What did the Incas call the underworld?

The Incas called the underworld Uku Pacha. In Quechua-based descriptions of the cosmos, Uku Pacha—also written Ukhu Pacha or Ucu Pacha—was the realm below or beneath the visible world.

In many modern summaries, Inca cosmology is presented as three interconnected realms: Hanan Pacha, the upper world; Kay Pacha, the earthly world of living people; and Uku Pacha, the inner or lower world. Uku Pacha was associated with the dead, the earth’s interior, caves, seeds, and forces linked to burial and regeneration.

The term is sometimes translated simply as “underworld,” but that can suggest the Christian idea of hell. Colonial Quechua texts used Uku Pacha for “hell,” while Hanan Pacha was used for “heaven,” so later descriptions do not perfectly preserve pre-Columbian beliefs. Supay is also a common mix-up: he was associated with the underworld in later accounts, but Supay is not the name of the realm itself. Kay Pacha means the world of the present, not the world below.