A Tarot journey through Peru
Quni Samiyuq
Tarot of the Inca Path
Imagine walking an ancient trail through the Andes, encountering the beliefs, traditions, language, and landscapes that shaped the Inca world.
As I prepared for my journey to Peru, I wanted to learn about the land I would soon be walking through: its history and cosmology, the Quechua language, sacred Inca landscapes, and enduring Andean ideas that continue to shape relationships with nature, community, and cosmos.
So I created a Tarot deck to carry with me.
Quni Samiyuq is that journey.
BEHIND THE NAME
Quni Samiyuq
Keen-waa · Sah-mee-yook
The name Quni Samiyuq carries the spirit I wanted to bring with me to Peru: warmth, comfort, hope, good fortune, blessings, and the intention to walk through life with good energy.
Quni is a Quechua word associated with warmth and comfort. Samiyuq grows from sami, a Quechua word associated with good fortune, happiness, and blessing. Within Andean spiritual traditions, sami also carries a deeper understanding of beneficial, life-giving energy that flows through a living and interconnected world.
Together, these ideas shaped what Quni Samiyuq means to me: walking through life with good intentions, remaining open to the blessings along the trail, and giving something good back to the world.
Stay Sami.
A dedication
For Sami
Before there was Quni Samiyuq, there was a dog named Inca.
Adopting Inca created a curious thread connecting his shelter name, his adopted name, and a journey to Peru that hadn't even begun.
While creating this deck, I discovered that thread. And it became part of the reason this deck is named Quni Samiyuq.
This deck is dedicated to him.
Field notes
Walking the Inca Path
I have always loved mountains.
I hike them. I learn their trails. I love discovering how a landscape shapes the people who live within it. Walking through places where people have walked for centuries gives me another way to understand history.
The Andes have called to me for years.
I come to this journey without Andean ancestry or cultural authority. I come as a traveler, student, artist, and Tarotist with deep respect for the people whose history and living traditions I am studying.
The Inca Path is the journey at the heart of this deck, with many trails joining it along the way.
Throughout this companion, I distinguish historical Inca material, Quechua language, broader and contemporary Andean traditions, my Tarot interpretations, and the personal reflections that emerged along the trail.
I invite you to walk the path of Quni Samiyuq with me, learning and discovering what we find along the way.
Collected entries
Four Paths Through the Landscape
The familiar Tarot suits travel the Inca Path through objects and materials with meaningful connections to the Inca and Andean world.
Staffs
Purpose · Passion · Direction · Determination
Ceremonial staffs and walking staffs became a natural expression of Wands. A staff can support the traveler, signify authority, mark purpose, and point toward a destination.
carried uphill
Keros
Relationship · Emotion · Community · Nourishment
Water sustains life, and vessels allow it to be carried and shared. Keros bring another dimension: drinking together as an act of relationship and community.
There is something beautiful in raising a vessel whose form reaches back through generations.
shared, never alone
Pututus
Communication · Thought · Ideas · Calling
These shell trumpets could announce, gather, signal, celebrate, and call people into ceremony. That made them a natural language for the realm of thought and communication traditionally carried by Swords.
A message begins somewhere. Then it travels.
heard across a valley
Coca
Earth · Body · Resources · Sustenance
Coca grows from the Earth and has a long relationship with the physical demands of life in the Andes.
Rooted in soil and connected with body, labor, energy, offering, and exchange, coca became the Earth suit of Quni Samiyuq.
an offering first
79 Paths. One Journey.
Twenty-three archetypal thresholds.
Four paths through the Minor Arcana.
Seventy-nine opportunities to stop, look around, and discover something along the landscape.
Each card opens another path through the journey.
0
Puriq
The Fool
first step
PUTUTUS
Yachakuq
Page of Swords
a message begins
X
Pachakuti
Wheel of Fortune
seasonal cycles
XVII
Ch'aska Qoyllur
The Star
cloud forest trail
IV
Four of Keros
Four of Cups
waters at rest
IX
Nine of Staffs
Nine of Wands
time to mend
Closing entry
A Note Before We Begin
This is a travel journal, a Tarot companion, and a record of study.
Throughout these pages, history lives beside reflection. Archaeological evidence meets living tradition. Tarot provides the map through which I explore what I encounter.
My role is that of a student walking the path with curiosity, respect, and a willingness to keep learning.
Turn the page. The trail begins here.