Huatanay Vallye, Cuzco, and the Ayahuaycco Quebrada
Even at first sight it was obvious that this wall, built by man, was completely covered to a depth of six or eight feet by a compact water-laid gravel bank. This was sufficiently difficult to understand, yet a few days later, while endeavoring to solve the puzzle, I found something even more exciting. Half a mile farther up the gulch, the road, newly cut, ran close to the compact, perpendicular gravel bank. About five feet above the road I saw what looked like one of the small rocks which are freely interspersed throughout the gravels here. Closer examination Page 151showed it to be the end of a human femur. Apparently it formed an integral part of the gravel bank, which rose almost perpendicularly for seventy or eighty feet above it. Impressed by the possibilities in case it should turn out to be true that here, in the heart of Inca Land, a human bone had been buried under seventy-five feet of gravel, I refrained from disturbing it until I could get Dr. Bowman and Professor Foote, the geologist and the naturalist of the 1911 Expedition, to come with me to the Ayahuaycco quebrada. We excavated the femur and found behind it fragments of a number of other bones. They were excessively fragile. The femur was unable to support more than four inches of its own weight and broke off after the gravel had been partly removed. Although the gravel itself was somewhat damp the bones were dry and powdery, ashy gray in color. The bones were carried to the Hotel Central, where they were carefully photographed, soaked in melted vaseline, packed in cotton batting, and eventually brought to New Haven. Here they were examined by Dr. George F. Eaton, Curator of Osteology in the Peabody Museum. In the meantime Dr. Bowman had become convinced that the compact gravels of Ayahuaycco were of glacial origin.
When Dr. Eaton first examined the bone fragments he was surprised to find among them the bone of a horse. Unfortunately a careful examination of the photographs taken in Cuzco of all the fragments which were excavated by us on July 11th failed to reveal this particular bone. Dr. Bowman, upon Page 152being questioned, said that he had dug out one or two more bones in the cliff adjoining our excavation of July 11th and had added these to the original lot. Presumably this horse bone was one which he had added when the bones were packed. It did not worry him, however, and so sure was he of his interpretation of the gravel beds that he declared he did not care if we had found the bone of a Percheron stallion, he was sure that the age of the vertebrate remains might be “provisionally estimated at 20,000 to 40,000 years,” until further studies could be made of the geology of the surrounding territory. In an article on the buried wall, Dr. Bowman came to the conclusion that “the wall is pre-Inca, that its relations to alluvial deposits which cover it indicate its erection before the alluvial slope in which it lies buried was formed, and that it represents the earliest type of architecture at present known in the Cuzco basin.”
Dr. Eaton's study of the bones brought out the fact that eight of them were fragments of human bones representing at least three individuals, four were fragments of llama bones, one of the bone of a dog, and three were “bovine remains.” The human remains agreed “in all essential respects” with the bones of modern Quichuas. Llama and dog might all have belonged to Inca, or even more recent times, but the bovine remains presented considerable difficulty. The three fragments were from bones which “are among the least characteristic parts of the skeleton.” That which was of greatest interest was the fragment of a first rib, resembling the first rib of Page 153the extinct bison. Since this fragmentary bovine rib was of a form apparently characteristic of bisons and not seen in the domestic cattle of the United States, Dr. Eaton felt that it could not be denied “that the material examined suggests the possibility that some species of bison is here represented, yet it would hardly be in accordance with conservative methods to differentiate bison from domestic cattle solely by characters obtained from a study of the first ribs of a small number of individuals.” Although staunchly supporting his theory of the age of the vertebrate remains, Dr. Bowman in his report on their geological relations admitted that the weakness of his case lay in the fact that the bovine remains were not sharply differentiated from the bones of modern cattle, and also in the possibility that “the bluff in which the bones were found may be faced by younger gravel and that the bones were found in a gravel veneer deposited during later periods of partial valley filling, … although it still seems very unlikely.”
Reports of glacial man in America have come from places as widely separated as California and Argentina. Careful investigation, however, has always thrown doubt on any great age being certainly attributable to any human remains. In view of the fragmentary character of the skeletal evidence, the fact that no proof of great antiquity could be drawn from the characters of the human skeletal parts, and the suggestion made by Dr. Bowman of the possibility that the gravels which contained the bones might be of a later origin than he thought, we determined Page 154to make further and more complete investigations in 1912. It was most desirable to clear up all doubts and dissolve all skepticism. I felt, perhaps mistakenly, that while a further study of the geology of the Cuzco Basin undoubtedly might lead Dr. Bowman to reverse his opinion, as was expected by some geologists, if it should lead him to confirm his original conclusions the same skeptics would be likely to continue their skepticism and say he was trying to bolster up his own previous opinions. Accordingly, I believed it preferable to take another geologist, whose independent testimony would give great weight to those conclusions should he find them confirmed by an exhaustive geological study of the Huatanay Valley. I asked Dr. Bowman's colleague, Professor Gregory, to make the necessary studies. At his request a very careful map of the Huatanay Valley was prepared under the direction of Chief Topographer Albert H. Bumstead. Dr. Eaton, who had had no opportunity of seeing Peru, was invited to accompany us and make a study of the bones of modern Peruvian cattle as well as of any other skeletal remains which might be found.
Furthermore, it seemed important to me to dig a tunnel into the Ayahuaycco hillside at the exact point from which we took the bones in 1911. So I asked Mr. K. C. Heald, whose engineering training had been in Colorado, to superintend it. Mr. Heald dug a tunnel eleven feet long, with a cross-section four and a half by three feet, into the solid mass of gravel. He expected to have to use timbering, but so firmly packed was the gravel that this was not necessary. Page 155No bones or artifacts were found—nothing but coarse gravel, uniform in texture and containing no unmistakable evidences of stratification. Apparently the bones had been in a land slip on the edge of an older, compact gravel mass.
In his studies of the Cuzco Basin Professor Gregory came to the conclusion that the Ayahuaycco gravel banks might have been repeatedly buried and reëxcavated many times during the past few centuries. He found evidence indicating periodic destruction and rebuilding of some gravel terraces, “even within the past one hundred years.” Accordingly there was no longer any necessity to ascribe great antiquity to the bones or the wall which we found in the Ayahuaycco quebrada. Although the “Cuzco gravels are believed to have reached their greatest extent and thickness in late Pleistocene times,” more recent deposits have, however, been superimposed on top and alongside of them. “Surface wash from the bordering slopes, controlled in amount and character by climatic changes, has probably been accumulating continuously since glacial times, and has greatly increased since human occupation began.” “Geologic data do not require more than a few hundreds of years as the age of the human remains found in the Cuzco gravels.”
But how about the “bison”? Soon after his arrival in Cuzco, Dr. Eaton examined the first ribs of carcasses of beef animals offered for sale in the public markets. He immediately became convinced that the “bison” was a Peruvian domestic ox. “Under the life-conditions prevailing in this part of Page 156the Andes, and possibly in correlation with the increased action of the respiratory muscles in a rarefied air, domestic cattle occasionally develop first ribs, closely approaching the form observed in bison.” Such was the sad end of the “bison” and the “Cuzco man,” who at one time I thought might be forty thousand years old, and now believe to have been two hundred years old, perhaps. The word Ayahuaycco in Quichua means “the valley of dead bodies” or “dead man's gulch.” There is a story that it was used as a burial place for plague victims in Cuzco, not more than three generations ago! Page 157
Chapter VIII
The Oldest City in South America
Cuzco, the oldest city in South America, has changed completely since Squier's visit. In fact it has altered considerably since my own first impressions of it were published in “Across South America.” To be sure, there are still the evidences of antiquity to be seen on every side; on the other hand there are corresponding evidences of advancement. Telephones, electric lights, street cars, and the “movies” have come to stay. The streets are cleaner. If the modern traveler finds fault with some of the conditions he encounters he must remember that many of the achievements of the people of ancient Cuzco are not yet duplicated in his own country nor have they ever been equaled in any other part of the world. And modern Cuzco is steadily progressing. The great square in front of the cathedral was completely metamorphosed by Prefect Nuñez in 1911; concrete walks and beds of bright flowers have replaced the market and the old cobblestone paving and made the plaza a favorite promenade of the citizens on pleasant evenings.
The principal market-place now is the Plaza of San Francisco. It is crowded with booths of every description. Nearly all of the food-stuffs and utensils used by the Indians may be bought here. Frequently thronged with Indians, buying and Page 158selling, arguing and jabbering, it affords, particularly in the early morning, a never-ending source of entertainment to one who is fond of the picturesque and interested in strange manners and customs.
The retail merchants of Cuzco follow the very old custom of congregating by classes. In one street are the dealers in hats; in another those who sell coca. The dressmakers and tailors are nearly all in one long arcade in a score or more of dark little shops. Their light seems to come entirely from the front door. The occupants are operators of American sewing-machines who not only make clothing to order, but always have on hand a large assortment of standard sizes and patterns. In another arcade are the shops of those who specialize in everything which appeals to the eye and the pocketbook of the arriero: richly decorated halters, which are intended to avert the Evil Eye from his best mules; leather knapsacks in which to carry his coca or other valuable articles; cloth cinches and leather bridles; rawhide lassos, with which he is more likely to make a diamond hitch than to rope a mule; flutes to while away the weary hours of his journey, and candles to be burned before his patron saint as he starts for some distant village; in a word, all the paraphernalia of his profession.
Map of Peru and view of Cuzco
From the “Speculum Orbis Terrarum,” Antwerp, 1578.
In order to learn more about the picturesque Quichuas who throng the streets of Cuzco it was felt to be important to secure anthropometric measurements of a hundred Indians. Accordingly, Surgeon Nelson set up a laboratory in the Hotel Central. His subjects were the unwilling victims Page 159of friendly gendarmes who went out into the streets with orders to bring for examination only pure-blooded Quichuas. Most of the Indians showed no resentment and were in the end pleased and surprised to find themselves the recipients of a small silver coin as compensation for loss of time.
One might have supposed that a large proportion of Dr. Nelson's subjects would have claimed Cuzco as their native place, but this was not the case. Actually fewer Indians came from the city itself than from relatively small towns like Anta, Huaracondo, and Maras. This may have been due to a number of causes. In the first place, the gendarmes may have preferred to arrest strangers from distant villages, who would submit more willingly. Secondly, the city folk were presumably more likely to be in their shops attending to their business or watching their wares in the plaza, an occupation which the gendarmes could not interrupt. On the other hand it is also probably true that the residents of Cuzco are of more mixed descent than those of remote villages, where even to-day one cannot find more than two or three individuals who speak Spanish. Furthermore, the attention of the gendarmes might have been drawn more easily to the quaintly caparisoned Indians temporarily in from the country, where city fashions do not prevail, than to those who through long residence in the city had learned to adopt a costume more in accordance with European notions. In 1870, according to Squier, seven eighths of the population of Cuzco were still pure Indian. Even to-day a large proportion of the individuals whom Page 160one sees in the streets appears to be of pure aboriginal ancestry. Of these we found that many are visitors from outlying villages. Cuzco is the Mecca of the most densely populated part of the Andes.
Probably a large part of its citizens are of mixed Spanish and Quichua ancestry. The Spanish conquistadores did not bring European women with them. Nearly all took native wives. The Spanish race is composed of such an extraordinary mixture of peoples from Europe and northern Africa, Celts, Iberians, Romans, and Goths, as well as Carthaginians, Berbers, and Moors, that the Hispanic peoples have far less antipathy toward intermarriage with the American race than have the Anglo-Saxons and Teutons of northern Europe. Consequently, there has gone on for centuries intermarriage of Spaniards and Indians with results which are difficult to determine. Some writers have said there were once 200,000 people in Cuzco. With primitive methods of transportation it would be very difficult to feed so many. Furthermore, in 1559, there were, according to Montesinos, only 20,000 Indians in Cuzco.
One of the charms of Cuzco is the juxtaposition of old and new. Street cars clanging over steel rails carry crowds of well-dressed Cuzceños past Inca walls to greet their friends at the railroad station. The driver is scarcely able by the most vigorous application of his brakes to prevent his mules from crashing into a compact herd of quiet, supercilious llamas sedately engaged in bringing small sacks of potatoes to the Cuzco market. The modern convent of La Merced is built of stones taken from ancient Page 161Inca structures. Fastened to ashlars which left the Inca stonemason's hands six or seven centuries ago, one sees a bill-board advertising Cuzco's largest moving-picture theater. On the 2d of July, 1915, the performance was for the benefit of the Belgian Red Cross! Gazing in awe at this sign were Indian boys from some remote Andean village where the custom is to wear ponchos with broad fringes, brightly colored, and knitted caps richly decorated with tasseled tops and elaborate ear-tabs, a costume whose design shows no trace of European influence. Side by side with these picturesque visitors was a barefooted Cuzco urchin clad in a striped jersey, cloth cap, coat, and pants of English pattern.
One sees electric light wires fastened to the walls of houses built four hundred years ago by the Spanish conquerors, walls which themselves rest on massive stone foundations laid by Inca masons centuries before the conquest. In one place telephone wires intercept one's view of the beautiful stone facade of an old Jesuit Church, now part of the University of Cuzco. It is built of reddish basalt from the quarries of Huaccoto, near the twin peaks of Mt. Picol. Professor Gregory says that this Huaccoto basalt has a softness and uniformity of texture which renders it peculiarly suitable for that elaborately carved stonework which was so greatly desired by ecclesiastical architects of the sixteenth century. As compared with the dense diorite which was extensively used by the Incas, the basalt weathers far more rapidly. The rich red color of the weathered portions gives to the Jesuit Church an Page 162atmosphere of extreme age. The courtyard of the University, whose arcades echoed to the feet of learned Jesuit teachers long before Yale was founded, has recently been paved with concrete, transformed into a tennis court, and now echoes to the shouts of students to whom Dr. Giesecke, the successful president, is teaching the truth of the ancient axiom, “Mens sana in corpore sano.”
Modern Cuzco is a city of about 20,000 people. Although it is the political capital of the most important department in southern Peru, it had in 1911 only one hospital—a semi-public, non-sectarian organization on the west of the city, next door to the largest cemetery. In fact, so far away is it from everything else and so close to the cemetery that the funeral wreaths and the more prominent monuments are almost the only interesting things which the patients have to look at. The building has large courtyards and open colonnades, which would afford ideal conditions for patients able to take advantage of open-air treatment. At the time of Surgeon Erving's visit he found the patients were all kept in wards whose windows were small and practically always closed and shuttered, so that the atmosphere was close and the light insufficient. One could hardly imagine a stronger contrast than exists between such wards and those to which we are accustomed in the United States, where the maximum of sunlight and fresh air is sought and patients are encouraged to sit out-of-doors, and even have their cots on porches. There was no resident physician. The utmost care was taken throughout the Page 163hospital to have everything as dark as possible, thus conforming to the ancient mountain traditions regarding the evil effects of sunlight and fresh air. Needless to say, the hospital has a high mortality and a very poor local reputation; yet it is the only hospital in the Department. Outside of Cuzco, in all the towns we visited, there was no provision for caring for the sick except in their own homes. In the larger places there are shops where some of the more common drugs may be obtained, but in the great majority of towns and villages no modern medicines can be purchased. No wonder President Giesecke, of the University, is urging his students to play football and tennis.
Towers of Jesuit Church With Cloisters and Tennis Court of University, Cuzco
On the slopes of the hill which overshadows the University are the interesting terraces of Colcampata. Here, in 1571, lived Carlos Inca, a cousin of Inca Titu Cusi, one of the native rulers who succeeded in maintaining a precarious existence in the wilds of the Cordillera Uilcapampa after the Spanish Conquest. In the gardens of Colcampata is still preserved one of the most exquisite bits of Inca stonework to be seen in Peru. One wonders whether it is all that is left of a fine palace, or whether it represents the last efforts of a dying dynasty to erect a suitable residence for Titu Cusi's cousin. It is carefully preserved by Don Cesare Lomellini, the leading business man of Cuzco, a merchant prince of Italian origin, who is at once a banker, an exporter of hides and other country produce, and an importer of merchandise of every description, including pencils and sugar mills, lumber and hats, Page 164candy and hardware. He is also an amateur of Spanish colonial furniture as well as of the beautiful pottery of the Incas. Furthermore, he has always found time to turn aside from the pressing cares of his large business to assist our expeditions. He has frequently brought us in touch with the owners of country estates, or given us letters of introduction, so that our paths were made easy. He has provided us with storerooms for our equipment, assisted us in procuring trustworthy muleteers, seen to it that we were not swindled in local purchases of mules and pack saddles, given us invaluable advice in overcoming difficulties, and, in a word, placed himself wholly at our disposal, just as though we were his most desirable and best-paying clients. As a matter of fact, he never was willing to receive any compensation for the many favors he showed us. So important a factor was he in the success of our expeditions that he deserves to be gratefully remembered by all friends of exploration.
Above his country house at Colcampata is the hill of Sacsahuaman. It is possible to scramble up its face, but only by making more exertion than is desirable at this altitude, 11,900 feet. The easiest way to reach the famous “fortress” is by following the course of the little Tullumayu, “Feeble Stream,” the easternmost of the three canalized streams which divide Cuzco into four parts. On its banks one first passes a tannery and then, a short distance up a steep gorge, the remains of an old mill. The stone flume and the adjoining ruins are commonly ascribed by the people of Cuzco to-day to the Incas, Page 165but do not look to me like Inca stonework. Since the Incas did not understand the mechanical principle of the wheel, it is hardly likely that they would have known how to make any use of water power. Finally, careful examination of the flume discloses the presence of lead cement, a substance unknown in Inca masonry.
A little farther up the stream one passes through a massive megalithic gateway and finds one's self in the presence of the astounding gray-blue Cyclopean walls of Sacsahuaman, described in “Across South America.” Here the ancient builders constructed three great terraces, which extend one above another for a third of a mile across the hill between two deep gulches. The lowest terrace of the “fortress” is faced with colossal boulders, many of which weigh ten tons and some weigh more than twenty tons, yet all are fitted together with the utmost precision. I have visited Sacsahuaman repeatedly. Each time it invariably overwhelms and astounds. To a superstitious Indian who sees these walls for the first time, they must seem to have been built by gods.
About a mile northeast of Sacsahuaman are several small artificial hills, partly covered with vegetation, which seem to be composed entirely of gray-blue rock chips—chips from the great limestone blocks quarried here for the “fortress” and later conveyed with the utmost pains down to Sacsahuaman. They represent the labor of countless thousands of quarrymen. Even in modern times, with steam drills, explosives, steel tools, and light railways, Page 166these hills would be noteworthy, but when one pauses to consider that none of these mechanical devices were known to the ancient stonemasons and that these mountains of stone chips were made with stone tools and were all carried from the quarries by hand, it fairly staggers the imagination.
The ruins of Sacsahuaman represent not only an incredible amount of human labor, but also a very remarkable governmental organization. That thousands of people could have been spared from agricultural pursuits for so long a time as was necessary to extract the blocks from the quarries, hew them to the required shapes, transport them several miles over rough country, and bond them together in such an intricate manner, means that the leaders had the brains and ability to organize and arrange the affairs of a very large population. Such a folk could hardly have spent much time in drilling or preparing for warfare. Their building operations required infinite pains, endless time, and devoted skill. Such qualities could hardly have been called forth, even by powerful monarchs, had not the results been pleasing to the great majority of their people, people who were primarily agriculturists. They had learned to avert hunger and famine by relying on carefully built, stone-faced terraces, which would prevent their fields being carried off and spread over the plains of the Amazon. It seems to me possible that Sacsahuaman was built in accordance with their desires to please their gods. Is it not reasonable to suppose that a people to whom stone-faced Page 167terraces meant so much in the way of life-giving food should have sometimes built massive terraces of Cyclopean character, like Sacsahuaman, as an offering to the deity who first taught them terrace construction? This seems to me a more likely object for the gigantic labor involved in the construction of Sacsahuaman than its possible usefulness as a fortress. Equally strong defenses against an enemy attempting to attack the hilltop back of Cuzco might have been constructed of smaller stones in an infinitely shorter time, with far less labor and pains.
Such a display of the power to control the labor of thousands of individuals and force them to superhuman efforts on an unproductive undertaking, which in its agricultural or strategic results was out of all proportion to the obvious cost, might have been caused by the supreme vanity of a great soldier. On the other hand, the ancient Peruvians were religious rather than warlike, more inclined to worship the sun than to fight great battles. Was Sacsahuaman due to the desire to please, at whatever cost, the god that fructified the crops which grew on terraces? It is not surprising that the Spanish conquerors, warriors themselves and descendants of twenty generations of a fighting race, accustomed as they were to the salients of European fortresses, should have looked upon Sacsahuaman as a fortress. To them the military use of its bastions was perfectly obvious. The value of its salients and reëntrant angles was not likely to be overlooked, for it had been only recently acquired by Page 168their crusading ancestors. The height and strength of its powerful walls enabled it to be of the greatest service to the soldiers of that day. They saw that it was virtually impregnable for any artillery with which they were familiar. In fact, in the wars of the Incas and those which followed Pizarro's entry into Cuzco, Sacsahuaman was repeatedly used as a fortress.
So it probably never occurred to the Spaniards that the Peruvians, who knew nothing of explosive powder or the use of artillery, did not construct Sacsahuaman in order to withstand such a siege as the fortresses of Europe were only too familiar with. So natural did it seem to the first Europeans who saw it to regard it as a fortress that it has seldom been thought of in any other way. The fact that the sacred city of Cuzco was more likely to be attacked by invaders coming up the valley, or even over the gentle slopes from the west, or through the pass from the north which for centuries has been used as part of the main highway of the central Andes, never seems to have troubled writers who regarded Sacsahuaman essentially as a fortress. It may be that Sacsahuaman was once used as a place where the votaries of the sun gathered at the end of the rainy season to celebrate the vernal equinox, and at the summer solstice to pray for the sun's return from his “farthest north.” In any case I believe that the enormous cost of its construction shows that it was probably intended for religious rather than military purposes. It is more likely to have been an ancient shrine than a mighty fortress. Page 169
It now becomes necessary, in order to explain my explorations north of Cuzco, to ask the reader's attention to a brief account of the last four Incas who ruled over any part of Peru. Page 170
Chapter IX
The Last Four Incas
Readers of Prescott's charming classic, “The Conquest of Peru,” will remember that Pizarro, after killing Atahualpa, the Inca who had tried in vain to avoid his fate by filling a room with vessels of gold, decided to establish a native prince on the throne of the Incas to rule in accordance with the dictates of Spain. The young prince, Manco, a son of the great Inca Huayna Capac, named for the first Inca, Manco Ccapac, the founder of the dynasty, was selected as the most acceptable figurehead. He was a young man of ability and spirit. His induction into office in 1534 with appropriate ceremonies, the barbaric splendor of which only made the farce the more pitiful, did little to gratify his natural ambition. As might have been foreseen, he chafed under restraint, escaped as soon as possible from his attentive guardians, and raised an army of faithful Quichuas. There followed the siege of Cuzco, briefly characterized by Don Alonzo Enriques de Guzman, who took part in it, as “the most fearful and cruel war in the world.” When in 1536 Cuzco was relieved by Pizarro's comrade, Almagro, and Manco's last chance of regaining the ancient capital of his ancestors failed, the Inca retreated to Ollantaytambo. Here, on the banks of the river Urubamba, Manco made a determined stand, but Ollantaytambo Page 171was too easily reached by Pizarro's mounted cavaliers. The Inca's followers, although aroused to their utmost endeavors by the presence of the magnificent stone edifices, fortresses, granaries, palaces, and hanging gardens of their ancestors, found it necessary to retreat. They fled in a northerly direction and made good their escape over snowy passes to Uiticos in the fastnesses of Uilcapampa, a veritable American Switzerland.
Glaciers Between Cuzco and Uiticos
The Spaniards who attempted to follow Manco found his position practically impregnable. The citadel of Uilcapampa, a gigantic natural fortress defended by Nature in one of her profoundest moods, was only to be reached by fording dangerous torrents, or crossing the mountains by narrow defiles which themselves are higher than the most lofty peaks of Europe. It was hazardous for Hannibal and Napoleon to bring their armies through the comparatively low passes of the Alps. Pizarro found it impossible to follow the Inca Manco over the Pass of Panticalla, itself a snowy wilderness higher than the summit of Mont Blanc. In no part of the Peruvian Andes are there so many beautiful snowy peaks. Near by is the sharp, icy pinnacle of Mt. Veronica (elevation 19,342 ft.). Not far away is another magnificent snow-capped peak, Mt. Salcantay, 20,565 feet above the sea. Near Salcantay is the sharp needle of Mt. Soray (19,435 ft.), while to the west of it are Panta (18,590 ft.) and Soiroccocha (18,197 ft.). On the shoulders of these mountains are unnamed glaciers and little valleys that have scarcely ever been seen except by some hardy prospector or Page 172inquisitive explorer. These valleys are to be reached only through passes where the traveler is likely to be waylaid by violent storms of hail and snow. During the rainy season a large part of Uilcapampa is absolutely impenetrable. Even in the dry season the difficulties of transportation are very great. The most sure-footed mule is sometimes unable to use the trails without assistance from man. It was an ideal place for the Inca Manco.
The conquistador, Cieza de Leon, who wrote in 1550 a graphic account of the wars of Peru, says that Manco took with him a “great quantity of treasure, collected from various parts … and many loads of rich clothing of wool, delicate in texture and very beautiful and showy.” The Spaniards were absolutely unable to conceive of the ruler of a country traveling without rich “treasure.” It is extremely doubtful whether Manco burdened himself with much gold or silver. Except for ornament there was little use to which he could have put the precious metals and they would have served only to arouse the cupidity of his enemies. His people had never been paid in gold or silver. Their labor was his due, and only such part of it as was needed to raise their own crops and make their own clothing was allotted to them; in fact, their lives were in his hands and the custom and usage of centuries made them faithful followers of their great chief. That Manco, however, actually did carry off with him beautiful textiles, and anything else which was useful, may be taken for granted. In Uiticos, safe from the armed forces of his enemies, the Inca was also able to enjoy Page 173the benefits of a delightful climate, and was in a well-watered region where corn, potatoes, both white and sweet, and the fruits of the temperate and sub-tropical regions easily grow. Using this as a base, he was accustomed to sally forth against the Spaniards frequently and in unexpected directions. His raids were usually successful. It was relatively easy for him, with a handful of followers, to dash out of the mountain fastnesses, cross the Apurimac River either by swimming or on primitive rafts, and reach the great road between Cuzco and Lima, the principal highway of Peru. Officials and merchants whose business led them over this route found it extremely precarious. Manco cheered his followers by making them realize that in these raids they were taking sweet revenge on the Spaniards for what they had done to Peru. It is interesting to note that Cieza de Leon justifies Manco in his attitude, for the Spaniards had indeed “seized his inheritance, forcing him to leave his native land, and to live in banishment.”
Manco's success in securing such a place of refuge, and in using it as a base from which he could frequently annoy his enemies, led many of the Orejones of Cuzco to follow him. The Inca chiefs were called Orejones, “big ears,” by the Spaniards because the lobes of their ears had been enlarged artificially to receive the great gold earrings which they were fond of wearing. Three years after Manco's retirement to the wilds of Uilcapampa there was born in Cuzco in the year 1539, Garcilasso Inca de la Vega, the son of an Inca princess and one of the conquistadores. Page 174As a small child Garcilasso heard of the activities of his royal relative. He left Peru as a boy and spent the rest of his life in Spain. After forty years in Europe he wrote, partly from memory, his “Royal Commentaries,” an account of the country of his Indian ancestors. Of the Inca Manco, of whom he must frequently have heard uncomplimentary reports as a child, he speaks apologetically. He says: “In the time of Manco Inca, several robberies were committed on the road by his subjects; but still they had that respect for the Spanish Merchants that they let them go free and never pillaged them of their wares and merchandise, which were in no manner useful to them; howsoever they robbed the Indians of their cattle [llamas and alpacas], bred in the countrey …. The Inca lived in the Mountains, which afforded no tame Cattel; and only produced Tigers and Lions and Serpents of twenty-five and thirty feet long, with other venomous insects.” (I am quoting from Sir Paul Rycaut's translation, published in London in 1688.) Garcilasso says Manco's soldiers took only “such food as they found in the hands of the Indians; which the Inca did usually call his own,” saying, “That he who was Master of that whole Empire might lawfully challenge such a proportion thereof as was convenient to supply his necessary and natural support”—a reasonable apology; and yet personally I doubt whether Manco spared the Spanish merchants and failed to pillage them of their “wares and merchandise.” As will be seen later, we found in Manco's palace some metal Page 175articles of European origin which might very well have been taken by Manco's raiders. Furthermore, it should be remembered that Garcilasso, although often quoted by Prescott, left Peru when he was sixteen years old and that his ideas were largely colored by his long life in Spain and his natural desire to extol the virtues of his mother's people, a brown race despised by the white Europeans for whom he wrote.
The methods of warfare and the weapons used by Manco and his followers at this time are thus described by Guzman. He says the Indians had no defensive arms such as helmets, shields, and armor, but used “lances, arrows, dubs, axes, halberds, darts, and slings, and another weapon which they call ayllas (the bolas), consisting of three round stones sewn up in leather, and each fastened to a cord a cubit long. They throw these at the horses, and thus bind their legs together; and sometimes they will fasten a man's arms to his sides in the same way. These Indians are so expert in the use of this weapon that they will bring down a deer with it in the chase. Their principal weapon, however, is the sling …. With it, they will hurl a huge stone with such force that it will kill a horse; in truth, the effect is little less great than that of an arquebus; and I have seen a stone, thus hurled from a sling, break a sword in two pieces which was held in a man's hand at a distance of thirty paces.”
Manco's raids finally became so annoying that Pizarro sent a small force from Cuzco under Captain Villadiego to attack the Inca. Captain Villadiego Page 176found it impossible to use horses, although he realized that cavalry was the “important arm against these Indians.” Confident in his strength and in the efficacy of his firearms, and anxious to enjoy the spoils of a successful raid against a chief reported to be traveling surrounded by his family “and with rich treasure,” he pressed eagerly on, up through a lofty valley toward a defile in the mountains, probably the Pass of Panticalla. Here, fatigued and exhausted by their difficult march and suffering from the effects of the altitude (16,000 ft.), his men found themselves ambushed by the Inca, who with a small party, “little more than eighty Indians,” “attacked the Christians, who numbered twenty-eight or thirty, and killed Captain Villadiego and all his men except two or three.” To any one who has clambered over the passes of the Cordillera Uilcapampa it is not surprising that this military expedition was a failure or that the Inca, warned by keen-sighted Indians posted on appropriate vantage points, could have succeeded in defeating a small force of weary soldiers armed with the heavy blunderbuss of the seventeenth century. In a rocky pass, protected by huge boulders, and surrounded by quantities of natural ammunition for their slings, it must have been relatively simple for eighty Quichuas, who could “hurl a huge stone with such force that it would kill a horse,” to have literally stoned to death Captain Villadiego's little company before they could have prepared their clumsy weapons for firing.
The Urubamba Canyon
A reason for the safety of the Incas in Uilcapampa.
The fugitives returned to Cuzco and reported Page 177their misfortune. The importance of the reverse will be better appreciated if one remembers that the size of the force with which Pizarro conquered Peru was less than two hundred, only a few times larger than Captain Villadiego's company which had been wiped out by Manco. Its significance is further increased by the fact that the contemporary Spanish writers, with all their tendency to exaggerate, placed Manco's force at only “a little more than eighty Indians.” Probably there were not even that many. The wonder is that the Inca's army was not reported as being several thousand.
Francisco Pizarro himself now hastily set out with a body of soldiers determined to punish this young Inca who had inflicted such a blow on the prestige of Spanish arms, “but this attempt also failed,” for the Inca had withdrawn across the rivers and mountains of Uilcapampa to Uiticos, where, according to Cieza de Leon, he cheered his followers with the sight of the heads of his enemies. Unfortunately for accuracy, the custom of displaying on the ends of pikes the heads of one's enemies was European and not Peruvian. To be sure, the savage Indians of some of the Amazonian jungles do sometimes decapitate their enemies, remove the bones of the skull, dry the shrunken scalp and face, and wear the trophy as a mark of prowess just as the North American Indians did the scalps of their enemies. Such customs had no place among the peace-loving Inca agriculturists of central Peru. There were no Spaniards living with Manco at that time to report any such outrage on the bodies of Captain Villadiego's Page 178unfortunate men. Probably the conquistadores supposed that Manco did what the Spaniards would have done under similar circumstances.
Following the failure of Francisco Pizarro to penetrate to Uiticos, his brother, Gonzalo, “undertook the pursuit of the Inca and occupied some of his passes and bridges,” but was unsuccessful in penetrating the mountain labyrinth. Being less foolhardy than Captain Villadiego, he did not come into actual conflict with Manco. Unable to subdue the young Inca or prevent his raids on travelers from Cuzco to Lima, Francisco Pizarro, “with the assent of the royal officers who were with him,” established the city of Ayacucho at a convenient point on the road, so as to make it secure for travelers. Nevertheless, according to Montesinos, Manco caused the good people of Ayacucho quite a little trouble. Finally, Francisco Pizarro, “having taken one of Manco's wives prisoner with other Indians, stripped and flogged her, and then shot her to death with arrows.”
Accounts of what happened in Uiticos under the rule of Manco are not very satisfactory. Father Calancha, who published in 1639 his “Coronica Moralizada,” or “pious account of the missionary activities of the Augustinians” in Peru, says that the Inca Manco was obeyed by all the Indians who lived in a region extending “for two hundred leagues and more toward the east and toward the south, where there were innumerable Indians in various provinces.” With customary monastic zeal and proper religious fervor, Father Calancha accuses Page 179the Inca of compelling the baptized Indians who fled to him from the Spaniards to abandon their new faith, torturing those who would no longer worship the old Inca “idols.” This story need not be taken too literally, although undoubtedly the escaped Indians acted as though they had never been baptized.
Besides Indians fleeing from harsh masters, there came to Uilcapampa, in 1542, Gomez Perez, Diego Mendez, and half a dozen other Spanish fugitives, adherents of Almagro, “rascals,” says Calancha, “worthy of Manco's favor.” Obliged by the civil wars of the conquistadores to flee from the Pizarros, they were glad enough to find a welcome in Uiticos. To while away the time they played games and taught the Inca checkers and chess, as well as bowling-on-the-green and quoits. Montesinos says they also taught him to ride horseback and shoot an arquebus. They took their games very seriously and occasionally violent disputes arose, one of which, as we shall see, was to have fatal consequences. They were kept informed by Manco of what was going on in the viceroyalty. Although “encompassed within craggy and lofty mountains,” the Inca was thoroughly cognizant of all those “revolutions” which might be of benefit to him.
Perhaps the most exciting news that reached Uiticos in 1544 was in regard to the arrival of the first Spanish viceroy. He brought the New Laws, a result of the efforts of the good Bishop Las Casas to alleviate the sufferings of the Indians. The New Laws provided, among other things, that all the Page 180officers of the crown were to renounce their repartimientos or holdings of Indian serfs, and that compulsory personal service was to be entirely abolished. Repartimientos given to the conquerors were not to pass to their heirs, but were to revert to the king. In other words, the New Laws gave evidence that the Spanish crown wished to be kind to the Indians and did not approve of the Pizarros. This was good news for Manco and highly pleasing to the refugees. They persuaded the Inca to write a letter to the new viceroy, asking permission to appear before him and offer his services to the king. The Spanish refugees told the Inca that by this means he might some day recover his empire, “or at least the best part of it.” Their object in persuading the Inca to send such a message to the viceroy becomes apparent when we learn that they “also wrote as from themselves desiring a pardon for what was past” and permission to return to Spanish dominions.
Gomez Perez, who seems to have been the active leader of the little group, was selected to be the bearer of the letters from the Inca and the refugees. Attended by a dozen Indians whom the Inca instructed to act as his servants and bodyguard, he left Uilcapampa, presented his letters to the viceroy, and gave him “a large relation of the State and Condition of the Inca, and of his true and real designs to doe him service.” “The Vice-king joyfully received the news, and granted a full and ample pardon of all crimes, as desired. And as to the Inca, he made many kind expressions of love and respect, truly considering that the Interest of Page 181the Inca might be advantageous to him, both in War and Peace. And with this satisfactory answer Gomez Perez returned both to the Inca and to his companions.” The refugees were delighted with the news and got ready to return to king and country. Their departure from Uiticos was prevented by a tragic accident, thus described by Garcilasso.
“The Inca, to humour the Spaniards and entertain himself with them, had given directions for making a bowling-green; where playing one day with Gomez Perez, he came to have some quarrel and difference with this Perez about the measure of a Cast, which often happened between them; for this Perez, being a person of a hot and fiery brain, without any judgment or understanding, would take the least occasion in the world to contend with and provoke the Inca …. Being no longer able to endure his rudeness, the Inca punched him on the breast, and bid him to consider with whom he talked. Perez, not considering in his heat and passion either his own safety or the safety of his Companions, lifted up his hand, and with the bowl struck the Inca so violently on the head, that he knocked him down. [He died three days later.] The Indians hereupon, being enraged by the death of their Prince, joined together against Gomez and the Spaniards, who fled into a house, and with their Swords in their hands defended the door; the Indians set fire to the house, which being too hot for them, they sallied out into the Marketplace, where the Indians assaulted them and shot them with their Arrows until they had killed every man of them; and then afterwards, Page 182out of mere rage and fury they designed either to eat them raw as their custome was, or to burn them and cast their ashes into the river, that no sign or appearance might remain of them; but at length, after some consultation, they agreed to cast their bodies into the open fields, to be devoured by vulters and birds of the air, which they supposed to be the highest indignity and dishonour that they could show to their Corps.” Garcilasso concludes: “I informed myself very perfectly from those chiefs and nobles who were present and eye-witnesses of the unparalleled piece of madness of that rash and hair-brained fool; and heard them tell this story to my mother and parents with tears in their eyes.” There are many versions of the tragedy.1 They all agree that a Spaniard murdered the Inca. Page 183
Thus, in 1545, the reign of an attractive and vigorous personality was brought to an abrupt close. Manco left three young sons, Sayri Tupac, Titu Cusi, and Tupac Amaru. Sayri Tupac, although he had not yet reached his majority, became Inca in his father's stead, and with the aid of regents reigned for ten years without disturbing his Spanish neighbors or being annoyed by them, unless the reference in Montesinos to a proposed burning of bridges near Abancay, under date of 1555, is correct. By a curious lapse Montesinos ascribes this attempt to the Inca Manco, who had been dead for ten years. In 1555 there came to Lima a new viceroy, who decided that it would be safer if young Sayri Tupac were within reach instead of living in the inaccessible wilds of Uilcapampa. The viceroy wisely undertook to accomplish this difficult matter through the Princess Beatrix Coya, an aunt of the Inca, who was living in Cuzco. She took kindly to the suggestion and dispatched to Uiticos a messenger, of the blood royal, attended by Indian servants. The journey was a dangerous one; bridges were down and the Page 184treacherous trails were well-nigh impassable. Sayri Tupac's regents permitted the messenger to enter Uilcapampa and deliver the viceroy's invitation, but were not inclined to believe that it was quite so attractive as appeared on the surface, even though brought to them by a kinsman. Accordingly, they kept the visitor as a hostage and sent a messenger of their own to Cuzco to see if any foul play could be discovered, and also to request that one John Sierra, a more trusted cousin, be sent to treat in this matter. All this took time.
In 1558 the viceroy, becoming impatient, dispatched from Lima Friar Melchior and one John Betanzos, who had married the daughter of the unfortunate Inca Atahualpa and pretended to be very learned in his wife's language. Montesinos says he was a “great linguist.” They started off quite confidently for Uiticos, taking with them several pieces of velvet and damask, and two cups of gilded silver as presents. Anxious to secure the honor of being the first to reach the Inca, they traveled as fast as they could to the Chuquichaca bridge, “the key to the valley of Uiticos.” Here they were detained by the soldiers of the regents. A day or so later John Sierra, the Inca's cousin from Cuzco, arrived at the bridge and was allowed to proceed, while the friar and Betanzos were still detained. John Sierra was welcomed by the Inca and his nobles, and did his best to encourage Sayri Tupac to accept the viceroy's offer. Finally John Betanzos and the friar were also sent for and admitted to the presence of the Inca, with the presents which the Page 185viceroy had sent. Sayri Tupac's first idea was to remain free and independent as he had hitherto done, so he requested the ambassadors to depart immediately with their silver gilt cups. They were sent back by one of the western routes across the Apurimac. A few days later, however, after John Sierra had told him some interesting stories of life in Cuzco, the Inca decided to reconsider the matter. His regents had a long debate, observed the flying of birds and the nature of the weather, but according to Garcilasso “made no inquiries of the devil.” The omens were favorable and the regents finally decided to allow the Inca to accept the invitation of the viceroy.
Sayri Tupac, anxious to see something of the world, went directly to Lima, traveling in a litter made of rich materials, carried by relays chosen from the three hundred Indians who attended him. He was kindly received by the viceroy, and then went to Cuzco, where he lodged in his aunt's house. Here his relatives went to welcome him. “I, myself,” says Garcilasso, “went in the name of my Father. I found him then playing a certain game used amongst the Indians …. I kissed his hands, and delivered my Message; he commanded me to sit down, and presently they brought two gilded cups of that Liquor, made of Mayz [chicha] which scarce contained four ounces of Drink; he took them both, and with his own Hand he gave one of them to me; he drank, and I pledged him, which as we have said, is the custom of Civility amongst them. This Ceremony being past, he asked me, Why I did Page 186not meet him at Uillcapampa. I answered him, ‘Inca, as I am but a Youngman, the Governours make no account of me, to place me in such Ceremonies as these!’ ‘How,’ replied the Inca, ‘I would rather have seen you than all the Friers and Fathers in Town.’ As I was going away I made him a submissive bow and reverence, after the manner of the Indians, who are of his Alliance and Kindred, at which he was so much pleased, that he embraced me heartily, and with much affection, as appeared by his Countenance.”
Sayri Tupac now received the sacred Red Fringe of Inca sovereignty, was married to a princess of the blood royal, joined her in baptism, and took up his abode in the beautiful valley of Yucay, a day's journey northeast of Cuzco, and never returned to Uiticos. His only daughter finally married a certain Captain Garcia, of whom more anon. Sayri Tupac died in 1560, leaving two brothers; the older, Titu Cusi Yupanqui, illegitimate, and the younger, Tupac Amaru, his rightful successor, an inexperienced youth.