Chasca

The Star of the Dawn

Domain: Dawn, Venus & Maidens
Alignment: Neutral Good
Element: Light
Relics of Power: Mane of Stars

Speak with Chasca

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4 sections of this entry are open to everyone: the summary, the people, the symbols, the lineage and the sources. The other 9 (Name and epithets, In the ancient sources, The myths, Worship and archaeology, How the god was depicted, What scholars debate, After antiquity, Did you know?, Codex relic) are part of the full Codex: PRO opens the whole study of all 500 deities, and without a subscription you can read one full entry a day, just like in the app.

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The People

People

Inca

Region

Andes mountains

Period

15th – 16th c.

The Inca gods were worshipped along the Andes, from present-day Peru to Chile, from the sacred capital of Cusco. The emperor (Sapa Inca) was held to be the son of the sun Inti, and the people honored the earth-mother Pachamama with offerings. The cult was suppressed after the Spanish conquest, but persists in living Andean traditions.

The Inti Raymi, the Festival of the Sun, gathered the empire in Cusco at the winter solstice — and is re-enacted to this day. The Coricancha temple had walls covered in gold, and offerings to Pachamama remain alive in the Andes, with coca leaves and ritual bundles.

At a glance

Chasca (in modern Quechua orthography Ch'aska or Chhasqa, rendered literally as 'the curly-haired one' or 'the tangled one') is the Andean stellar deity who personifies the planet Venus, venerated chiefly in her form as the morning star (lucero matutino, star of the dawn). In the theology and observational astronomy of the Inca Empire (Tawantinsuyu), Chasca held a prominent place among the celestial bodies subordinate to the sovereign luminaries Inti (the Sun) and Quilla (the Moon). As the mestizo chronicler Inca Garcilaso de la Vega reported, the Andean learned astronomers (amautas) conceived of Venus as the loyal handmaid, page or lady-in-waiting of the Sun, owing to its visual proximity, inseparable from the solar path: appearing immediately ahead of the daytime disc at the dawn twilight to open the paths of light, or directly behind it in the evening west. In the cosmological design of the main altar of the Qorikancha temple in Cusco, recorded by Juan de Santa Cruz Pachacuti Yamqui, Chasca stands out as a brilliant radiant star with many rays, venerated as the infallible herald of the dawn and the protector of the maidens and of the flowers that open beneath the first drops of dew.

5 min read · Reviewed on September 28, 2026 · How we research

Sacred symbols

The morning star, the dew, the flower and the long hair

Sources and further reading

Primary sources

Garcilaso de la Vega, El Inca, Primera parte de los Commentarios Reales. translation: Lisboa: Pedro Crasbeeck, 1609 / Reimpressão anotada, FCE, Lima, 1991.
P. Bernabé Cobo, Obras del P. Bernabé Cobo. translation: Estudo preliminar e notas de F. Mateos, Madrid: Atlas, 1964.
Joan de Santa Cruz Pachacuti Yamqui Salcamayhua, Relacion de antiguedades deste reyno del Piru. translation: Transcrição e estudos de César Itier, Cusco: IFEA / CBC, 1993.

Studies

David S. P. Dearborn & Brian S. Bauer, Inca Astronomy and Skywatching at the Altar of Coricancha. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1995.
Gary Urton, The Astronomical System of the Inka: Orientations and Constellations. Austin: UT Press, 1981.
Sabine MacCormack, Vision and Imagination in Early Colonial Peru: The Andean Gods. Princeton, NJ: PUP, 1991.

Name and epithets

The theonym in the Quechua general language is Chhasqa or Ch'aska, an adjective and noun denoting 'hairy', 'curly', 'wavy', 'dishevelled' or 'tangled'.

In the ancient sources

Comentarios Reales de los Incas, 1609 AD. Garcilaso de la Vega details the etymology of Chasca from the rays resembling curly hair and its role as companion of Inti. Historia del Nuevo Mundo, 1653 AD.

The myths

The Handmaid of the Star-King and the Awakening of Brightness. According to the Cusco astronomical tradition transmitted by Garcilaso de la Vega, the Incas attributed to Chasca a daily ministry indispensable to the bala…

Worship and archaeology

The cult of Chasca was directly articulated with the central astronomical rituals of the Inca calendar. In the Qorikancha complex in Cusco, there were chapels and enclosures dedicated specifically to the celestial bodie…

How the god was depicted

The visual representation of Chasca stands out in colonial engravings and in Inca goldwork. In the famous diagram of the Qorikancha altar drawn by Pachacuti Yamqui, Chasca appears as a radiant circular star surrounded b…

What scholars debate

The Astronomical Identification of Venus in the Colonial Chronicles. Historians of pre-Columbian science and anthropologists debate the extent to which the Incas formally recognised that the morning star and the evening…

After antiquity

Chasca continues to be studied in Andean archaeoastronomy, in the history of indigenous American sciences, and in contemporary poetry in native languages.

Did you know?

In the high mountains of Peru and Bolivia, the bright visibility of Ch'aska on clear winter dawns is still today interpreted by traditional herders as a sign of severe frosts over the high-altitude pastures.

Codex relic

Mane of Stars. The long, gleaming hair that scatters the morning dew at the first glimmer of dawn.

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