Source recordAncient text
Suma y narración de los Incas (Narrative of the Incas)
Juan de Betanzos · 1551 · Spanish
Ancient text
Suma y narración de los Incas (Narrative of the Incas)
Juan de Betanzos
An early account of Inca history and origins written in Cusco by a Spanish interpreter married to Cuxirimay Ocllo, a noblewoman of Atahualpa's lineage, and drawing on her royal kin. Its opening chapters give the fullest early version of Con Tici Viracocha's creation at Lake Titicaca and Tiwanaku.
About this work
An early account of Inca history and origins written in Cusco by a Spanish interpreter married to Cuxirimay Ocllo, a noblewoman of Atahualpa's lineage, and drawing on her royal kin. Its opening chapters give the fullest early version of Con Tici Viracocha's creation at Lake Titicaca and Tiwanaku.
Stories drawn from it
Retellings in the atlas that quote or cite this work.
Viracocha Makes the World at TiticacacreationRising from Lake Titicaca into a world of darkness, the Creator turns a first, disobedient people to stone, makes the sun, moon, and stars at Tiwanaku, shapes the nations in stone and sends them underground to emerge at their own places, then walks away across the western sea.
Children of the Sun: Manco Cápac and Mama OcllooriginThe Sun sends his son and daughter from Lake Titicaca with a golden rod to find the place where it will sink into the earth; it vanishes at Huanacauri, and there they found Cusco. A second tradition tells instead of four brothers and four sisters emerging from a cave at Pacaritambo.
About this record
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.
Dates and authorship follow standard scholarly references; for many ancient works both are approximate or disputed.