Mama Quilla

Mama Quilla (standardized Modern Quechua Mama Killa, literally “Mother Moon”) is the supreme lunar deity, patroness of women, gestation, marriage and the liturgical calendar in the religion of the Inca Empire (Tawantinsuyu). Divine sister and consort of the sun god Inti, Mama Quilla embodied the feminine, nocturnal counterpart in the Andean cosmos, symbolically associated with polished silver (qullqi) and revered in Inca theology as the “tears of the moon”. In the sacred complex of the Qorikancha in Cusco, she had a sanctuary of her own adjacent to the temple of the Sun, whose walls were entirely plated with sheets of solid silver and which housed a colossal silver disc engraved with feminine facial features. Her cult was officiated exclusively by a hierarchy of noble priestesses headed by the reigning empress (the Coya), who was venerated on earth as the living embodiment of Mama Quilla. During lunar eclipses, the Andean population entered ritual alert, raising shouts, beating drums and provoking dogs to howl in order to drive away the jaguar or cosmic serpent trying to devour the silver body in the sky.

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

The silver disk, the full moon, the calendar and the eclipse

Primary sources

• Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, Comentarios Reales de los Incas. translation: Edition by Aurelio Miró Quesada, Biblioteca Ayacucho, Caracas, 1985.
• Cristóbal de Molina, Relación de las fábulas y ritos de los Incas. translation: Edition by Henrique Urbano and Duccio Bonavia, Universidad San Martín de Porres, Lima, 2010.

Studies

• Irene Silverblatt, Moon, Sun, and Witches: Gender Ideologies and Class in Inca and Colonial Peru. Princeton University Press, 1987.
• Terence N. D'Altroy, The Incas. Blackwell Publishing, 2002.
• Brian S. Bauer, The Sacred Landscape of the Inca: The Cusco Ceque System. University of Texas Press, 1998.