Llamaqñawin (The eyes of the Celestial Llama,α and β Centauri), myths and the annual cycle of water in the Pachacámac Inca sanctuary

Abstract

The Inca oracular sanctuary of the god Pachacama (organizer-energizer of time-space) began its heyday with Tupa Inca Yupanqui ca. 1465 AD, becoming the most important oracular-administrative centre of the coast, and second in importance in all the Tawantinsuyo, "the Inca empire of the four regions". Located on the rainless desert central coast of present-day Peru, the urban complex of adobe and stone buildings has four temples, fourteen structures with ramps, several courtyards and twenty-one edifices, occupying 1,250 acres. The urban layout presents three main alignments that establish its basic directions in almost all the structures in the central zone, the inner and most occupied area of the sanctuary.

Archeoastronomy studies in the sanctuary, with azimuth records taken in situ (1991-2009), as well as studies (2014-2018) using GIS software on aerial photographs, satellite images and panoramic contours, and 2019 drone survey of the sanctuary providing geo-photogrammetric data, confirm alignments directed mainly to the rising and setting of solstices, the major lunar standstills and the rising of α and β Centauri, revealing a landscape rich in cultural significance. The sanctuary’s astronomical layout, as a huge calendrical marker, would also allow an accurate annual record of the course of time and the important diagnosis and prognosis of hydro-climatic variations, both essential to organize propitiatory and preventive measures in ceremonial and agricultural activities.

Among the main building orientations of the sanctuary, the North Portal’s alignment with the Main Entrance street is remarkable. This long alignment pointed (circa 1500 AD) to the rising of α and β Centauri, known in Quechua as Llamaqñawin. This Main Entrance street with adjacent enclosures would have been a ceremonial transitive passage. These stars are also marked geographically at the place where the promontory of Pucusana hill (33 km away) touches the Pacific Ocean. Llamaqñawin are the “eyes” of the dark constellation known as Yacana, the “Celestial Llama”. In ethnohistorical documents of the central highlands of Peru the llama is related explicitly to the rainy season (Guamán Poma, 1615) and as custodian to the flow of water (Francisco de Avila, 1608). Thus, the alignment of the sanctuary’s main entrance directed towards the “Eyes of the Llama” is revealing, turning out to be a wake-up call about the element through which all life flows: water.

The sanctuary’s layout both records and celebrates the cycles of the celestial bodies, the rites, the myths, the weather cycles, and water cycles: sustenance of life. The sanctuary is indeed an Inca ceremonial administrative centre, but in the holistic, inclusive sense that the ancient Andean world attributed to the deity Pachacáma: the organizer and energizer of the whole, the foundation, the driving force of the synergies that sustains life in the totality of time-space.