In the high clear skies of the Andes, people see a great stream of brightness crossing the heavens. Within this are areas of darkness which appear to have the form of earthly creatures, llamas, toads, serpents and foxes. There is a metaphor in the night skies of life on earth, and its seasonal cycles.
Archaeologist Gary Upton spent several years living and working with villagers in the rural community of Misminay, high in the Andes close to Cusco. The results of his conversations and interviews, published in “Animals and Astronomy in the Quechua Universe”, present a deep and broad cosmovision linking the night sky with events on earth through the seasons and, more fundamentally, with the fertility and order of the natural world.
Gary Urton’s village collaborators told him that they saw a parallel between the Vilcanota river, and the Mayu in the sky. The two ran together, one above and one below, the earthly river taking water down to the sea during the day whilst the celestial river retuns it to the heights at night. The Vilcanota runs from the south east to the north west. The Milky Way, the Mayu, runs roughly north to south.
Huarochiri, the highlands where the waters of the Rio Mala have their source, is far from the village of Misminay, 450 kilometres as the falcon flies, but the Huarochiri Manuscript narrator describes the same interpretation of the skies as Gary Urton found in the village above the Urubamba valley.
“They say the Yacana, the animating spirit of llamas, moves through the middle of the sky. We can see it as a black spot. The Yacana moves inside the Milky Way, the River. It is big, really big. It becomes blacker as it approaches through the sky, with two eyes and a very large neck.”