Cosmogony at Tawantinsuyu and the Inca Pantheon

TheInca pantheon Cuzco ValleyCuzco valley and, by extension, the Inca empireInca empire were divided into four parts (the suyus). The city of Cuzco was at the junction of these four parts and constituted the center of the cosmological order of the Andean world. The four districts were distinguished by the main roads which left the city towards the different regions of the empire. The latter was called Tawantinsuyu (which in Quechua means ‘the empire of the four directionsEmpire of the four directions’) (Espinoza 1997; Pärssinen 2003). The names of the four districts were derived from the names of the peoples who inhabited them. Thus in the southwest we find Kuntisuyu (‘region of the Kuntis,’ a people inhabiting the maritime slopes of the Cordillera), in the northwest Chinchaysuyu (‘region of the Chinchas,’ a coastal state populated by the Chinchas), to the south Qollasuyu (‘region of the Qollas,’ a people who occupied the north of Lake TiticacaLake Titicaca), and finally Antisuyu (‘region of the Antis,’ who occupied the region to the northeast of Cuzco).