Roal
Roal (also Ruwal) is the creator spirit of the Q'ero communities of the Cusco highlands, first documented during the 1955 Cusco university expedition to Q'ero led by Óscar Núñez del Prado and Efraín Morote Best. In the Q'ero cosmogony the world before the present age belonged to the ñawpa machu, the ancient ones who lived by the light of the moon; when the present sun rose, Roal, the chief of the apus, created the primordial couple Inkarrí and Qollari and gave Inkarrí a golden rod with which to found a great people. Roal stands at the apex of the hierarchy of mountain lords described for southern Peru, above the regional and local apus, and is distinct from the imperial Inca creator Viracocha, belonging instead to the post-conquest oral tradition of the Quechua herding communities.
Domains
- creation
- mountains
Powers
- to create living beings and give them breath and power
- to command the mountain lords and order the spirit hierarchy
Epithets
- Apu RoalNúñez del Prado, Óscar. 'El hombre y la familia: su matrimonio y organización político-social en Q'ero.' Revista Universitaria (Cusco) 114, 1957. (secondary)
Relations
- creator of: InkarriIn the Q'ero version of the Inkarrí myth, Roal creates Inkarrí as the primordial man who will found a great people.Ossio, Juan M. (ed.). Ideología mesiánica del mundo andino. Lima: Ignacio Prado Pastor, 1973. (secondary)
- creator of: QollariRoal creates Qollari as the primordial woman, companion of Inkarrí.Ortiz Rescaniere, Alejandro. De Adaneva a Inkarrí: una visión indígena del Perú. Lima: Retablo de Papel Ediciones, 1973. (secondary)
Sources
- Roal is the creator spirit and chief of the apus (mountain lords) in the cosmology of the Q'ero and neighbouring southern Peruvian Quechua communities, who gave life to the primordial couple Inkarrí and Qollari.: Núñez del Prado, Óscar. 'El hombre y la familia: su matrimonio y organización político-social en Q'ero.' Revista Universitaria (Cusco) 114, 1957. (secondary); Núñez del Prado, Juan V. 'The Supernatural World of the Quechua of Southern Peru as Seen from the Community of Qotobamba.' In Patricia J. Lyon (ed.), Native South Americans: Ethnology of the Least Known Continent. Boston: Little, Brown, 1974. (secondary); Ossio, Juan M. (ed.). Ideología mesiánica del mundo andino. Lima: Ignacio Prado Pastor, 1973. (secondary)