With different degrees of confusion all the chroniclers (Cieza de León, Garcilasso, Molina, Salcamayhua, Betanzos, Montesinos, Huaman Porno, and others) tell the story of the coming forth of Manco Capac and his brothers from Tampu-Tocco to create the empire; but of all the accounts Markham regards that given by Sarmiento as the most authentic.[151] According to this version, Tampu-Tocco was a house on a hill, provided with three windows, named Maras, Sutic, and Capac. Through the first of these came the Maras tribe, through Sutic came the Tampu tribe, and through Capac, the regal window, came four Ayars with their four wives—Ayar Manco and Mama Ocllo; Ayar Auca (the "joyous," or "fighting," Ayar) and Mama Huaco (the "warlike"); Ayar Cachi (the "Salt" Ayar) and Mama Ipacura (the "Elder Aunt"); Ayar Uchu (the "Pepper" Ayar) and Mama Raua. The four pairs "knew no father nor mother, beyond the story they told that they came out of the said window by order of Ticci Viracocha; and they declared that Viracocha created them to be lords"; but it was believed that by the counsel of the fierce Mama Huaco they decided to go forth and subjugate peoples and lands. Besides the Maras and Tampu peoples, eight other tribes were associated with the Ayars, as vassals, when they began their quest, taking with them their goods and their families. Manco Capac carrying with him, as a palladium, a falcon, called Indi, or Inti—the name of the Sun-god—bore also a golden rod which was to sink into the land at the site where they were to abide; and Salcamayhua says that, in setting out, the hero was wreathed in rain-bows, this being regarded as an omen of success.
The journey was leisurely, and in course of it Sinchi Rocca, who was to be the second Inca, was born to Mama Ocllo and Manco Capac; but then came a series of magic transformations by which the three brothers disappeared, leaving the elder without a rival. Ayar Cachi (who, Cieza de León says,[152] "had such great power that, with stones hurled from his sling, he split the hills and hurled them up to the clouds") was the first to excite the envy of his brothers; and on the pretext that certain royal treasures had been forgotten in a cave of Tampu-Tocco, he was sent back to secure them, accompanied by a follower who had secret instructions from the brothers to immure him in the cave, once he was inside. This was done, and though Ayar Cachi made the earth shake in his efforts to break through, he could not do so. Nevertheless (Cieza tells us) he appeared to his brothers, "coming in the air with great wings of coloured feathers"; and despite their terror, he commanded them to go on to their destiny, found Cuzco, and establish the empire. "I shall remain in the form and fashion that ye shall see on a hill not distant from here; and it will be for your descendants a place of sanctity and worship, and its name shall be Guanacaure [Huanacauri]. And in return for the good things that ye will have received from me, I pray that ye will always adore me as god and in that place will set up altars whereat to offer sacrifices. If ye do this, ye shall receive help from me in war; and as a sign that from henceforth ye are to be esteemed, honoured, and feared, your ears shall be bored in the manner that ye now behold mine." It was from this custom of boring and enlarging the ears that the Spaniards called the ruling caste Orejones ("Big-Ears"); and it was at the hill of Huanacauri that the Ayar instructed the Incas in the rites by which they initiated youths into the warrior caste.
At this mount, which became one of the great Inca shrines, both the Salt and the Pepper Ayars were reputed to have been transformed into stones, or idols, and it was here that the rainbow sign of promise was given. As they approached the hill—so the legend states—they saw near the rainbow what appeared to be a man-shaped idol; and "Ayar Uchu offered himself to go to it, for they said that he was very like it." He did so, sat upon the stone, and himself became stone, crying: "O Brothers, an evil work ye have wrought for me. It was for your sakes that I came where I must remain forever, apart from your company. Go! go! happy brethren, I announce to you that ye shall be great lords. I therefore pray that, in recognition of the desire I have always had to please you, ye shall honour and venerate me in all your festivals and ceremonies, and that I shall be the first to whom ye make offerings, since I remain here for your sakes. When ye celebrate the huarochico (which is the arming of the sons as knights), ye shall adore me as their father, for I shall remain here forever."
Finally Manco Capac's staff sank into the ground—"two shots of an arquebus from Cuzco"—and from their camp the hero pointed to a heap of stones on the site of Cuzco. "Showing this to his brother, Ayar Auca, he said, 'Brother! thou rememberest how it was arranged between us that thou shouldst go to take possession of the land where we are to settle. Well! behold that stone.' Pointing it out, he continued, 'Go thither flying,' for they say that Ayar Auca had developed some wings; 'and seating thyself there, take possession of the land seen from that heap of rocks. We will presently come and settle and reside.' When Ayar Auca heard the words of his brother, opening his wings, he flew to that place which Manco Capac had pointed out; and seating himself there, he was presently turned into stone, being made the stone of possession. In the ancient language of this valley the heap was called cozco, whence the site has had the name of Cuzco to this day."
Markham placed the events commemorated in this myth at about 1100 a. d., and Bingham's remarkable discoveries of Machu Picchu and of the Temple of the Three Windows appear to prove the truth of tales of a Tampu-Tocco dynasty, preceding the coming to Cuzco. The tribal divisions (in their numbers, three and ten, strikingly suggestive of Roman legend) are surely in part historical, for Sarmiento gives names of members of the various ayllus in Cuzco in his own day. Yet it is clear that the Ayars are mythical beings. Garcilasso says[153] that the four pairs came forth in the beginning of the world; that in the various legends about them the three brothers disappear in allegory, leaving Manco Capac alone; and that the Salt Ayar signifies "instruction in the rational life," while the Pepper Ayar means "delight received in this instruction." The association of the two Ayars with initiation ceremonies and civic destiny points, in fact, to the character of culture heroes; and their names, Salt and Pepper, again suggest association with economic life, perhaps, in some way, as genii of earth and vegetation, though in the myth of Ayar Cachi the suggestion of a volcanic power is almost irresistible. Ayar Auca is clearly the genius loci of Cuzco, while Manco Capac himself, conceived as an Ayar, is little more than a culture hero. Perhaps the solution is to be found in Montesinos's lists, where Manco Capac is the first ruler of the dynasty of the oldest emperors, after the god Viracocha himself, while the first Inca is Sinchi Rocca. The myth of the Ayars would then hark back to the Megalithic age and to the cosmogonies associated with Titicaca, while their connexion with the Incas, after the dynasty of Tampu-Tocco, would be, as it were, but a natural telescoping of ancient myth and later history, adding to Inca prestige.
In Inca lore there are other legends—the tale of the prince who was stolen by his father's enemies and who wept tears of blood, by this portent saving his life; the legend of the virgin of the Sun who loved a pipe-playing shepherd and of their transformation into rocks; the story of Ollantay, the general, who loved the Inca's daughter, preserved in the drama which Markham has translated; and along with these are many fragments of creation-stories and aetiological myths chronicled by the early writers. History and poetic fancy combine in these to give materials into which are woven beliefs and practices far more ancient than the Inca race, just as Hellenic myth contains distorted reflections of the pre-Greek age of the Aegean. By means of such tales the ancient shrines are made to speak again, as through oracles.