So where each star emerged was where its descendents lived in their ayllus. Not an equitable situation!) For the first time, men and women were considered as equals, although they had traditional differences in their life roles.Įach ayllu (related group living in a vertical archipelago arrangement) traced its lineage to a particular star and region in the Milky Way! Wiraqocha was said to have created these star ancestors and then sent them under the earth to emerge at particular places in the Andes region. (Matrilineal means that although a woman owned the property, her oldest brother controlled her and her children. The god Wiraqocha is said to have persuaded the people from the Lake Titicaca region in southern Peru/Bolivia (from which he is said to have emerged) all the way north into Ecuador to change their semi-nomadic, matrilineal way of life into an agricultural life with descent reckoned from both male and female lines. But once people settled in one place, then they could and did notice such things. A people whose camps changed location nightly due to their wanderings can't really notice certain aspects about the stars in the night sky such as the Milky Way's position at different times of the year and the apparent movement in relation to the horizon of the sun's risings and settings throughout the year. The myths say that before the advent of the primary Andean god, Wiraqocha, the world was dark-there was no light-a metaphor explaining why the nomadic peoples hadn't ever noticed anything special about the lights in the night skies before. Wiraqocha's cosmic representative was the planet Saturn. Their myths say that the great God Wiraqocha appeared to them and showed them a better way to live. This 'firing up' of the heavens caused a corresponding ('enlightenment') change in the Andeans' perspective and way of life. the June and December solstice suns started rising and setting in the Milky Way. Also there are flat-topped boulders (usually black) with carved shallow basins in them-probably for star-gazing, seeing the reflections of the stars in the shallow water poured into these basins.īefore the year 200 B.C., the Andean tribes lived a nomadic or in some cases semi-nomadic lifestyle. All over Peru in temples you can see boulders that were selected because one of their surfaces seemed to echo or mirror (in silhouette) the local mountain formations, or they were carved to resemble the topography. The shaman/priests became excellent astrologer-astronomers. The Andeans saw the topography of their beloved mountains as a reflection of the Milky Way's heavenly topography. to around 650 A.D., the Andean peoples lived in peace, each group or ayllu occupying a particular region, called by archaeologists a vertical archipelago-ranging from the higher slopes straight down into the valley and in some cases to the borders of the Amazon jungle. Just as other ancient cultures, they seemed to be well aware that events in the heavens are reflected here upon the earth. The ancient Andeans ordered their lives according to what they saw transpiring in the cosmos - as above, so below. (Skyglobe is shareware for pcs or Macs running simulated pc. The myths are metaphors that preserve this knowledge so it can be passed down to one's descendants! Using a special shareware software for the computer, called Skyglobe, Sullivan could roll the Andean skies back to any date in the time periods covered by these myths. Myths, on one level, represent the people's scientific understandings about the movements of the heavenly bodies and their influences on humans, in an age when there was no method of writing. Sullivan compares mythical language the world over with the Andean myths and has found an astounding degree of correspondence. The following summary of ancient Andean history is taken from: William Sullivan, The Secret of the Incas: Myth, Astronomy, and the War Against Time. ANCIENT ANDEAN HISTORY DERIVED FROM MYTHOLOGY
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