Lost City of the Incas (Phoenix Press) (13 page)

One cannot help wondering whether there was a time when the ancient Peruvians, so skilful in so many ways, so inventive in developing art and agriculture and in breeding new plants and animals, also conceived the idea of making a written record but were prevented from doing it by the superstition of the people and the fear of the priests and soothsayers. It is not an impossibility.

It was currently believed in Cuzco at the time that Montesinos was writing, that Tampu-tocco, the ‘Window Tavern’, was about 20 miles from Cuzco at a place known then and now as Paccari-tampu or the Tavern of the Dawn. So we are not surprised to find Montesinos saying that the king built there a ‘sort of University where the nobles attended the exercises of the soldiery and the boys were taught the manner of counting by the
quipos
, adding together the different colours, which served as letters, by means of which they were increasing their slight learning. The soldiery, and the loyalty of his people being assured, he determined to conquer the rebels. For this purpose, all his men were placed under arms, but the attack did not take place because there were remarkable earthquakes which ruined many buildings all through the region of Cuzco, and rivers sprang up in dry beds and ran for many days through dry gullies where no water had been seen before, and destroyed many villages. After this, a pestilence took place, of which innumerable people died, and the amautas say that only in Tampu-tocco was no pestilence seen; a fact which led Manco Capac to establish his court there.’ And there they lived for more than five hundred years until it became too small for an active, growing nation.

The significant part of this story of what happened before Manco Capac, the first ruler to be called an Inca, established his court at Tampu-tocco, is that it was so far away from Cuzco that
neither earthquakes nor pestilence reached it. It must have been much farther away than the little village of Paccari-tampu, where the climate is too cold for windows and the distance from Cuzco only a few leagues.

There are many stories of the rise of Manco Capac, who, when he had grown to man’s estate, assembled his people to see how he could secure new lands for them. Pachacuti Yamqui Salcamayhua, a descendant of a long line of Incas, whose great-grandparents lived in Cuzco at the time of the Spanish Conquest, wrote in 1620 an account of the antiquities of Peru in which he gives the history of the Incas as it was handed down to the descendants of the former rulers of Peru. We are informed by him that Manco Capac, after consultation with his brothers, determined to set out with them ‘towards the hill over which the sun rose’, and that he and his brothers succeeded in reaching Cuzco and settled there. Manco married one of his own sisters in order that he might not lose caste and that no other family be elevated by this marriage to an equality with his. He made good laws, conquered many provinces, and is regarded as the founder of the Inca dynasty. The highlanders of Peru soon came under his sway with good grace and brought him rich presents. The Inca, as he now came to be called, was recognized as the most powerful chief, the most valiant fighter, and the luckiest warrior in the Andes. His captains and soldiers were brave, well disciplined, and well armed. All his affairs prospered greatly. ‘Afterward he ordered works to be executed at the place of his birth,
consisting of a masonry wall with three windows
, which were emblems of the house of his fathers whence he descended.’ The windows were named after his paternal and maternal grandparents and his uncles. We shall have occasion to refer to these three windows again.

His descendants gradually extended their power until by the time of the Spanish Conquest they had subdued almost all the tribes and kingdoms of the Andes and the West Coast, from Quito in Ecuador to northern Argentina and central Chile in the south. Their rule was a benevolent despotism. Their people were taught to speak the Quichua tongue. Though their armies
were powerful they were essentially agriculturists and delighted in practising the arts of peace rather than war. They did not like soldiers. As has been pointed out, they called them ‘enemies’. Finally, after some three centuries, the rulers became soft and luxury loving.

Then one day there appeared out of the north a small group of stocky warriors, wearing armour and bearing weapons ‘which used thunder and lightning’ to carry death to soldiers at incredible distances. With them were strange animals, twice as large and strong as a llama, heavy enough to carry the armed cavaliers into battle. To a superstitious people the Spanish conquistadors appeared to be supernatural – possibly foreign gods with mysterious and dreadful powers.

The Emperor of the time, the Inca Atahualpa, a weak and vacillating monarch, was captured by Pizarro, and threatened with death unless he would fill a room full of gold. To the Incas, gold was a precious metal, secured at great expense from the placer mines of the eastern Andes. The gold vessels they produced were extremely thin and disappointingly light in weight, so far as the avaricious conquerors were concerned. Furthermore, Pizarro learned that millions of Indians regarded Atahualpa as a god, a supreme ruler able to command their lives, but without whom they were uncertain how to act. Consequently the Inca was put to death, and Peru with its millions of people and its untold wealth fell into the hands of a small company of Spanish soldiers. The story is one of the strangest in history. It has been romantically told by the historian Prescott and others and need not be repeated here, since our story deals chiefly with the Incas who were set on the throne by Pizarro himself.

W
e are told by Pedro Sancho, who was one of the secretaries of the great Pizarro, that as soon as Cuzco was captured by the Spaniards in 1533 the conqueror selected as ruler a young nobleman named Manco, who was prudent and active and seemed to him the best of the Incas. Conquistador Pizarro placed him on the throne of his ancestors in order that the Inca nobles and the military chieftains should not flee to their own lands and set up independent provinces, and should not join the northern Indians who were inclined to rebel against the rule of Atahualpa, whom Pizarro had just put to death. To prevent incipient rebellion and keep the disaffected caciques from organizing hostile bands, he gave orders that they were to obey young Manco II and accept him as their emperor. As the grandson of the famous emperor Huyana the Great, he could legally be regarded as entitled to rule over the aborigines.

The young man was naturally very much pleased to be placed on the throne and crowned with the sacred fringe, which among the Incas constituted the principal badge of sovereignty. He soon learned, however, that he was not his own master but was merely a puppet, obliged to take orders from the new conquerors. His ambition and his restless spirit led him to stage a revolt. He knew he could command the services of thousands of Inca warriors. He knew that the Spanish conquerors were really only a handful of armed men, less than two hundred in number, and far from their base of supplies. He reckoned, however,
without the enemy’s having weapons infinitely more efficient than the bows and arrows, spears, clubs, and sling stones on which his own soldiers had to depend. His men were brave and devoted but they were naturally terrified by the sounds of the Spanish field pieces and blunderbusses, as well as amazed at their ability to kill at a far greater distance than any weapon ever seen before. Manco was also grievously disappointed to find that the Spanish were able to secure the services of large numbers of disaffected Indians who had no feeling of loyalty to the new Inca. In 1536, after several bloody encounters, Manco’s troops were routed and fled with him from the vicinity of Cuzco down into the Urubamba Valley.

A contemporary who wrote a graphic account of the wars of Peru a few years later says that Manco took with him a great quantity of treasure, including gold ornaments and ‘many loads of rich clothing of wool, delicate in texture and very beautiful and showy’. The Spaniards believed that he had also burdened himself with much silver and gold. We do know that he took with him the largest and most valuable of the gold images of the sun which had been in the principal temple in Cuzco.

Manco also took with him his three sons. His second son Titu Cusi seems to have been his favourite, although it was claimed that he was illegitimate because his mother was one of the concubines and was not the Empress or First Lady.

Some years later Titu Cusi dictated to a
mestizo
, whose father was a Spanish soldier and whose mother was a Quichua, an account of the life and death of the Inca Manco II. It appears that the
mestizo
, who spoke both his father’s and mother’s tongue, was able to prepare a crude translation, which, as it was intended to be sent to the King of Spain, was revised by an Augustinian missionary, Friar Marcos Garcia.

According to Titu Cusi’s story, he was six years old when they fled from Cuzco into the Urubamba Valley. He remembers that his father, becoming aware that the Spaniards would soon descend from the plateau into the lovely temperate valley near Yucay, which was the favourite residence of the Incas, decided to take refuge in the lower Urubamba Valley beyond the Cordillera
de Vilcabamba in one of the most inaccessible parts of the Andes. He remembers that when his father bade a tender and affectionate farewell to the soldiers who had been with him in his unsuccessful campaigns against the Spaniards they replied with great shouts which ‘seemed as if they would sink the hills’.

Manco gave permission to all who wished to return to their own homes to do so. Many, however, followed him, including some of his bravest captains who had survived the fierce battles fought during the revolt.

The last important town in the temperate valley they were about to leave is called Ollantaytambo. Before they left it to go their separate ways, Titu Cusi tells us, his father invited all the Indians of the region to come to a great feast. Apparently many of the soldiers got drunk, left their arms in their houses and were unable to defend themselves when a group of Spaniards took advantage of the farewell party to stage an attack. Titu Cusi says that the Spaniards seized some of the mummies of his ancestors who were being carried away from Cuzco, together with many jewels and precious objects. He claims that they drove off 50,000 head of llamas and alpacas. If this is true the number must have included many of the flocks and herds which the Inca Manco could rightfully claim as his own even though they were not at Ollantaytambo.

Titu Cusi says that his father escaped as best he could but that the Spaniards captured him with his mother and many of the royal family and carried them back in triumph to Cuzco with the booty they had taken.

The Spanish soldiers who attempted to follow Manco and the remains of his army found their enemy’s position impregnable. Everyone is familiar with the story of how hazardous it was for Hannibal and Napoleon, in different epochs, to bring their armies into Italy through the comparatively low passes of the Alps. It is not surprising that Pizarro found it impossible to follow the Inca Manco over passes which were higher than the very summit of Mont Blanc. In no part of the Peruvian Andes are there so many beautiful snow peaks. Verónica (19,342 ft.), Salcantay (20,565 ft.), Soray (19,437 ft.), and Soiroccocha
(18,197 ft.), are outstanding features of the landscape. Some of them are visible for a hundred miles. None of them have been climbed so far as is known.

On the shoulders of these mountains are scores of glaciers that have scarcely ever been visited except by some hardy prospector or inquisitive explorer. The valleys between them are to be reached only through passes 15,000 feet high, where the traveller is likely to be halted by violent storms of hail and snow. During the rainy season a large part of the region beyond these mountains is impenetrable. Even in the dry season the difficulties of transportation are very great. The sure-footed mules of modern Peruvians are frequently unable to use the mountain trails without assistance. It will be easily recognized that this region was a natural fortress for Inca Manco and his followers.

Manco’s army fled over the Pass of Panticalla, went down the Lucumayo River, and crossed the lower Urubamba on an Inca suspension bridge at a place called Chuquichaca. There they were able to enter one of the affluents of the Urubamba which today is called the Vilcabamba, and passing up that valley establish themselves in a pleasant region where their favourite crops could be grown and their llamas and alpacas find adequate pasturage.

Manco established himself on top of a mountain, where he built a long ‘palace’ and characteristic Inca structures. The place was called Vitcos, or possibly Uiticos. Manco’s refuge was also referred to by contemporary writers as Vilcapampa. The common name of the province was Vilcabamba. Of this I shall have more to say in a later chapter. Here, safe from the armed forces of his enemy, he was able to enjoy the benefits of a dry climate in a well-watered region where corn and potatoes, as well as the fruits of the temperate and subtropical zones grow rapidly.

Titu Cusi tells us that, using Vitcos as a base, Manco and his captains were accustomed to sally forth against the Spaniards frequently and in unexpected directions. It was relatively easy for him, with a handful of followers, to dash out of the mountain fastnesses, cross the great river Apurimac on primitive rafts,
and reach the high road between the Spanish capital of Lima and the ancient city of Cuzco. As time went on, officials and merchants whose business forced them to use this road, the principal route across the Andes, found it becoming more and more precarious. Manco was able to encourage his followers by making them realize that in these raids they were taking sweet revenge on their conquerors. Even one of the Spanish chroniclers justifies Manco in these activities, remarking that the Spaniards had indeed stolen his inheritance and forced him to leave his native land and live in exile.