Llullaillaco

Llullaillaco is a dormant stratovolcano in the Puna de Atacama, above Antofagasta; its Quechua name joins llulla, false or deceitful, and yaku, water, because the snowmelt vanishes into the dry earth instead of feeding streams.

The high peaks were apus, sacred ancestors and wak'as in Inca religion, and between 1470 and 1532 the Inca Empire made the summit a stage for the capacocha rite.

Children chosen from communities across the empire were brought to Cusco and then led along straight ceque pilgrimage routes to the mountain, prepared for months with coca leaves and chicha and buried near the summit as offerings to the apu, to intercede for harvests, weather and the cohesion of the empire. A capacocha performed here between the 1460s and the early 1500s took three children, whose bodies the freezing, rainless peak preserved along with their finery.