Mama Ocllo- Inca DemigodDemigod"Mother of the Inca"

Daughter of the Sun

Inti the sun god looked down and saw humanity living without agriculture, religion, or law. He sent two of his children to earth: Mama Ocllo and her brother Manco Capac. According to the tradition recorded by Garcilaso de la Vega, the divine siblings emerged from the waters of Lake Titicaca at the Island of the Sun. Inti placed a golden staff called the Tapac Yauri in their hands and gave a single instruction: walk until the staff sinks into the earth, and there establish a city.

The Founding Journey

Their journey through the highlands tested the earth at each stopping point. The golden staff always passed through too easily, the soil too rocky or shallow. The pair traveled northward, resting at places that would later be venerated as sacred sites. While Manco Capac gathered men through authority, Mama Ocllo drew women to the new settlement through the skills she carried: the spindle and the loom. By the time the staff finally sank into the fertile earth of the Cusco Valley, she had already gathered a following of women who would become the first citizens of the capital.

The Sisters of Pacaritambo

In another tradition, recorded by Betanzos and Sarmiento de Gamboa, Mama Ocllo was one of four founding sisters who emerged from the caves of Pacaritambo alongside four brothers. They came out of Capac T'oqo, the Royal Cave, as the people destined to found an empire. Among the sisters, Mama Huaco was Mama Ocllo's fierce counterpart. The chronicles credit Mama Huaco with hurling stones from a sling with deadly accuracy, and in one account she killed an enemy and tore out his lungs to intimidate the founding group's opponents.

The journey from Pacaritambo was marked by the progressive loss of the brothers. Ayar Cachi was sealed in a cave, Ayar Uchu was turned to stone, Ayar Auca flew ahead and was petrified. But the four sisters arrived at Cusco intact.

The Teaching of Women

When the golden staff sank at Cusco and the founders claimed the valley, Mama Ocllo's work began. While Manco Capac taught men agriculture and governance, she devoted herself to the women. She taught spinning and weaving on the backstrap loom, the preparation of fiber from cotton and camelid wool. She taught the brewing of chicha, the fermented maize beer that accompanied every ceremony and labor project in the empire. The chroniclers record that before her teaching, people lived without order. Mama Ocllo taught them to live as something other than animals.

The First Coya

Mama Ocllo was both sister and wife to Manco Capac, a union that established the precedent for Inca royal marriage. The solar bloodline demanded that brother wed sister; children of such unions were considered more fully divine. Every subsequent Sapa Inca took his principal wife, the Coya, from among his sisters, each marriage repeating the pattern of the founders.

As the first Coya, Mama Ocllo held her own palaces, servants, lands, and religious responsibilities. She oversaw the Acllahuasi, the houses of chosen women found in every major Inca city. In these cloistered compounds, selected girls trained in weaving and religious service. The most skilled became mamacuna, senior women who instructed new generations in the arts their ancestral mother had first brought from the shores of Lake Titicaca. Her son Sinchi Roca succeeded Manco Capac as the second Sapa Inca, and through him every subsequent ruler carried Mama Ocllo's divine lineage.