Pachamama

The Mother Earth

Domain: Earth, Fertility & Harvest
Alignment: Neutral Good
Element: Earth
Relics of Power: Fertile Soil of the Andes

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5 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

Pachamama (in the Quechua and Aymara spelling Pacha Mama, literally 'Mother Earth-Time' or 'Mother Cosmos') is the primordial Andean deity of fertile earth, agricultural fertility, herds, and the ecological integrity of space-time in Incan and pan-Andean cosmovision. Far from being an inert geological substance, Pachamama is conceived as a living, sensitive, and nurturing cosmic entity that sustains men, animals, plants, and waters. In the traditional ontology of the Andes, the relationship between human beings and Pachamama is governed by the sacred principle of ayni (cosmic reciprocity): the earth generously offers harvests of potatoes, maize, and quinoa, and in return requires that humans feed her, care for her slopes, and repay her with ritual affection through the challa (sprinkling of libations on the ground before drinking) and the rites of payment to the earth (haywarikuy or corpachada), solemnly celebrated during the month of August, when the earth 'wakes up' hungry for the new planting cycle.

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

Sacred symbols

The cultivated earth, the potato, the coca leaf and the mountain

Family

Pachamama

Unions

Pachacamac

Genealogy according to Bernabé Cobo, Historia del Nuevo Mundo (1653); Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala (1615); Juan de Santa Cruz Pachacuti Yamqui (c. 1613); Cristóbal de Molina (c. 1575)

Sources and further reading

Primary sources

Bernabé Cobo, Historia del Nuevo Mundo. translation: Edition by Francisco Mateos, Biblioteca de Autores Españoles, Madrid, 1956.
Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala, Primer Nueva Corónica y Buen Gobierno. translation: Critical edition by John V. Murra and Rolena Adorno, Siglo XXI, México, 1980.

Studies

Catherine J. Allen, The Hold Life Has: Coca and Cultural Identity in an Andean Community. Smithsonian Institution Press, 2002.
Terence N. D'Altroy, The Incas. Blackwell Publishing, 2002.
Gerardo Fernández Juárez, El banquete aymara: aspectos simbólicos de las mesas rituales aymaras. Hisbol, La Paz, 1995.

Name and epithets

The name in the Quechua and Aymara languages is composed of the metaphysical noun pacha (which simultaneously articulates the notions of 'earth', 'space', 'time', 'epoch', 'world', and 'cosmos') and the reverential noun…

In the ancient sources

Historia del Nuevo Mundo, 1653 CE.. Bernabé Cobo records the universal veneration of the earth and the practice of pouring chicha on the soil before drinking. Primer Nueva Corónica y Buen Gobierno, 1615 CE..

The myths

The Awakening of the Earth in August (Chakra Yapuy). According to the Andean ethnographic tradition documented since the 16th century, the earth does not rest in permanent sleep: at the height of the dry winter (the mon…

Worship and archaeology

The cult of Pachamama is characterized by its ecological universality and territorial decentralization: unlike the state deities with closed temples of polished stone, the altar of Pachamama is every single patch of vir…

How the god was depicted

Pachamama had no conventional anthropomorphic statue idols in the urban temples, for the physical earth itself, with its terraced slopes and mountain ranges, was her visible embodiment.

What scholars debate

The Religious Syncretism between Pachamama and the Virgin Mary. Art historians and anthropologists such as Teresa Gisbert have extensively investigated the visual syncretism developed during the viceregal period in Peru…

After antiquity

Pachamama has achieved international renown as the most prominent and revered indigenous symbol of planetary ecological awareness and of the defense of the rights of nature.

Did you know?

The pouring of ritual drink on the ground (challa) is still practiced with such cultural force in contemporary Peru and Bolivia that new vehicles, modern factories, and government buildings are regularly blessed with tr…

Codex relic

Fertile Soil of the Andes. The living earth itself that feeds the Andean peoples and to whom the first offerings are returned.

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