The Incas, the last of the independent pre-Hispanic civilizations of the Andes, had an empire that included the lands within the modern political boundaries of Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador, and parts of Colombia, Chile, and Argentina. The mythic beginnings of the Incas, their arts, and their religion are described in their origin stories. From the outset, the Incas defined themselves in terms of their sacred landscape and the people in it. One origin myth, reported by Bernabé Cobo, a Spanish …