THE FOUNDATIONAL MYTHS At the end of the Huari hegemony, the absence of a central power which controls the expansionist affairs of some ethnic groups, added to the onslaught of stormy rains and droughts, constant demographic exodus in search of new lands were motivated through the region. In most of the cases, the traditions or memories say that these groups were directed by semi-divine creatures or cultural heroes. These characters were described in different ways. Sometimes the tales ascribe them the carry of magical rods that could recognize the right place to settle their towns; other times they appear with superhuman capacities, capable to control the elements such as rocks and mountains, the rain and the hail. However, these characters were animated by some natural divinity such as the sun or the moon, among others. THE FOUNDERS THAT CAME IN FROM THE LAKE The tales the chroniclers collected remit to a set of forefathers that were originally settled far away the Cusco valley like the Manco Capac legend. In this sense, his arrival to Cusco is presented as the end of a long pilgrimage and a series of interethnic fights in order to find the appropriate lands for agriculture and cities edification. The most spread version of the first chapter of the Inca's people is the one created by Garcilaso de la Vega that wrote about Manco Capac and Mama Ocllo myth. The chronicler tells that after emerge from the Titicaca Lake; the couple walked north searching for the fertile land where to found a great Nation that their father, the Sun God, promised them. They reached Pacarictambo and then the Huanacauri Mountain, over the valley of Cusco. From there, Manco Capac thrown the magic rod that carried toward the valley and this sink in the ground, indicating the place the Sun reserved for the mythic couple. The local natives venerated them as "children of the Sun", welcomed them as their rulers and accepted to found with them a new Nation. It is said that Manco Capac gathered all the men and taught them the art of war and the construction of water canals and cultivation terraces. Mama Ocllo, on her side, summoned the women and instructed them in the art of knit and agriculture. It is understandable that Garcilaso de la Vega transformed an indigenous tradition to attract a great deal of attention over the European readers, presenting the founder heroes as the great civilizers of the Andean world, responsible of rescuing from the barbarism the towns that preceded the Cusco foundation. Garcilaso, who descended from the Incas by maternal bloodline, projected an idealized image of the Tahuantinsuyu, presenting it as a political and economic well organized society, where the poverty and famine were unknown. Thanks to recent investigations, we know that there was not the barbaric state that Garcilaso ascribe to the pre-Inca period. Likewise, it is known that the Inca's Nation faced serious social problems due to internal power conflicts and the inherent difficulties of any conqueror nation. THE EIGHT AYAR SIBLINGS There is also another version of the founder tale that is much less grandiloquent but more Andean. The history of the Ayar brothers begins at six leagues from Cusco, at the Tambotoco Mountain. The mountain had three caves or windows from where the three ethnic groups of the zone rose. From one of them came the four Ayar brothers: Ayar Uchu, Ayar Manco, Ayar Cachi and Ayar Auca; accompanied by their sisters Mama Ocllo, Mama Raua, Mama Cura and Mama Huaco. The eight siblings began the search for an appropriate place to establish, wandering punas and ravines from south to north. When the brothers reached any settlement, they stayed there accomplishing agricultural practices for several years. Along the road, Mama Ocllo got pregnant from Ayar Manco, giving birth to the heir Sinchi Roca. Later, a conspiracy against Ayar Cachi will be plotted because of the terror he infuse over his brothers and sisters -his magical powers allowed him to overturn hills and create ravines with a sole thrown of his sling. The siblings convinced Ayar Cachi to return to the cave at Tambotoco Mountain to recollect badges, vases and seed forgotten there. Once inside, men send for the job shut in him with rocks at the entrance forever. Reached another place, the Ayar decided that Ayar Manco, once he married Mama Ocllo, will become the leader and Ayar Uchu will stay in that place transformed in a great huaca called Huanacauri. In the Andean system of believes, the petrification was not understood as a disappearance or death; it was a way to sanctify a character. Assuming a lithic nature, Ayar Uchu was transforming into a sacred being which will permit communication between the celestial and the earthly world. In accordance with well spread believes among the Andes, the huacas o sacred stones were landmarks that indicated the seizing of a place. In a certain moment, the strong and skilled Mama Huaco, whom constituted herself as one of the principal leader of the group, decided to take a chance throwing toward north two golden rods; they will indicate if the soil was propitious to settle down. The first of the rods did not penetrate the ground, but the second one did. After many failed attempts to reach the location signaled by the rod, Ayar Manco ordered Ayar Auca, the warrior, to get ahead to the location and populate it in name of his brothers. Once he reached the place where the Cusco will be build, he converted into stone, representing the definite possession of the place. When his siblings reached there, Ayar Manco changed his name to Manco Capac. As we could see, despite the fact that the founder Manco Capac could or could not exist, the in between lines reading of these ancestral histories allows us to see that in the figure of this character embodies the pilgrimage of a whole people searching for the promised land and the fight for the utter possession. These mythic tales turn to be revealing testimonies about the ways of thinking and doing of a Nation.