The Chachapoya left no deciphered writing system, and Spanish chroniclers who might have recorded their beliefs encountered them only after Inca conquest had already reshaped their political and religious institutions in the late fifteenth century. Their monumental architecture, sarcophagi and mummy bundles are extensively documented archaeologically, but the specific deities, cosmology and ritual meaning behind that material record are not confidently known from any surviving account.
What would resolve this Further bioarchaeological and iconographic study of undisturbed Chachapoya funerary sites, such as the Laguna de los Condores mausoleums, that could recover painted or carved religious imagery predating Inca influence, together with any Chachapoya-specific vocabulary that might survive embedded in later colonial-era Quechua or Spanish records of the region.
OpenAndean archaeology and bioarchaeologyWarren B. Church and Adriana von Hagen, Chachapoyas: Cultural Development at an Andean Cloud Forest Crossroads (Church and von Hagen)