Treasures of the Mama Huaca: Oral Tradition and Ecological Consciousness in Chinchaysuy

The cycle of Mama Huaca legends has continuing relevance to the indigenous and mestizo peoples of Chinchaysuyu, the vast northwest quadrant of the former Inca Empire, whose principal cities were Tomebamba (Cuenca) and Quito. The fearsome hag of the heights and guardian of the mountain and its treasures is a persistent figure in the Andean imagination. She inhabits a highly animated landscape in which mountains and lakes are assigned not only gender, but differing degrees of wealth and wildness (Munoz-Bernard 1990). The moral legends in which Mama Huaca is a protagonist are also intimately connected to local topography and sacred sites, linking her to hemispheric narrative traditions (Basso 1984, 1988)