Pachamama
Inca · deity · cosmogonic · Recorded classification
Andean earth-mother of fertility and harvests, sustainer of fields and herds.
Domains
- earth
- agriculture and fertility
Powers
- Grant fertility to soil, crops and herds
- Shake the earth and blight crops when neglected
Epithets
- Pachamama 'World/Earth Mother' — the earth divinity sustaining fields and herds, honoured with the title Mama Pacha in libations (challa)Cobo, Bernabé. Historia del Nuevo Mundo (1653), Book 13, ch. 6 (primary chronicle); MacCormack, Sabine. Religion in the Andes, Princeton, 1991 (secondary scholarship)
Relations
- equated with: PachamamaSame theonym and deity across the Quechua- and Aymara-speaking Andes (pacha earth/world + mama mother): one areal earth-mother, not parallel goddesses. The ritual complex (challa libations, August rites) is continuous.Hans van den Berg, La tierra no da asi nomas: los ritos agricolas en la religion de los aymara-cristianos (1990) (secondary); John Murra & others in Handbook of South American Indians, vol. 2 (1946), on Andean earth-mother cult (secondary)
Sources
- existence: Cobo, Historia del Nuevo Mundo; Polo de Ondegardo; Guaman Poma (primary)