Mama Killa
Inca Moon goddess; sister-wife of Inti per Garcilaso's account, mother in his variant of the eight Pacaritambo founders. The registry follows Garcilaso's framework but treats the maternal slot as unnamed-mortal in the founders' parentage to maintain clean demigod-class genealogy under the strict-rule criterion. Mama Killa is included here as a freestanding pantheon-tier deity ratified by the Coricancha lunar chamber, the Island of the Moon at Lake Titicaca, and the Coya Raymi annual festival. Her cult is the women's-religion complement to Inti's state-cult masculine-imperial framework: Coya Raymi is conducted by the Coya (Sapa Inca's queen) and the women of the royal panacas; the lunar calendar regulates agricultural and menstrual cycles in parallel to Inti's solar calendar of ceque-shrine observation. Cross-tradition continuity into post-Conquest Q'ero indigenous tradition where Mama Killa (often syncretized with the Virgen Maria in Andean Catholicism) remains an active object of veneration.
Domains
- moon
- fertility and marriage
- time and seasons
Powers
- govern the lunar calendar, months and the timing of festivals
- guard women, marriage and fertility
- Weeps tears of silver
Relations
- spouse: Inti
Sources
- Garcilaso de la Vega, Comentarios Reales (1609), Bk. III Ch. 21
- Cobo, Historia del Nuevo Mundo (1653) Bk. XIII Ch. 6
- Coricancha lunar chamber, Cuzco; Island of the Moon, Lake Titicaca