2. The Dominance of the Past

2 The Dominance of the Past The Indian of the plateau-the Quechua-is a very clearly marked physical type. Short in stature, stocky, solidly built, as D'Orbigny described him;l with a complexion that is neither red, as is generally believed, nor bronze, as Humboldt has written,2 nor copper, as P. Bouguer asserts,S but olive-brown; the skin tough in texture, the face oval-shaped and wide, the head large, the brow slightly bulging; a wide mouth, strong jaws, thin lips, very white and even teeth; dark, arched eyebrows; small, dark, sunken eyes with long lashes and the whites of a yellowish cast; high cheek bones; a rather long nose, with wide nostrils; thick, black, long, glossy hair, but a sparse beard-all in all, his features are regular, but lacking in delicacy. His prominent muscles, broad chest, and well-set shoulders make him seem rather strong and heavy in spite of his small hands and feet and slender ankles.

The women, of a similar build, lack the grace and suppleness of their taller and slenderer rivals of the forest tribes. On the other hand, both men and women give an impression of physical well being; few are hunchbacked, bandy-legged, or bald. 4 Where did this Indian come from? This is an important prob lem, for societies are not built in a day, and the one we are about to study was preceded by a long evolution that at least partially explains it. It is a difficult problem to solve because of the ignorance of the Indians themselves and the accumulated errors of the Spanish chroniclers, who, with the exception of Montesinos 8 The Dominance of the Past 9 and Roman y Zamora, limited the whole history of Peru to the period of the Incas. According to them, before the Inca empire there were in Peru only scattered tribes consisting of barbarous idolators 'with no common ties. Some of these writers-Garcilaso, for example-blacken the picture as much as they can in order to set the Inca civilization in a better light, representing the Indians of an earlier day as dissolute cannibals who feasted on the flesh and blood of their enemies;5 as perpetually at war with one an other;6 and as without leaders except for the captains whom they chose as their commanders in time of war.7 And the same word keeps recurring in the writings of all these chroniclers in their references to the native communities of the pre-Inca period as veritable behetrias. 8 This was the word used in Spain to denote a free town whose inhabitants had the privilege of electing their own lord, either from among the members of a particular family (be hetria by lineage), or as they pleased (behetria "from coast to coast"). The use of this word thus signifies that the Indians would obey only the leaders whom they themselves chose.9 These chron iclers, moreover, are far from clear. Some speak of elected sover eigns, others of hereditary monarchs, and still others of caciques or curacas) without being any more specific.10 Many chroniclers insist upon the disorder that was rife among the tribes. "Herrera remarks that in his time the situation had not changed in this respect in Chile, New Granada, or Guatemala;11 and Ulloa compares the Indians of the pre-Inca period to wild beasts.12 This basic error on the part of the first historians has given rise to numerous inaccuracies among later writers.

In the course of recent years archaeology has brought to light an entire past whose existence had hardly been suspected. We pro pose to reconstruct it here, though only very cursorily, in its rnajor outlines, without subjecting it to any critical examination, 'which would be outside the scope of this work, but simply with the object of situating the Inca civilization historically. The first point to be noted, about which there is no longer any question today, is the Asiatic or A ustralian origin of the Indians. Holmes, Brinton, Boule, Verneau, Rivet, Hrdlicka, and others 10 A Socialist Empire: The Incas of Peru have all declared themselves in favor of this view. The "red man" is the son of the "yellow race." Not only do both resemble each other at many points in racial type and in their artifacts, but the Hoka language of California and that of the Patagonians are re· lated to the Malayan-Polynesian languages; and a number of ob jects in current use are to be found in both Melanesia and South America, such as the throwing stick, the blowgun, the signal drum, the panpipe, and the club with a wooden handle and a head of spiked stone. 13 The most convincing argument is that recently presented by E. Palavecino, who, in comparing the Quechua lan guage with that of the Maoris of New Zealand, has discovered that thirty per cent of the words of these two languages were formed from the same elements and that a great number of them had identical meanings. 14 How did this identity come about? Certainly not as a result of anything so fortuitous as a shipwreck, as the so-called "stranded junk" theory maintains, for the southeast trade winds and the Humboldt Current, which likewise follows a northerly course, tend, on the contrary, to drive back any newcomers who approach these shores from the north. It would have been easier to cross from America to Polynesia, as the voyage of the Kon-Tiki demonstrated, but the natives of South America were very indifferent naviga tors.15 Can it be assumed, then, that the Asiatics crossed over by way of Bering Strait, taking advantage of the chain of the Aleutian Islands? We can find no reason for such a fantastic expedition. In Asia there was neither a lack of living space nor a deterioration in the climate nor any pressure brought to bear by conquerors. Be sides, this migration would have left some trace behind. Did the Polynesians make their way over the South Pacific at the time of the advance of the polar ice? There is nothing to confirm this bold hypothesis. 16 We believe that a comprehensive explanation must be sought that will be able to deal with all the different unsolved problems of prehistory in the South Pacific. The statues of Easter Island, the Fiji monolith, the tombs of Paracas-the necropolis of a vanished city-the sign of the stairway frequently found in the Andes, the The Dominance of the Past 11 has-reliefs at the Gate of the Sun in Tiahuanaco: these await the single theory that will explain them all.17 We know only that the key to the problem is to be found on the western side of the South American continent, and not on the east, as many have believed, and that man's arrival in America took place a very long time ago. Indeed, the difference between the potatoes that the Indians obtained at the time of the Incas and those that still grow wild in Peru would suggest centuries of culti vation; and centuries too were needed to transform such timorous and intractable beasts as the guanaco and the vicuna into peaceful llamas and alpacas, different in fleece and color and incapable of living without the aid of man. 1S The brightest beam of light that illuminates American prehis tory is that cast by the civilization of the Mayas in Yucatan. It spread over the southern continent, and its influence is no longer contested today.

On the other hand, there is much debate over the thesis that migrations from the shores of the Caribbean Sea reached the Andean plateau by way of the rivers across those territories of Venezuela and Brazil that still remain almost entirely unexplored. This would explain the traces of Amazonian invasion that have been attributed to remote epochs. The Urus, who live on the banks of the Desaguadero south of Lake Titicaca would, according to this hypothesis, be the descendants of the ancient Amazonians (Ara waks). They have continued to be hunters and fishermen. They must once have inhabited a vast stretch of land extending as far as the Pacific Ocean, and their language was still spoken over a large part of the plateau at the time of the Spanish conquest. 19 It is only recently that the connecting links have been discovered in the long chain of civilizations that unites Central with South America. The natives came from the north by way of the Andean plateau; but the stream of migration sometimes divided, and some of them would retrace, in the opposite direction, the road taken by their ancestors. Flux was followed by reflux. "South America is like a bottle with a narrow mouth; it is naturally filled from the top, but the excess liquid overflows from the same opening." 20 Since a great deal of uncertainty still prevails in this whole area 12 A Socialist Empire: The Incas of Peru of American prehistory, 'we shall not attempt to take a stand in regard to controversies that it is for the archaeologists and ethnolo gists to resolve, but shall confine ourselves to presenting in com posite form the various items of information provided by the spe cialists.

The different civilizations are distinguished from one another primarily by their styles of sculpture, pottery, andtextiles. 21 The "flux" we have spoken of comprised the civilization of Chavin and those of the coast; the "reflux" refers to the northward expansion of the great civilization of Tiahuanaco. 1. The connecting link between Central America and Peru was formed by the civilizations that developed on the territory of what is now the Republic of Ecuador. The brachycephalic people who came from the north drove back the dolichocephalic natives, first from the coast and then from the plateau. The vanquished peoples were to become the Jivaros, who now inhabit the forests in the eastern part of Ecuador (Oriente), and who have attained a sort of celebrity through their skill in the preparation of shrunken heads. Marshall Saville has made a study of the bas-reliefs, stone seats, and statues found on the coast, all of which evidence a cul ture that seems to have remained primitive. 22 Jij6n y Caamafio, exploring the plateau, has brought to light the civilization of Cafiar (in the south of Ecuador) and of Tancahuan (in the region of Riobamba).23 And Max Uhle has established the connec tion between these cultures and that of the Mayas, on the one hand, and those of the Peruvian coast, on the other. 24 2. The most ancient civilization of Peru has recently been iden tified by J. Tello as that of Chavin, situated in the northern reaches of the sierra. That its architects had a feeling for space is attested by their truncated step-pyramids-the great Chavin pyramids of Huantar, for example. Its sculptors had a delirious imagination, which imbued them with a love for the monstrous and the hor rible, and which clearly distinguishes them from those of Tiahu anaco. The famous stone bas-relief of Chavin, with its complicated, fantastic, and absolutely symmetrical details, was designed to make a strong impression upon simple minds. 2,5 3. On the Peruvian coast, two important civilizations arose: The Dominance of the Past 13 Chimu, to the north, and Paracas, in the center.

The state of Chimu once extended from Tumbez, on the Gulf of Guayaquil, to Parmunca. 26 It even spread out over the plateau, and the Incas had had to build fortresses to stop its advance before they could succeed in subduing it toward the middle of the fifteenth century.27 Perhaps it was to protect themselves against the Incas that the Chimus constructed in the Santa valley, at right angles to the coast, a great wall forty miles long, into which they built a number of small forts. 28 Parmunca, or Paramonga, is itself an impressive stronghold; the central building stands on three concentric quadrangular terraces, with the lowest defended by a bastion at each corner. The capital of Chimu, Chanchan, must have been a large and important city, for the vestiges that are left of it cover a wide territory.29 Although these ruins have suffered from the rains, which are as devastating as they are infrequent, there are still places in the walls where one can see examples of beautiful linear ornamentation, molded in relief with potter's clay. The language of Chimu has almost completely disappeared; hardly any examples of it are to be found exjcept at Eten. 30 The textiles, woven in the manner of high-warp tapestries, are chiefly decorated 'with geo metrical figures and stylized designs, but the pottery, which exists in abundance, is often realistic and is extremely interesting to the sociologist. It is sculptural in character, at first done in white and ochre red, and later in black. The vessels are surmounted by a stirrup-spout formed by a pair of arched tubes joined together at the mouth. The scenes depicted on the vases are varied and often very vivid: battles, banquets, hunting and fishing, a chief carried in a litter, household work, etc. Taken together, they reveal the existence of a well-advanced state of civilization: a sumptuous court, officials, artisans, servants-a whole social hierarchy. They also show us that certain immoral practices 'were not uncommon. 31 Much more mysterious is the civilization of Paracas. Thanks to the dry climate, the heat, and the strong currents of air that freshen the atmosphere, the objects dug out of the necropolis of that name have remained intact. Wrapped around the mummies were found fabrics of cotton and wool in a variety of vivid colors (as many as 14 A Socialist Empire: The Incas of Peru sixteen different tonalities have been counted). The motifs, rep resenting felines (wildcats or pumas), birds, fish-either human ized or fantastic-and men-linear, polygonal, or naturalistically drawn-are well proportioned to the dimensions of the fabrics and are harmoniously and symmetrically distributed. 32 Most of them have a mythological character. Several pieces of material bear a motif, often very complicated, which is repeated several times, but always with some change of detail, very much like a theme and variations. 33 4. Two other important ,cultures, less ancient than those of which we have just spoken, developed side by side: that of Recuay and that of Nazca-lea. The remains of the first are found in the Huaylas corridor: pottery of white clay, vases with cylindrical necks, with scenes in high relief depicted on their upper parts, and black geometrical designs. More beautiful and more celebrated are the polychrome pottery vessels of Nazca, adorned with highly com plicated drawings of mythological beings, of men either stylized or realistically depicted, and, above all, of fish, for the inhabitants of the area were fishermen. Ica pottery is in three colors and rich in geometric designs. 34 5. At some time subsequent to the Chavin civilization on the plateau, an empire that came into being toward the south invaded the whole inter-Andean corridor. Its capital, Tiahuanaco, was situated on the shores of Lake Titicaca in an area so desolate that some authors, in order to explain its presence there, have thought it necessary to assume that the climate of the area must have under gone a change. Such modifications have, in fact, occurred in various

places: in upper Argentina, in the region of Atacama, and in Ecua dor. 35 It is also certain that in ancient times the Andes were not so high as they are today; they used to permit moisture-laden clouds to pass over them, and the Peruvian littoral, in consequence, was once damp and wooded. In those days Lake Titicaca poured its waters into the Amazon, and "the largest lake on earth fed the largest river." 36 But the Andean plateau had this appearance in very ancient times; and it seems unnecessary to have recourse to such an explanation when we reflect that, though the site of Lake Titicaca is strikingly arid, the neighboring areas are not barren> The Dominance of the Past 15 as is generally believed, but watered by rainfall, and maize is grown there. 37 On the subject of the Tiahuanaco civilization .a great many theories have been held, of which we shall not make any thorough examination here. According to H. Urteaga, Tiahuanaco was prob ably Quecha, and not Aymara as is generally believed. 3s Accord ing to Posnansky, the first inhabitants must have been Arawaks, who were themselves later conquered by the Collas.39 The bas relief on the celebrated Gate of the Sun has been interpreted by H. Cunow as the symbol of the tribal organization of the Incas,4o and by Cuneo Vidal as representing the migration of the tribes that had come from the east.41 We do not even know whether the fortress of Saxahuaman, which dominates Cuzco, or that of Sil lustani, or the citadel of Machu Picchu and its sisters in the canyon of the Urubamba belonged to this vanished empire. 42 We know nothing of the daily life of the people' except that most of them were farmers, for their language is rich in agricultural terms; that they knew how to work in stone, construct objects in copper and bronze, and make pottery; and that they carried on trade with the coast: vases in the Tiahuanaco style have been found in Ecuador, ornaments of this provenance reached the shores of the Pacific, and this commerce perhaps extended as far as Cen tral America.

N or do we know anything about the capital itself, save that it still lifts its beautiful monolithic Gate of the Sun in the midst of a desert landscape and that it keeps its stone foundations hidden in the soil, from which they are only just beginning to be unearthed. 43 It 'was undoubtedly a great center, both political and religious, for excavation has brought to light skeletons, implements, and vases coming from all over Latin America. 44 Other cities must have belonged to this empire, but all we have been able to do is find vestiges of their cyclopean walls, at Taraco on the shore of Lake Titicaca, at Ollantaytambo in Peru, at Pachacamac under the ruins of the temple of the Chimu period, which is later than that of Tiahuanaco, and finally in the province of Carangas in Bolivia. 45 All that we know of this empire is that it was spread over a very 16 A Socialist Empire: The Incas of Peru wide territory. Aymara place names are to be found today in northern Argentina,46 and Aymara dialects in the province of Huarachiri in Peru and in the region of Arica on the Chilean sea board; and the style of Tiahuanaco deeply influenced the ceramics and textiles of the coastal areas.47 The only impression 'we get from this conventional style is that the people who originated it must already have been conforming to a strictly regimented mode of life and were probably subject to an absolute and theocratic central power.

What remains to us from this people is its language: Aymara. 48 Lay opinion may be inclined to regard a linguistic survival as of little consequence, but this is a mistake. Language is the living ex pression of a segment of humanity. If it is rich in abstract words, it points to a high degree of intellectual culture. If it abounds in technical terms, it indicates an advanced economic development. If it is complex and skillfully put together, it attests a long period of evolution. When a word expresses an idea, it is because that idea has been conceived; and when a word denotes a place, it is because that place has been occupied. Every word marks, in some domain or other, a conquest by man. Now the Aymara language is exceedingly rich. It possesses formative affixes that permit the modification of verbal roots and contains a great number of synonyms capable of denoting the most delicate shades of meaning, so that Max Uhle finds it superior to the Quechua language itself. 49 The Tiahuanaco civilization was destroyed by some cataclysm -invasion, epidemic, or earthquake.,50 It was followed by a period of disorder and dissension until the time when the second reflux movement of which we have spoken swept across the scene-that of the Quechuas under their Inca chiefs, whose origin is as mysteri ous as that of the Aymaras. 51 No doubt the Quechuas and the Aymaras resembled each other in some respects, and it is natural that D'Orbigny and Markham should have been tempted to de clare that the one was derived from the other. Nevertheless, there are certain differences between them. In physique, the Aymaras have a more oval-or lozenge-shaped face; they are a little taller, The Dominance of the Past 17 and the upper torso is proportionately higher; and slanting eyes are more frequent among them than among the Quechuas.'52 In disposition, the Aymaras are more taciturn, more suspicious, less submissive, and less gentle than their neighbors.

A still more striking fact is that while the languages spoken by these two ethnic groups have forty per cent of their 'words in com mon, there are differences of syntax between them that are in explicable on the assumption that one is derived from the other. At the present time, the boundary between the Aymaras and the Quechuas runs on the northeast from Lake Titicaca to Cojata and on the northwest from this lake to Puno.,53 The Incas were in all probability something quite other than "the last sigh and the last glimmer of that civilization without a name, without a past, without known history, which has left us no other perceptible evidence of its existence than the silent ruins of Tiaguanaco." 54 And it is of the Incas that we propose to speak here. Yet before taking up the study of the Incas themselves, and in order to make our picture complete, we must add to the preced ing brief sketch some mention of the peoples of Ecuador, such as the Caras, the Puruhas, the Cafiaris, of whom we have but scanty information,55 and the Chilean tribe of the Chinchas-Atacamas, which attained great prosperity between the twelfth and the four teenth centuries. 56 As. for the Chibchas of Colombia, who had an interesting social organization, their territory always remained outside the sphere of Inca influence and activity. There may have been other important centers of life and culture elsewhere, but not enough is known about them to enable us to speak of them here. 57 This rapid survey permits us to focus our attention on a few essential points.

First, we see what a mistake it would be to regard the Incas as a primitive people. Even before their time there had already been alternate periods of prosperity and depression. No one is in a position to say whether the Indian of the fifteenth century was superior or inferior to his precursor of the Tiahuanaco period. Progress does not follow a straight line, and the notion of a con tinuous or even intermittent evolution toward a better state of 18 A Socialist Empire: The Incas of Peru affairs is a postulate no longer encountered anywhere but in text books. Next, the civilization of Peru was not subjected to any influence from the Mediterranean. Hypotheses concerning Jewish or Egyptian immigrations must be rejected, for the Indians at the time of the Spanish conquest had no knowledge of iron or the wheel or glass or wheat, and it is known today that they themselves had discovered copper and bronze. 58 We are thus confronted with autochthonous civilizations, a fact that makes the study of them singular Iy interesting. 59 In the third place, it is evident that natural obstacles, however difficult to surmount, did not prevent numerous migrations from taking place. It would be a mistake to suppose that what we have called the cellular structure of these regions had the result of keep ing people forever bound to their native valleys. We are astonished, in fact, to find that so many changes of domicile could have oc curred, for, in addition to those we have mentioned, there were a number of secondary movements here and there in South America. Thus, the inhabitants of the Atacama district emigrated toward the north and the sierra;6o and groups of Guaranis who had come from the middle of South America settled in the north of what is now Argentina; later the Andean tribes drove them back, and they then returned to their point of departure. 61 Fourthly, there exists in South America a common substratum of Amazonian origin. The similarity of the complicated imple ments discovered in different regions and made from local raw materials proves that there is a "kinship among Andean civiliza tions." 62 It is in reality the same civilization, which evolved dif ferently in different regions, whether that of the Caras to the north or of the Calchaquis to the south. 63 This homogeneity of culture, reappearing beneath local dif ferences, makes it easier to understand the Incas' rapid assimila tion of the conquered tribes.

We see too that Uhle is not wrong in characterizing as "ungrate ful" those sovereigns who, having inherited the culture of their ancestors, carefully concealed the source from which it came. 64 The history of the great Inca dynasty is itself extremely confused The Dominance of the Past 19 in many respects, and we shall not undertake to make it clearer here. The names of monarchs and the precise dates of events are matters of indifference to us; we are interested only in the nature and order of those events and in the development of institutions. In order to orient ourselves, however, we shall indicate briefly what seems to have been the Inca sovereigns'genealogy. Most of the Spanish chroniclers, including Garcilaso, call the first of these rulers by the name of Manco Capac, and the second Sinchi Roca. But Montesinos and Acosta trace the Incas to a later monarch named Inca Roca. 65 Where is the truth to be found? As we have seen, after the civilization of Tiahuanaco had flourished in all its splendor, a long-continued eclipse took place. Then the sinchis took over the direction of the different tribes. 66 These sinchis were temporary chieftains named by the primitive clans (ayllus) to lead them in hunting, fishing, or war. No doubt, once they had achieved permanent status, they were the first sovereigns.

Hence, it is easy to understand that there is a tendency today to regard Manco Capac and Sinchi Roca, not as two individuals, but as two dynasties, as legendary beings. Indeed, the mythological character that the chroniclers themselves attributed to the first of them confirms this interpretation. 67 What is certain is that at a given moment in history the Incas established themselves, by fair means or foul, as the dominant class in the valley of Cuzco, which was already inhabited. They forthwith began their conquest of the plateau and concurrently developed an increasingly efficient organization. The great strug gles with the rival tribes-first the Collas and then the Chancas -served to strengthen the central power and enabled the upper class to free itself once and for all from its original geographical limits, to increase its knowledge, and to enlarge its means of action. Thus, the elite came to stand out more and more conspicuously from the mass of the people.

It is not known how long the Incas reigned: from 500 to 600 years, according to Bias Valera; from 300 to 400 years, according to Ondegardo and Acosta; more than 500 years, according to Balboa; and nearly 1,000 years, according to Sarmiento. Garcilaso lists thir20 A Socialist Empire: The Incas of Peru teen monarchs., but he probably names some of them twice, for the number given by Balboa and Montesinos is not so large. What follows is the approximate line of succession of the sover eigns. We shall not set down the dates of their reigns, for these vary from one author to another; we shall merely indicate the century in which each of the Incas probably lived. 68 SOVEREIGNS 69 PERIODS CHIEF CONQUESTS REMARKS Manco Capac Sinchi Roca If Legendary figures Lloque Yupanqui Late twelfth or earIy thir teenth cen tury Mayta Capac Thirteenth Alcabizas century Belongs to the Rurin Cuzco The first Sapa-Inca (supreme Inca) and the first be longing to the Hanan Cuzco Obscure reign Probably murdered Chancas war (con tinued); northern expansion toward Huamanca, south ern toward Chucuito (Lake Titicaca) Fourteenth century Fourteenth century Thirteenth Alliance with the century Andahuaylas Beginning Beginning of the of the four-Chancas war teenth century Viracocha Inca Roca Capac Yupanqui Yahuar Huacac The Dominance of the Past 21 Viracocha's illegitimate son Urco, whom his father nominated as his successor, may never have come to power; or, if, as Herrera and Cieza de Leon maintain, he really did reign, it was only for a very short time.

SOVEREIGNS eo PERIODS CHIEF CON~UESTS REMARKS Pachacutec Fifteenth In the north century, toward Tarma, probably Huamachuco, 1438 Cajamarca; on the coast toward Pachacamac, Parmunca; conquest of the Chimu kingdom Tupac Yupanqui Second In the north tohalf of ward Chachathe poyas and Muyufifteenth bamba; south tocentury ward the river to 1493 Maule; surrender of the Cafiaris; war with the Caras Huayna Capac From about In the north, 1493 to surrender of the 1527 Caras; in the east, repulse of the Guaranis The last sovereign, Huayna Capac, had, contrary to custom, divided his empire, which had become too large, between his two sons, the legitimate heir Huascar and the bastard Atahualpa. On the death of the monarch, civil war broke out between these fra ternal enemies, and Atahualpa, the conqueror, had Huascar and his family put to death. The Spaniards arrived just in time to take 22 A Socialist Empire: The Incas of Peru advantage of the existing disorder and establish themselves as masters. At this moment the empire extended for more than two thousand five hundred miles from the river Ancasmayo, two de grees north of the equator, to the river Maule, thirty-five degrees south of that line, and its area was approximately six times that of France. 70 We propose to examine here the social structure of that em pire at this time. Before the fifteenth century, the Incas' economic, political, and social system had not attained its perfection; after 1531 it was still maintained, but internal disturbance had impaired its operation. The entire history of the Incas, in fact, ran its course in the span of four hundred years: the twelfth and thirteenth cen turies, during which the sovereigns were hardly more than tribal chieftains or at best the chiefs of a confederation of tribes like so many others (Chachapoyas, Huanucos, Chinchas, Chancas); the fourteenth, which was the century of preparation; and the fif teenth, when they reached their apogee. 71 The Inca empire 'was actually in existence for only two centuries-little enough time for the establishment of so vast an organization on solid founda tions. And yet so brilliant was its short day of splendor that dazzled historians even up to the present have failed to perceive, in its shadow, the great civilizations that preceded it; and so deeply did the Incas stamp their imprint upon their people that the passing centuries have not yet been able to efface it, and the ethnologist continually rediscovers it among the Indians of today.