of the Inca are said to be buried in different places, whereby the location details differ. Mostly it is said that the head is buried in Lima or Spain , the trunk in Cusco. The Q'ero contrast -Indianer tell Inkarrí is the fabled place Paytiti caught Service. The body parts, it is said, would grow back together and the Inca rise again . It is therefore a messianic myth.
Inkarri usually appears as the founder of the Inca capital Cusco, often in the context of a competition with an opponent. In Q'ero's version, Inkarri and Qollarri meet on the Raya pass between the areas of Cusco and Puno . Inkarri throws a golden staff there, where he then founds the city of Cusco. Qollarri throws his staff in the other direction, to Lake Titicaca , where he founds the city of Puno. The golden rod appears in many versions of the Inkarri myth and dates back to the time before the Conquista: It is found in the original myths of the Incas (e.g. with the Ayar brothers, see also Manco Cápac ) and in the Huarochirí - Manuscript from the end of the 16th century.
The indigenous Inkarri myth was unknown to Europeans and their descendants for centuries. It was not until 1955 that Óscar Núñez del Prado from the University of Cusco published the tradition that he had recorded in the Quechua village community of Q'ero ( Paucartambo Province , Cusco Department , Peru) as part of an ethnological expedition. Another version, published in 1956, comes from Puquio ( Lucanas Province , Ayacucho Department , Peru) and was recorded by the writer and social scientist José María Arguedas .
literature
- Cristian Alvarado Leyton: antonyms allegories of power: Inkarri and Jesus. On the post-colonial myth of sponsorship patronage in the southern Peruvian highlands. In: Historische Anthropologie 16, 2008, pp. 167–186.
- Juliane Bambula Díaz and Mario Razzeto: Quechua poetry. Reclam, Leipzig 1976.
- Thomas Müller and Helga Müller-Herbon: The children in the middle. The Q'ero Indians. 2nd edition, Lamuv Verlag, Göttingen 1993. ISBN 3889770495