Mango Capac

MANCO CÁPAC (between 10th or 13th century AC)
First Sapa Inca, Founder of Cusco, Son of the Sun

## History

While the early origins of the Inca empire are cloudy, there is one divine figure from this age generally known to have founded the empire that would one day stretch from the northernmost to southernmost tips of South America - Manco Cápac. Manqo Qhapaq or Manku Qhapaq means "splendid foundation" in the Quechua language and this name indeed foreshadowed his greatest accomplishment - the foundation of Cusco.

Manco Cápac was one of many children of the sun god Inti and the moon goddess Mama Quilla. From the day of his birth Manco Cápac was chosen by God (called Viracocha by the Incas) to be one of five gatekeepers all across the world protecting Earth against the Great Old Ones. His best-known siblings were his sister and soon to be wife Mama Ocllo and his brothers, the death god Vichama and, the eldest of all, Pacha Kamaq – an earth god attributed to have fathered the first Inca people. Emerging from Lake Titicaca, Manco Cápac was sent to Earth by the sun god instructed to create a shrine devoted to him. To determine where to built this temple Inti gave his son a golden staff, called ‘tapac-yauri’. At the spot where the staff sank into the ground Cápac built, as instructed, the Temple of the Sun. This spot was near the home of Inti's children, the cave Pacaritambo.

The temple would become known as the Temple of Qusqu (deriving from the Quechua phrase 'qusqu wanka', meaning 'rock of the owl'). At that time the people of the Andres Mountains were warring tribes living in small villages. The Inca people were among the youngest of these tribes as the god Pacha Kamaq had just founded them, as mentioned before. However, the Inca tribe was the first to encounter and enter the Temple of Qusqu. Until then these simple hunters and gatherers only knew caves and ordinary huts - thus the splendor of the shrine impressed the Incas so much, that they turned into devoted followers of Inti. With their new followers Manco Cápac and his sister and wife Mama Ocllo conquered the entire Qusquo valley and in the years to come they united nearby villages, tribes and minor realms to form the core of a new empire devoted to the sun god. With the borders of the Inca Empire expanding, Qusqu turned from a temple into a city that today is known as Cusco.

But not only human tribes were absorbed into the Inca Empire, their respective patron gods were assimilated too. The lightning god Apocatequil, Kon the weather bringer, Pariacaca the water god and many more formed a powerful pantheon of Inca deities. Alongside these powerful gods were smaller local spirits such as the apus and the huacas - both spirits inhabiting and protecting sacred locations. Manco Cápac even negotiated with the powerful Andean archdemon called Supay who terrorized the South American tribes for centuries. The Son of the Sun even managed to recruit some of Supay's fearsome demons - also called Supay - for the Inca army. Another important ally of Manco Cápac was the immortal superhuman Ajak, worshiped by the Incas as Tecumotzin, Lord of Flight.

Thus the Inca civilization expanded rapidly all over the Andes Mountains using whatever means necessary - religious conversion, trade, diplomacy, military force and even the wrath of the gods themselves. Under the banner of the Sun God armies marched, cities were built or destroyed, temples were constructed, peoples and local gods were annexed and hidden valleys were settled.

But after about thirty to forty years of rule, Manco Cápac passed away and was succeeded by his only son, Roca, who would become famous for the decisive Inca victory in the Battle of Mauedipi following the beheading of the Inca diplomat Teuotihi. Manco was posthumously awarded with the title Sapa Inca ("The Great Inca"), a title similar to the European title of emperor. Manco's corpse was turned in a Mallki, an Andean mummy, that would one day be found and displayed in the Museum of Cusco until in 2009 his spirit was accidentally awakened by the djinn John Gaunt allowing the fallen emperor to reclaim his mummified body.

After Roca a proud dynasty of Sapa Incas ruled the Inca Empire for centuries, until its conquest by the Spanish explorer and warlord Francisco Pizarro. However, Manco Cápac's lineage - the "children of the sun" - would ultimately survive. While some claim that the last Sapa Inca, Atahuapla, will return to life one day, many other Inca noblemen have survived in hidden refuges such as the lost fortress of Paititi and the remote "Country of the Blind". And even Manco Cápac himself returned – and not only as a rotting undead. In order to maintain his task as a multidimensional gatekeeper against the Great Old Ones, he is said to have reincarnated in the 21st century as a Peruvian street beggar called Pedro Cápac.