Huallallo Carhuincho
Also known as: Huallallo Caruincho, Caruyuchu Huayallo
Mythological Narrative
The fearsome earlier god of the Huarochirí stories, who ruled a hot lowland world and demanded one of every two children as food, until Pariacaca's storms drove him east into the Antis lowlands.
Scholarly Commentary & Evolution
## Lord of the earlier world
The Huarochirí material opens with a world before the present one, when the province was hot lowland (*yunca*) country, the dead returned to life on the fifth day, and crops ripened in five days. Its lord was Huallallo Carhuincho, who had defeated the still earlier huacas Yanamca and Tutañamca. Ávila's retelling (1608) says he ordered that no woman should bear more than two children, one of whom was to be given him to eat.
## Defeated by Pariacaca
Pariacaca, born from five eggs on Condorcoto, sets out to confront him. In the manuscript's chapters on their contest (chs. 8 and 16), Huallallo is associated with fire and Pariacaca with rain and hail; Huallallo sends monstrous creatures against his enemy, including a serpent (amaru), and is finally driven out toward the eastern lowlands, the Antis. The contest has been read as a charter for the dominance of the highland peoples who worshipped Pariacaca over lowland-associated groups, and as a mythic memory of changing climate or ecology; neither reading is stated by the manuscript itself.
## Why he is here
Huallallo Carhuincho is included because he is a named huaca in the source, not merely a monster: the manuscript associates him with the Huanca people of the Jauja valley, among whom he was remembered as a god.
Academic Discussion & Critique
Exchange peer-reviewed hypotheses, comparative Indo-European etymologies, and archaeological field interpretations regarding Huallallo Carhuincho.
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