The Sun and the Moon Live Forever

The young girl brushed wisps of ebony locks from her eyes, as she climbed through  frosty, morning mist towards the stone fortress of Sacsahuaman.  When the shadow from a soaring condor passed by her, she pulled her shawl tighter and turned east to gaze at Cuzco, the magnificent capital city of the Inkan empire.  Tomorrow, Manco Capac would be crowned as Sapa Inka, sole ruler of the empire, and the people of Cuzco were preparing for days of feasting and celebration.  Juanna had been sent by her teachers at the temple school to collect special herbs for cooking one of the Inka’s favorite dishes.  Even in the early, gray light of dawn, she could sense the activity and growing excitement in Cuzco and was proud to be a part of it.  But at the same time,  the  young girl could not dispel a nagging sense of discomfort as she searched the hillside for  familiar plants.

One year ago, white men had landed on the northern Inkan shores, and in that time, they had killed Atahualpa the reigning Sapa Inka, and had come to Cuzco.  The foreigners sanctioned Manco’s coronation, but Juanna feared that these strange men from across the sea would try to change the way of life that she loved.  Frowning, she paused to sit on the brown hillside and watch the rising sun paint the city with strokes of red and gold.  When the rays of the sun reached Corichanca, the towering, circular temple in the middle of Cuzco,  she  remembered the day she first saw this monument to the life giving power of the sun god Inti.

Juanna, now fourteen, the age of initiation,  had been only six years old when her family first came to Cuzco from the village of Jauja.  She closed her jet black eyes and listened to the soft morning bird calls that summoned memories of the day  her family left Jauja for a new life in Cuzco.

“Juanna,” her mother had  said, “Bring the goblets, take this jar of cornmeal to your cousin, find your brother and don’t go wondering off.  We’ll leave before dawn tomorrow and we must be ready.”

On bare, hardened feet, the child searched each of the  narrow, cobbled streets in the village before finding her twin brother Chimbo practicing with his sling by the river.

“Mother wants you to come now,”  Juanna demanded, but Chimbo ignored her and continued to shoot rounded stones across the water.  “Now, Chimbo.  She needs your help.  We leave early tomorrow.”

“You help.” Chimbo replied.  “I must practice to be a warrior and chief like father.  In Cuzco, he’ll be an honorary Inka and I will be there by his side.  I’ll learn to fight and build great palaces and roads, and grow crops and travel the empire to serve the Inka and . . . .”

Juanna grabbed the sling from her brother’s hand and raced along the path to the village with Chimbo hollering and chasing close behind.  He had almost managed to grab her waist length tresses when they ran straight into Uncle Hacas who was with a group of relatives in the village square.  Juanna and Chimbo  were amazed to find all the members of the village clan gathered in the plaza in front of their modest, stone house.  Their parents, Poma and Sula, dressed in their finest tunics, stood hand in hand in front of the home’s trapezoid doorway.  Poma stood tall and proud as he spoke to the family members of his village.

“Tomorrow, I leave to join the ruling Inka family in Cuzco.  Huayna Capac, the Sapa Inka, has honored me and this village for supporting his reign and expansion of the empire.  I hereby designate my brother Hacas as the new village chief and ask that our great father the sun and our mothers the Earth and the moon bless him.”