Amaru

The Amaru is a great mythical serpent of Andean and Inca tradition, a creature of the underground waters, sometimes two-headed or winged, whose emergence was linked to floods, landslides, and the upheaval of the world.

The Name

In Quechua, the language of the Inca, amaru means "serpent," especially a large one, and Spanish colonial dictionaries of Quechua translated it as "dragon" or "great serpent." In Andean myth the word names more than an ordinary snake. The mythic amaru is a powerful being of the inner earth and its waters, closely related to the katari serpent of Aymara tradition.

The Story

One of the oldest written amaru episodes comes from the Huarochirí Manuscript, a collection of Quechua-language traditions from the mountains east of Lima, written down around 1608. In its account of the struggle between the mountain deity Pariacaca and his rival Huallallo Carhuincho, Huallallo sends a great serpent, an amaru, against Pariacaca. Pariacaca strikes it with his golden staff and it turns to stone. Local people pointed to the stone serpent as proof of the story.

In later Andean belief, amarus live inside mountains, lakes, and springs. When one bursts out, the result can be a landslide, a flood, or a mudflow rushing down a valley, so the amaru was respected and feared as a sign of upheaval. Some modern scholars connect it with the Andean idea of pachakuti, the overturning of the world order. Versions differ from place to place, and the amaru can be dangerous or a source of fertility and water.

Appearance and Powers

Descriptions vary. The amaru is usually a huge serpent, but it can be shown with two heads, with wings, or with features borrowed from llamas, felines, or birds. It is associated with water rising from below, with rainbows, and with the passage between the surface world and the world beneath.

Legacy

The serpent's name carried prestige among the Inca. Inca royalty used it in personal names, among them the prince Amaru Yupanqui and Túpac Amaru, the last Inca ruler of Vilcabamba, executed by the Spanish in Cusco in 1572. In 1780 José Gabriel Condorcanqui took the name Túpac Amaru II when he led a great rebellion against Spanish rule, and his name was later adopted by political movements in Peru and Uruguay. Amaru imagery still appears in Andean art and festivals.

Related

• Boitatá: The Boitatá is a fiery serpent of Brazilian folklore, a glowing snake of flame whose name comes from Tupi words for "snake" and "fire," seen at night over fields, rivers, and marshes.
• Rainbow Serpent: The Rainbow Serpent is a powerful creator being in the traditions of many Aboriginal peoples of Australia, a great snake linked to water, rain, and rainbows who shaped the land and punishes those who break its law.
• Quetzalcoatl: Quetzalcoatl is the Feathered Serpent of Mesoamerican religion, an Aztec creator god of wind, the morning star, learning, and maize, whose serpent form joins the quetzal bird's green plumes to a snake's body.
• Dragon Species
• Dragons Across Cultures

Sources and Further Reading

• The Huarochirí Manuscript: A Testament of Ancient and Colonial Andean Religion, trans. Frank Salomon and George L. Urioste (University of Texas Press, 1991)
• Gary Urton, Inca Myths (British Museum Press and University of Texas Press, 1999)

Cite this entry: “Amaru,” Draconika Encyclopedia of Dragons, https://www.draconika.com/dragons/amaru.