Legend·Traditional story: not a proven historical fact.
The birth of the Sun
They say that after the flood the world was left in darkness and people lived in fear. One day the Sun rose in all its splendour from the cleft of the great sandstone rock in the north of the island; that is why the crag was called Titikala, the puma's rock, and the island, Island of the Sun. Another version says the Sun hid under the rock during the flood and the island was the first land to emerge when the waters went down.
LegendTraditional story: not a proven historical fact.
Manco Kápac and Mama Ocllo
The Sun god, taking pity on people who lived like beasts, sent his children Manco Kápac and Mama Ocllo to civilise them. He made them emerge from the sacred rock and gave them a golden staff: where it sank at the first blow they were to found their city. They walked north to the Cusco valley, where the staff disappeared into the ground, and there the empire was born. He taught men to farm and build; she taught women to spin and weave.
Oral traditionMemory passed down through generations in the lake communities.
The fountain of eternal youth
The people of Yumani say the three spouts of the Inca fountain flow from a spring that has not run dry in five hundred years, and that whoever drinks from them stays young. They say each one tastes different and that drinking from all three brings health, wisdom and youth; the three spouts also recall the threefold Andean law: ama sua, ama llulla, ama qhella (do not steal, do not lie, do not be lazy).
Legend·Traditional story: not a proven historical fact.
The Moon rises to the sky
The myth says that Wiracocha, after bringing the Sun out of the Titikala, ordered the Moon to rise from Koati. That is why the island belongs to her, and why for centuries only consecrated women could live there: it was Mama Killa's home on earth.
Documented historyBacked by archaeological or historical sources.
Iñak Uyu, the house of the chosen women
The island was already a ceremonial place for Chiripa and Tiwanaku, but it was the Inca Túpac Yupanqui who built Iñak Uyu, the “women's compound”, on its eastern slope: an acllahuasi where the Virgins of the Sun learned to weave, to make chicha and to serve in the cult. Chroniclers tell of a statue of a woman with a gold torso and silver legs inside, an image of the Moon, and say the temple was looted and abandoned in colonial times.
Oral tradition·Memory passed down through generations in the lake communities.
The stone that carries the sins
The penitent picks up a stone at the foot of the hill and carries it all the way up; at each station they throw it at the cross and pick it up again. The stone stands for one's faults: if at the end it stays on the pedestal, they say, the burden has been forgiven and the request will be heard.
Legend·Traditional story: not a proven historical fact.
The raft of the flood
Legend says the altiplano was a fertile valley until people disobeyed the Apus and climbed to the summit of the Sacred Fire. As punishment the Apus let loose hundreds of pumas, and Inti wept for forty days and forty nights until the valley flooded. Only one couple survived, aboard a totora-reed raft. That is why the reed is seen as a gift from Mama Qota: permission is still asked of the lake before cutting it, and raft and island builders treat it with the respect owed to what saves lives.
