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Handbook of Inca Mythology (Handbooks of World Mythology)

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It is said that today there are no more Inca and little history left by them. Even if it is so, then Paul Steel's version of Inca Mythology inclines me to state that ancient Incas were great myth-makers and Andean culture has evolved its own unique mythology, offering a way, sometimes even provocative, to understand the world.

The Handbook of Inca Mythology contains a short description of ancient Inca and Andean Civilization as well as explains the reason why this culture has almost vanished under the influence of another, Spanish, culture. However, the only carriers of the Inca Mythology: Mythic Narratives, Themes and Concepts to which we refer today are the texts left by the chroniclers and Andean authors of the time of the Spanish invasion. Despite this limitation, the book offers an interesting interpretation of Incan myths, stories and beliefs, from which emerges a Mythology whose central concerns were similar to those of all the great civilizations: the creation of the world, death and rebirth, deities and heroes, and cults and shrines.

They seem extremely detailed and complex, with a large number of difficult names to read. However, the supporting examples portrayed in the book underline a logically striking way of seeing the world.

Unlike Western tradition, Andean stories and narratives depicting deities and cultural heroes from A to Z in graphic details would be a fascinatingly informative reading for those interested in the Inca Mythology.

However, The Handbook of Inca Mythology is let down by poor illustrations, and needs more, higher quality pictures and drawings in order to achieve its aims.

This book is for a general audience. It is well written with only occasional use of perhaps overly technical words, for example, chthonic for underworld. It has a very good Index and a list of essential references, at least those that have been published in English. The glossary is also quite useful. In areas in which I am somewhat knowledgeable, I find a good summary is presented but with a minimum of references.

Missing is any reference to the common origin myth of the Maya (Popul Vuh) and Andeans (Huarichiri); likewise other shared myths such as the revolt of the objects are not mentioned. Further, the common substitution of body parts in Andean sculpture, such as at Chavín is not contrasted to the another region where it is well-known, China, as seen in dragons. The Maya case must represent diffusion for the degree of similarity in the quite unusual origin myth; that of China would at least apprise the reader that the Andean case is not unique.

In brief, the book provides a good introduction to Inca mythology and that treatment is extended to pre-Incan peoples in some instances, such as the Moche. It is pitched to somewhere between a popular readership and one useful as a good introductory treatment in a class room at a low grade level at a university. General readers will find the alienness of the myths, less tempered by the introduction of European ones than, say, in Central America, accessible, although the hand of the ethnographer Catherine J. Allen, listed as "with the assistance of") would have helped the readers understanding by supplying more contemporary examples.