Mama Quilla Tattoo Meaning

The moon, time, the calendar, and the silver mother of the night.

Mama Quilla is Mother Moon — the silver goddess of the Inca night, wife and sister of the sun, keeper of the calendar and the months, patroness of marriage and the menstrual cycle, whose silver disc shone in the Temple of the Sun beside her husband's gold. To carry Mama Quilla is to carry the moon, time, the calendar, and the silver mother of the night — the goddess who keeps the rhythm of the months, the feminine divine of the predictable return, the moon who measures time by her own changing body.

Mama Quilla — 'Mother Moon' (from the Quechua quilla, meaning moon) — was the wife and sister of Inti, the sun god, and one of the most important deities in the entire Inca pantheon. As the divine feminine counterpart to the sun, she was the goddess of the moon, of marriage, and of the menstrual cycle — presiding over the bonds of union and the rhythms of the female body, both governed by the moon's own cycle.

Her presence was enshrined at the very heart of Inca religion. In the Coricancha, the great Temple of the Sun in Cusco, Mama Quilla's silver disc was kept alongside Inti's golden disc — moon and sun, silver and gold, the divine couple represented side by side in the empire's holiest place. And it was Mama Quilla who governed the lunar calendar, the cycle of the months by which the Inca organized all their festivals and the timing of their agriculture. The moon's phases set the rhythm of religious and farming life alike; to follow Mama Quilla's changing face was to know when to celebrate and when to plant. She was the silver keeper of time, shining beside the golden sun, ordering the months of the Andean world. The Incan Mama Quilla was Mother Moon, whose silver disc shone beside the sun's gold and whose phases set the calendar. The Incan Mama Quilla is the silver disc beside the gold — Mama Quilla ('Mother Moon,' Quechua quilla = moon), wife and sister of Inti (the sun god) and one of the most important deities in the Inca pantheon, goddess of the moon, marriage, and the menstrual cycle; her silver disc was kept in the Coricancha alongside Inti's golden disc (moon and sun, silver and gold, the divine couple side by side in the empire's holiest place), and she governed the lunar calendar that organized all Inca festivals and agricultural timing — the silver keeper of time ordering the months of the Andean world.

The Coricancha in Cusco housed a silver image of Mama Quilla — described by Spanish chroniclers as a silver disc representing the moon, kept in a chamber opposite Inti's golden disc. The image was taken by the Spanish conquistadors along with the gold of Inti. The Inca lunar calendar divided the year into twelve lunar months (killa), each named for an agricultural or ceremonial activity — the Quechua word for month (killa) is the same as the word for moon, reflecting the calendar's lunar basis. Lunar eclipses in Inca cosmology: the Spanish priest Bernabé Cobo (Historia del Nuevo Mundo, 1653 CE) documented that Inca people understood lunar eclipses as an animal — sometimes a jaguar, sometimes a serpent — attacking the moon; they would make noise, throw spears at the sky, and beat their dogs to make them howl, to drive away the attacking creature. The Coya (the Sapa Inca's sister-wife and queen) was understood as the daughter of Mama Quilla — her festival was the Coya Raymi, held in the lunar month of September, the feminine counterpart to the solar Inti Raymi.

Mama Quilla across cultures

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