the 2003 publication of the book Andean Awakening, authored by Jorge Luis Delgado, and Mary Anne Male. This is the source of the myth . They are followed by such authors as Mark Torra and Roger Calverley (CHAKANA: Secret Teachings of an Ancient Andean Mystery School). The archaeoastronomer Carlos Milla Villena published his own, distinctly different speculative interpretations of the chacana as “andean, cross” in Génesis de la cultura andina,1983. Mainstream scientific, scholastic, and archaeological sources do not refer to or support the word chakana as the cross-and-box design - rather, it is in Runasimi, the traditional language of the Inca peoples, (modern Quechua), derived from chaka, 'bridge', and means 'to cross over', or 'a crossing'. Among chroniclers such as the Jesuit missionary and naturalist José de Acosta, 1590, it is applied to the group of stars commonly identified as the Belt of Orion. The chroniclers do not refer to the chakana, or chacana, as the “andean cross,” or as reflecting a symbolical or semiotic tradition. The twelve-cornered design itself occasionally appears in pre-contact artifacts such as textiles and ceramics from such cultures as the Wari, Ica, and Tiwanaku, but with no particular emphasis and no key or guide to a means of interpretation. See also Wiphala Axis Mundi Mandala Further reading Soledad Cachuan: Mitología Inca, Buenos Aires 2008 Drury: The Elements of Shamanism, Element Books, 1989. Mariano Cueva: Historia de la iglesia en Mexico, vol. 1, Mexico 1928, pp. 82–86 Wilbert Escobedo Araoz: La cruz cuadrada andina, chacana, [Cusco 2011] (alternative) (the historical account draws largely, without mentioning, on Cueva, 1928). Javier Lajo, Filosofía indígena inka: la Tawachakana References External links www.ancientworlds.net/aw/Article/941062 members.fortunecity.es/chakana/chakana.htm La Chakana Inca mythology Symbols New Age