Urcuchillay

A star for herders

The jurist Juan Polo de Ondegardo, investigating Andean religion in Cusco in the 1550s-1570s, reported that herders worshipped a star they called Urcuchillay, which they imagined as a male llama of many colors and credited with the protection and increase of the flocks; the Jesuit José de Acosta (1590) repeated his account. Polo reported similar star-guardians for other animals and for particular human activities, suggesting a general Andean idea that each kind of creature had a celestial prototype watching over it.

Herding and the sky

Llamas and alpacas were the basis of Andean wealth: food, wool for cloth, transport, and the most important sacrificial animals of the state cult. It is no surprise that the sky itself held llamas, from the dark-cloud Yacana of the Huarochirí Manuscript to Urcuchillay's bright star. The urku in the name means 'male' (used of animals).

Identification

Polo and Acosta do not say which star Urcuchillay was. The Jesuit Bernabé Cobo (1653) identifies it with the constellation European astronomers call Lyra, and says the herders also honoured two smaller stars below it. Whether Cobo's identification reflects Andean usage or his own reading of the sky cannot be checked, so this entry records it as Cobo's.