Viracocha the Inca volcano god
(The image above depicts the fiery balls of sulphur shooting out and the volcanic lightning bolts held in the hands).
Viracocha is the primary deity in the Inca patheon and was said to be a creator god and described as pale or white-skinned and bearded. Viracocha's many epithets include great, all knowing, powerful, etc
...he creates a world without sun, moon, or stars, populated first with giants, and finally with human beings. Viracocha ordered that people should live without quarrelling, and that they should know and serve him. He gave them a certain precept (the exact precept is not mentioned) which they were to observe on pain of being confounded if they should break it, but falling prey to pride and covetousness, they transgressed the precept of Viracocha. As punishment, some people were turned into stones, some were swallowed up by the earth or sea, and Viracocha drowned the world in a great deluge, called Unu Pachakuti. As is common in myths of the deluge, Viracocha saved two people to bring civilization to the rest of the world: Manco Capac, the son of Inti, whose name means "splendid foundation," and Mama Ocillo, "mother fertility". This pair founded the Inca civilization with a golden staff. Other myths state that Viracocha allowed all the first humans to be destroyed, believing them too corrupt to salvage, and began afresh by creating new humans in the city of Cuzco, the Incan capital. Along with these new people, the Incas, Viracocha created the sun, moon, stars, plants, and animals. After creating new people and sowing them across the earth, Viracocha traveled across the lands to awaken the new humans. When he came to a province of Cacha, the people did not know who Viracocha was and rushed out with their weapons raised. Viracocha instantly caused fire to fall from heaven, burning the mountains nearest to the people. When they saw the volcano, the people realized the power of Viracocha and feared that they would die in the fire. Source.
Wiki: According to a myth recorded by Juan de Betanzos,[4] Viracocha rose from Lake Titicaca (or sometimes the cave of Pacaritambo) during the time of darkness to bring forth light.[5] He made the sun, moon, and the stars. He made mankind by breathing into stones.
Geomythologists might be interested in knowing the following...
Wiki: The Tinajani Basin, in which Lake Titicaca lies, is an intermontane basin. This basin is pull apart basin[18] created by strike-slip movement along regional faults starting in the late Oligocene and ending latest Miocene. The initial development of the Tinajani Basin is indicated by volcanic rocks, which accumulated between 27 and 20 million years ago within this basin.
The above information indicates this lake may have been the scene for some volcanic activity at some point in the ancient past and this might have inspired Viracocha's creation story.
The above is a typical volcano 'creator' god scenario of primordial land being created in primordial waters and is seen frequently in other volcano god myths. Over 90% of volcanoes are submerged under water and the ancients will have been awestruck by the creation of new islands in the oceans, seas, rivers and lakes that line rifting continental plates. The new islands will eventually have sprouted new plants and animals will have settled making it look, to the ancients, as though they were created on the island and not the product of seed migration.
Inca children, or the children of captured tribes, were sacrificed on the top of the volcano Llullaillaco in the Andes, which is the second highest mountain in the world.
The Inca children were sacrificed as part of a religious ritual, known as capacocha. They walked hundreds of miles to and from ceremonies in Cuzco and were then taken to the summit of Llullaillaco (yoo-yeye-YAH-co), given chicha (maize beer), and, once they were asleep, placed in underground niches, where they froze to death. Only beautiful, healthy, physically perfect children were sacrificed, and it was an honor to be chosen. According to Inca beliefs, the children did not die, but joined their ancestors and watched over their villages from the mountaintops like angels. Source.
Inca children sacrificed on the top of a volcano...
Map of Inca Empire
Map of volcanoes in South America
Following exerts from here.
...above sea level, the Inka site and modern village of Raqchi, 100km southeast of Cuzco, lies at the base of a small volcano called Kin sach'ata just above the floodplain of the Vilcanota River (Fig. 1). The modern village of Raqchi was known to the Inka as Cacha and here they constructed a major ritual centre and pilgrimage site dedicated to their creator god, Viracocha.
Viracocha instantly caused fire to fall from heaven, burning a range of mountains near the Indians.
The people of the province told him of the miracle that Viracocha had performed and of the fire that fell from the sky and burned the hill.
When he heard this and saw the burned area, Huayna Capac decided that the remembrance of this event should be greater and ordered the erection, near the burned hill, of a large building (frequently described since as a temple, although "temple" is a European rather than an Andean concept). This was done and it was so large that there is no larger building in all the land of the Inkas. Thus it was finished and they held fiestas and sacrifices there to Viracocha.
In processing through the temple, the devotees would have wound their way towards the statue of Viracocha, the volcano and the spring. The procession through the temple was designed to communicate with the mythical past, to interact with Viracocha, the miracle of his volcano, and the spring that was the pacarina or place of origin of the Canas.
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