Source recordAncient text
Historia de los Incas (History of the Incas)
Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa · 1572 · Spanish
Ancient text
Historia de los Incas (History of the Incas)
Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa
A history commissioned by Viceroy Francisco de Toledo, compiled from interviews with Inca lineage heads and read back to them for correction, but written to portray the Incas as tyrants. It tells Viracocha's creation and flood, and the Pacaritambo origin of the Ayar siblings.
About this work
A history commissioned by Viceroy Francisco de Toledo, compiled from interviews with Inca lineage heads and read back to them for correction, but written to portray the Incas as tyrants. It tells Viracocha's creation and flood, and the Pacaritambo origin of the Ayar siblings.
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.