Cuniraya Viracocha
Also known as: Coniraya, Cuni Raya
Mythological Narrative
The ragged trickster-creator of the Huarochirí stories, who makes terraces and canals with a word, fathers a child on the proud huaca Cavillaca through a fruit, and blesses or curses each animal he meets as he chases her to the sea.
Scholarly Commentary & Evolution
## A creator in rags
The Huarochirí Manuscript (ch. 2) and Francisco de Ávila's Spanish retelling (1608) describe Cuniraya wandering the land as a lice-ridden beggar whom people mock. Yet with a word he makes terraces rise on the ravine sides and, by throwing a cane, sets irrigation channels flowing. In the most famous story he fathers a child on the beautiful and aloof huaca Cavillaca by placing his seed in a ripe lúcuma fruit, then pursues her to the sea at Pachacamac, rewarding the condor, puma, and falcon that give him hopeful news and cursing the skunk, fox, and parrots that do not.
## Cuniraya and Viracocha
The manuscript and Ávila both report that people invoked him as 'Cuniraya Viracocha' and called him lord of all, and Ávila, who was trying to prove the invocation older than the Spaniards, insists it was used 'long before there were any tidings of Spaniards'. Whether Cuniraya was originally a local deity later identified with the Inca state's Creator, or a local form of the same Creator, is debated; Ávila's retelling admits it is not certain whether he came before or after Pariacaca. This site links the two through an 'aspect of' relationship marked as disputed.
## Explaining the world
Many of Cuniraya's acts explain features of the world: why condors eat carrion unharmed, why the puma's skin is worn with its head in festival dances, why foxes stink and are hunted, and why there are fish in the sea (he tips them out of Urpay Huachac's pond in revenge). Ávila records that people in his parishes still acted on these blessings and curses in the early 1600s.
Cross-Pantheon Parallels & Archetypes
Academic Discussion & Critique
Exchange peer-reviewed hypotheses, comparative Indo-European etymologies, and archaeological field interpretations regarding Cuniraya Viracocha.
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