Manco Cápac
First governor and founder of the Inca civilization in Cusco.
Manco Cápac, also known as Manco Inca and Ayar Manco, is a figure from Inca history and mythology who is regarded by some historians as the first governor and founder of the Inca civilization in Cusco, possibly in the early 13th century. He is the central character in the two best-known legends explaining the origin of the Inca, both linking him to the foundation of Cusco. His actual existence remains uncertain, though he appears in several chronicles.
Quick Facts
- Reign
- c. 1200 – c. 1230
- Predecessor
- Various in different versions
- usually none (kingdom established)
- Mama Waqu Quya (Guaman Poma de Ayala)
- Successor
- Sinchi Roca
- Born
- before c. 1200
- Birthplace
- Tamputoco, Cusco, Inca Empire
- Died
- c. 1230
- Place of death
- Cusco, Inca Empire
- Father
- Apu Tambo, Inti or Viracocha
Facts from the source article.
Biography
Manco Cápac was born in Tamputoco, a location that some place in what is now the province of Paruro, Peru. The city often served as a refuge for people fleeing Aymaran invasions of the Altiplano. His father, Apu Tambo, headed the local tribal ayllu, which included several dozen families. The family lived a nomadic life. Their travels across the Altiplano resemble the journey described in the legend of the Ayar brothers. When they reached the Cusco valley, they overcame three small tribes—the Sahuares, Huallas, and Alcahuisas—and settled in a swampy area between two streams, now the main plaza of Cusco. The newly founded city was divided into four districts: Chumbicancha, Quinticancha, Sairecancha, and Yarambuycancha. Manco Cápac's ayllu occupied only a small part of the Cusco valley; larger, more powerful tribes, including a confederated lordship of Ayarmacas and Pinaguas to the north, often threatened the city and regarded the ayllu as invaders. Manco Cápac and later his son Sinchi Roca frequently had to defend the city against these tribes. Manco Cápac died of natural causes, and his son Sinchi Roca succeeded him. His body was mummified and remained in Cusco until the reign of Pachacuti, who had it moved to the Temple of the Sun on Isla del Sol; only a statue remained in Cusco.
Mythological origin
Manco Cápac appears in two major origin stories for the Inca Empire, and both agree that he founded the city of Cusco and had a wife named Mama Uqllu. In one version, he is called Ayar Manco and is the son of the god Viracocha, born at a place called Paqariq Tampu, about 25 kilometers south of Cusco. He lived there with his three brothers—Ayar Auca, Ayar Cachi, and Ayar Uchu—and his four sisters, including Mama Ocllo. This group united their own people with other tribes they met while traveling, aiming to conquer the tribes living in the Cusco Valley. A golden staff, given to Manco Cápac by his father, plays a role in this story. In some tellings, Manco disposed of his three brothers by trapping them or turning them into stone, which allowed him to become the sole leader of Cusco. He then married his older sister, Mama Ocllo, and they had a son named Sinchi Roca. In the second legend, Manco Cápac is the son of the sun god Inti and the moon goddess Mama Killa, and the brother of Pacha Kamaq. He himself was worshipped as a fire and sun god. According to this Inti story, Manco Cápac and his siblings were sent up from the underworld by the sun god, emerging from a cave called Pacaritambo while carrying a golden staff known as the tapac-yauri. They were told to build a Temple of the Sun wherever the staff sank into the ground. They traveled through caves to reach Cusco, and there they built a temple dedicated to their father Inti. However, the authenticity of this legend as a genuine Inca tradition is doubted because no written record of it exists before the 1609 publication of Garcilaso de la Vega’s Comentarios Reales de los Incas. A third account, recorded by Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala, tells a different story. In this version, Manco Capac was the child of a sorceress named Mama Waqu, who used magic to enchant the people of Cusco and make herself their queen. Mama Waqu had sex with many men and eventually gave birth to Manco. She ordered a servant to hide the baby, then announced to her subjects that a new king, a son of the Sun and Moon, would one day appear from Paqariq Tampu. Two years later, Manco Capac was brought out from hiding and recognized as the Sapa Inca. Mama Waqu then married her son, and they ruled together.
In fiction
Manco Cápac appears as the original owner of various lost treasures in the 1987 Scrooge McDuck comic book story The Son of the Sun, written and drawn by Don Rosa. In the first sentence of Herman Melville's novel The Confidence-Man (1857), a mysterious character's sudden appearance at sunrise on 1 April is compared to Cápac's emergence from Lake Titicaca. In P.B. Kerr's Eye of the Forest, the fifth book of the Children of the Lamp series, Manco Cápac is a powerful Djinn who became a god among the Incas by displaying matter manipulation. In Anthony Horowitz's The Power of Five series, Manco Cápac is a son of Inti and one of five children destined to protect the universe from evil; he is reincarnated in the 21st century as a Peruvian street beggar named Pedro. The character Kuzco from The Emperor's New Groove was originally named Manco Cápac in the first version of the film, titled Kingdom of the Sun.
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