Nothing he could have done would have prevented his fate.  It was time for a new order, and that new order, in the form of Spanish rule, could not be hindered.  Likewise, when it is time for the present order to end, it will end, and there is nothing anyone can do to stop it.

This myth reveals a vision of time, and of the historical events flowing through it, that differs radically from that espoused in modern Western civilization.  The modern vision of history is one of continual progress, not the fatalism of recurring cycles depicted in the narrative of Incariy.

There are, however, two variations on the modern theme, one evolutionary and the other revolutionary.  In the first case, human history is imagined as gradually but steadily spiraling upward in a constant improvement of the human condition.  In the revolutionary version, improvements are brought about by abrupt, cataclysmic changes when the old order is destroyed or violently and radically altered, and when a new order, better both morally and materially than the old, will arise from the ruins of what had gone before.

In the myth of Incariy, King Inca met the fate he and all Incas were destined for by being killed by Spaniards. It is believed that the present order will end when his head and body,buried in separate places, grow back together. Then the Incas will return to power, while the world will turn upside down.

This variation is seen not only in the Marxian utopias of secular ideology but also in the apocalyptic nature of Western religion.  The religious vision of the Great Revolution is clearly stated in the Book of Revelation, where the prophet, looking into the future, saw “a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.”  In that future period, said the prophet, a city four square, the New Jerusalem, will descend from God out of Heaven; a city in which people will live under radically different conditions.  For “God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.”

In contrast to this notion of radical, qualitative revolution, the Andean folk idea of change adheres to the original meaning of the word revolution; that is, a rotation from one state to another, then back again.