Urpayhuachac

Huarochirí · deity · Huarochirí traditional religion; continuing · deity

Urpayhuachac, 'she who gives birth to doves,' is a goddess of the sea and consort of Pachacamac. In the myth of Cuniraya she is the keeper of all the world's fish, which she raised in a walled pond by the shore before the ocean held any. While she was away visiting Cahuillaca in the sea, Cuniraya, having approached her daughters, tipped the pond's contents into the ocean, and so the sea was first filled with fish; enraged, she pursued him. Sources associate her with the fertility of the waters and with the birds and creatures of the coast, and she belongs, with her husband Pachacamac, to the coastal deities woven into the Huarochirí narratives.

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