Apu Salkantay

Salkantay (Quechua Sallqantay, from sallqa, 'wild, untamed'), the highest peak of the Cordillera Vilcabamba, is regularly paired with Ausangate in Quechua folk religion as one of the two paramount apus of the Cusco region: Ausangate ruling the ranges to the south-east and Salkantay those to the west, above the Machu Picchu sanctuary. Regional belief characterizes him as an authoritative and easily angered male lord of storms, hail and the wild high puna, to whom travellers and herders direct coca offerings when crossing his passes. Johan Reinhard has argued that the sacred geography of Machu Picchu itself is oriented toward Salkantay, indicating the antiquity of the mountain's cult beneath its living folk veneration.

Domains

• mountains
• storms
• wilderness

Powers

• to raise storms, hail and avalanche upon the high passes
• to govern the wild creatures and untamed lands of the high puna

Epithets

• Apu SallqantayReinhard, Johan. Machu Picchu: Exploring an Ancient Sacred Center. 4th ed. Los Angeles: Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press, UCLA, 2007. (secondary)

Relations

• subordinate to: RoalAs one of the great regional apus of the Cusco area, Salkantay stands within the hierarchy of mountain lords headed by Roal in southern Peruvian Quechua cosmology.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. Boston: Little, Brown, 1974. (secondary)

Sources

• Apu Salkantay is the divinized 6,271 m 'savage mountain' west of Cusco, honoured in Quechua folk religion as one of the two greatest mountain lords of the region, a powerful and temperamental master of storms and the wild puna.: Reinhard, Johan. Machu Picchu: Exploring an Ancient Sacred Center. 4th ed. Los Angeles: Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press, UCLA, 2007. (secondary); Bernbaum, Edwin. Sacred Mountains of the World. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1990. (secondary)