It became, indeed, to Manco Capac a mentor and guide.  His father and mother having died, he started out with his brothers and sisters, seven brothers and seven sisters of them, to seek new lands, taking this staff in his hand.  Like the seven brothers who, in Mexican legend, left Aztlan, the White Land, to found nations and cities, so the brothers of Manco Capac, leaving Pacari tampu, the Lodgings of the Dawn, became the sinchi, or heads of various noble houses and chiefs of tribes in the empire of the Incas.  As for Manco, it is well known that with his golden wand he journeyed on, overcoming demons and destroying his enemies, until he reached the mountain over against the spot where the city of Cuzco now stands.  Here the sacred wand sunk of its own motion into the earth, and Manco Capac, recognizing the divine monition, named the mountain Huanacauri, the Place of Repose.  In the valley at the base he founded the great city which he called Cuzco, the Navel.  Its inhabitants ever afterwards classed Huanacauri as one of their principal deities.[1]

[Footnote 1:  Don Gavino Pacheco Zegarra derives Huanacauri from huanaya, to rest oneself, and cayri, here; “c’est ici qu’il faut se reposer.” Ollantai, Introd., p. xxv.  It was distinctly the huzca, or sacred fetish of the Incas, and they were figuratively said to have descended from it.  Its worship was very prominent in ancient Peru.  See the Information de las Idolatras de los Incas y Indios, 1671, previously quoted.]

When Manco Capac’s work was done, he did not die, like other mortals, but rose to heaven, and became the planet Jupiter, under the name Pirua.  From this, according to some writers, the country of Peru derived its name.[2]

[Footnote 2:  The identification of Manco Capac with the planet Jupiter is mentioned in the Relacion Anonima, on the authority of Melchior Hernandez.]

It may fairly be supposed that this founder of the Inca dynasty was an actual historical personage.  But it is evident that much that is told about him is imagery drawn from the legend of the Light-God.

And what became of Tunapa?  We left him sailing on his outspread mantle, into the light of the morning, over Lake Carapace.  But the legend does not stop there.  Whereever he went that day, he returned to his toil, and pursued his way down the river Chacamarca till he reached the sea.  There his fate becomes obscure; but, adds Pachacuti, “I understand that he passed by the strait (of Panama) into the other sea (back toward the East).  This is what is averred by the most ancient sages of the Inca line, (por aquellos ingas antiquissimos).”  We may well believe he did; for the light of day, which is quenched in the western ocean, passes back again, by the straits or in some other way, and appears again the next morning, not in the West, where we watched its dying rays, but in the East, where again it is born to pursue its daily and ever recurring journey.