Hear

According to Andean mythology, the creator god Wiraccocha had come in human form from the higher worlds. Although each regional tradition has its own version of the creation story, all are remarkably similar. It is said that long ago when the world was without light, Wiraccocha came to a place above the dark waters of Lake Titicaca. There, high in the Andes near the Peruvian-Bolivian border, this god-man called forth the sun, moon, and stars and placed them above Lake Titicaca. He then created the tribes of the Andes, each with its own place of emergence, language, and customs. Every tribe was given a holy statute that held divine power and could evoke the seed of the lineage that directly connected the divine and the human. In Quechua, the language spoken by the Inca and still in use in the high Andes, this statute was called a waka. Wiraccocha then spoke gently to his people, the seeds, telling them to do good, to be loving and charitable to all, and to bring no injury to another. He then taught them how to live harmoniously and to bring forth prosperity, showing them how to terrace, engineer systems of irrigation, and grow sacred crops.