Inca and Andean Tradition
Huallallo Carhuincho
Huallallo Caruincho
Also known as Huallallo Caruincho, Caruyuchu Huayallo
- fire
- the hot lowland (yunca) world
- an earlier age
The fearsome earlier god of the Huarochirí stories, who ruled a hot lowland world and demanded one of every two children as food, until Pariacaca's storms drove him east into the Antis lowlands.
About Huallallo Carhuincho
Lord of the earlier world
The Huarochirí material opens with a world before the present one, when the province was hot lowland (yunca) country, the dead returned to life on the fifth day, and crops ripened in five days. Its lord was Huallallo Carhuincho, who had defeated the still earlier huacas Yanamca and Tutañamca. Ávila's retelling (1608) says he ordered that no woman should bear more than two children, one of whom was to be given him to eat.
Defeated by Pariacaca
Pariacaca, born from five eggs on Condorcoto, sets out to confront him. In the manuscript's chapters on their contest (chs. 8 and 16), Huallallo is associated with fire and Pariacaca with rain and hail; Huallallo sends monstrous creatures against his enemy, including a serpent (amaru), and is finally driven out toward the eastern lowlands, the Antis. The contest has been read as a charter for the dominance of the highland peoples who worshipped Pariacaca over lowland-associated groups, and as a mythic memory of changing climate or ecology; neither reading is stated by the manuscript itself.
Why he is here
Huallallo Carhuincho is included because he is a named huaca in the source, not merely a monster: the manuscript associates him with the Huanca people of the Jauja valley, among whom he was remembered as a god.
Origin story
No origin is told; he is simply lord of the land after defeating the huacas Yanamca and Tutañamca (Huarochirí Manuscript, ch. 1).
Worship and cult
Temples, festivals, and practices recorded for Huallallo Carhuincho
The Huarochirí Manuscript associates him with the Huanca people of the Jauja valley; it gives no details of rites performed for him.
In the atlas
Where Huallallo Carhuincho appears
Sources and further reading
Source notes
These references are recorded in the catalog. Their passage wording and translation have not been checked, so quotations are not displayed here.
- Francisco de Ávila, Tratado de los errores, ch. I (trans. Markham 1873)
- Huarochirí Manuscript, chs. 8 and 16 (paraphrase)
About this entry
By Elizabeth Stein for Mythos Atlas. About the author. Editorial notes are grounded in the site's cited sources and can be challenged through the contact page.
Parallels are editorial comparisons across traditions: a shared role does not, by itself, establish a shared origin.
Genealogy
Family tree
Huallallo Carhuincho's parents, consorts, children and rivals, as recorded in the atlas.