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Father Bernabe Cobo - Inca Religion and Customs [translated by Roland Hamilton]

After Viracocha and the Sun, this god [Thunder] was ranked in third place, with respect to their worship. They imagined that he was a man who lived in the sky and that he was made up of stars, with a war club in his left hand and a sling in his right hand.

He dressed in shining garments which gave off the flashes of lightning when he whirled his sling, and the crack of this sling made the thunder, and he cracked his sling when he wanted it to rain. Moreover, they say that he passed across a very large river in the middle of the sky.

They indicated that this river was the white band that we see down here called the Milky Way.

Regarding this matter, they made up a great deal of foolishness that would be too detailed to include here.

Anyway, they believed that from this river the Thunder drew the water that he would let fall down upon the earth. Since the Thunder was credited with the power to make it rain or hail, along with all the other things associated with the clouds and the realm of the sky where these imperfectly mixed bodies are formed, under the name of the Thunder or as his adherents, they worshiped thunder-bolts, lightning, rainbows, rain, hail, and even storms and whirlwinds.

The Thunder had three names: the first and most important was Chuqui Illa, which means the radiance of gold; the second was Catu Illa, and the third Inti Illapa.