3 - The Tradition of the Apotheosis in the Andes

Summary

Chapter three is dedicated to the tradition of the apotheosis in the Andes. It opens with the context of the Inca Empire and the civil war between Atahualpa and Huascar, and a summary of Spanish penetration from 1532. There follows a fictive reconstruction of dialogue between the Inca ruler Atahualpa and his counsellors. The chapter then analyzes the Andean identification of the Spaniards with the god Viracocha, and considers evidence that there are no references at all to the Spaniards as gods, or as associated with Viracocha, from the period of first contact with Andean peoples. There follows discussion of misunderstanding about Viracocha as a creator god. The chapter moves on to analyze two key concepts of Andean thought, camac (“life force”), and huaca/wak’a (“being with transcendent power”) and explores how Andeans used the history of huacas to interpret the Spanish invasion. To call the Spaniards Viracochas did not mean that they were gods in the European sense; rather, it was a way of linking them to the Andean past and the Andean worldview.