In the 14th century, almost 200 years before Pizzaro arrived to conquer the Incas, a young prince had a dream in which a spirit appeared and identified itself as Viracocha Inca, son of the sun and brother of the first king of the Inca dynasty.
The spirit said that a northern tribe, the Chancas, was preparing a revolution against the monarchy, and serious consequences would follow.
The Chancas did rebel, and the prince subdued them. But rebellion was common, and the Inca priests concluded that a much greater danger was implied in the warning. The priests interpreted another meaning: One day, bearded foreigners who were "masters of the lightning" would arrive from the sea to herald the fall of the empire.
The prince became the eighth Inca king, and the people gave him the name Viracocha. He commissioned the construction of a temple with twelve winding halls leading upward to a statue of a tall, bearded man dressed in a tunic.
He held a chained, ferocious animal that had the claws of a leopard. King Viracocha carved the statue with his own hands in order to create an exact image of the spirit in his veridic dream.
Several omens occurred as the years passed. One day in the sky over the capitol city of Cusco, a condor (the sacred messenger of the sun) was attacked by a swarm of falcons. The wounded condor fell into the city square and was given medical aid by the priests, but it died anyway. The Inca sages were greatly disturbed because they saw it as an omen of bad times to come.
In an audience before Huayna Capac, the 11th Inca king, a soothsayer interpreted an awesome sign that had appeared in the sky: three halos (red, green and brown) encircling the moon.
The sage said:
"The Moon, your Mother, tells you that Pachacamac, the Creator and giver of Life, threatens your Family, your Realm, and subjects. Your sons will wage a cruel War, those of royal Blood will die, and the Empire will disappear."
Since there were only twelve halls in the Temple of Viracocha, and Huayna Capac was the 11th king, he correctly feared that the kingdom would end with its next ruler.
Huayna Capac also worried about a party of light-skinned, bearded foreigners who had come ashore to the north, wielding strange weapons that erupted with fire, as spoken of in earlier prophecies.
On his deathbed, Huayna Capac addressed his priests and officials thus:
"Our father the sun has revealed to me that after a reign of twelve Incas, his own children, there will appear in our country an unknown race of men who will subdue our empire. They doubtless belong to the people whose messengers have appeared on our shores. Be sure of it, these foreigners will reach this country and fulfill the prophecy."
The foreign messengers were Vasco Nuñez de Balboa and company, who arrived at Tumbes in 1511.
The Spaniards returned in 1532, well armed for conquest under the command of Francisco Pizzaro. Within a few years after the death of Huayna Capac from smallpox, his two sons went to war against each other. Atahualpa won and assumed the throne as the 12th Inca, just in time to lose the empire to Pizzaro on November 16, 1532.
The Q’ero (Long-haired ones), the last of the Incas, recently revealed their prophecies of the End of Time to Alberto Villoldo, who has published them. The Q’ero are awaiting the next Pachacuti (He Who Transforms the Earth), and expect it to be the end of the world as we know it. The signs of upheaval have begun, and will last four years.
A new humanity will emerge from the chaos. The prophecies announce the beginning of a new "millenium of gold", and speak of "a rip in the fabric of time", through which will come a luminous being.
The signs of the times include: the drying-up of high mountain cochas (lagoons), the near-extinction of the condor, and great solar heat. Afterwards, we shall emerge into the fifth Sun.
