The impressive glowing band of our galaxy -the Milky Way- with its patches of light and dark that stretches across the Andes Mountains in the Southern Hemisphere, were very important to the Incas religion. They identified constellations and individual stars and assigned them a purpose. They grouped the stars into constellations. Also the Incas were one of the very few cultures who found constellations in the absence of stars. In addition, they also recognized the dark clouds (Llana Phuyu). The non-luminous part of the Milky Way called the Great Rift (The Dark River), and it is made of overlapping dust clouds containing about 1 million solar masses of plasma and dust at a distance of about 300 light years from the Earth.
For the Incas, whose empire at its height thrived in the Andes in Western South America, and stretched from present day Ecuador and Colombia, to Chile, the Milky Way ("Mayu") was a sacred live-giving River in the cosmos with its earthly counterpart -the Urubamba River- in the Sacred Valley, high up in the Andes Mountains (in Peru).
The Incas grouped constellations into two different types -luminous and dark. The luminous was made up of sparkling stars that depicted geometric forms. They were seen as inanimate. The dark cloud (spots) and streaks were contained within the dark blotches of the Milky Way, and were considered living forms, representing silhouettes of animals the Incas knew that came to drink from the waters of the celestial River, obscuring the heavenly glow of the Milky Way ("Mayu").
Many of the stars in the constellations were there to protect their animals. Every animal had a corresponding star or constellation which would look out for it. The Incas believed that the Creator God "Viracocha" had planned all the cosmos for the protection of all living things.
One of the most important dark cloud constellations was -The Llama ("Yacana")- which rises exactly above Cuzco, the ancient capital city of the Inca Empire, during the month of November. The constellation consists of two llamas, a mother and baby. They are a large series of dark streaks West of the "Yuthu" (partridge), with its suckling baby stretched out beneath it. The mother Llama has a long neck with its eyes in its neck (there is no head). The eyes -Alpha and Beta Centauri- were known as its eyes (Llamacnawin). Llamas were of great importance to the Inca, they were food, transportation, clothing material, and sacrifices to their divinities. These sacrifices often took place at certain times with astronomical significance such as equinoxes and solstices. Llamas herders were particularly attentive to the movements of the celestial Llama and offered it sacrifices.
Another dark constellation known to them was -The Serpent ("Mach'aguay"), a wavy dark band (black ribbon). It emerges head-first above Cuzco during the month of August and sets in February, when its earthly counterparts become visible and more active in the area, because, interestingly, this mirrors the activity of real snakes in the zone, which are more active during the Andean rainy season. The dark contellation "Mach'aguay," according to Inca beliefs, was in charge of all the snakes and vipers on Earth, and offerings were made by the Incas to create an energy shield to protect themselves from snake powerful bites. Close by was a small dark spot called "Hanp Atu" (toad); and near that was another dark spot, at the foot of the Southern Cross, called ""Yuthu"(partridge).
The Incas thought of themselves as descendants of the Sun ("Inti"). They did know that the spirit of their god was a gigantic ball of energy inside their celestial River "Mayu" at the speed of 225km per second. The sun and moon were sacred and temples and pillars were laid out specifically so that their heavenly bodies would pass over them or through windows on certain days, such as the Summer Solstice.
The reason why the Incas revered the cosmos and the celestial events was that their observations of stars, constellations (dark and stellar), and of the movements of the sun and the moon, provided them with units of cosmological time, and a calendar system which helped them plan agricultural and herding activities.
The Festival of the Inti Raymi is still celebrated in the Andes. "Inti Raymi" was celebrated by the Incas on the shortest day of the year during the Winter Solstice, and was the most important event in their lives.
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