This page has been validated.
MEANING OF NAMES
43

Pirua dynasty. Ccapac means 'rich,' but applied to a sovereign it conveys the idea of being 'rich in all virtues.'[1] The word Yupanqui is an equivalent; literally, 'you may count,' but here it is 'you may count for being possessed of all virtues.' The word Pachacuti is composed of the two words Pacha, 'time,' or the 'world,' and Cutini, 'I turn, change back, or reform.' It was applied to sovereigns in whose reigns there was a change in the calendar, or great reforms, or some important event.

These three words were titles, the others are the actual names of sovereigns. Those which belong to the Quichua language have such meanings as princely, august, strong, the scatterer, sun, dawn, crystal, music, a landmark, a brick, a serpent, and a leveller of ground (cozque), whence the name Cuzco. There is also one name after a locality—Huascar—which also means a cable.

Finally, there are three names which have no meaning in Quichua (with the exception of Pirua, a granary), and may be archaic, possibly megalithic. These are Ayar, Manco, Paullu. Paullu may possibly be a name taken from a locality.

It has been suggested by Don Vicente Lopez that the Pirua dynasty ended with the eighteenth king, and that a new Amauta dynasty commenced with the nineteenth. His only reason for this idea is that the successor of the eighteenth king is only called his heir, and not,

  1. G. de la Vega.