Inti

The Inca elite claimed descent from Inti, who was shown as a golden disk with a face and rays; his temple at Cusco was the Qorikancha, where a field of golden maize stood. Wiraqucha was said to have made humanity on an island in Lake Titicaca and withdrawn.

Alongside Inti the state sacrificed to Illapa of thunder, to the Moon, Mama Killa, and to the Earth, Pachamama. Sacred places and objects called wak’a, mountains above all, lay across the Andes, with festivals such as the Inti Raymi at the June solstice. Dead rulers were mummified and honoured as if alive, until in 1559 the Spaniard Polo de Ondegardo seized them in Cusco.