The Architecture of Kuelap
The Architecture of Kuelap
The Architecture of Kuelap
Robert Bradley
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
2005
2005
ABSTRACT
The Architecture of Kuelap
Robert Bradley
in the Department of Amazonas, Peru. The text provides a description of this area of
From the time of Kuelaps introduction to the modern world in 1843, the Kuelap
militaristic framing. The following chapters also critique the belligerent stereotype
assigned to the northern Andean highlands for the Late Intermediate Period (1,000 to
1,400 AD). The text also explores the historical digression, concerning Chachapoya
Theories are then presented which will offer a plausible scenario for the
construction and occupation of Kuelap. Were the enormous walls erected to imitate
the ubiquitous form in the region, the cliff face? A new iconography for the
Chachapoya architectural frieze work is also considered. This system positions these
geometric friezes as aspects of the human head: eyes, ears and nose. Closing remarks
Abstract
Table of Contents
Acknowledgement
A Note on Spelling
1. Introduction
1. Chachapoya Studies
2. Previous Research
3. My Previous Research
4. Archaeological Methodology
6. Why Kuelap?
7. Observations
8. My Method
3. The Setting
4. The Record
5. The Visitors
8. Closing Remarks
Appendices
Bibliography
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I would like first of all like to thank the Columbia Universitys Art History and
made a year of fieldwork in Peru a possibility. I also want to thank the Anthropology
Department and Nan Rothschild for the Robert Stigler Fund. This fund enabled me to
visit two locations vital for my thesis. Also I want to thank Joanna Smith for
providing excellent guidance for this work. Even though the pre-Columbian field is
outside of her area of interest her knowledge of the subject at hand was remarkable. I
must, of course thank Dr. Esther Pasztory for constantly introducing me to impossible
thank her for her direction and for equipping me with her tough-minded critical
thinking style which has enabled me to enter the field like Huitzilopochtil: armed and
I would like to thank Dr. Peter Lerche and the Camayoc Institute for the use of
the facilities and library at Chillo abajo. Peter and Elizabeth provided a home and a
training camp for this visitors excursions to the area east of the Maraon. I could not
Casa Chillo made bearable by Elizabeths untiring work in the kitchen. I also wish to
be the first, but definitely not the last, to include Thomas Blas Arce Lerches name in
a study of Chachapoyas.
I want to thank Dr. Terence DAltroy for providing me with a brilliant foundation
on the Inca Empire, which helped immensely in my study of the Chachapoya. Also
even though this dissertation presents a theoretical standpoint sometimes at odds with
critically examining and reinforcing many of the arguments in this text. I have to
thank Lynn Meskell and Keith Moxey for developing my theoretical edge. Also my
thanks go out to Gary Urton for enabling me focus my ideas. I also want to thank
Adriana Von Hagen and her initial warning that Chachapoyas was an area where
grown men have broken down and cried on the trails I havent cried, yet.
I would particularly like to thank my mother Theresa. Even though she was not
her support. I would also like to thank my sister Anne and brother-in-law Steve for
donating a printer and for much needed computer advice. And thanks to Tom Dillione
and his family for helping me during my transition from productive member of
Finally, I would like to thank Osita, Ernesto and Joaquin Briones, Walter, Elvira,
el Chino, Cal, Andres, Kiki and Seor Juan Carlos in Huanchaco. I also wish to
thank the Huaraz crew of Jim Sykes, Nursuam, the Norris family and all the other
individuals who made my five years in Peru a walking dream. Finally I want to thank
my wife Serenella, my daughter Gabriella and my wifes family Walter Senior, Sonia,
The Inca language Quechua and the scant remnants of the Chachapoya tongue
were not written in any, as yet, understood form. Therefore the words are literally
vocal signs vibrating in the wind. Our written form is an alien convention. However,
for the past four hundred or so years, written records have been compiled with pre-
Columbian content. These texts mostly have no standardized spelling. So, for
example, the Chachapoya place name Levanto will also appear as Rabanto and
Llauantu. The name for the Inca ruler Huayna Capac can be spelled Guainacabac but
also in the different phonetic form Wayna Qhapaq. These different representations of
the sounds of Andean languages are not as difficult to reconcile as, for example, the
Chinese Mandarin systems pinyin and Wade-Giles. But for the sake of simplicity, and
Columbian terms in this dissertation. I have done this for everything except
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1. Chachapoyas Studies
Kuelap has been known to the West since 1843. Former Peruvian president Alberto
Fujimori once included Kuelap among the countrys three great sites (Machu Picchu,
Chavin de Huantar and Kuelap). Kuelap is by far the most neglected of the three
despite being known to the western world for more than a century and a half. Kuelap
is situated in a remote part of the Andes, but recently the outside world has made its
influence felt even in the most remote locales on the far side of the great Maraon
River. Therefore, the fact that Kuelap has not yet fascinated the Western imagination
is puzzling, because Kuelaps sixty foot walls and distinctive entrances make it a
stunningly visual site (Fig. 4b.). Additionally a trip to Kuelap provides the visitor
with an unspoiled journey. The visitor can climb a pre-Columbian trail to Kuelap sans
guide and without annoyance (in contrast to Cuzco). A trek up to Kuelap is a very
special personal experience in this time of channeled tourism. Yet the ruin sees fewer
than one foreign visitor a day. This number pales in comparison to the other more
Kuelap has been assigned to the Chachapoya culture by Andeanists. The name
people who lived in the northeastern Andeas from about 1000 AD to 1450.
Chachapoyas is also the name for a modern town in the region. As of yet, no
systematic study has ever been published concerning the entire Chachapoyas region.
Indeed the geographical limits for the pre-Columbian people we call the Chachapoya
has never been delineated. (I will discuss this topic at length later in this dissertation.)
be explained because it was, for most of the twentieth century, an extremely difficult
area to explore. Even as late as 1966 the adventurer Gene Savoy turned his expedition
to Kuelap into a front page story by emphasizing the difficulties of his trip! Kuelap
had been discovered one hundred and twenty years earlier and yet a journey to the
site in 1966 was still considered a difficult passage! In the ninety years that have
passed since the discovery of Machu Picchu, that site has been commercialized to the
I am not saying that Kuelap wants or needs the kind of love-it-to-death attention
that Machu Picchu receives on a daily basis. I personally would not want this to
happen. But even after working six years in the area of the pre-Columbian
because the ascent is always difficult and challenging, often coming during my first
few pre-acclimatized days of summer fieldwork. I think that most of the scholars,
aficionados, and adventurers who claim expertise in things Chachapoya share this
feeling of exclusivity and also covet the region. I know I have enjoyed my six years
3
of traveling to intact funeral houses, pristine cloud forests and forgotten ruins.
Chachapoya professionals all talk about somehow bringing the right sort of celebrity
to the region, but I think we all would only grudgingly share this area. However as I
mentioned, the modern world is encroaching upon even the most distant parts of the
north east Andes and it is possible for this inevitable change to affect the lives of the
What Chachapoyas really needs is large project focusing on the archaeology and
biodiversity abundant in the region. (This is especially important because mining and
lumber interests are now poised to siphon off many of the natural resources in this
part of Peru.)1 The barrier, which is the Maraon River, has had a lot to do with
insulation Chachapoyas has received from the outside world but it has also been
responsible for the overall neglect of Chachapoyas studies. It was only after World
War Two that bridges made travel to this part of Peru easy from the coast. Indeed the
eastern slopes of the Andes in this northern section of Peru are protected by the
Maraon River Gorge on one side (west) and miles of waterways and rainforest on
the other (east). The whole pre-Columbian area of Chachapoyas can be broken up
into four areas of interest (Fig. 2. and Fig. 3.). The Utcubamba area contains Kuelap,
Leymebamba, the modern city of Chachapoyas and many well visited archaeological
sites. The highland areas consist of Chuquibamba, Atuen, Uchumarca, Bolivar and
many unique archaeological treasures (Pirca Pirca (Fig. 5a), Vira Vira, and Pakariska
(Fig. 5b.) etc.). The eastern forest sites contain the archeologically rich village of
Chilchos and the Huaybayacu River area. Finally the Abiseo national park, far to the
1
See Church, Warren and Ricardo Morales Gamarra. Tomb Raiders of El Dorado: Conservation
Dilemmas on a New Archaeological Frontier in Peru in Society for American Archaeology. Volume
4, #1, January, 2004, for a discussion of other pending threats.
4
south of the previously mentioned highland locales, has the forest sites of Gran
Pajaten and Los Pinchudos. Because of the lack of paved roads and the difficulty of
Anthropologist Peter Lerche and the scholars Jose Ruz Barcillos and Ken Nystrom
all spend most of their time in the Utcubamba area and the adjacent Vilaya valley.
Keith Muscutt and Inge Schjellerup have worked out from the highland town of
Chuquibamba for many years, however, both Muscutt and Schjellerup have now
concentrated their efforts in the area of the Huabayacu and Chilchos (Fig. 16a) (The
Peruvian scholar Federico Kauffmann Doig is also very interested in this area).
Archaeologist Warren Church works well to the south of Chuquibamba in the Abiseo
park. Luis Valle, Arabel Fernandez and Florencia Bracamonte work at the site of Los
In the late nineties the area south of Leymebamba received much attention from
the outside world when pre-Columbian funeral houses, located near a pristine
mountain lake, were saved from being systematically looted.2 This Laguna de los
Cndores site was to become a treasure trove for archaeological studies and the
Sonia Guilln and author Adriana von Hagen have been the driving force behind the
development of this museum and the conservation of this lower Utcubamba territory.
In the late nineties many Chachapoya scholars also worked together on projects
stemming from the Laguna de los Cndores find, but recently their efforts have
scholars was surmounted in 2003 when Gary Urton and Harvard University
2
Von Hagen, Adriana & Sonia Guillen, Tombs with a View, Archaeology 51, #2, April, 1998
5
needed forum for the presentation of new material concerning the pre-Columbian
Chachapoya.
Presently there are very few radiocarbon dates from the pre-Columbian
Chachapoya. The remoteness of the region is partially to blame for this shortage, but
the time period of pre-Columbian history in which the Chachapoya culture falls is,
generally speaking, a neglected area of study. (This era in the Andean chronology is
called the Late Intermediate Period (Appendix B). Later in this dissertation I will
discuss this chronology and the placement of the Chachapoya culture in it at length.)
Remember Kuelap was discovered relatively early by the modern world (1843) yet
since that time there have been fewer than twenty archaeology oriented excursions to
2. Previous Research
Most of the past attention Chachapoyas has received has been from enlightened
travelers and adventurers. But several of these attempts have produced excellent
results. The Cliffside tomb sites which line the canyons of the region sometimes held
the interest of people who journeyed to the region but Kuelap has always been the
center of their attention. Appendix A lists the notable travelers to Kuelap and the date
in which they visited but below I will provide some brief commentary for these
journeys.
6
Juan Crisstomo Nieto discovered Kuelap for the modern world in 1843 when
he announced that he had found the biblical tower of Babel. According to the
Chachapoya specialist Arturo Ruz Estrada the next notable visitor to Kuelap was the
German traveler Ernst Middendorf.3 Ruz places Middendorf at Kuelap in 1866 but
Schjellerup says he did not get to Chachapoyas until the end of his twenty five year
Arthur Werthemann spent time in the Chachapoyas region and his explorations at
Kuelap could have been the first serious attempt at documenting the site.
Valdivia5 so the first real report of Kuelap with exact drawings and measurements
came from Adolph Bandelier. I will discuss Bandeliers work at Kuelap extensively in
chapter five, but the beautiful representations from his record will be referenced
throughout this work. (Figs. 1b., 4a., 9a., 10b., 11b., 18b., 19b. and 20b.)
but, according to Ruz, Kieffer spent a minimal amount of time at the ruin.6 In a
similar vein Ronald Olsen traveled to Kuelap in nineteen thirty as part of the Myron
Granger Expedition from the American Museum of Natural History. But malaria and
the difficulties of travel took a toll on Olsen and therefore his notes and observations
3
Ruiz Estrada, Arturo, La alfarera de Cuelap: tradicin y cambio, Tesis de Bachiller, Universidad
Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, Lima, 1972, page 10
4
Schjellerup, Inge, Incas and Spaniards in the Conquest of the Chachapoyas, Ph.D. dissertation,
Goteborg University, Sweden, 1997, 104
5
Schjellerup (1997) page 104
6
Ruiz Estrada, Arturo (1972) page 12
7
See Daggett, Richard, The Myron I. Granger Archaeological Expedition from the 18th Annual
Northeast Conference on Andean Archaeology and Ethnohistory, University of Massachusetts, October
23-24, 1999
7
French general Louis Langlois wrote a book about the Utcubamba in 1933. This
publication discussed Kuelap at length and I will recall the generals work later in this
dissertation. In the nineteen thirties Napolen Gil also worked in Chachapoyas and he
made some now dated observations about the architecture of the region.8
Henry and Paule Reichlen ventured out from Cajamarca, their main area of
interest, and journeyed to Chachapoyas in the 1940s. These Swiss archaeologists were
responsible for the first Chachapoya ceramic sequence. After the Reichlens, the
Chachapoya.
The sixties were very auspicious days for the study of Chachapoyas. Gene Savoy
worked during this time, and his adventures in the northeastern Andes, whether
1970. In his book he presented his travels as a series of adventurous expeditions into
Chachapoya region during the same time as Savoy. However Bonavias timeless
archaeological survey of the Abiseo site called Gran Pajaten was in direct contrast to
Savoys sensationalism. Towards the end of the sixties Arturo Ruz Estrada completed
8
Gil, Napolen, Dos pueblos prehistricos Kuelapenses: Kacta y Chipuric. Boletn de la Sociedad
Geogrfica. Tomo LV, 2-3, 132-139, 1938
9
Horkheimer, Hans. Algunas Consideraciones Acerca de la Arqueologa en el Valle del Utcubamba.
Actas y Trabajos del II Congreso Nacional de Historia del Per, Tomo I, 71-101, Lima, 1958
8
Luis Alfredo Narvaez Vargas completed his excavation of the ruin. Following this
effort the team of McGraw, Oncina, Sharon and Torres Ms published an excellent
study of Kuelap in 1996. In Kuelap a Solar Observatory the team presented the
Peter Lerche has worked in the Utcubamba region near Kuelap for more than
Columbian Chachapoya. Lerche became famous in the mid nineties when he initiated
the salvage operation of the looted Laguna de los Condores funeral site. He was also
responsible for the discovery and rescue of a carved wooden lintel from Chilchos
region of Chachapoyas. This carving has been considered an important artifact and is
has published extensively on the region. Her interests were initially centered in
anthropology but gradually moved toward archaeology until she published Incas and
Spaniards in the Conquest of the Chachapoyas in 1997. Since publishing that work
she has returned to her primary love anthropology and Schjellerup has focused her
University of Colorado Boulder field project at Abiseo. Church published his PhD
dissertation in 1996. The focus of Churchs dissertation was a cave site above the
Abiseo River. In this impossible environment he examined traces and artifacts from
the early pre-Columbian hunter gatherer occupants. Since then Church has been
Keith Muscutt first became interested in the Chachapoyas area when he traveled
to Mendoza in the early eighties. Since then he has centered himself in the highland
town of Chuquibamba. From this location Muscutt has ventured down into the eastern
(funeral houses). His Warriors of the Clouds book is required reading for anyone
Adriana Von Hagen & Sonia Guilln were part of the Laguna de los Condores
rescue project in the late 1990s. Since that time they have both been instrumental in
the founding of the Leymebamba Museum. This regional museum is the greatest
museum also highlights the magnificent biological diversity of this area to the
northeast of the Maraon River. Von Hagen inherited her love of the pre-Columbian
world from her father Victor Von Hagen. She has written a book on the Chachapoya
and co-authored another book, with the archaeologist Craig Morris, on the Inca
Empire. Sonia Guilln brought her expertise from studying the oldest mummies in the
Americas, the Chinchorro fisher folk of coastal Chile, to her research of the
Chachapoya.
10
Since 1980 Federico Kauffmann Doig has published numerous articles on the
Chachapoya. His work has often highlighted the funeral sites which line the canyons
of the eastern montaa. But the recent investigations of Jose Ruz Barcillos and Ken
Nystrom have not concerned the chullpas of the eastern slopes. Ruz Barcillos
directly east of the modern town of Chachapoyas. Ken Nystrom examined skeletal
remains from Kuelap. Both of these scholars efforts are currently in the preliminary
3. My Previous Research
I have been working in area of the pre-Columbian Chachapoyas for six years. I
first traveled to Peru in December 1998. Bus service from Lima to Chachapoyas was
more difficult at this time so I first approached the Chachapoya territory through the
Maraon River canyon. This entrance to the area of Leymebamba and beyond is
beyond description because of its natural beauty but I will attempt to offer one later in
chapter three. In my first six weeks in the region I ventured out to the Chachapoya
ruins of Teya, Macro and Kuelap from the house of Dr. Peter Lerche. Peter and his
wife Elizabeth provided a comfortable home for me at Chillo, literally in the shadow
of Kuelap. The pre-Columbian trail in this region runs right past their house so I
always traveled by foot to these three sites. Since this was the first time I had been to
the Chachapoyas region, I was immediately taken back by the neglect of the pre-
Columbian ruins. For example, the day before I arrived at Teya (Fig. 17a.) a local
farmer had slashed and burned the site to plant corn. As I walked through the Teya I
immediately noticed that a charred wooden doorway lintel had somehow survived the
11
fire. The ruin of Macro (Fig. 8a.) seemed more secure only because the land where
the site is located is too steep for farming. Macro has perhaps the easiest access of all
pre-Columbian Chachapoya constructions. Yet even though tour buses pass the ruin
first trip to Kuelap. We stayed a few days at the Instituto Nacional de Cultura (known
archaeological sites) facilities near the ruin. This was the time of the winter solstice
called capac raymi by the Inca.10 This beginning of the year date was important to
reference to Kuelaps main entrance. However the results were inconclusive. I also
learned from the INC custodian (Don Gabriel) how difficult it was to maintain Kuelap
My second trip to Chachapoya began in the June of 1999. At this time there was
air service from Lima to Chachapoyas (now defunct). After arriving in the city of
Chachapoyas I traveled with Dr. Peter Lerche and several INC representatives to the
Huabayacu river area. This trip took four days by foot and we were slowed down by
incessant rain for the first two days. Along the way to the Huabayacu we visited the
site of Chiquillo and measured an extremely large Chachapoya circular structure (15
meters). At Pase Breve we descended into the eastern slope cloud forest. Even though
I was exhausted at this point in the trip I will never forget my first vision of this dense
high mountain forest. Along the trail near the river we photographed Chachapoya
funeral sites. After spending about a week in this area we climbed back up the
10
Bauer, B. S. & David S. P. Dearborn. Astronomy and Empire in the Ancient Andes. University of
Texas Press, Austin, 1995, pages 10 & 26
12
cordillera and journeyed to the town of Atuen. (Fig. 8b.) We photographed and
surveyed the Inca baths in this village. (Inge Schjellerup has extensively documented
Joya and concluded the trip by photographing the Cliffside ruins of La Petaca. I spent
the last month of my summer season in the area of Chillo. At this time I worked in the
Camayoc Institute Library (operated by Peter Lerche) and again journeyed by foot to
Kuelap.
traveled with Dr. Lerche to the Valley of Vilaya. This valley is accessed by the high
and windy Yumal Pass. Vilaya is an archaeologically rich valley adjacent to the
Utcubamba. I was very excited to see this area but unfortunately on the first day
descending from Yumal Pass I tore my anterior cruciate ligament on a steep muddy
slope. I was forced to return to Chachapoyas and spend a week in bed until I could
walk. At this time I knew I would not be able to hike the trails in Chachapoyas so I
Kuntur Wasi. At Kuntur Wasi Dr. Yoshio Onuki welcomed me to his archaeological
catalog. From Kuntur Wasi I went down to the coast of Peru and visited Chan Chan
and the Moche site of Huaca del Sol. Finally, with Kuntur Wasi fresh in my head, I
traveled to the contemporaneous site of Chavin de Huantar. In many ways this was
one of my most successful seasons, and in the fall I presented my first paper at The
University Department of Art History and Archaeology Summer Travel Fund. This
season lasted from early June 2002 and until late August.12 I spent the early summer
in the area of the Utcubamba and again journeyed to Yumal Pass. From Yumal Pass I
traveled with Dr. Peter Lerche to the highest point in Amazonas: Mt. Shubet. Lerche
has written that Shubet could have had some kind of symbolic importance to the
Chachapoya. From Shubet we hiked down the cordillera until we reached the town of
Longita. From Longita we then went on to Kuelap. From Yumal Pass one can look
out and see the mountains that lead down to the Maraon River Gorge. During this
time I became very interested in the immediate western side of this barrier. After
6b.) Information about this neglected site was published in 1945 by Theodore
McCown, and since then the Canadian archaeological team of John and Teresa Topic
have done extensive work in the area. But Huamachuco, located on a hill just above
this town, is still a relatively remote pre-Columbian ruin. I wanted to go to this site so
I could study the ruin and compare it to Kuelap, so I traveled from Cajamarca to
Huamachuco. In the following days I surveyed the ruin of Marco Huamachuco. Later
I visited the Huari site of Viracochapampa also in the vicinity of Huamachuco. (Fig.
6a) Viracochapampa was the farthest northern outpost of the expansionistic southern
Andean people we call the Huari. I finished this season like the 2000 season with a
trip to the coast visiting the Moche site of Huaca El Brujo and then an excursion to
Stanford University team headed by Dr. John Rick. Before departing Peru I spent
Two thousand three was a watershed year for my pre-Columbian studies. In the
History and Archaeology Department. At this time I also benefited from the
Chachapoyas at the site of Kuelap and working on this dissertation at the Camayoc
Institute library. During July I traveled with Seor Joaquin Briones to the Uchumarca
Pirca Pirca. (Fig. 5a.) Pirca Pirca has stonework unlike any other construction in the
pre-Columbian Chachapoya region, but Pirca Pirca has been thoroughly looted so no
function or date has ever been associated with the site. We ended our trip to
Unfortunately there are substantial material goods and mummies at great risk of
the town of Bolivar which was called Cajamarquilla in the early colonial chronicles.
This town is in close proximity to an enigmatic site called Pakariska. (Fig. 5b.) I
wanted to survey and photograph this ruin for comparison to Kuelap. In august I
opportunity to travel to the Bolivian Altiplano site of Tiwanaku. Two years earlier I
had written a series of papers about the Tiwanakus Gateway of the Sun monument
15
but this was the first time I was able to visit this ruin. I returned to Chachapoyas in
late September and immediately embarked on another trip with Seor Joaquin
Briones. This time we headed directly east to the cloud forest. From the small
scattered village of Chilchos we trekked four days through the cloud forest until we
reached the village of Canaan located on a tableland called la meseta. This is the
location for the almost impossible to reach Inca structure called Puca Huaca.
(Remember I had giver a paper about this site in 2000 at the Northeast Conference on
Chilchos I was informed (by the brother of Seor Joaquin Briones) about an unlooted
funeral site above the Rio Blanco. (Fig. 16a.) Because of the pending danger of
looting to the site we made an excursion to the view and record the ruin. (The site was
called El Dorado but has been renamed Yaku Wasi) We took photographs and upon
the Camayoc institute library. Our winter months coincide with the wet season in
Chachapoyas and during this time travel into the mountains and cloud forest becomes
problematic.
summer travel grant from the Art History and Archaeology Department of Columbia
University. I again spent considerable time in the Utcubamba area and I journeyed to
Kuelap to finalize some points for my thesis. I was very fortunate because Alfredo
Lus Narvez Vargas, the Chachapoya scholar who completed the first scientific
16
excavation of Kuelap in 1987, was again working at the Kuelap. I spent some time
4. Archaeological Methodology
disciplines: archaeology, art history and ethnohistory. In the following sections I will
give my views about the development and the state of each field.
finding) Helen of Troys lost treasure surpassed the plot for even the most imaginative
movie script. This audacious beginning soon settled down to become what we refer to
an understanding of the past by examining the great monuments and relics of that
past. This was the age of the great digs for the Pharaohs of Egypt. It was a time when
the artifacts of archaeology would not only provide some answers to how and why of
lost cultures, the work would also guild the halls of museums. The architectural
concern of this archaeology was the great temples and tombs. These monuments were
have played a vital role in the development and maintenance of these sites. Old
archaeology was Western centric. This archeology only had a peripheral interest in
the New World. V. Gordon Childe epitomized this old archaeology and it has been
said his scholarly interests were rooted in an attempt to understand Old World
13
Etienne, Roland & Franoise. The Search for Ancient Greece. Discoveries. Harry N. Abrams
Publishers, 1992, pages 110-112
17
When archaeologists did glance at the New World the result was diffusionist. By
diffusionist I mean that the New World cultures were viewed as deriving from Old
World cultures. The flow of culture from West to non-West was in keeping with the
exception to this flow of culture was the work of Authur Posnansky. Posnansky
positioned the Tiwanaku culture of the Altiplano (modern day Bolivia) as the cradle
of existence for all of mankind.15 Of course his premise is hopelessly flawed. But, to
his credit, Posnanskys theories, which bordered on the insane, were in response to
would always position his area of interest as secondary. He therefore turned the
argument upside down and made Western archaeology auxiliary to his specialization.
century American traveler John Lloyd Stephens and his contribution to archaeology
in the New World. Almost a century before Posnansky, Stephens noticed that the
people of the small villages and towns near the decaying ruins of Central America
14
Patterson, Thomas C. and Charles E. Orser Jr., Foundations of Social Archaeology: Selected
Writings of V. Gordon Childe. Alta Mira Press, California, 2004, page 4
15
Posnansky, Authur, Tihuanacu: the Cradle of American Man. J.J. Augustine, New York, 1945
16
See Von Hagen, Victor. Maya Explorer; John Lloyd Stevens and the Lost Cities of Central America
and Yucatn. Chronicle Books, San Francisco, 1947
18
The how and why of these ancient American civilizations -separated by oceanic
expanses of thousands of miles from the Old World- are questions which still puzzle
the archaeologist, anthropologist, and the philosopher of human history. In what
manner did civilization in many ways so similar to the Old World- come to the
New? Many pre-historians (I would estimate a majority) hold that the rise of
agricultural civilizations in the Americas was an independent growth with no
significant direct Old World ties and that the presence of such similar phenomena is a
demonstration of mans basic unity.17
Willey and other archaeologists of his time were different from the old
archaeologists. The new archaeologists were not solely concerned with temples,
tombs and treasures. The focus for these archaeologists was surveying the major sites
in conjunction with the surrounding environment in which the major monument was
located. These archaeologists were just as enamored with potsherds as they were with
elite artifacts of precious materials. What they were looking for was to assemble the
big picture from tiny fragments like a jigsaw puzzle. The heyday for this new
archaeology in the Americas came with the Vir Valley Project conducted in Peru in
the mid 20th century. Vir Valley was an archaeological project conducted along the
North Coast of Peru just South of Trujillo. The Vir Valley Project was a massive
coordinated effort by a whos who of that eras archaeology (Wendell Bennett, Junius
Bird, Gordon Willey etc.). The study was planned in order to integrate several
growth within a small natural area.18 The techniques from the Vir Valley Project
concerned with unbiased data. The results from this Project were enduring. In many
ways the Vir Valley Project set the standard for pre-Columbian archaeology in South
17
Kosok, Paul. Life, Land and Water in Ancient Peru. Long Island University Press, New York, 1965,
forward by Gordon R. Willey
18
Ford (1949) page 18
19
America. Since this time other excellent examples of this scientific archeological
prowess have been completed much to the benefit of Andean studies (Morris &
Thompsons work at Hunuco Pampa in the central highlands of Peru and Dillehays
The problem with new archaeology was never technique, but instead the problem
was philosophical. The new archaeologists were first and foremost scientists. The aim
etc. New archaeology is also called processual archaeology because through the
accumulation of this data it seeks to reveal the process of history. The critique of this
investigation. In other words can you really study such a complicated and messy think
like culture the way you would study science? Ian Hodder, a leading post-processual
There are four points to this post-processual criticism, but the first three are really
closely linked. The problem with the dichotomy between culture and function is that
if you examine a past culture by using a norm your model loses variability. So, for
19
See Morris, Craig and Donald E. Thompson, Hunuco Pampa: An Inca City and Its Hinterland.
Thames and Hudson, London, 1985 and Dillehay, Tom D., The Settlement of the Americas: a New
Prehistory. Basic Books, New York, 2000
20
Hodder, Ian, editor, Symbolic and Structural Archaeology. Cambridge University Press, 1982
20
scientific study) of an average (North) American in the year 2005. This is of course
impossible. Would this model reflect blue or red states, immigrants or blue bloods,
coastal urbanites or good country people? Whatever norm you would pick for your
model would flaw your data. This is because (according to a post processual position)
cultures really are not like subjects in a laboratory and examining them is really not
an exact science. The second criticism is similar to the first: processual archaeology
ignores the individual. Any generalization about cultures ignores the numerous
individual actors who created the culture. Processual archaeology is not concerned
with the individual actor. Processual archaeology loves the idea of the individual man
but not the individual. The third point also relates to the first criticism about norms.
Any snapshot of a culture is static and cannot adequately represent the relentless
changes and movement of that culture. Think of trying to understand the meaning and
The fourth point to me is most straightforward and yet the most complicated.
Positivism in this sense is set in the idea that a rational scientific method will always
provide for greater understanding. A positivist would believe that in the future we will
have the capacity for recreating, and therefore understanding, cultures of the past. A
non- positivist would accept that our understanding will always be limited.
Unfortunately, the post processual critique of positivism has often been juxtaposed to
and the criticisms of post processual archaeology are valid. In the next chapter I will
present the methodology for this dissertation which sets the tone for this work in post
studies. By doing this I am not, however, flirting with nihilism. But my arguments in
the following chapters would have been impossible without new archaeology, and I
will close this paper with a plea for the application of a decidedly high-tech scientific
technique at Kuelap. Indeed my ideas concerning Kuelap also have been influenced
historians were somewhat nonessential. The reason was simple. Art history is not a
sciences they moved away from the humanistic discipline which is art history. If the
art historian was used, it was as a connoisseur of artifacts or not at all. However in
Moche studies the unique material goods (treasures) from this culture created an
environment where the art historian could thrive (Maya studies would be a
was replaced during the processual timeframe by stratigraphy, which would separate
an era by rigorous classification and delineation into numbered phases and named
time frames (I will elaborate on this technique later). Also processual studies humbled
art historys connoisseurship with the advent of the radio carbon date. This technique
was a product of the atomic age and with it one could measure the loss of a type of
22
carbon from organic material. This measure would produce an unequivocal time
frame for many recovered objects, thereby theoretically making the art connoisseurs
job obsolete.
But this distinct separation between art history and archaeology was not always
the case. Before the ascendancy of processual method the art historian was
indistinguishable from the archaeologist. During this early era both the archaeologist
and the art historian were seeking the same fantastic artifact from the depth of some
ancient major monument, so their ends and their means were identical. But today,
after the processual split, art history and archaeology seem to be again on similar
courses. Post processual archaeology is replete with the same theoretical problems as
after archaeology and art history. Ethnohistory involves developing histories and it is
developing histories were called primitive cultures but this prejudicial and misleading
term is (for now) seldom used. Ethnohistorians are cultural anthropologists so they
the two groups are separated by one very important criterion. Archaeologists study
the dead and their remains. Cultural anthropologists (ethnohistorians) are immersed in
(language, art, ritual, kin groupings, environment, diet, clothing, etc.) gleaned from
living sources. These cultural anthropologists can then extrapolate back and apply this
data to the previous eras of the culture of their expertise. So, for instance, an
23
ethnohistorian might study weaving techniques in present day Cuzco and use this
in the precision of their methods cultural anthropologists take pride in their complete
familiarity (often almost to a point of identification) with the culture in their field of
interest.
But no discipline emerged from the twentieth century without some form of
cathartic introspection. (For example recall art historys marginalization with the
advent of science based archaeology and this same science based archaeologys
cultural anthropology was not immune to these forces. Their challenge came when the
of study was questioned. Napoleon Chagnons work with Stone Age tribes in
Venezuela was the fulcrum of this controversy.21 Again the thrust of this criticism was
experiment in while living with your subject) but the negative results from this work
were more apparent than any flaws attributed to processual archaeology. From my
viewpoint the ethnohistorians efforts are directly dependent on data assembled from
their informants, and I will discuss this two sided proposition in the next chapter.
6. Why Kuelap?
When I first presented my dissertation proposal two years ago my thoughts were
to write about architectural anomalies in the Chachapoyas region and in particular the
ruins of Pirca Pirca, Puca Huaca and Paksriska. I am now aware of the difficulty such
21
See Tierney, Patrick. Darkness in El Dorado. Norton, New York, 2000
24
a project would present. These hard to reach sites have not even been cleared so
choosing them for a dissertation topic would involve a multi-year funded project. Dr.
Esther Pasztory suggested that a monograph concerning Kuelap has never been
written and today I am very grateful for her input. Even though this ruin is the best
known in the region the more I investigated the more I saw a need to compile
information and, most importantly, discuss the how and why of the site. As I will
discuss later many issues of pre-Columbian Chachapoya identity are tied up in our
Now is also a very good time to study and reinvestigate the pre-Columbian
Chachapoya world. Every year the region attracts more of the worlds growing
number of tourists. Soon the image of the pre-Columbian Chachapoya will be firmly
fixed in the popular imagination. I think the positioning we now have for Kuelap in
CHAPTER TWO
7. Observations
historical studies are western centric.22 The Greek miracle, development of one-point
perspective in painting and the modern tendency to abstraction are all vital to the
22
Changes are in the wind however. Holland Cotter recently wrote about non-western art being taken
out of its niche and being treated as art first, non-western second. Cotter, Holland Outside In, The
New York Times. Wednesday, March 30, 2005, pages G1 and G14
25
study of western art history, yet are of little or no value to the non-western student.
Casteligone was greeted with a shrug by the Chinese court.23 Apparently, the 1000 or
of western art history applied to a non-western subject can be found in Huari textiles.
These fabrics fracture their images in what can only be called an abstract manner.
This tradition appears in the middle phases of pre-Columbian Andean art around 800
AD. In the west abstraction is a late modern tendency and any examples pre-dating
1900 are generally considered crude or primitive.24 Why a modern western tendency
An art historian who selects the pre-Columbian field finds alienation from
interpret), some biased chronicles, and a great deal of marginally useful colonial
documents are our only pre-Columbian documents. Every so often a new find
complements the field (For instance the discovery of Guaman Pomas El Primer
ago (Fig. 13.), or the brilliant roundtable discussions and linguistic innovations that
have led to deciphering many Mayan glyphs). Even today, information has surfaced
that could reveal embedded text in some of the Inca mnemonic recording devices
23
Xin, Yang, Nie Chongzheng, Lang Shaojun, Richard M. Barnhart, James Cahill and Wu Hung, Three
Thousand Years of Chinese Painting, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1997, pages 282-285
24
The rationale here is that it is primitive to abbreviate or abstract the image unless we know, you
know, you are consciously doing it as a sort of aesthetic exercise.
26
called quipus. But in all these instances, the finds, as spectacular and welcome as
The pre-Columbian art historian will always work in a historical vacuum: it is our
lot. Renaissance specialists have told me they envy this position because their area of
interest is awash in five hundred years of written sources and monographs. This
concentration of interest through time has made finding a research topic a daunting
task. But for the pre-Columbianist the struggle is finding meaning in the void.
and the ethnohistorian. These two figures first appear as lights in the void. The
capable of probing the earth and finding the perpetrator of an event (lets call it a
I am, of course playing with a crime scene metaphor. This facetious dialogue is
Student, but I have changed the characters and the forum.25 Not that all pre-
Columbian studies are like a crime but most investigations involve silent perpetrators
left by the actors and the evidence is for the most part circumstantial. Also the crime
25
Flannery, Kent V., editor, The Early Mesoamerican Village. Academic Press, Orlando, 1976
27
scenes are often remote and neglected, and we are led to these areas not by our
been obsessed with crime scenes since the days of Edgar Allan Poe. So then isnt it
correct to present the archaeologist, the forensic specialist, and the ethnohistorian, the
skilled interrogator, as better equipped for the investigation than the art historian? I
studies, I only need refer to the dispute between processual (science based
post-modern understanding that the individual's thoughts and feelings will always be
with the nature of Andean studies. Travel and work in the Andean region is often
difficult and dangerous. Roads to all but the most famous sites are treacherous, and
car and bus rides are grueling. Obtaining the proper permits from the correct
government agency seems sometimes impossible, and weather and politics can be life
threatening. Often the basic problems of eating, sleeping and bathing can completely
occupy ones time. Andeanists take pride in being a resilient breed. Therefore,
Andeanists do not have time for complex western centric theories centered on doubt
and uncertainty, and as Terry Eagleton has aptly put it there is always something
rather navel-staring and narcissistic about theory.26 But I believe the archaeologist, the
individual very aware of his or her shortcomings (the post processual archaeologist).
Andean scholarship nears this paradigm shift every day. So the archaeologist is not a
light to blindly follow in the void. But the archaeologist is an asset to the art historian.
And considering the exponential technological advancements of the past few decades,
And what about the ethnohistorian? Could this interrogator and master of the all-
important informer perhaps light the void? Maybe a bit, but again circumspection is
necessary. The ethnohistorian can provide insight, but blindly following this light is
also equally unwise. For an example I need only refer to Alcide dOrbignys 1839
book Voyage dan lAmerique Meridionale. This text contains an account of a local
guide who led dOrbigny to the now famous Gateway of the Sun at Tiwanaku,
distinguished visitors including Angrand, Tschudi, Squire, Von Stubel, Bennett and
Posnansky. Posnansky even became obsessed with the structure. A quick read of his
Tiahuanaku Cradle of the American Man reflects his monomania concerning the
Gateway of the Sun. This mania is curious considering the object of his fixation The
Gateway of the Sun is a block like gray slab less than seven feet high. We have no
idea of the original location, and today some scholars believe the monument was
27
See DOrbidny, M. Alcide. Voyage dans les Deux Amriques. Furne et Cie, Paris 1854, pages 293-
294
28
Stbel, Alfons and Max Uhle, DieRuinensttte von Tiauanaco im Hochlande des alten Per: Eine
kulturgeschichtliche Studie auf Grund selbsstndiger Aufnahmen, Verlag von Karl W. Hiersemann,
Leipzig, 1892 and Protzen and Nairs article The Gateways of Tiwanaku: Symbols or Passages? in
Silverman, Helaine and William H. Isbell editors, Andean Archaeology II: Art, Landscape and Society,
Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, New York, 2002
29
original informer who guided dOrbigny. After all, an informer originally took the
Frenchman to the site and somehow convinced him of the monuments importance.
The monument at this time lay broken and buried. But after dOrbigny wrote about
The Gateway of the Sun and published a drawing, a steady flow of intellectual
pilgrims was assured. Even though the informant had no knowledge whatsoever of
this civilization, and even though these enigmatic people had disappeared from the
altiplano more than twelve centuries ago, the informant was dOrbignys guide and
expert witness. This particular local informant has influenced the scholarship
concerning the Gateway of the Sun for centuries. I am probably correct in saying
before Hiram Bingham was led to Machu Picchu, once again by an informant; the
Gateway of the Sun at Tiwanaku was the most famous pre-Columbian attraction in
South America!
connection between the people of the various regions where pre-Columbian sites exist
today and those pre-Columbian cultures of the past? Absolutely not! I am very proud
that the previously mentioned father of archaeology in the Americas, John Lloyd
Stephens, was the first enlightened traveler to make the ethnographic connection
between the ancient Maya and the people of the 19th century farms and villages of
Central America and Mexico. Stephens removed the blinders of racism and noted the
regal faces carved on the monuments and the faces of the poor farmers from these
communities were one and the same. But this correlation does not mean an ancient
community leader. The ancient Maya culture disappeared hundreds of years before
30
the conquest of the region by the Spanish. Many of the remaining cultural artifacts
were then destroyed in Bishop Landas book burning tour through 16th century
Mexico and Central America. The next few hundred years of disease, missionaries,
In the Andes, like Mesoamerica, disease, overzealous inquisitors and warfare also
many ancient and modern communities by their subsistence and survival strategies.
This connection is perhaps valid because the Andean subsistence farmer, the
economically viable. If you live, for instance, on a farm in highland Peru, you quickly
learn all effort is taken not to spend cash, plata. Food that is grown is for
consumption and barter. Selling produce for cash is incredibly difficult.29 Therefore,
the campesino has to use many ancient methods for survival, because there simply is
Even though his theories are urban not agriculturally based, Peruvian economist
Hernando de Soto has recorded the inability of the third world poor to accumulate
capital. The Peruvian farmer certainly fits into his schematic. Without property rights
and a system of lending in place the campesino is restricted from access to the
modern world. For an example we only need to refer to protein consumption in the
the Andean practice of farming guinea pigs. When a member of the campesinos
29
Nugent, David, Modernity at the Edge of Empire: State, Individual, and Nation in the Northern
Peruvian Andes, 1885-1935, Stanford University Press, 1997, page 27, has stated that even for the elite
haciendas of the region their defining characteristic is subsistence rather than market orientation.
31
family is sick non-western30 medicinal methods are often employed. All these
solutions require no cash. In almost every case Ive seen if the campesino had the
extra cash for a few chickens or a doctor from the local municipality he would pay.
almost complete lack of capital, and not because the strategy presents a profound
solution to daily existence. The idea that the ancient Andean methods suffice in this
Another example of the gulf between ancient and modern can be seen in use of
building material in present day Chachapoyas. In this area, many campesinos have
built their homes from the cut stones of a nearby ruin. These stones are not assembled
to form a symmetrical Chachapoya circular house (Fig. 16b.), but instead the
survival adapted from ancient methods are in use today, they are hollow performances
ethnohistorians intimate relationship with the community and the informer can work
against him or her. The ethnohistorian can also develop a romanticized sense of
30
I have to add here that I believe people in the West overly depend on doctors and maybe an herbalist
could be of help to many western patients. In my analogy above Im referring to the time when a child
has an uncontrollable fever or maybe a family member contracted cholera. In these cases a doctor and
anti-biotics are, without doubt, live saving.
31
Chachapoya enthusiast Morgan Davis studied reconstruction of a pre-Columbian Chachapoya
circular dwelling also demonstrated ancient building methods were all but forgotten. (See Davis,
Morgan, A Photographic Essay Demonstrating the Construction Techniques Employed in a Typical
Circular Habitation in the Northeastern Highlands of Peru, Monetville, Canada, unpublished, 1989)
Davis also noted the French traveler Charles Wiener observed a circular house standing and in use in
the community of la Jalca Grande in 1881. This villages inhabitants are probably descendants of non-
Chachapoya Quechua speaking mitmakuna (forced migratory labor under Inca rule) and therefore
they were probably resettled here after 1475. So again while an original structure could be perhaps be
maintained on some level, the techniques for its construction were lost.
32
continuity in his or her field of interest. To me this false sense of continuity is a major
After all this talk about the archaeologist and the ethnohistorian, where then does
the art historian fit into this problem? Since it is my metaphor, and I am an art
historian, the answer is simple. The art historian is the lead investigator. It is the art
historians responsibility to edit raw information from the forensic expert and the
interrogator. The art historian must then use his or her philosophical training
(intuition) to assemble the most compelling evidence. Perhaps then those western
of one point perspective in painting and the modern tendency to abstraction) can be
applied to the investigation with effect. What the art historian is seeking is the
hunch from which he or she can develop theories. Solution of the crime is not the
focus but instead the focus is referencing past patterns and developing motive.
8. My Method
Before I close this chapter, I need to spend a little time discussing this art
major influence on my thinking, not because I enjoyed endless surveys about popular
French culture in the sixties. I do not. Instead I was impressed by Bourdieus text
because I was fascinated with the almost mathematical precision in which he used
things, places and people to establish class conflict in modern French culture. The
32
See Eagleton (2003) page 2
33
particular categories of class signifiers treated in Distinction are now dated33, but
Bourdieus search for habitus or social space resonates with my own personal
distinctive blend of structuralism and Marxism.34 Briefly you are born and raised into
your particular social construct, your habitus. This environment influences your
perceptions of the world. One can shake off these influences but only with great
effort. So if for instance if one was born into a working class neighborhood in the
United States it would require great effort on someones part to become a professional
geography.35 But even though Distinction had a profound impact on me, I do not
But I find the Marxist aspect of Bourdieus work very appealing. I am not sure
framing for the site of Kuelap belies subtle Marxist ideology (an elite enclave), or
power.36 For an example of this strategy in the United States consider a powerful
New England familys move of capital from banking to oil in the later part of the
33
Patrick Baerts discussion of quantum mechanics (the format has value even though it does not allow
for precise predictions, see Baert, Patrick, Social Theory in the Twentieth Century, New York
University Press, 1998, pages 180-181) could be applied with effect to Bourdieus theories.
34
See Baert (1998) pages 28-29
35
Remember this social construct is very sensitive to culture. For instance change the working class to
Russian and the idea of a professional ballet dancer coming from this part of society is not uncommon.
36
Bourdieu, Pierre, Distinction, a Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Translated by Richard
Nice. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1984, page 125
34
twentieth century. Pre-Columbian examples are much harder to imagine but the idea
the third world are completely at odds with previously mentioned theories. That is
precision needs to accompany the application of any Marxist ideology in the pre-
Columbian Andean environment. Simply put, ideas can and have gone astray in the
Andes. For example, Jose Carlos Mariategui's indigenous Marxist utopia had a
source of the view that the Inca world was a perfect Marxist society. Mariategui was
the father of the indigenous movement in Latin America, which yearned for a past
that never existed. The movement did so in protest to the injustices and brutality of
the Spanish rule in the New World. But while Mariategui furiously denounced
Spanish labor practices in colonial Peru, he failed to condemn the Inca states forced
labor relocations (mitmaqkuna). This Inca practice along with the societal disruption
documents indicate that the Chachapoya suffered greatly at the hands of the Inca and
on two different occasions the Inca possibly planned a campaign of genocide against
them.37 In addition, Mariateguis philosophy has been blamed for the rise of the
37
See Garcilaso de la Vega, Royal Commentaries of the Incas and General History of Peru, Part I,
Translation and Introduction by Harold Livermore. Forward by Arnold J. Toynbee, University of Texas
Press, Austin, 1966, page 556 and Waldemar Espinoza Soriano, Los seoros tnicos de Chachapoyas
y la alianza hispano-chacha, Revista Histrica, Tomo XXX, Lima, 1967, footnote on page 260
35
sendero luminoso. This Marxist group, active in the 1980s and led by philosophy
professor Abimael Guzmn, was responsible for a Peruvian civil war in which 60,000
I am not concerned with Marxist utopias and I do not want to romanticize any
human condition. It would quietly remind me that those in power consolidate and
limit access to that power, and revolutions often end in Bourdieus previously
mentioned reconversion strategy. In other words those with power retain and
reconsolidate and those without pay for the revolts bill. But I will never relinquish
hope!
Like many other scholars, the work of Walter Benjamin has had an impact on my
There is no document of civilization, which is not equally and at the same time a
document of barbarism.39
resonates throughout this work. For the purposes of this dissertation the word
imperialism, which is not equally and at the same time a document of barbarism. The
Chachapoya were just one of historys countless imperial victims. Yet to view the
38
Stern, Peter A. Sendero Luminoso: An Annotated Bibliography of the Shining Path Guerrilla
Movement, 1980-1993. New Mexico : SALALM Secretariat, General Library, University of New
Mexico, 1995
39
Benjamin, Walter. Illuminations, Schocken Books, New York, 1968, page 256
36
and incorrect. Marilyn Norconk and Bruce Owen documented advances in the basic
standard of living as the Inca Empire expanded through the central highlands of
Peru.40 And even the most ruthless expansionistic Empires (the Romans, the Incas,
and the Nazis) build roads and public works that ultimately benefited the vanquished.
Perhaps some cultures gained more from Inca conquest than others? I will return to
inflicted on Latin American scholars. In my first few visits to Peru, I quickly learned
that the funding provided by western institutions is almost beyond belief to many
books and papers every year, financial resources are out of reach to all but a handful.
Therefore I have to add this dissertation would have been impossible without the
previous work of the Peruvian scholars like Waldemar Espinoza Soriano, Arturo Ruiz
Estrada, Alfredo Narvaez, Federico Kauffmann Doig, Sonia Guilln and Adriana Von
Hagen.
I have made a point of studying the modern history and culture of my host
country, Peru. When I see a street sign in a Peruvian town that reads Grau, I think of
the admiral and the valiant futility of his stance in the War of the Pacific. I know
when the loudspeakers in a small pueblo play la Marseilles it is the rallying song for
the Aprista political party and not for the visit of some French official. Finally, I am
40
See Bruce Owens & Marylin Norconk in Earle, Timothy, Archaeological Field Research in the
Upper Mantaro, Peru, 1982-1983; Investigations of Inca Expansion and Exchange. Institute of
Archaeology, University of California, Monograph 28. Los Angles, 1987, page 110, appendix 1. In
their table the burials of older individuals increase which is indicative of a longer life span. On page
101 there is also an interesting discussion the nutritional benefit of increased protein (camelid)
consumption among non-elites after the Inca conquest.
37
constantly amazed at the variety and quality of Peruvian cuisine, which is simply
some of the best the world has to offer. Everyday Peruvian food proves you dont
have to be rich to eat like a king. In short, I have tried to be a good guest. However, I
do not at all think my visitors visa makes me a less capable Andeanist. Hearing the
term gringo serves as a daily reminder that Im an outsider. I was once told that as a
gringo I have the luxury of being a clown. But clown is not quite correct. Fool is
correct. But fool in the classic Shakespearean sense.41 The fool in the play has the
ability to go places others cannot go and to say things others cannot say. A gringo is
like this in Peru, able to bypass Perus rigid social order (Bourdieu could have written
a three volume tome on Peruvian culture) and turn up in the strangest places. For
example, I often discuss my travels in Chachapoyas with friends who live on the
coast of Peru and they always marvel each year when I return in one piece. Their
Peruvian reality, I think, denies them access to remote areas, whereas my naivet (I
have to add that each year when I return to Peru I am more mindful of my
away and being replaced by a structuralism. But change is good. In any case, I cherish
The theoretical tone of this work post-modernist. This post modern nod is not
Western philosophy. The language of post modern texts is often dense as the
arguments are subtle. I will try here to be neither. To me the easiest way to explain the
41
38
post modern position in this dissertation is to play with the relationship between
relationship between the two disciplines was demonstrated by Kubler when he used
the similarities between philosophy and physics in his art histories. (Neils Bohr
exemplified in his work).42 Here I am not concerned with complementarity but instead
the dialogue between Einstein, and his view of relativity, and Neils Bohr, and his
constructions from Plato to Kant and onward. The proofs are elegant and the system
modernism in that the proofs give one a sickening feeing of disorder that seem to
mechanics uncertainty by saying God does not play dice with the cosmos. Bohr's
answer was to tell Einstein dont tell God what to do. Well imagine the same
dialogue but substitute Kant for Einstein and lets say Derrida for Bohr. Einstein
(Kant) has taken on the viewpoint of the God because he is backed up by an elegant
Einsteins statement in which he speaks for the Almighty. In other words no one can
speak from this infallible viewpoint no mater how seemingly perfects their science or
42
Reese, Thomas F. editor, Studies in Ancient American and European Art: the Collected Essays of
George Kubler. Yale University Press, 1985, editors introduction and pages 293, 294, 411, 416 and
420
39
statement. This prime mover stance is ubiquitous in scientific (and almost all
since my discipline is art history). This dissertation then is from my particular point
dissertation because it is a very personal study. The use of I and the asides are
intentional. I want the reader to be able to view the rationale for my insights: to
almost see the gears as they turned in my head when I wrote this work. Some might
think this perspective flaws this study. From my stance I think denying this position
flaws this study. Certainly the voice of this text leaves the work open to criticism. I
think that is beneficial. So with all the above discussions in mind I now turn my
CHAPTER THREE
THE SETTING
I challenge someone to find a study of the Andean region that does not begin with
While some of the descriptions in this chapter could pertain to Columbia, Ecuador
and Bolivia, my concern is solely Peru, and particularly the northeastern region of
this country.
Peru is a remarkable land of topographic change, and every time I make the trip
from the northeastern United States to Peru I am in awe of its diversity. From the
vicinity of New York City you could travel 500 miles in any direction and experience
little or no change in the general landscape. Deciduous forest, wooded lakes, large
slow moving river networks and ancient green covered hills, sometimes called
mountains, are the standard. In contrast, if you travel 150 miles inland from Perus
western desert coast you are confronted with a dazzling array of different landscapes
the world has to offer. As you push east arid coastal dunes, much of the year shrouded
41
in cold fog manufactured by the arctic Humboldt Current, rapidly give way to the
parched foothills of the Andes. These foothills then climb to become the western
cordillera of the Andes. This range is just out of reach of the ever threatening
moisture from the eastern lowlands, and this range adds to the fog umbrella (created
when the frigid Humboldt Current hits the tropical air of the Peruvian coast) that
Changes occur in this climatic zone once every ten years or so when the artic
Humboldt Current gets pushed away from Peruvian coastal waters by a warm
event. The El Nio event ushers in severe and destructive climatic changes for the
desert coast of Peru. (Indeed El Nio has an effect on a good portion of Latin America
and North America, but the coast of Peru is the epicenter for this phenomenons
been responsible for the rise and fall of pre-Columbian polities on the coast of Peru.44
However, this event has very little effect on the eastern slopes of the Andes and is
After the western cordillera the terrain changes to puna. Andean puna is basically
high mountain desert, baked by the sun during the day and frigid by night.45 This is a
flat monotonous setting of wind blown ichu grassland, and the preferred environment
43
DAltroy, Terence, The Incas, Blackwell Publishers, Malden Massachusetts, 2002 page 28. As the
air warms up over land, the relative humidity drops so quickly that rain almost never falls near the
coast.
44
See Moche Art and Archaeology in Ancient Peru, Joanne Pillsbury editor, National Gallery of Art,
Yale University Press, New Haven, 2001, page 12
45
See Troll, Carl, The Cordilleras of the Tropical Americas: Aspects of Climatic,
Phytogeographical and Agrarian Ecology in Geo-Ecology of the Mountainous Regions of the
Tropical Americas, Carl Troll editor, Ferd. Dummlers Verlag, Bonn, 1968, Troll lists four types
of puna: moist, dry, thorn and desert. Much to the ecologists chagrin, in this study I will not be
ecologically correct and I will adhere to my less specific generalization.
42
of the four species of South American camelids: the llama, the alpaca, the guanaco,
Following the puna east in northern Peru, the landscape again transforms as you
reach the Maraon River canyon. The flow of the Maraon is south/north and this
river changes name when it turns east to become the Amazon. The Maraon has
through millennia worn down the mountains from its origin in the snow covered
Callejn de Huaylas, to its eastern turn toward the selva (rain forest) at Bagua. This
canyon is a geographical wonder and the journey into and out of it from Celendin to
Leymebamba is spectacular! After Celendin the terrain drops more than 2,000 meters
to meet the Maraon River at the town of Balsas. Balsas and the region of the playa
Maraon are heat-soaked and parched. However, the irrigation farming of this region
produces tasty fruit like mangos and the excellent coca used by the highland
campesinos. This canyon, in addition to its beauty, is a west/east barrier and a natural
anthropological study of modern Chachapoya class structure, called this canyon the
major obstacle separating the region from Perus national political-economic forces.
In his book Nugent highlighted this barriers obstruction of outside influences. This
cultural isolation has continued into and perhaps even amplified in the twentieth
century!46
On the eastern side of the river, the banks climb more than 2,000 meters to an
area damp and green. This is the entrance to area we refer to today as Chachapoyas.
In contrast to the puna, the high flat areas of this region are called jalca. They are
transformed from puna by the incessant rain this flatland receives. Jalca is high wet
46
See Nugent, (1997) page 24
43
grassland, a swamp or bog, cold and muddy. If then you continue east you would
encounter the eastern cordillera. This is the primary blockade of the moisture from the
lowland rain forest. It is a barrier of wet rock and patchy jalca lush with unique and
beautiful vegetation growing at amazing heights. From this jalca the mountains
descend into the foothills of the eastern cordillera: the region of the montaa. This
cloud forest is a land of rapid and powerful rivers replete with rare animals. Hot days
and cold nights with rainfall ever present are the norm. Finally, our 150-mile journey
ends when the cloud forest declines into the trackless Amazon basin.
Leymebamba, in the Peruvian Department of Amazonas, and beyond. Today there are
three primary routes into the pre-Columbian Chachapoya landscape. The northern
highway begins in Chiclayo, on the north coast of Peru, and passes through one of the
lowest points in the western cordillera: the sweltering Bagua valley. The road then
continues up from this humid lowland plane, less than 1,000 meters above sea level,
to the Utcubamba River. The highway then follows the Utcubamba southward until it
finally climbs to the modern city of Chachapoyas located at about 2,300 meters. This
major artery continues on to the lowland centers of Rioja, Moyobamba (capital of the
Department of San Martin), Tarapoto and finally ending in Yurimaguas. The highway
into Chachapoyas was completed in 196147, but the real impediment of access to the
Department was surmounted after WW II when suspension bridges were built across
the Maraon and the region was opened to vehicular traffic. By bus the trip to the city
of Chachapoyas takes approximately ten hours from Chiclayo. The pass this route
47
See Nugent, (1997) page 24
44
takes through the Andes lacks the spectacular vistas and drops of the road from
The city of Chachapoyas and the northern part of the Utcubamba, including
Kuelap, generally receive less rainfall than the southern part of this valley.
Leymebamba, which is three hours south of the city of Chachapoyas, seems to always
have persistent showers and I have never visited the town without experiencing at
least one wet day in every three. Generally speaking, this entire area of northeast Peru
has a dry season from May to August. In the time period of September to December
the mornings are normally clear but afternoon rainfall is typical. January to April the
rain is more or less constant. Traveling east from the city of Chachapoyas, montaa
ultimately becomes lowland rain forest. This area is a region of omnipresent rain.
The third road leading to the Chachapoya region is the seldom traveled southern
route. This road crosses the Maraon about 100 km south of Balsas. By car this
journey would again begin in Trujillo then proceed up over the cordillera. After the
cordillera the road crosses the Puna to Huamachuco, then down once again into the
Maraon canyon and across the river at Pias.48 For Chachapoya scholars this route is
the starting point for the difficult trip to the ruins of Abiseo.49 The topography of the
southern route displays the same general characteristics (cordillera, puna, steep river
canyon, montaa then rain forest) as the route from Cajamarca to Leymebamba. But
because this route is farther south in Peru the mountain landscape is generally at a
higher altitude.50
48
The north and central routes I know from experience, but so far I have not traveled on the southern
route further than Huamachuco.
49
Gene Savoy called this ruin Gran Pajaten. See Savoy, Gene, The Antisuyu the Search for the Lost
Cities of the Amazon, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1970
50
In Peru generally speaking the farther south you travel (inland not on the coast) the higher the
altitude.
45
This then is a brief description of some of the different ecological zones and
entrances into the pre-Columbian Chachapoya region. The enormous diversity of this
area defies categorization but Carl Trolls model of puna Andes and pramo
outlined a system of classification separating the southern Andean highlands from the
northern highlands. In the south the altitudes are dry and often have frost, while in the
north the highlands are wet and therefore do not freeze.51 This model does not exactly
define the Chachapoyas area because there are stretches of puna from Cajamarca to
Celendin and from Quirivilca east to Huamachuco. However, although this system
was designed primarily to distinguish between one, the highlands of Peru, and two,
dissertation.
people, I need to briefly trace the chronological development of the major Andean
cultures. This will give a time and space perspective to our discussion. The prehistory
51
For the Chachapoyas region a better classification would be Jalca Andes because the high wet
swampland is the Chachapoya counterpart for the high desert puna.
46
of the Andean region generally starts around 13,000 BC when humans reached this
region. (Appendix B) Mummification began with the Chinchorro fisher folk of Chile
around 5,000 BC and beautiful ceramics were made in Ecuador in 3,000 BC.52
But my outline of pre-Columbian cultures will begin with and focus on Peru. The
focus of prehistory in Peru is the coast. After 1,000 BC the attention of Andean
scholarship vacillates from coast to highland. This shift in consideration seems linked
to the complexity and size of a culture. Also, the attractiveness of a cultures artifacts
is in direct proportion to the attention lavished upon said culture. Although this
both Maya and Moche studies. Maya research eclipses all other pre-Columbian
studies in the western imagination largely because of the beauty of the cultures
material goods. The Moche culture of the North East Peruvian coast is roughly
Peru lagged behind Ecuador by fifteen hundred years, complex cultures created
massive architecture along the Peruvian coast during this Formative epoch. In all
other prehistoric developing centers of the world, Nile Valley, Indus River, China
productivity of agrarian societies. In other words you need to have lots of crops to
52
Valdivia culture in Ecuador developed ceramics in the 4th millennium BC. See Keatinge, Richard W.,
Peruvian Prehistory: An overview of Pre-Inca and Inca Society, Cambridge University Press, 1988
53
I say for now because of work at the site of Caral which is located about 15 miles inland from the
marine abundant Pacific. This site with its large corporate architecture defies the maritime resource
model. This is a very topical discussion see, for instance Solis, Ruth Shady, J. Haas and W. Creamer.
Dating Caral, a Preceramic Site in the Supe Valley on the central Coast of Peru in Science Magazine,
# 292, April 27 2001, pages 723-6
47
feed all the mouths building the pyramid. But in Peru it has been suggested that the
abundant maritime resources created by the cold and fertile Humboldt Current waters
In the highlands at this time, 1,800 BC, cultures generally developed more slowly
environment.55 But scholars could not ignore the change that occurred in the Andes
around 1,000 BC with the development of the Chavin horizon.56 Chavin was a
Peruvian highland culture that scholars consider a religious cult because of its
nebulous but far-reaching influence.57 The center, Chavin de Huantar (and perhaps I
should include Kuntur Wasi), is in north central Peru. As I previously stated, this
defined by the recognized distribution of the cultures art style.58 The horizon concept
began in the latter work of Max Uhle, was added to by Alfred Kroeber in the 1940s
horizons, and the intermediate periods that separate them, are classifying constructs
used by Andeanists to simplify the complexity of more than 3,000 years of pre-
Columbian history. However as we all know history is anything but simple. For
example, Pasztory has pointed out that conquering empires disseminate each horizon
style therefore, the horizon system of grouping cultures rewards imperialism.60 So the
first preeminent Andean culture thus rewarded is then Chavin. Is Chavin then to be
considered an empire? According to Andean specialists no, but Chavin did exert
scholarship.
Beautiful cut stones assembled in the creation of a labyrinthian temple typify the
site of Chavin de Huantar. Chavin shares artistic similarities with Kuntur Wasi located
to the northwest and the architecture of the New Temple at Chavin is strikingly
similar to a ruin in the pre-Columbian Chachapoya area called Pirca Pirca. (Fig. 5a.)61
The temple complexes at Chavin include a sunken courtyard with stern visaged Teton
heads and contain an underground chamber leading to mysterious rock sculpture. The
iconography of Chavin is incredibly intricate and therefore difficult for the uninitiated
to comprehend. Chavin art and influence was so ubiquitous for a time in ancient Peru
that for most of the twentieth century it was seen as the mother culture of all pre-
After Chavin, Andean cultural development hit its first temporal valley or
intermediate period around the change of the millennium. As the name suggests these
eras are subordinate to horizons and therefore studied less extensively. For this reason
the body of knowledge concerning the Early Intermediate Period cultures of Paracas
and Nazca is deficient. The fantastic funeral offerings and earth art (from an
interlude until the next horizons emergence. However, in contrast the Moche people
from the north coast of Peru created a civilization which has intrigued and engaged
scholars even though they were an intermediate period people. They defy the
previously stated the stupendous material and craftsmanship of Moche Art has
apparently saved this culture from typical intermediate period scholarly indifference.63
Cultural development of the next time period, the Middle Horizon, began on the
high flat altiplano of northern Bolivia. Tiwanaku is the name for these people that has
come down through history. In the first chapter I mentioned one of the major
monuments of Tiwanaku, the Gateway of the Sun. Today, some aspects of Tiwanaku
apparent in the intricate stonework and fantastic iconography from the Tiwanaku
ruins. But this continuity of horizon styles is perhaps prejudiced toward these
expansionistic societies and therefore the assumed relationship between Chavin and
63
See Julien, Daniel G., Late Pre-Inkaic Ethnic Groups in Highland Peru: An Archaeological-
Ethnohistorical Model of the Political Geography of the Cajamarca Region, in Latin American
Antiquity, vol. 4, #3, pages 246-273, 1993, page 247. Here Julien laments the lack of scholastic
attention paid to the Late Intermediate Period (following shortly) and the disinterest towards this eras
less elaborate but more chronologically stable ceramics!
50
Sometime after 600 AD the southern Peruvian centered culture of Huari became
stretched from the shores of Lake Titicaca to the outpost center of Viracochapampa
(Fig. 6a.), just west of the Maraon River gorge and possibly beyond.64 The Peruvian
archaeologist Auturo Ruz Estrada suggested in the 1970s that Kuelap was built in
response to the Huari expansion.65He has recently backed off somewhat from this
earlier position,66 but the decline of the Huari influence ushers in the Late
The Chachapoya was the Inca name for a people and a region. Historian Espinoza
Soriano has called the Chachapoya a unified culture but not a state,67 and Franklin
Pease has suggested that perhaps the order imposed by the conquering Inca around
1475 created Chachapoyas.68 However, by the time the Spanish arrived in 1535, this
ethnic group had experienced more than 50 years of Inca imperial occupation. No
doubt this occupation had a profound impact on these people, and calls into question
such basic information as the extent of their territory and even the name of the
64
Keith Muscutt has suggested Huari influence east of the Maraon. Personal communication 3/16/04
65
See conclusions in Ruiz Estrada, Arturo (1972). Later in this dissertation I will include page numbers
when I reference this document. I have to thank Dr. Peter Lerche for my copy of Ruzs work but this
hard to find document lacks page numbers, so I will also reference the chapter headings from his
Indice General (Table of Contents) when I cite his thesis.
66
Personal communication 7/02
67
Espinoza Soriano, (1967), page 233
68
Pease, Franklin, The Formation of Tawantinsuyu: Mechanisms of Colonization and Relationship
with Ethnic Groups in The Inca and Aztec States, 1400-1800, edited by George A. Collier, Renato I.
Rosaldo and John D. Wirth, Academic Press, New York, 1982, page 189
51
place of strong men.69 (I will return to this reference in chapter sevens discussion of
Trolls puna/pramo Andes model.) Almost all other early references cite the pre-
ambiguous. Ruth Shady Solis set the northern limit when she found Chachapoya
pottery in Bagua during her archaeological fieldwork in the 1970s. The Maraon
River has been established as the western limit of the pre-Columbian Chachapoyas
natural barrier and therefore this western Chachapoya limit is the most defined. The
southern limit was established at the ruin of Abiseo, by the pioneering archaeological
fieldwork of Duccio Bonavia. However the true extent of the Chachapoya culture in
this remote and difficult region is still a matter of conjecture. In the eastern montaa
the same problem with boundaries occurs. Inge Schjellerup, Keith Muscutt and Peter
Lerche have all documented funeral sites in the cloud forest and certainly these three
will someday push the limits of the Chachapoya in this area.71 (Recently, I also
recorded a series of chullpas {funeral houses} in the area of Chilchos about a day east
of Leymebamba. (Fig. 16a.)) However, all that can be definitively stated at this time
69
Garcilaso de la Vega Garcilaso de la Vega, Comentarios Reales de los Incas in Obras Completas del
Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, Biblioteca de Autores Espaoles, Madrid, 1960 [1609], volume I, Chapter I,
page 291
70
Schjellerup has a good discussion of this etymology. See Schjellerup, Inge, (1997) page 25
71
Schjellerup, Inge, The Forgotten Valleys: Past and Present in the Utilization of Resources in the
Ceja de Selva, with Mikael Kamp Sorensen, Carolina Espinoza, Victor Pena, The National Museum of
Denmark Ethnographic Monographs, 2003, Keith Muscutt, Warriors of the Clouds a lost Civilization
in the Upper Amazon of Peru, University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, 1998 and Peter Lerche,
Perus Lost Tombs, in National Geographic vol.198, #3, September 2000
52
is that there was probably a substantial Chachapoya presence in the eastern cloud
forest.
Architectural ruins and material artifacts are the signs we use to define
several to many circular structures. (Fig. 18b.) The Chachapoya made beautiful
highly prized cotton textiles (Fig. 15a.), and coarse dull earthen tone ceramics (Fig.
7a.). This style of pottery was typical for the Late Intermediate Period highlands. I
would venture to say that the material goods from this era share the same reputation
as, for instance, artifacts from early medieval Europe. Beside intricately woven
textiles, Chachapoya artifacts lack artistic invention and precious material. In other
words Chachapoya material goods are a museum curators afterthoughts. The Late
Intermediate Period era of the Chachapoya is also typified as being a balkanized time
the settlements of the Late Intermediate Period were situated on high peaks
throughout much of the Andean highlands suggesting that localized conflict was
endemic.72
In other words the population took to the hills after the order of the Middle Horizon
and they only ventured out to obtain the necessities for life. This Andean Dark Age
occurred while the Late Intermediate Period people anxiously awaited the coming of
a new order: the Inca Empire. I am, of course, being a bit facetious. But this
stereotype which highlights the breakdown of order and culture in the Chachapoya
72
DAltroy, (2002) page 206
53
highland region during this time frame is really not far from the way the Late
But the Chachapoya dont really fit any stereotype because they not only peopled
many areas of the highlands, they also populated the eastern forest. The Chachapoya
territory was much larger and more varied than the Inca geographical limit for their
polity. We know from the colonial chronicles the Inca called their empire
Tawantinsuyu or literally the four parts together. These four sections emanated from
Cuzco, which was the Inca geographical and spiritual center of the universe.73
Tawantinsuyu consisted of Cuntisuyu (Cuzco to the Pacific and the far southern coast
of Peru), Kollasuyu (the area south of Cuzco to modern Bolivia, the northern half of
Chile and much of northwest Argentina), Chinchaysuyu (the north and central coast
of Peru including the central highlands, Ecuador and the northern Andes) and
Antisuyu (the forests of the eastern montaa). Interestingly the most famous account
of the Chachapoyas is contained in Gene Savoys book The Antisuyu. Obviously from
the title, Savoy firmly placed the Chachapoya in the eastern forest part of the Inca
Empire. But the Spanish historian Sarmiento de Gamboa wrote in 1572 that the
or Chinchaysuyu? The most correct answer is Chachapoyas was part of both of the
73
See Cobo, Father Bernabe, History of the Inca Empire, University of Texas Press, 1979 [1653],
page 185
74
Sarmiento de Gamboa, Historia de los Incas, Biblioteca de Autores Espaoles, Madrid, 1960 [1572],
page 248
75
Holgun, Diego Gonzlez, Vocabulario de la Lengua General, de todo el Peru Llamada, Lengua
Qquichua o del Inca, introduction by Ral Porras Barrenechea, Universidad Nacional Mayor de San
Marcos, (1608) 1989, page 91
54
parts. Tawantinsuyu is an Inca map of the world. As such the map seems inaccurate in
conquered peoples borders is typical. Take, for example, the Western worlds
colonial era, Imperial lines were often drawn through ethnic territories and names for
suffered this negative aspect of Imperialism when these lines of demarcation were
surreptitiously drawn.
20,000 inhabitants located in the northern part of the Utcubamba valley. The city is
the capital of the Department of Amazonas. The modern site where the city is located
Chachapoyas was relatively close to Pizarros initial contact site of Cajamarca, the
Spanish arrived early in this region. Today the city of Chachapoyas is the axis for
many of the ruins located in the Utcubamba valley. These ruins (Kuelap, Revash,
Finally, Chachapoyas is the name for a province, which includes the city, in the
76
However DAltroy has pointed out that the Inca often respected ethnic territories because they made
for convenient administrative units. (personal communication (3/21/05)
77
Iraq, an arbitrary state formed by the British and now occupied by the US, has just begun to deal
with its volatile mix of cultures thrown together by colonialism. Also the continuing problem in the
Balkans is another example of makeshift territories.
78
See Libro primero de Cabildos de San Juan de la Frontera de Chachapoyas
55
Amazonas), and south past Leymebamba to the cordillera and the border with the
Department of La Libertad.
boundaries for the major pre-Columbian ruins in the area. Vilaya, Kuelap and Revash
are all in Luya province, Department of Amazonas, as are all northern Utcubamba
sites west of the river. The Laguna de los Cndores chullpas, cliffside chullpas of la
Petaca, and Chachapoya settlements la Congona and la Joya are all also in Amazonas.
The spectacular ruin Vira Vira, the enigmatic Pirca Pirca and the ruins around modern
Bolivar are not in Amazonas but instead in the Department of La Libertad. The
capital of this Department is the faraway coastal city of Trujillo. The eastern montaa
sites are even more problematic. Most of the ceja de selva (eyebrow of the jungle)
ruins, including Abiseo, are located in the Department of San Martin. The distant
capital for these areas is the lowland city of Moyobamba. Today the only connection
municipalities and capitals I hope can perhaps provide a clue as to the huge
authorities.
56
CHAPTER FOUR
THE RECORD
Inca filter into a Spanish goblet. That is to say, after the initial activity of conquest
79
The chroniclers Blas Valera, Inca Garcilaso de la Vega and Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala, included
in this discussion, had mixed Andean/Spanish ancestry.
57
gathered information from Inca informants to chronicle their Empire. This knowledge
of the Inca dominion was necessary to establish the Spanish Empires legitimacy of
rule and to assist in creating colonial order. Accounts of vanquished foes, like the
Chachapoya, were included, but never in detail and always from an Inca perspective.
Many narratives from the few dozen or so chronicles we have today contain
Also some of the chroniclers copied freely from each other, and footnotes, like
legendary to us. I will spend considerable time discussing one such phantom source
Padre Blas Valera. However, I have singled out the following authors because I they
are the most pertinent to the study of Chachapoyas. I have also tried to simplify this
I will begin my discussion of the chronicles with Padre Miguel Cabello Valboa.
Cabello Valboa began his adult life as a soldier, but later took the vows and became a
Cabello Valboa traveled extensively in northern Peru and Ecuador. His knowledge of
northern Peru included details of Chimu history from Perus north coast.
Cabello Valboas chronicle is perhaps most famous for being the source for the
chronology of the Inca Empire. As I explained earlier, the expansion of the Inca
Empire began with the Inca ruler Pachacuti. The date for his reign has been taken
from Cabello Valboa and estimated at 1438. Fourteen seventy one is the date for the
58
tapping (coronation) of his heir Topa Inca, and 1493 is recognized as the date for his
sons (Huayna Capac) secession. Finally, 1528 is the accepted date for the dynastic
war between Huascar and Altawalpa.80 The entire time period for the expansion of
one of the largest empires the world has ever seen is then less than a century.
Recently, some scholars have revised this chronology.81 The adjusted dates of the Inca
expansion would then be 1400 to 1532. This new chronology would push the initial
incursion of Topa Inca into the realm of the Chachapoyas back to perhaps 1450. For
Of more interest is the chronicle Pedro Cieza de Leon. Cieza de Leon was
ten years after the initial conquest but in time to see the fires of change still
Chachapoyas. Cieza was a soldier trained in the art of war not observation, but his
treatment of the Inca encounters in the Chachapoyas is terse. For instance, in the
second part of his Cronica del Peru Cieza recounted how Topa Inca took the road to
Chinchaysuyu and engaged the Chachapoya in this region.82 The entire event is
recorded without any detail. Schjellerup believes this initial invasion had the
80
See DAltroy (2002), page 45 and Rowe, John, Absolute Chronology in the Andean Area in
American Antiquity, #10, 1945. Also see Bauer, B. S. & David S. P. (1995) page 151 which links the
date of the dynastic war with celestial events.
81
Bauer, B. S., The Development of the Inca State, University of Texas Press, Austin, 1992 and
Adamska, Anna and Adam Michcznski, Towards Radiocarbon Chronology of the Inca State in the
Andes". Boletin de la Mission Arqueologica Andina, #1, 1996
82
Cieza de Leon, Pedro, Cronica del Per Primera Parte, Pontifica Universidad Catlica del Per,
Lima, 1984 [1554], page 162
59
character of a lighting raid rather than a real conquest.83 Certainly the brevity of
Ciezas treatment of Topa Incas campaign must have attributed to the formulation of
her hypothesis. But Cieza did detail the great resistance of the Chachapoya against
Topa Incas successor Huayna Capac. Therefore from Ciezas record the second
incursion into the Chachapoyas appears to stand out as the major conflict of the
Gamboas life is almost unbelievable. According to the Peruvian historian Raul Porras
Barrenechea, Sarmiento was a naval pilot, astrologer, prisoner and explorer. He was
the type of exceptional individual who was capable of completing a history of the
Inca Empire with the same resolve that he put in to embarking on a sea hunt for the
British privateer Francis Drake.85 In other words Sarmiento de Gamboa served the
Spanish Crown in many different ways. He wrote his history of the Inca Empire while
in the service of Viceroy Toledo. Toledo entered into Peruvian history in the later part
of the 16th century during a rebellious era. At this time, the colonial system was
failing and there was a tendency for reversion to the imagined order of the past i.e.,
the Inca Empire. Sarmiento was put to work by the Spanish authority to highlight the
illegitimacy of the Inca Empire, and shatter this political regression. Therefore
83
Schjellerup (1997), p. 73
84
Interestingly, Cieza almost spends more ink describing the whiteness and beauty of the Chachapoya
women as he does describing the Chachapoya conquest. (For example Cieza (1984) page 229, book I,
and page 188, book II) To be fair, a later chronicler Garcilaso de la Vega also remarked on the extreme
beauty of the women in this area. (Garcilaso, (1960) Book VIII, page 325) These references can be
explained as an Inca fetish for the sequestered women. The Inca ruler kept the aqllakuna (Quechua for
chosen or hidden women, DAltroy (2002) page 325) for personal use and for barter. These women
were kept from the devastating rays of the tropical sun. Chachapoyas, with its frequent cloud cover,
naturally allowed for a fair complexion. A banal and ironic modern antithesis would be todays
obsession for a suntan.
85
Porras Barrenechea, Los Cronistas del Per (1528-1650) y Otros Ensayos, Biblioteca Clsicos del
Per, Lima 1986, pages 332-336
60
political agenda.
But to his credit, Sarmiento drew his information from over 100 Inca aristocrats
and record keepers and he had the work publicly read out and verified by forty two
witnesses.86 His Historia Indica has Topa Inca as the conqueror of Chinchaysuyu and
the Chachapoyas. But his account puts the Chachapoyas and Caares together as if
they were the same ethnic group.87 This treatment was obviously influenced greatly
by his informants and considering their Cuzco centric orientation, the specifics of the
contains a few interesting specifics about the Chachapoya (a fortress Piajajalcain the
southern Chachapoya realm and a Chachapoya chief named Chuqui Sota), but
considering his sources ideological and physical distance from Chachapoyas, the
information lacks credibility. For instance, Sarmiento ends his discussion of the
rebellion was part of the dynastic war between Atahualpa and Huascar.88 Sarmientos
authors separate account of this conflict is a political ploy which emphasizes the
discord in the Andean world before the arrival of the Spanish. Unfortunately
highlighting the battle of Pomacocha in this manner adds credence to the stereotype
of the Chachapoya as a barbarous and rebellious people. But I will discuss this topic
86
See DAltroy (2002) page 13
87
Sarmiento de Gamboa, Historia de los Incas, Biblioteca de Autores Espaoles, Madrid, (1572) 1960,
pages 248-249
88
Sarmiento de Gamboa, (1960) [1572], page 267
61
Cajamarca in 1615. Vazquez de Espinoza spent some time in the colonial region of
Chachapoyas journeying first to the city of San Juan de la Frontera89 then on to the
village of Luya, in the province of Chillos.90 These excursions would have put
Vazquez in the vicinity of Kuelap, but his Compendio y Descripcion de las Indias
Occidentales is silent concerning the subject. This is curious because from his text it
is apparent Vazquez was impressed with monumental architecture and its construction
even though there can be no doubt his primary purpose in this region was the
salvation of souls. In his record of the New World, Vazquez spent time describing the
had an appreciation for earthly structures in imitation of the fortress of God. Yet even
though Vazquez came within a few hundred yards of Kuelaps sixty foot walls his
chronicle fails to record the site!91 I cannot stress the importance of Vazquezs lack of
documentation.
But Vazquezs chronicle is more explicit concerning what he didnt say because
earlier chronicler Garcilaso de la Vega, and his record of the Inca and Chachapoya
conflict was obviously freely copied from this source. Briefly, (I will detail this
account in my discussion of Garcilaso de la Vega) Vazquez has Topa Inca enter the
area of Chachapoyas from the south and proceed northward on a path of conquest.92
89
After 1545 this city becomes the modern city of Chachapoyas.
90
Vzquez de Espinoza, Antonio, Compendium and Description of the West Indies, translated by
Charles Upson Clark, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D. C., 1942, pages 402-408
91
Vzquez de Espinoza, (1942) [1629], pages 565-570
92
Vzquez de Espinoza, (1942) [1629], page 581
62
So far I have purposely not listed the pertinent chronicles in chronological order
because I wanted to save Garcilaso de la Vega and Guaman Poma de Ayala for last.
This is because new controversies surround these indigenous authors. Also, I believe
the Comentarios Reales de los Incas of Garcilaso de la Vega is by far the most
important chronicle for the Chachapoya scholar! I cannot emphasize this enough! So
additionally I wanted to save the most important records for last. I will present my
argument for the importance of Garcilasos chronicle when I discuss his text. But first
I will begin this analysis with the account of Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala.
Denmark in 1908. The document was written in the form of a letter and this 1,189-
page dispatch includes 398 drawings.94 The manuscript was an appeal to King Philip
III of Spain to fix the breakdown of the rule of law and to correct the injustices
inflicted on the indigenous community during the colonial era.95 Rolena Adorno in
Guaman Poma: Writing and Resistance in Colonial Peru refers to Guaman Poma as a
mestizo by culture (but not by race) and adds the author would have been known as an
93
Vzquez de Espinoza, (1942) [1629]., page 585
94
Adorno, Rolena, Guaman Poma: Writing and Resistance in Colonial Peru, second edition with a
new introduction, University of Texas Press, 2000, pages xiii-xiv
95
Adorno, Rolena, (2000), page 7
63
indio ladino because of his fluency in Spanish and his hispanicized ways.96 Guaman
Poma lived in Huamaga (todays Ayachuco, a Peruvian city in the southern highlands)
and his family had an elevated status in the Andean community. He became literate
with the help of a priest Martin de Ayala; therefore he received no formal training in
letters.97 His use of his hard won literacy in defense of his Andean community has
Guaman Pomas chronicle has very little content concerning the Chachapoya. He
credits Huayna Capac as the conqueror of the Chachapoya and the Caares. Guaman
Poma also speculated that Atahualpa was an illegitimate ruler and a bastard from a
Chachapoya mother and his record has the only early colonial image of the
Chachapoya. (Fig. 13.)98 They are depicted about to engage in battle with the Inca
army. The lead Chachapoya warrior is drawn barefoot and scowling. He has unkempt
hair, an earring and a nose ornament fit for a snarling beast. His appearance appears
consider Guaman Pomas personal history with them. During the closing years of the
16th century Guaman Poma was engaged in a land dispute with a powerful group of
Chachapoya. These relocated Chachapoya were rewarded with concessions for their
service to the Spanish crown during the early Peruvian colonial upheaval.99 The
concessions were wrought from Guaman Pomas estate, because a court case had
96
Adorno, Rolena, (2000), page xliv
97
Adorno, Rolena, (2000), page xiv
98
Guaman Poma de Ayala, El Primer Nueva Coronica y Buen Gobinero, John V. Murra & Rolena
Adorno editors, translation by Jorge L. Urioste, Siglo Veintiano, Mxico 1980 [1615], page 140
99
For a detailed discussion see Espinoza Soriano, Waldemar, Los Chachapoyas y Caares de Chiara
(Huamanga), Aliados de Espaa, in Historia Problema y Promesa, Pontificia Universidad Catolica del
Peru, 1978
64
pitted him against the upstart Chachapoya. Although Guaman Pomas claims seemed
to be well grounded,100 he lost the ruling to the ethnic Chachapoya in the year sixteen
hundred. He was therefore publicly stripped of his title of Don Felipe Guaman Poma
de Ayala, and henceforth given the common name Lazaro. As if this stripping of title
was not enough, he was additionally banished from his home Huamaga.101
The humiliation of this court ruling was apparently a major impetus for Guaman
Pomas El Primer Nueva Coronica y Buen Gobierno. (Guaman Poma indeed felt
betrayed by the colonial justice system.) Therefore his history of the Chachapoya is
obviously biased and should be read with caution. To the Chachapoya specialist his
real life dealings with ethnic Chachapoya is more interesting than his record.
Inca Garcilaso de la Vega was born in Cuzco in 1539. His father was a
conquistador and his mother was an Inca noble. Garcilaso was educated in Cuzco and
he lived in that city until 1560. At this time Garcilaso traveled to Spain and never
returned to his home country. Garcilaso, like Guaman Poma, celebrated the time of
the Inca. His writings serve as a philosophical opposite to the account of Sarmiento.102
Chachapoya is by far the most complete and is also the textual source for Vazquez de
Vazquez, Garcilaso never traveled to northern Peru. So where did Garcilaso get the
expertise to write such a record? Garcilasos brief early years in Cuzco inadequately
100
See Prado Tello, Elizas and Alfredo Prado Prado editores, Phelipe Guaman Poma de Ayala; y no ay
[sic] rremedio, Centro de Investigacin y Promocin Amaznica, Lima, 1991
101
See Zorilla A., Juan C., La Posesin de Chiara por los Indios Chachapoyas, Wari Instituto
Nacional de Cultura, Filial Ayacucho, #1, 1977, page 62, f.26v.
102
Porras Barrenechea, (1986), pages 391-394
65
explain his detailed chronicle of the Inca conquest of the Chachapoya. So who then
From his own pen, Garcilaso stated he used fragments of documents written by
the Jesuit priest Blas Valera.103 Blas Valera is an enormously controversial figure in
Andean studies. Even his origin is an intensely debated topic.104 According to the
Society of Jesus records from 16th century Peru, Valera was the son of the
chronicle however, Garcilaso included a passage where Valera stated his fathers
name was Alonso (not Luis) Valera.106 I will return to the question of Valeras father
shortly, but for now I will assume Valera was born in Chachapoyas sometime around
1545.107 With a background like this Valera would then have an intimate knowledge
disappeared and all the information that we have today comes down to us rewritten in
Although not a direct source, this information from Valera recorded in Garcilaso
the Inca conquest of the Chachapoyas. The first Inca conqueror from this chronicle to
enter the Chachapoya region is Topa Inca. He is recorded entering Chachapoyas from
103
For example, see Garcilaso de la Vega, The Incas: The Royal Commentaries of the Inca, Avon
Books, 1961 [1609], page 296
104
See Hiltunen, Juha J., Ancient Kings of Peru: The Reliability of the Chronicle of Fernando de
Montesinos; Correlating the Dynasty Lists with Current Prehistoric Periodization in the Andes,
Suomen Historiallinen Seura, Helsinki, 1999, page 189 for a discussion of alternate possibilities.
105
Libro de asientos hechos por el Rector de Lima los Padres y Hermanos de la Compania 1560-1610,
recorded in Polo, Jos Toribio, Blas Valera in Revista Histrica, tomo II, Lima, 1906, page 546
106
Garcilaso de la Vega. Historia general del Per, segunda parte de los Comentarios Reales de los
Incas. Biblioteca de Autores Espaoles, Madrid, 1960 [1609] page 53 and See Hyland, Sabine, The
Jesuit and the Incas, the Extraordinary Life of Padre Blas Valera, S.J., University of Michigan Press,
2003, page 234 & 235
107
Hyland has Valera born in the Chachapoya town of Quitaya (northeast of Levanto) in 1544. See
Hyland, (2003), page 9
66
the south near Pias (see chapter ones description of the southern route to Abiseo).
After minor resistance, the Inca encountered blizzard-like conditions in the highlands
and many Inca soldiers died. After a time Topa Inca continued his path of conquest
the Imperial army encountered fierce resistance. (Fig. 5b. shows a fortress-like
After Cajamarquilla, Topa Inca again proceeded north and celebrated his victories
and the important Inca festival Inti Rami (feast of the sun). He named the spot
Raymipampa and this designation is the attributed origin of the modern town of
Leymebamba, a few days walk from Bolivar. This festival was probably a welcome
respite after the freezing weather and fighting, and the celebration adds a real human
dimension to this record lacking in the other accounts. Finally the Inca and his force
proceeded up the Utcubamba Valley and attacked Suta and Levanto. This route
coincides with the pre-Columbian trail located on the high eastern hills of the
Utcubamba.109 Suta and Levanto are in the vicinity of Kuelap, but no mention is made
high point off the Utcubamba about a days walk from Levanto. But Topa Inca did not
cross the Utcubamba and instead he turned east and proceeded to conqueror
Moyobamba.110
All these locations correspond to sites in the Utcubamba Valley today, so Valeras
108
Garcilaso, (1966) pages 478-479
109
I know this trail personally from my many seasons living in the area of Chillo.
110
Garcilaso, (!966), page 480
67
Therefore, this account of Chachapoya history, full of specific details and written by a
native of the region, is the most accurate record for the specialist!
Chachapoya against Huayna Capac is also vivid and full of specific information
lacking in other chronicles. Huayna Capac is recorded traveling to the region because
the rebellious Chachapoya murdered his governors and captains. The account has him
crossing the Hatun Mayo or Great River, the Quechua name for the Maraon, on
rafts. Huayna Capac most likely entered the region at Balsas (see chapter twos
discussion of the central route into the Chachapoyas region). He traveled from Balsas
to the area of Cajamarquilla with a large force in tow intent on the destruction of
these rebellious subjects.111 This was a perilous time for the Chachapoya because the
Inca could devastate the region or perhaps scatter this ethnic group to the Four Parts
of the Empire. But the Chachapoya, who were in hiding, afraid of the wrath of the
Inca, were saved from these fates when a matron of Cajamarquilla, a former
concubine of his father Topa Inca, intervened and pleaded for the lives of her people.
The Incas anger was appeased by the heroism of this womans gesture and he
relented. The chronicle then records that Huayna Capac was so touched by the event
Again this event, with all its specificity, is found only in Valeras testimony recorded
in Garcilaso.113 Sabine Hylands recent biography of Blas Valera portrays the Jesuit as
a young man greatly influenced by his mother. So it is possible that a historian thus
inclined could have spent time recounting the details of the Matron of Cajamarquillas
heroism.114
Reales de los Incas, trumps the other chronicled accounts of the Inca campaigns
against the Chachapoya. This record includes specific information with place names
and substantial historic detail about the Chachapoya region. Additionally, Hyland has
stated that Valeras writings about the Peruvian past were the result of years of
We need now to return to the discussion of how much of Garcilasos record was
copied from Blas Valera. In his Comentarios Reales de los Incas, Garcilaso openly
Gonzalez de la Rosa postulated Garcilaso was disingenuous and most likely the
chronicler copied from Valeras intact manuscripts. These complete records are now
lost. The loss of Valeras work and its resurfacing in the chronicle of Garcilaso was
brought on by a tragic event in the life of this Jesuit priest. In 1596 Valera presumably
died from a beating inflicted by British sailors when Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex,
sacked the city of Cadiz. Valera had unfortunately settled in a Jesuit house in this
location after leaving Peru. According to Garcilaso, Valeras papers were scattered or
lost during this event and Valera died soon afterward.117 But de la Rosa believed
doctors testimony from the raid which provided conflicting information. In Dr.
Marbecks testimony concerning the raid, the physician stated that the clergy were not
molested and their personal possessions were not disturbed.118 Therefore, de la Rosa
inferred that Garcilaso received intact material and used the information as his own.119
In this case the entire chronicle would then have reached Garcilaso after Valera died
from some undetermined cause because obviously the dead priest would have been
I can easily imagine that during this era of Reformation and warfare, a few
British sailors would only be too happy to beat a papist and then lie to their superiors,
but the incredible saga of Padre Blas Valeras life does not end with this conjecture.
library. Two Jesuits Juan Anello Oliva and Joan Antonio Cumis wrote most of the two
early 17th century. Their text also includes three and a half pages of drawings that
includes startling new information about Blas Valera. Historia et Rudimenta Linguae
Piruanorum states that Valera did not die in 1596 in Cadiz but instead he lived on and
died in 1618 in Alcala de Henares.121 Valera disappeared after 1596 when he was
forced by the Jesuit Order to fake his own death. Apparently, Valera was accused of
oblivion was an accepted punishment.122 But during this time the documents relate
that Valera returned to Peru and was the ghostwriter for Guaman Pomas El Primer
Nueva Coronica y Buen Gobierno. Another Jesuit one Gonzalo Ruiz completed the
illustrations of this work. For the purposes of this study it is important to note Ruiz
Hyland, using Society of Jesus records, connects the lives of these two mestizo priests
historically at least.124
The Naples documents also contain a brief biography of the tortured life of Blas
Valera and include his birth date 1545 and birth location Chachapoyas. The details
from this manuscript relay that Valeras natural father was Alonso Valera and not
Luis.125 This would agree with Garcilasos information concerning Blas Valera but
differ from the Jesuit records mentioned earlier. The text continues with the
astounding revelation that Valeras mother, an india named Allpu Urpi126, was
murdered in front of him by his father Alonso when Valera was 13 years old. The
change of parents on his recorded entrance into the Jesuit Order was then
understandable. The parents names were changed in order to leave this tragic event
Immeritus contain other shocking details from the 16th century but these equally
approach is solely from a selfish standpoint. Since all the previously mentioned
documents are tied in some fashion to Chachapoyas, these complex arguments cannot
be avoided. But, I am not concerned with peripheral information. I only want to build
keeping this Chachapoya-centric view in mind I will state: if Guaman Poma was the
true author of El Primer Nueva Coronica y Buen Gobierno, his contentious trial
against the ethnic Chachapoya of Huamaga prejudices his record against the
Chachapoya. It is therefore of little value to the specialist. If Blas Valera wrote the El
Primer Nueva Coronica y Buen Gobierno for Guaman Poma I have to ask: why
would he abbreviate and change the record he detailed in Garcilaso concerning the
Chachapoya? This would be eliminating glorious exploits of the Incas and the
resistance of the Chachapoya. Wouldnt Valera want to record every aspect of this
plight like he did in his chronicle copied by Garcilaso? The only rational answer to
this question is that because of Valeras fake death he needed to remain incognito.
Therefore, specificity lacking in the other chronicles would draw unwanted attention
to the cleric in hiding and perhaps jeopardize his new life. If this is then the case El
Primer Nueva Coronica y Buen Gobierno is again of little value to the Chachapoya
specialist for details concerning the Inca and Chachapoya because in order to hide his
identity and conform to the outrageous circumstances of his troubled life, Blas Valera
altered the facts of history in the El Primer Nueva Coronica y Buen Gobierno.128
page xi
128
Before I end this discussion I have to remark from a Chachapoya specialists perspective, the
drawing of the conflict between the Inca and Chachapoya (Fig. 13) authored by Gonzalo Ruiz and not
Guaman Poma is troubling. According to Gnerre (1999; page 216) Ruiz was a native of Moyobamba.
So why then would an artist with ethnic ties to Chachapoyas portray his kinfolk in such a negative
manner? For example the nose ornament of the lead warrior resembles a ring for a hog and not the
73
In conclusion I will again state the most important chronicle for the study of the
Chachapoya remains the record of Padre Blas Valera copied, from a more likely intact
manuscript than not, by Garcilaso de la Vega in his Comentarios Reales de los Incas.
Earlier in this work I mentioned that the area of the pre-Chachapoya was
relatively close to the initial meeting of the Spanish conquistadors and Inca ruler at
was close enough for Huayna Capac to make Cajamarca the starting point for his
Chachapoyas begins very early, especially if we consider the remoteness of the region
and the difficulty of travel from the coast of Peru. This history began when Alonso de
Alvarado entered the area in the fifteen thirties and founded the city of San Juan de la
Frontera de Chachapoyas. This is also the time when the book, the Libro Primero de
book is basically the first seven years of town council minutes from this early
frontier capital. The passages follow norms for all town councils: formal titles
endlessly repeated129 citations of public works and locations etc. The early officers of
austere and enigmatic ornamentation of the Chachapoya. See Von Hagen, Adriana, Los Chachapoyas
y la Laguna de los Cndores, Museo Leymebamba, Amazonas, Peru, 2002, page 11, Von Hagen,
Adriana & Sonia Guillen (1998), page 54 and Lerche, Peter, Perus Lost Tombs, in National
Geographic vol.198, #3, September 2000 for depictions of nose piece imagery from Chachapoya
burials. These stern and graceful faces bear no resemblance to the drawing in El Primer Nueva
Coronica y Buen Gobierno.
129
Luis Valera was an early city officer and his name is ubiquitous in the Libro Primero de Cabildos de
San Juan de la Frontera de Chachapoyas. This is the same Luis Valera who is posited as the father of
the chronicler Blas Valera.
74
Espinoza Soriano has pointed out this book contains vital information about early
Spanish excursions into northern Peru, however the brief and formal entries leave
published by Raul Rivera Serna in Fenix: Revista de la Biblioteca Nacional #11 and
12 in 1955. This version of the original documents housed in the Harkness Collection
of the Library of Congress is spread over two issues of the compiled magazine. A less
cumbersome edition of the Libro Primero was published separately by Serna in 1958.
From the minutes we know the city of San Juan de la Frontera de Chachapoyas
was founded the 5th of September 1538 in Jalca, a town located about a days walk
from Kuelap. From the discussions of record we know the council quickly determined
Jalca was unsuitable and the location of the city was moved up the Utcubamba Valley
to Levanto. Levanto was deemed a good location because of the many sturdy houses
the Inca had constructed.131 The city was again moved sometime around 1545 to its
present day location north of Levanto, which is the modern city of Chachapoyas.132
When the Carmelite friar and chronicler Vazquez de Espinoza arrived in San Juan
de la Frontera (Chachapoyas) in 1615 he found a fine city with two hundred Spanish
residents, well made houses with tile roofs and a very good hospital.133 So apparently
130
See Hyland (2003) page 18
131
See Serna, Ral Rivera, editor, Libro primero de Cabildos de San Juan de la Frontera de
Chachapoyas in Fnix de la Biblioteca Nacional, #11 and #12, Lima 1955 [1538], page 13. Levanto is
also referred to in a letter of 24 November 1542 from Governor Vaca de Castro to the King of Spain as
a new city in the province of Chachapoyas founded by Alonso de Alvarado (see Porras Barrenechea,
Raul, Cartas del Per (1524-1543), edicin de la Saciedad de biblifilos peruanos, Lima, 1959, page
505. This letter attests to the strategic importance of the location.
132
Libro Primero de Cabildos de San Juan de la Frontera de Chachapoyas, (1958) [1538] page 64 and
see Schjellerup (1997) page 30, footnote #1 and Lerche 1995 page 12.
133
Vazquez de Espinoza, (1942) [1615] chapter VIII, 1192, page 405
75
the councils early efforts in creating a secure and viable location were not in vain.
However the scarcity of available indigenous souls for salvation was the cost of this
prosperity. The forced labor and privations of the early colonial period had decimated
I want to end the discussion of the historical documents with Espinoza Sorianos
different Chachapoya ethnic leaders. Espinoza Soriano published the court record
As the discussions in this chapter have shown we have very little information
concerning the pre-Columbian and early conquest periods of the Chachapoya, so this
work was a windfall. The new documents from Espinoza Sorianos article more than
greatly added to the field. Throughout the twentieth century new discoveries of
funeral sites and lost cities in the Departments of Amazonas and San Martin have
drawn attention to the region. But to the Chachapoya specialist Espinoza Sorianos
from later colonial records. She also included a non-abbreviated transcription of the
Before I begin the discussion of these documents I should remind the reader this
was a colonial court case during the reforms of Toledo. As I previously mentioned
Toledo had an agenda. His agenda was to weaken the legacy of the Inca Empire and
strengthen the right of Spanish rule in Peru. The Toledo era marked the decline of
ruling in favor of the heirs of the ethnic leader Francisco Pizarro Guaman, depended
on the litigants ability to demonstrate loyalty to the Spanish crown. Francisco Pizarro
Guamans name alone attests to the compromises necessary for an ethnic Chachapoya
to survive this epoch. Although these informants were under oath, never forget they
are actors struggling for land and power in a hostile and changing environment of
diminishing resources.
But, in his introduction to these documents Espinoza Soriano correctly noted the
135
For research purposes Espinoza Sorianos transcription, while abbreviated, lacks no important
content and his emphasis, even with breaks and added capitalization, is right on point.
77
one indigenous author (for an example of a lone commentator think back to Blas
the number of informants I should point out instead we have multiple witnesses
questioned by the system that created the Inquisition. Additionally, more than one
hundred years and two foreign conquests have occurred since these informants or
Francisco Pizarro Guaman. By the time of the Expediente this important Chachapoya
leader had been dead for about twenty years. According to testimony concerning his
life, Guaman negotiated terms successfully with an enraged Inca ruler.137 He remained
calm and in command while facing the mass relocation and or genocide of his
people.138 Intuitively Guaman must have understood the meaning of the Spanish
arrival because he immediately pledged obedience to this alien people very early in
their excursions into his territory.139 And last but not least, Guaman, as a middle aged
presented by his heirs pushes the limits of believability. Yet we know there was a
historical Francisco Pizarro Guaman and he figured prominently in the initial meeting
136
Espinoza Soriano, (1967), page 227
137
Espinoza Soriano, (1967), page 295
138
Espinoza Soriano, (1967), page 298 and in Schjellerup (1997) page 74
139
Espinoza Soriano, (1967), page 317
140
Espinoza Soriano, (1967), page 318 and Schjellerup (1997), page 333
78
with establishing the validity of all the testimony from these documents. Once again
this daunting task is beyond the limits of this study. My concern is completely selfish
in that I want to investigate the documents for information solely pertinent to the
First, how does the testimony of the witnesses pertain to the records from the
courtroom. Certainly elaborating the glorious conquests of the Inca would not have
been apropos in this venue. But the statements given are sufficient enough to validate
Blas Valeras account in Garcilaso, which also cites Topa Inca as the conqueror of the
Chachapoya.
The Expediente also clearly has Huayna Capac traveling to the region after his
father.142 The witnesses testimony however was not clear about Huayna Capacs
mission and was more concerned with the power relationships between the ethnic
lords and the Inca Emperor. Espinoza Soriano pointed out this event was probably
Huayna Capacs punitive strike against the rebellious Chachapoya preempted by the
Matron of Cajamarquillas pleas.143 The story of the Matron and the Incas
magnanimous gesture toward her are, of course, absent from the record. Again
141
Espinoza Soriano, (1967), page 312 and Schjellerup, page 331
142
Espinoza Soriano, (1967), page 313 and Schjellerup page 331
143
Espinoza Soriano, (1967), page 241
79
But negative information about Inca rule certainly was acceptable, and the
leaders discussed a rebellion in the northern Chachapoya territory during the reign of
Atahualpa. Both Espinoza Soriano and Schjellerup have elaborated on this Valley of
However, I think this rebellion should be framed as part of the dynastic war between
Huascar and Atahualpa. Therefore, this event should be considered with this pan-
single most important piece of information, for the purpose of this study, contained in
the Expediente is the first 16th century reference to Kuelap.146 As Espinoza Soriano
144
Espinoza Soriano, (1967), pages 254-262 and Schjellerup pages 72-73
145
The consequences of the Chacha being loyal to the vanquished and not the victor should, however,
not be downplayed. Espinoza Soriano rightly points out a passage from the Expediente that has
overtones of modern day ethnic cleansing. (Espinoza Soriano (1967) page 298) There seems to be a
search in Chachapoya studies for a critical mass of Inca wrath. In other words when did the Inca
decide they had had enough of these pesky Chachapoya? I think the rebellious nature of the
Chachapoya is grossly overstated and any Chachapoya insurrection after Topa Incas initial conquest
could result in the gravest consequences! I also believe the Matron of Cajamarquilla actions on behalf
of her people were real and heroic. The event fits the actors and the circumstances. Without her
intervention the Chachapoya would have probably vanished from their region.
146
See Espinoza Soriano (1967), page 228. On page 64 of her 1997 dissertation, Schjellerup cites a
passage from Albornoz (see Albornoz, Cristbal de, La instruccin para descubrir todas las guacas del
Pir y sus camayos y haziendas, Ed. Duviols, Journal de la Socit des Amricanistes, Vol. 55, #1,
Paris, 1967 [1570]) and concludes this is the first 16th century reference to Kuelap. Albornoz was intent
upon the elimination of idolatry in Peru. In the passage (referenced by Schjellerup) he mentions a
huaca (shrine) targeted for elimination near the village of coyallap in the Chachapoya area. Schjellerup
continues the identification by adding coyallap is most probably a misspelling of Kuelap. However,
Espinoza Soriano (1967), Taylor (Taylor, Gerald, La tradicin oral quechua de Chachapoyas, Instituto
Francs de Estudios Andinos, Lima 1996), and Lerche (1995) all mention a tradition of huaca worship
continuing into the colonial era in the village of Conilap in Luya province. Espinoza Soriano
references Ramos Gavilan (see Ramos Gaviln, Alonso, Historia del Santuario de Nuestra Seores de
Copacabana, Ignacio Prado P., Lima, 1988 [1621], page 73) and Lerche adds Calancha (Calancha,
Antino de la, Cronica Moralizada, six volumen, Ignacio Prado Pastor, 1974, volume II, page 744) and
Vazquez de Espinoza (1942 [1629]) as sources for pre-Columbian rites continuing into the colonial era
in this village. Conilap is about 25 miles north of Kuelap. Albornoz never journeyed to the region but
80
observed the name Kuelap will not appear again in print until it is rediscovered by
The name Kuelap appears four times in the testimony from the Expediente
paired with another site Pauxamarca, which is located about ten miles to the
northeast. All three times Kuelap and Pauxamarca are included in the provinces of
Leymebamba and Cochabamba. The forth and final reference to Kuelap in the
questioning of the Chachapoya leaders about their holdings. In this text, Kuelap is
term for a localized kin group. The ayllu varies in size and inclusiveness but the
cohesion for the social unit is a common ancestor.149 As Frank Salomon has pointed
out:
The term ayllu became part of the Spanish administrative jargon, and in one
of those retroactive Inca-izations, becomes common in the local paperwork of the
later XVI century.150
Vazquez de Espinoza made a point of visiting Conilap. I think then, even though the reference of
Albornoz used by Schjellerup is very early [1570], the village in question is most likely Conilap not
Kuelap.
147
Espinoza Soriano (1967) page 228
148
Espinoza Soriano (1967) pages 299, 301 and 312 and Schjellerup (1997) pages 316, 317 and 330
149
See DAltroy (2002) page 326 and Isbell (1997) pages 98-99
150
Salomon, (Salomon, Frank, Ethnic Lords of Quito in the Age of the Incas, the Political Economy of
North Andean Chiefdoms, Ph.D. Dissertation, Cornell University, 1978, page 180). In this particular
discussion, Salomon is talking about colonial records from Quito, but the argument can easily be
applied to Chachapoya records. Also, Isbell (Isbell, William H., Mummies and Mortuary Monuments,
University of Texas Press, 1997) provides a good discussion of changes in the ayllu through the Inca
and Spanish conquests. Generally speaking Isbell suggests Inca policies strengthened the corporate
character of ayllu construction. (Isbell, 1997; 127) This is apparent in the Expediente by the ethnic
leaders use of the term ayllu to describe their holdings. With the coming of Toledo, Isbell notes a
transformation of the Andean order. The timing of the Expediente and the beginning of the era of
Toledian reforms suggests the Chachapoya leaders could have sensed a political change at this time.
(Isbell, 1997; 128)
81
what Salomon was describing. The Chachapoya ethnic leaders are using an Inca term
to describe their territories in a Spanish courtroom. Perhaps the name Kuelap was
applied to some sort of Chachapoya kin group, but then how does this information
help us identify the physical site which is the ruin? If Kuelap (the ruin) was some sort
of ancestral center for the kin group wouldnt it have been mentioned? Unless some
unknown proof emerges, the physical site of Kuelap was in disuse and likely
forgotten at this time. Maybe the ayllu purposely kept their sacred site secret. But,
however strange the terms and circumstances, these are the only four references to
From these four ambiguous references, somehow the view that Kuelap was a
fortress was extrapolated. How? To ascertain this we need to look at colonial history.
I think a retro-history of Kuelap was created when Espinoza Sorianos wrote the
introduction to his 1967 paper. In his introduction, Espinoza Soriano listed the
fortalezas Levanto and Kuelap as possible refuges for Manco Inca during his war
with the Spanish. Manco Inca was established by the Spanish as a puppet ruler but he
later rebelled against the Spanish and took refuge in the southern cloud forests of
Vilcabamba.151 Mancos son Titu Cusi Yupanqui wrote an account of this Inca Empire
in exile. In this account Titu Cusi stated some Chachapoya captains suggested
Levanto as a possible refuge for his father instead of Vilcabamba.152 Kuelap is not, I
repeat not mentioned by Titu Cusi in his dialogue! Espinoza Soriano, perhaps with
151
See Hemming (1970) chapters 13 and 16
152
Titu Cusi Yupanqui, Relacin de la Conquista del Per, Lima 1973 [1570], page 101
82
19th and 20th century archaeological records in mind, projected Kuelap into Titu Cusis
Kuelap in his very popular 1970 book entitled The Conquest of the Incas. On pages
236 and 237 of his text Hemming described the events chronicled by Titu Cusi.
Some chiefs of the Chachapoyas told him (Manco Inca) that they would
take him to their town Levanto where there was a fine fortressThe proposal of the
Chiefs was a fascinating one. They were probably referring to the great hilltop
fortress of Kuelap that rises high above the Utcubamba river, not far from the south of
(the city of) Chachapoyas. The choice would have been admirable. Of all the myriad
ruins in Peru, Kuelap is the most spectacularly defended the strongest by European
standards of military fortification (emphasis mine).
scene of battle between the Imperial Inca army and the Chachapoya.155 Levanto, not
Kuelap, was the established secure location for seven years for the city of San Juan de
Spain.157 Schjellerup has pointed out there are several large pre-Inca sites near
Levanto that could have served Manco Inca well even though Hemming wanted to
Schjellerup continued by adding that Levanto was also an Inca stronghold and Inca
ruins and ceramics in the area support this claim.159 Finally, Kuelap is a days walk
For the record then through the pre-Columbian, conquest and colonial periods we
have only the four brief references to Kuelap. In lieu of newly discovered documents,
CHAPTER FIVE
SIGNIFICANT VISITORS
Pre-Columbian sites in the Americas suffered a fairy-tale like fate after the
conquest and early colonial eras. Structures and settlements that were not torn down
indigenous inhabitants were by this time either relocated or dead. In Peru Viceroy
ubiquitous in the colonial era, were manifestations of this trend. Because the initial
157
Porras Barrenechea (1959), page 505
158
Schjellerup (1997), page 66, footnote #1
159
Schjellerup (1997), page 77, footnote #6
84
conquests preoccupation with indigenous cultures focused on the search for riches, or
in the case of the clergy the search for new souls, when the abundant supply of both
For roughly a two hundred year period wind, rain and vegetation changed once
functional centers into what Heinrich Wlfflin called the picturesque ruin. The ruin
Wlfflin noted unites a man-made structure with the free forms of nature to shape a
whole.160 In short this unification of forms produced dream like settings languishing
in oblivion. But the earlier colonial era was a time to forget. Insurrection and
rebellion had soured the colonists against the pre-Columbian world and any
celebration or discovery from the pre-Conquest era was, quite simply, demonic and
subversive. For an example recall that the Aztec statue of Coatlique, discovered in
Mexico City in 1790, was shortly reburied by the Catholic priests because they feared
the icon would return the peasants to idolatrous past. Pasztory has pointed out the
Spanish authoritys fear of rebellion even at this late date in colonial Mexico.161
Sometime around the year 1800 the apprehension toward things pre-Columbian
waned. What followed was an age of unprecedented exploration and discovery. The
treasure these new explorers sought was intellectual booty. This was the era of the
enlightened traveler: the prototypical tourist. These men were polymaths, expert in so
many different fields that for us today their achievements seem almost unbelievable.
The names of these visitors are legendary and titles like Humboldt, Tschudi, and
Raimondi now adorn pre-Colombian monuments and natural wonders, not to mention
schools and street signs. As the century passed into the 20th these initial larger than
160
Wlfflin, Heinrich, Principles of Art History: the Problem of the Development of Style in Later Art,
translated by M. D. Hottinger, Dover Publications, 1940, page 24
161
See Pasztory, Esther, Aztec Art, Harry Abrams, New York, 1983, page 140
85
Kuelap unfortunately escaped the gaze of these 19th century polymaths. It was a
local Chachapoya Judge Juan Crisstomo Nieto who introduced the western world to
Kuelap after he was led to the site on January 31, 1843. His account was published
observations about Kuelap first came to the attention of the world when Mariano
Eduardo de Rivero and Juan Diego de Tschudi published them in their 1851 book
entitled Antigedades Peruanas, Nieto more than doubled the size of the walls before
he went on to conclude the ruin was the lost biblical tower of Babel. Before this
descriptions attracted some interest in the site, but the remoteness of the Chachapoya
region kept Kuelap from becoming a matinee pre-Columbian ruin like, for instance,
Kuelap however did entice some 19th century aficionados. Arthur Werthemann
visited the ruin a dozen times in the late 19th century but his notes, including
astronomical observations made at the Kuelap, were lost with his personnel effects in
162
See Ruiz (1972) page 9, El Informe Nieto. I have added my own page numbers to Ruizs
unnumbered tesis de bachiller La Alfarera de Cuelap: Tradicin y Cambio. For clarification I will
also add chapter titles to the reference.
163
See Kauffmann Doig, Federico, and Giancarlo Ligabue, Los Chachapoyas: Moradores Ancestrales
de los Andes Amaznicos Peruanos, Universidad Alas Peruanas, 2003, pp. 142-143
86
fortress, almost as if no other possibility was an option. 164 Why did Werthemann, and
many visitors who followed, jump to this conclusion when we know from chapter
three the colonial chronicles have no record of the site ever being used for defense or
warfare by either the Chachapoya against the Inca or the Inca against the Spanish.165
There simply was no historic precedent for this conclusion. Although we can never be
certain exactly why this framing began (perhaps a guides anecdote?), Graziano
Gasparini and Luise Margolies provide a possible philosophical answer behind the
thinking for such assumptions. In their book Inca Architecture, these architects allude
world. This mind set originated with the initial Spanish conquerors from late
Medieval Europe. This thinking labels as a fortress any building with stone enclosures
about Kuelap are indicative of this prejudice even though he was a traveler visiting
during a much later era. But Werthemann was not the only observer to frame Kuelap
militarily and, as I mentioned at the end of chapter three, this idea of Fortaleza
Kuelap gets somehow extrapolated back on the colonial record, even though no
evidence exists for this supposition. I will continue this discussion at length in chapter
six.
Ernst Middendorf visited Kuelap in the late nineteenth century and noted that the
ruin itself was called La Malca by the locals and the hacienda were he stayed, located
164
Werthemann, Arthur, Ruinas de la fortaleza de Cuelap, Boletn de la Sociedad Geogrfica, Ano
II, 1892, page 149
165
See the discussion at the end of chapter three concerning the misidentification of Levanto.
166
Gasparini, Graziano, & Luise Margolies, Inca Architecture, Indiana University Press, 1980, page
280
87
below the ruin, was called Kuelap. Middendorf thought Malca was a provincial
Malca could be some short of manifestation of the Spanish muro (wall). A few
decades earlier Raimondi also made the same correlation between the name for the
ruin at Kuelap (Malta) and the Spanish muro.168 As I mentioned in chapter three, the
first reference to the name Kuelap was made in the Expediente Repartimiento de
Leymebamba y Cochabamba court case from the late 16th century. Remember in this
record Kuelap was referred to as an ayllu kin group and the record attaches no
Kuelap is an ancient Chachapoya name. Alfredo Toreros linguistic study of the pre-
Columbian languages of northern Peru confirms this assumption. 170 But what does
the term signify: 1) the ruin in question, 2) a kin group 3) another nearby site? I will
167
McCown (McCown, Theodore, Pre-Incaic Huamachuco; Survey and Excavations in the Region of
Huamachuco and Cajabamba in American Archaeology and Ethnology, University of California
Publications, 1945) has added The word marca in Quechua and also in Aymara has the common
meaning of town or village, but in Quechua it also has, according to Paz Soldn (Paz Soldan, Marino
Felipe, Diccionario Geogrfico Estadisco del Peru, Lima, 1678 [1613]), the additional meaning of
something which is hidden or carefully guarded. (page 329)
168
Raimondi, Antonio, El Per, volumen 1, Imprenta Torres Aguirre, 1942, page 411. DAltroy has
pointed out that marca is a Word frequently used by Andean farmers as a generic term for an
archaeological town. (Personal communication 3/21/05)
169
In Kuelap a Solar Observatory? McGraw, Oncina, Sharon and Torres Ms mention Kuelaps
inhabitants were relocated as part of Toledos reducciones (McGraw, James, Manuel Oncina, Douglas
Sharon & Carlos Torres Mas, Kuelap a Solar Observatory, Ethnic Technology Notes, #24, San Diego
Museum of Man, 1996). The reference is from Espinoza Sorianos article from 1967. On page 237
Espinoza Soriano does, without citation, suggest relocation but even if this is the case, we do not know
if this was a movement from the ruin or from another nearby inhabited site. In other words without any
records from the conquest or colonial eras, we cannot be sure the ruin we now call Kuelap was
inhabited when the Spanish arrived.
170
See Torero, Alfredo, reas toponmicas e idiomas en la sierra norte peruana. Un trabajo de
recuperacin lingstica, in Revista Andina, ano 7, #1, Julio 1989, page 238. Also Kuelape is
generally accepted in the region as an ancient regional name not derived from Quechua.
88
Many other 19th century travelers visited Kuelap but the first serious
concentrate on each specific visitor so for the remainder of this chapter I will outline
the fieldwork of Bandelier then continue with a discussion of the efforts of the French
Chachapoya ceramics by the Swiss archaeologists Henry and Paule Reichlen. The
Reichlens work then provides a natural introduction for the Peruvian archaeologist
Arturo Ruiz Estradas 1972 masters thesis on the ceramics of Kuelap. I will end with
a discussion of Alfredo Luis Narvaez Vargas excavation in the 1980s. Later on in the
closing remarks I will also discuss some recent work concerning the site and suggest
In 1893 Bandelier spend nearly two months at the ruin of Kuelap beginning on
September 14. His record of the excavation was published in 1907 and it included a
plan of the ruin.171 Bandelier did beautiful drawings of the site which were recently
published in Chachapoyas el Reino Perdido by Adriana Von Hagen (Figs. 1b., 4a.,
9a., 10b., 11b., 18b., 19b. and 20b.). He also noted the ruin was called Malca or
malquia and Kuelap was the name for the hacienda below. Bandelier also added that
the name for the hacienda was either Kuelap or Kuelape. This observation by
suffix. He continued by adding the Chachapoya ruins Conlape and Ylape share the
171
Bandelier mentioned on page 35 of his 1907 article that there were mommies located on the left
slope of the ruin. (See Bandelier, Adolph Francis Alphonse, Los Indios y las Ruinas Aborgenes Cerca
de Chachapoyas en el Norte del Per, in Chaski, volumen I, #2, September 1940
89
same ending. Taylor then postulated the ending could signify fortress or fortified
relies on too much on the previously mentioned prejudiced conclusions about location
and structure of Chachapoya architecture. In other words the names might have a
shared meaning but hilltop walls around a settlement do not necessarily signify a
fortress. Taylors reading however does link the ruin of Kuelap to the name Kuelap
From his journal we know Bandelier entered the vicinity of Kuelap from the
south and it is possible he climbed up to the ruin from what is today Nogol Chuco and
not from the area of Tingo, which is currently the primary entry point for the climb.
Bandelier spent considerable time at Kuelap making his scientific study. Even at
present the living conditions at the ruin are rudimentary, so at the end of the 19th
century Bandelier must have endured considerable hardship because the constant
rains made Bandelier believe the Kuelaps walls secondary function (the first was
defense) was preventing soil erosion.173 In his journal Bandelier relayed that the
hacienda at the time was owned by a Senor Anduaga.174 Bandelier seems to have
been in escort the whole time because he mentioned other companions: the sub-
prefect Seor Arce, the secretary of Chachapoyas Don Leopold Perez and his guides
(arrieros). Here we should remember the earlier discussion from this dissertation
172
See Taylor (2000), page 24
173
Bandelier, (1940) [1907] page 31
174
See Bandelier, Adolph Francis Alphonse, Journal in the American Museum of Natural History,
pages 231-232. Nugent (1997) has one Alejandro Anduaga as a powerful landowning member of the
Chachapoya elite in 1910. See page 124 and footnote #17 on page 352. Nugents book provides a vivid
portrait of Chachapoya elites at the turn of the century. Braggadocio and tall tales told for the sake of
elevated status certainly fit his profile.
90
given the remoteness of the Chachapoyas in the eighteen nineties, is suspect. For
Malca (the ruin) was occupied when the Spanish got to Chachapoyas. He continued
this unlikely story by adding the conquistadors then began a long siege of the ruin but
finally succumbed to hunger outside the walls.175 I said unlikely because of the
complete absence of any colonial record of this event or for that matter any colonial
record that specifically mentions the ruin. Don Ramos continued on with his tale and
told Bandelier of the existence of a document in Trujillo which told of the Indians of
Kuelap mustering 1,000 warriors for a conflict with the people of nearby Huanca and
Levanto. Finally Don Ramos said after Malca was built the people of Kuelap gained
the upper hand on their neighbors.176 There are many problems with Don Ramos oral
history. The most glaring problem is that the people of Huanca were Inca mitmakuna
(relocated colonists). Therefore it would have been impossible for such a fight to have
occurred before the arrival of the Incas.177 If this conflict occurred after the arrival of
the Inca and their colonists, this would then mean the ruin Kuelap (Malca to the
guides) was built in 50 years under Inca supervision and this construction would have
occurred after the Chachapoya conquest. Accomplishing this Herculean task during
175
Bandeliers Journal AMNH, pages 270-271
176
Bandeliers Journal AMNH, pages 291-292
177
See Serna, Ral Rivera, editor, Libro primero de Cabildos de San Juan de la Frontera de
Chachapoyas, Separata de la Revista Fnix de la Biblioteca Nacional, Lima 1958, page 64 for the first
reference to this group, and Schjellerup (1997) page 69 for their mitmakuna status.
178
I say unlikely because DAltroy has pointed out that the histories tell us the Inca fortress
Saqsawaman was built in only 20 years.
91
Simply, I believe Bandeliers guides were creating more than exaggerating the
oral history of Kuelap the ruin. Anyone who has ever been on a guided tour can
understand how this sort of disinformation spreads and that the informants probably
had no malicious intent. The hardest statement any guide can make is I dont know.
With this in mind imagine Bandeliers nearly two month rain-soaked stay at the ruin,
and the opportunity for hyperbole! Bandeliers empirical observations are, to his
credit, right on point. But what sort of influence did his conversations with the
informants have on his, and the previous visitors, thinking? Bandeliers 1907 article
filters most of the elements from his journal that would give serious pause. But
because of the problematic nature of his informants oral testimony (in addition to
believe the term Kuelap signifies the ruin and not the Hacienda below.179
Louis Langlois was a retired French army general who visited Chachapoyas in
anthropological training, Langlois was a keen observer. His record of Kuelap stands
out among the earlier travelers to the site like Cieza de Lens chronicle stands out
among his fellow 16th century historians. Langlois published his results in his 1939
monograph Utcubamba. The one hundred page text replete with photographs has
some glaring errors. For instance Langlois photographed some strange figurines
which are not pre-Columbian and might not even have been made on the South
179
I do not believe, however that lape signifies fortress. Taylors fortified settlement is more, I think,
on point.
92
in his simple observations about Kuelap and the surrounding ruins of the Utcubamba
drainage.
I have to add that General Langlois studied his mission and he did not just
wander into the Utcubamba valley without doing any research. He might not have had
any formal training, but Langlois seems to have taken his explorations very seriously.
For example, Langlois noted the absence of any reference to Kuelap in Valeras
did choose the most complete account of the conquest of the Chachapoya from all the
chronicles. Perhaps this was because in the early part of the twentieth century
Garcilasos record was considered much more reliable than it is today181 or perhaps
Langlois appreciated this nuanced account of the Inca campaign. In any case,
Langlois noted the Inca invasion proceeding up from Pias in the south to
Kuelap great walls were never tested .182 However, Langlois did not try to make the
facts from the chronicle fit a scenario. Specifically, Langlois never postulated
Maybe this was because Langlois visited and recorded many other sites in the
vicinity of Kuelap. Indeed, Langlois map of the Utcubamba on page 62 of his text
180
For the figurines see Langlois, Louis, Utcubamba, Imprenta del Museo Nacional, Lima, 1939, page
14.
181
DAltroy (2002) has a good discussion of the rise and fall of Garcilasos record on pages 14-15 but
on the topic of the Chachapoya, Rowe related that Blas Valera was one of Garcilasos most reliable
sources! (Rowe, John, Inca Culture at the Time of the Spanish Conquest in Handbook of South
American Indians, edited by Julian Steward, Bulletin 143, vol. 2, pages 183-330, Bureau of American
Ethnology, Washington, D.C., 1946, page 196)
182
See Langlois, (1939) page 32 and on page 52 he noted the absence of any mention of Kuelap in the
chronicles.
93
was a masterful piece of work for this era. Up until the time this map was published,
Kuelap was always treated as an anomaly. In other words the visitors to the ruin,
singularity having little connection with its environs. Bandelier discussed the
Chachapoya ruin of Macro below Kuelap (Fig. 8a.) and he toured the area also, but
he was more preoccupied with the stories from his informants than studying Kuelaps
surroundings. Kuelaps walls (Fig. 4b.)and entrances (Fig. 10a.) seem to have
placed Kuelap in context. Langlois map recorded, for instance, the distance from
Kuelap to Levanto. His rendering demonstrated the separateness of the two sites and
Condorchaca and Macro, located about 100 feet about the banks of the Utcubamba
1,000 meters below Kuelap. These mysterious ruins lack the size and complexity of
their lofty neighbor, and even today tour buses and minivans full of Chachapoya
aficionados routinely pass these locations on their way to the more matinee
Chachapoya sites. But, looking ahead to the discussion in chapter six, if the
Chachapoya were such a barbarous and belligerent people living in a constant state of
warfare, as many Andean texts would have us believe, what function did indefensible
This thought could have occurred to Langlois because even though his
background was that of a career soldier, Langlois did not classify Kuelap as a
fortaleza. The general began his discussion of the ruin by simply stating he preferred
the term fortified city to fortress.183 As a military man, Langlois knew Kuelap had one
great problem for a state of siege: no water source.184Bandelier noted this deficiency
and Horkheimer would later speculate wildly about sources of water185 but Langlois
Chachapoya dwelling at Kuelap and postulated that the stone gutter around the
outside of the circular structure formed a cistern.186 This cistern could provide the
Langlois implied this source for water was temporary and he did not envision Kuelap
as a refuge for an extended attack. For Langlois, Kuelaps walls only provided short-
term shelter!
Langlois seems to have been immune to the tales told by informants. Although
his conclusions include some diffusionist rhetoric, expected during the time frame in
which he wrote, he did not advance any of the theories that Bandelier presented.
Langlois prudently remained silent about warfare with Huancas and Levanto recorded
by Bandelier. It is possible Langlois was not told the same tales as Bandelier, but I
would like to posit the General, as a military man accustomed to exaggeration, was
183
Langlois (1939) page 28
184
Langlois (1939) page 29
185
Schjellerup nixes Horkheimers suggestion that parasitic tree plants could have supplied Kuelaps
inhabitants with a source of water; accurately noting that the site was probably not landscaped in the
past like it is today. Schjellerup (1997) page 108 and Horkheimer, Hans, Algunas Consideraciones
Acerca de la Arqueologa en el Valle del Utcubamba, Actas y Trabajos del II Congreso Nacional de
Historia del Per, Tomo I: 71-101, Lima 1958
186
Langlois, (1939) page 44 figure#24
95
when he heard them. Langlois was also much more active in the Utcubamba region
Condorchaca but in addition he visited a site near Magdalena, Teya (Fig. 17a.) and he
even visited the community of Jalca. Langlois kept a schedule which would exhaust
any modern visitor to Chachapoyas, and he did it in a time when travel by foot and
Henry and Paule Reichlen were a husband and wife French archaeological team
famous for their work at Cajamarca in the 1940s. The Reichlens traveled across the
Maraon River canyon to work in the area of the pre-Columbian Chachapoya for a
period of four months.187Although Chachapoya studies needed (and needs) all the
archaeological attention it can get, the Reichlens work in the region was really only a
brief sojourn from their more complete investigations on the western side of the
Maraon.188 The Reichlens were products of the high age of stratigraphy, established
by the then pioneering work of Alfred Kroeber.189 This was the era of rigorous
classification and the delineation of cultures into numbered phases and named time
this case the separations were used to separate culture not lithics. The stratigraphist
read phases of cultural growth from different strata of soil. More metaphorically
187
Schjellerup sums up their work on page 107 of her Incas and Spaniards in the Conquest of the
Chachapoyas.
188
Again Schjellerup has pointed out seventy-three boxes weighing 1,400 kg were sent to Paris, but
this material has languished in a museums basement. Schjellerup (1997) page 107
189
See Stone-Miller, Rebecca, An Overview of Horizon and Horizon Style in the Study of Ancient
American Objects, in Latin American Horizons, Don Stephen Rice editor, Dumbarton Oaks Research
Library and Collection, Washington D. C., 1993, pages 16-17
96
stated he or she would cut the cake of a civilization and gather information from the
layers.
By this time, mid twentieth century, the drawer full of pre-Columbian Andean
material, gathered by earlier visitors, was overflowing. The stratigraphist then entered
upon this scene and cleaned up the mess by creating many smaller drawers to store
the data. Previously excavated material was then sequenced with the newly
only arranges and does not explain. So, while the new categories are tidier they really,
done at major sites over a period of years (refer back to a large processual project like
Vir Valley). The work should include architectural restoration and combine a
number of disciplines: archaeology, ethnohistory, and art history (to name but a few).
The four month excursion into the region by the Reichlens was therefore inadequate
But this archaeological vacation was then the setting for the Reichlens
Revash. In order to gather their data they visited sites to back up their new system of
classifications. From their schedule it appears that they used this time traveling to
every known Chachapoya ruin along the Utcubamba drainage.190 The Reichlens tied
with Cajamarca III pottery. This phases coarse brown ware was supposedly
indicative of the early (900 AD) monumental building phase of Chachapoya culture
theoretical time period owes its existence to the Huari presence at Viracochapampa
(Fig. 6a.) on the other side of the Maraon at Huamachuco. Although it was not
specifically stated, until Ruiz made the association in 1972, the Reichlens Kuelap
phase perhaps suggests that Kuelap was constructed in response to the Huari.191 It is
also interesting how the Reichlens posit the construction of Kuelap early in the
development in, for example, ancient Egypt where the pyramids were built very early
interesting, only orders the data. There are no radiocarbon dates to back up this
The later phases of Chachapoya ceramics, Chipurik and Revash, are, according to
the Reichlins, more closely connected.193 Chipurik culture follows Kuelap and was
supposedly centered in the area of Luya province.194 Revash culture, further south,
was named for the famous ruins off the Utcubamba River near the village of San
Tomas. As Schjellerup has pointed out the late Revash style was associated with the
chullpas (funeral houses) located in the ecological zones to the southeast.195 So then
191
The Huari were an expansionistic power centered in the southern highlands of Peru in what is today
Ayachucho. They had outposts in the north and could possibly have been a threat to the Chachapoya up
to about 1000 AD.
192
See Schjellerup (1997) page 108 where she states ...Revash culture thus does not give an
impression of being a new culture.
193
Horkheimer would also note the lack of evidence for a separate Chipurik Phase. No es rasgos
suficientes para definer una unidad cultural. Horkheimer (1958) page 76
194
Henry & Paule Reichlen (1950) page 233
195
Schjellerup (1997) page 108
98
according to this chronology the early Chachapoya Kuelap phase population (circa
900 AD) excelled in monumental construction and their successors, the Revash phase
people of approximately 1400 AD, stood out for erecting elaborate funeral houses.
This is an interesting supposition but one which has never been investigated. In the
platforms.196 However at this time we do not know if the platform predated the
chullpa or visa versa. One could be inclined to think (cultural evolution) that the
funeral platform came first and then was followed by the more elaborate form, the
progression is not always sufficient. The elaborate Maya pyramids of the classic age
were followed by the smaller scale faux tower imitations of the later Ro Bec
culture.197 The buildings in this time period mimicked the massive constructions of an
earlier age. They had to because Ro Bec culture lacked the manpower and the
expertise of the Classic Era Maya and these people could no longer construct the
earlier forms. In other words they just couldnt build things like they did in the old
days.
then perhaps earlier on the Chachapoya built elaborate chullpas (Fig. 16a.) and in the
196
There are also free standing chullpas, see Olsen, Ronald L., Old Empire of the Andes, the Myron
Granger Archaeological Expedition in Natural History, volume XXXI, #1, 1931
page 21
197
Proskouriakoff, Tatiana, An Album of Maya Architecture, University of Oklahoma Press, 1963,
pages 51-53
99
later eras these complex constructions gave way to the more architecturally modest
platform. Muscutt has pointed out that funeral platforms could have been staging
areas for the presentation of Chachapoya mummies.198 Theatrical use of ancestors was
recorded from Inca history and is a common theme in Andean studies. 199 Therefore,
Muscutts suggestion could mean a more visual ritual developed as the Chachapoya
abandoned the chullpa. I will continue with speculations concerning this topic later,
but my point here is to note that we have no firm ground on which to categorize
Chachapoya funeral sites. No systematic study has ever been done, and even today
we are still in the discovery mode when it comes to these sites. So the Reichlens
Phase II and Chachapoya Phase III. This naming would eliminate the ambiguous and
misleading aspects of their sequencing, and yet provide a framework for the
development of different styles of ceramics over the long six hundred year history of
The Reichlens, like Langlois, used the record of Valera (recorded in Garcilaso) to
explain the Inca conquest of the Chachapoya. They refer to an Inca presence in the
recording an Inca presence at Kuelap was the result of a failure to uncover Imperial
artifacts or again implied another conclusion. This conclusion would be that Kuelap
198
See Muscutt, Keith, Cueva de Osiris: A Pictograph Site in the Peruvian Amazon in Rock Art
Papers, Ken Hedges editor, San Diego Museum Papers, volume 6, #24, 1988, page 110
199
See, for instance, Dillehay, Tom D., Tombs for the Living: Andean Mortuary Practices, Dumbarton
Oaks, Washington D.C., 1991, and for the Inca customs see Cobo, Father Bernabe, Inca Religion and
Customs, University of Texas Press, Austin, 1990 [1653], pages 39-43
200
See Reichlen & Reichlen (1950) page 243. McGraw, Oncina, Sharon and Torres Ms (1996), page
1, have the Reichlens excavating at the southern end of the settlement of Kuelap and perhaps the
position of their dig had an effect on their findings.
100
was an early Chachapoya construction and because of the absence of any record of
this great architectural achievement during the Inca or Spanish conquests of the
region, we should assume the settlement was abandoned many years before the
Spanish arrived and possibly much earlier. But the Inca presence at Kuelap and the
possible Huari threat to the Chachapoya were two topics the next archaeological
In the late sixties and early seventies Arturo Ruz Estrada carried out
applied to the ruin more than thirty years earlier. Ruz, like Langlois, did not treat the
colossal walls and structures of Kuelap as all inclusive. Whereas Langlois explored
Kuelap proper and then ventured to ruins a few hours hike from the perimeter, Ruz
was the first scholar to explore the immediate vicinity outside the ruins walls. He
therefore brought to light the site of Malcapamba (300 meters from the southern end
of Kuelap with 23 circular structures), la Barreta (370 meters to the north with three
platforms), Pampalinda (500 meters east of the main entrance with 25 structures) and
finally the enigmatic el Imperio (300 meters further east from Pampalinda containing
Again Kuelap was not a large redoubt sitting isolated on a hilltop but instead had
auxiliary settlements in the immediate vicinity. The traditional lone fortress on a hill
Ruz also enhanced our knowledge of the ceramics at Kuelap. He did not really
elaborate on the ceramic sequence of the Reichlens, but instead created a completely
different categorization. Ruzs chronology began with the Early Intermediate Period
Cancharin Phase ceramics (100 BC-600 AD). The Cancharin Phase was followed by
the Pumahuanchina contemporaneous with the Middle Horizon Andean time frame
(600 AD-900 AD) and linked chronologically to the Reichlens Kuelap Phase pottery.
Ruz then added his own Kuelap Phase which corresponded to the Late Intermediate
Period commonly associated with Chachapoya culture (900 AD-1400 AD).202 Ruz
ended his chronology of ceramics from his excavations in and around the walls of
Kuelap with a Kuelap Inca Phase. By adding this level to the ceramic sequence of
Kuelap proper, Ruz was the first scholar to definitively note material evidence of an
202
See Ruz (1972) pages 81-88 under the chapter heading Cambios Cultures for his new
chronology. For more on the Cancharin see Narvez Vargas, Alfredo Lus, Kuelap: una ciudad
fortificada en los Andes nor-orientales de Amazonas, Peru, in Arquitectura y Arqueologa pasado y
futuro de la construccion en el Peru, Victor Rangel Flores editor, Universidad de Chiclayo, 1987, page
115 and McGraw, Oncina, Sharon & Torres Ms (1996) page 1. For the Pumahuanchina see page
Narvaez (1987) page 116 and McGraw et. al (1996) page 2
203
Ruz (1972) pages 84-88 In contrast to the Reichlens earlier excavation, Ruz worked mostly in the
northern upper section of the ruin of Kuelap on building 426.(See his Excavaciones Arqueologicas
subheading Escavaciones en la Fortaleza pages 30-31) I will return to a discussion of his findings in
the northern part of the ruin later in this study.
102
Ruz also was the first (and the only) scholar to find remnants of Huari ceramics
inside the walls of Kuelap.204Even though he only recovered three fragments, this
work in the pre-Columbia Chachapoyas suggests a Huari presence projected from the
other side of the Maraon River Gorge (Fig. 6a.). Ruz found physical evidence and
threat.205 The problem with this scenario is that the Huari shards found at Kuelap were
negligible. Therefore these fragments could have been from someones heirloom or
perhaps fragments from a gift that made its way from Viracochapampa, the nearest
recorded Huari settlement, across the Maraon by trade over an extended period of
time. In other words the ceramic could have been an exotic souvenir and therefore the
material does not signify any Huari presence or pressure on the inhabitants of
By putting forward the idea that the early building phase for Kuelap began in the
Middle Horizon (600AD-900AD) Ruzs new ceramic sequence pushed the initial
construction date for the ruin back at least a few hundred years.207 Ruz also went on
to record Chachapoya-Inca ceramics at the upper northern level inside the wall at
204
See Ruz (1972) page 59 under the subheading Alfarera tipo Huari.
205
See Ruz (1972) page 93 under the chapter heading Discusiones, and also see McGraw et. al
(1996) page 2. Here they state that Ruz noting the almost total absence of Huari pottery at the site
suggests that Kuelap was built as part of a successful defense against this expansionistic Middle
Horizon culture. I think what the authors meant to say was the scant Huari material from Ruzs
excavation is indicative of a Huari presence that was perhaps expelled from the region.
206
For an example of this sort of practice see Pasztorys (1983: 250) discussion of lapidary heirlooms
being passed down in Mesoamerica from the Olmec time until the Aztecs.
207
Ruz (1972) subheading Fase Pumahuanchina page 83
103
Kuelap. These Inca style ceramics were found in conjunction with local (Ruzs
Kuelap Inca Phase) style ceramics. Of the 2,260 fragments of pottery excavated
inside the walls of Kuelap, 506 were Chachapoya-Inca shards from Ruzs Kuelap
Inca Phase.208 We will return to this finding later when I discuss the possible nature of
the Inca presence at Kuelap. Finally, when Ruz began his thesis he mentioned a site
about 800 meters from Kuelaps eastern main entrance which he revealingly
(an Inca architectural signature) at this site. Therefore this location could be important
for an understanding of the relation between Kuelap and its Inca occupiers.
Unfortunately Ruz did not present any specific data concerning this site, and no
Luis Alfredo Narvaez Vargas excavation at Kuelap in the 1980s was by far the
most modern and complete work ever undertaken at the site. Unfortunately, perhaps
approach regressed to the inside the walls approach of the early visitors. In the
report from his excavation, Narvaez listed sites from Ruzs survey of the immediate
vicinity of Kuelap.209 However, this early nod was the only archaeological treatment
these locations would get because while Narvaez mentioned this other sectors in his
final commentary as rural extensions of Kuelaps urban core,210 all his archaeological
work was completed inside the walls of the ruin of Kuelap. Pre-Columbian
Chachapoya studies benefit from all the archaeological attention they can get, so my
208
See Ruz (1972), Descripcin de la Alfarera page 39 and later in the chapter page 71 subheading
Alfarera Inca.
209
See Narvaez (1987) page 116
210
Narvaez (1987) page 140
104
Narvaez was responsible for documenting the number and layout of Kuelaps
buildings (420 circular (see reconstruction Fig. 16b.), 4 rectangular and 1 square) in
generally are more accurate and precise than previous efforts. Narvaez discussed the
previously proposed the rectangular structures of the upper level indicated an Inca
presence inside the walls. Again the rectangular form is common for Inca
at the ruin and he remarked that they had a western orientation and were located just
above the perimeter wall.213 The U shaped architectural structure is an ancient and
ubiquitous Andean form probably as old as civilization in this part of the world.214
The exact reasons for each Andean cultures use of the form are a subject of debate,
but the general theme is that the U shaped form often had a public function.
Narvaez envisioned these structures as niches for an ancestor mummy that had
architecture at Kuelap were the rectangular structures (Fig. 11a. & Fig. 11b.), all
located on an upper level in the northern part of the site, and an enigmatic inverted
211
Narvaez (1987) page 118
212
Narvaez (1987) pages 118 & 135
213
Narvaez (1987) page 136
214
For a good discussion of the ancient and ubiquitous U shaped form in Andean Studies see
Keatinge, Richard W., Peruvian Prehistory: An overview of Pre-Inca and Inca Society, Cambridge
University Press, 1988, pages 85-93. For a discussion of the form in a specific culture (Chimu) see, for
example, Moore, Jerry D.(1996) pages 205-209
215
Narvaez (1987) page 136
105
cone-like structure, located in the southern part of the ruin, called the tintero (Fig.
9a.). The tintero has this name because of its ink pot shape (Fig. 9b.).216 Narvaez
labeled a tower structure, the torren located on the upper northern level, as clearly
On the upper northern level of Kuelap, Narvaez documented 2,500 round sling
stones, carbon fragments that were probably used for night vigils, pieces of axes and
that clearly some sort of conflict occurred on this upper northern level of Kuelap.
Narvaez went on to conclude, like Langlois before him, the term fortress for Kuelap
should be abandoned and the ruin should instead be called a fortified city. Narvaez
envisioned Kuelap being a city of about 3,000 inhabitants and this great pre-
Columbian architectural project was built over a five hundred year time period from
216
McGraw, Oncina, Sharon and Torres Ms (1996) would go on to assert, convincingly, that this
structure was a solar observation device or sunturhuasi. Pages 7-10
217
Narvaez (1987) page 121
218
Narvaez (1987) page 122
106
CHAPTER SIX
Kuelap occupies a large portion of a hilltop about a four hour walk up from the
town of old Tingo, 219 located on the banks of the Utcubamba River (Fig. 3a.).
Because the vertical distance covered is about one thousand meters, this is a steep
four hour hike. A difficult unpaved road, with harrowing drops, also leads to the site
from the town of Tingo. I say difficult because the traveling time to the ruin by car or
truck is, for now, about equal to the travel time walking!
Kuelap rises and falls with the highland terrain almost as if it were a natural extension
of the hill. Kuelap has no straight lines and therefore seems strange to have been
fashioned by human hands. Instead the construction looks grown. (for example Figs.
1a, 1b, 4b & 10b) The ruin undulates, so the altitude varies depending on where you
stand inside the walls. But the approximate average altitude for Kuelap is 2,900
meters or 10,000 feet. For a reference, consider the height of Mount Washington in
New Hampshire is only 6,288 and Mount Hood in Oregon is only about a thousand
feet higher in altitude than Kuelap at 11,239 feet. Huascaran, the highest snow capped
peak in Peru and one of the greatest climbs in the western hemisphere, pushes 23,000
feet.
219
This is the lower town of Tingo. Nuevo Tingo is located on a hill a few hundred meters above old
Tingo, and the town was built after an earthquake destroyed the original pueblo.
107
Werthemann, the German engineer who visited Kuelap in the late eighteenth
latitude.220 The ruin itself has a north/south orientation the same as the direction of the
major ridge lines in this region. This orientation is interesting because it places the
entrances and vistas of Kuelap along the most important heading in this part of the
extreme change of climate from wet low east to high and dry west and as I detailed in
chapter two, the major changes in this regions climate and topography occur
traveling in this direction. The highlands of Peru do increase in altitude the farther
south one would travel, but this change is more gradual then the dramatic latitudinal
differences. These variations are, again generally speaking, high dry puna and
mountains on the western side of the Maraon giving way to high swampy jalca and
lush mountains to the east which then decline into rainforest. Kuelap stands on a ridge
which bisects this passage. From the western wall of Kuelap one can see the dividing
range which descends into the hot, dry and deep Maraon River Gorge then onward
to the western cordillera. From the eastern wall you can look out to the high green
eastern cordillera which plunges into montaa and finally the Amazon basin. The ruin
itself is located high enough to see these distances, but Kuelaps great altitude
prohibits any vista of the local river valleys below. However, Kuelap is visible from
many of the pre-Columbian sites above the Utcubamba River. Jalca Grande is more
than a days walks from Kuelap, yet standing at the site Kuelaps walls are
prominently seen in the distance. Indeed Kuelap is unmistakably visible from many
points along the main pre-Columbian trail in this area. The pre-Columbian trail above
220
See Ruz (1972) page 6, chapter heading Localizacin Geogrfica de Cuelap
108
the Utcubamba runs north/south along a ridgeline of hills located on the eastern side
of the river.221 The walls of the ruin are also clear from the modern western highway
going up to the Yumal Pass and then the Vilaya Valley. This valley is replete with pre-
Columbian ruins and today it is a major tourist attraction for the Chachapoyas region.
As I mentioned in chapter two Kuelap shares the dry/wet seasonal changes that
occur every year in the Chachapoyas region. May through to about September is the
dry season with October to April the time of rainfall. The southern hemisphere winter
months of February and March are the height of the rains and by far the worst months
to travel in the region. During Bandeliers waterlogged stay at Kuelap, the weather
was so foul he proposed a secondary purpose for the walls of Kuelap: prevention of
soil erosion which could result in destruction to the settlement.222 That being said, the
central part of the Utcubamba region where Kuelap is located can be very dry in the
June to August time frame. In this season the area then becomes parched and the
hillsides brown. The only plants that thrive during this arid season are the agaves
(both blue and green) and the cacti. During this Chachapoya summer223 the slash and
burn fires, set by the campesinos to clear and fertilize their fields, often blaze out of
control.
221
Dr Peter Lerche fist pointed out this trail to me, which runs through his hacienda, and recently
(September 2003) the trail was surveyed by a team from the Museum in Leymebamba.
222
Bandelier, (1940) page 27
223
Chachapoyas, like all South America, has reversed southern hemisphere seasons, but this
mountainous area shares our summer. The people in the region often refer to the period June through
August as their summer and, much to their chagrin the Chachapoya schoolchildren, their vacation
period January, February and March is the time of incessant rain while their coastal contemporaries
relax in the summer sun.
109
The ruin of Kuelap is surrounded by an enormous wall. (Fig. 1a.) The wall varies
in size from 10 meters to 19 meters or about 39 to more than 60 feet. The wall is
actually a fieldstone shell filled with a rubble core. The distance through the wall by
passageway into the site is more than 20 meters. (Figs. 10a. & 10b.) These walls lack
parapets; I will return to a discussion of the defensive necessity for this form in the
next chapter.224 Again the outer wall shell of Kuelap is made up of large limestone
blocks that can weigh up to three tons each.225 Schjellerup has proposed that the use
of lithic architecture based on large uniform cut lime stone blocks in the pre-
in the Middle Horizon.226 Muscutt has rightly pointed out that Kuelaps perimeter wall
is actuality the faade of a faux terrace.227 In other words, the perimeter wall is a
human attempt at creating an artificial cliff. (Fig. 4a.) Imagine a natural hilltop
location being transformed by Chachapoya engineers by adding stones (and fill) and
canting the slopes. This is perhaps the most accurate description of the construction.
The north/south length of the settlement is approximately 580 meters (more than six
football fields) and the east/west width varies from a fat 100 meters to a skinny 60
meters (about an Olympic pools length).228 Kuelaps overall plan is said to be cigar
shaped however, Bandelier called it an irregular trapezoid.229 (Fig. 1b. & Appendix
F) No other known Chachapoya site has a perimeter wall on the scale of Kuelaps.
224
See Narvaez (1987) page 120
225
See Muscutt, Keith, Warriors of the Clouds a lost Civilization in the Upper Amazon of Peru,
University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, 1998, page 13
226
See Schjellerup (1997) page 238
227
See Muscutt (1998) page 13
228
These measurements round Langlois measurements, Langlois (1939) page 30, and Ruzs
measurements, Ruz (1972) page 22 subheading La Fortaleza.
229
Bandelier, (1940) page 26
110
Many Chachapoya hilltop settlements have some sort of border wall.230 Consider
the ruin of Teya which is about a five hour hike from Kuelap. This site is seldom
visited, and because of the lack of protective status, could perhaps become a future
pre-Columbian casualty. (In other words the encroaching modern world has taken a
heavy toll on this site.) The border wall of Teya is shown in Fig. 17a. Although the
stonework is in a horrible state of repair, the walls of Teya never exceeded a few
meters in height and were probably only about 2meters thick. The height of this wall
was roughly the same few meters. The perimeter wall of Teya pales then in
comparison to Kuelap. Indeed no other Chachapoyas site has walls close to the scale
of Kuelap, and other details, like the channeled entrances, make Kuelap a true
anomaly.
Kuelap has three main entrances. These gates permit and restrict access through
the perimeter. (Figs. 10a. & 10b.) I say restrict because there are only three of these
small passageways constructed through the 580 meters of the outer walls
circumference; therefore they naturally limit access to the site. The main entrance is
on the southeastern side of the site. A second passage is located directly across the
settlement from the primary entrance. These two entrances are symmetrical opposites:
southeast vs. southwest. (Fig. 10b.) The southwest entrance proceeds out to a very
steep drop which is a characteristic of Kuelaps western side. (Fig. 4b.) In other
located on the northeast side of the wall. This opening leads to the upper level which I
230
Parsons, Hastings and Matos M., noted that 80% of their Late Intermediate sites (in the southern
Peruvian Highlands) had some sort of wall. (page 331) I am using this data because no similar survey
has been completed like this in the Chachapoya region. See Parsons, Jeffrey R., Charles M. Hastings,
and Ramiro Matos Mendieta, Rebuilding the State in Highlands Peru: Herder-Cultivator Interaction
during the Late Intermediate Period in the Tarama-Chinchaycocha Region in Latin American
Antiquity, vol. 8, #4, pages 317-341, 1997
111
have referred to in previous chapters and will discuss in detail shortly. All the
entrances are channeled passages which use natural slopes and man made steps in
unison. They are womb-like gateways that narrow as you enter the ruin. Bandelier
aptly noted the most striking feature of Kuelap was its entrances, 231and Langlois
added they were completely different from anything else he had seen in all his travels
in Peru.232The entrances are only a few meters in diameter each and as I stated earlier
levels. The larger lower level makes up the preponderance of the Kuelaps area. The
lower level is accessed by the three main entrances previously discussed. This lower
Circular dwellings are a characteristic Chachapoya form ubiquitous in the area. These
sort of structures have been considered a typical architectural of the Late Intermediate
meters.
These circular houses have no windows and because of this a hole in the cone like
thatched roof has been suggested for ventilation. Although this style of roof is
speculative and can be traced to French traveler Charles Wiener. Wiener observed a
circular house standing and in use in the community of la Jalca Grande in 1881. But
231
See Bandeliers Journal in AMNH page 266
232
See Langlois (1939) page 33
112
the Jalca Grande community was transplanted into the region during the Inca era;
Nevertheless this now destroyed Jalca house has been used as the template to
reconstruct the Chachapoya houses. (Fig. 16b.) The houses were made of stones with
Chachapoyas region.
The floors of these structures are flattened earth with a stone lined chamber in the
center. Schjellerup has pointed out this feature is a very important part of Chachapoya
architectural style.233 These pits could have been used for warmth or perhaps cooking.
I should emphasize here that even though these structures were used for shelter the
preponderance of waking hours for the Chachapoya were probably spent outside
these habitations.
Forms for the buildings varied with some having two entrances but most having
one. A few of the constructions were not perfectly circular, but instead more in the
shape of a D.234 Some of the buildings were and are adorned with gutters and frieze
work. The friezes at Kuelap are inlaid stone geometric forms which ring the lower
parts of the buildings like a necklace. (Fig. 18b.) I will discuss these friezes shortly.
The lower level of Kuelap has one rectangular construction located near the
entrance to the upper level. This structure is divided by a wall into two compartments.
Two U shaped structures are also located on the lower level south of the third
233
Schjellerup (1997) page 127
234
See Narvaez (1987) pages 122-123. The D shaped form is also a hotly debated topic in Andean
studies. See, Ochatoma & Cabrera in Religious Ideology and Military Organization in the
Iconography of a D-Shaped Ceremonial Precinct at Conchopata from Andean Archaeology II (2002)
113
(northeast) entrance.235 But by far the most enigmatic building in the lower level is the
tintero situated in the far southern end of the site. (Figs 9a. & 9b.) As I mentioned
before the tintero was named for its curious ink pot shape. Werthemann noted a
human head low relief sculpture near the tintero during his visit to Kuelap in the 19th
century. He suggested these sculptures, still in situ today, could represent the sun and
the moon. Also, Werthemann said that the stones on which these friezes are carved are
granite. Werthemann identified the quarry for these stones as being near the Maraon
River, a good two days journey away.236 However Werthemann could not have been
certain this specific quarry was used by the Chachapoya. (How? What was his
tintero is a solid construction about 14 meters in diameter and 5.5 meters high. The
building has a bottle shape empty core which led Narvaez to hypothesize the tintero
ceremonial function to the structure but as I pointed out earlier the recent attribution
Oncina, Sharon and Torres Ms has won many converts and placed Werthemann in a
The upper level of Kuelap represents less than one tenth of the settlements total
area. This elevated plane dominates the far northwest corner of the site. (Appendix F
upper right) Entrance to this area is restricted to a passageway which bisects the
235
See Ruiz (1972) pages 134-137
236
See Werthemann, (1892) page 150
237
See Narvaez (1987) pages 138-139
114
located in the upper pueblo, along with two of the previously cited U shaped
forms. The northern part of the upper level contains about 25 circular structures. The
rectangular structures lack the stone lined chambers of the circular dwellings. The
circular constructions are clustered south of Kuelaps highest point: the torreon.
Narvaez called this tower clearly defensive in nature and he added it was 7 meters
high and shaped in the form of a D. (Fig. 20b.) This tower provides by far the best
observation point in the entire site, both looking out and looking in,238 (Fig. 20a.) and
as I discussed earlier, the area surrounding the torreon norte was also the location
when Narvaez discovered the 2,500 sling stones and the other evidence of conflict or
warfare. Every time I visit the ruin of Kuelap I have the impression of being on a ship
floating above the Utcubamba Valley below. Whereas others have seen a cigar shape
and considering the ruin a ship, I would then add that the northern upper platform
other words the work took place in the upper level. In particular Ruz was concerned
with a building 426 at this upper level location. Again in his excavation Ruz found
506 fragments of Kuelap Inca pottery (Cuzco polychrome A) in this location. For
comparison of fragments consider that in this same area Ruz recorded 1,057
fragments of his Kuelap C pottery and three trace Huari pot shards.239 Ruzs work,
important as it is, was not aided by a large archaeological grant. His survey was
238
Narvaez (1987) page 121. Langlois also observed that this area dominated the dwellings below. Also
Langlois (1939) page 39
239
Ruz (1972) page 28 & pages 57-70
115
completed more than thirty years ago as a tesis de bachiller for the Universidad
Nacional Mayor de San Marcos. So here I am not concerned here with Ruzs new
ceramic sequence, even though it improves on the Reichlens earlier work. I have
presented his data to point out that a substantial amount of Inca style ceramics were
Kuelap was packed with tombs and funerary imagery. This is understandable
because the Chachapoya were obsessed with the placement of their dead. Chachapoya
chullpas, often constructed on to the face of some impossibly sheer cliff have been
fascinating visitors to the region ever since Englishman Joseph Skinner made these
funeral houses known to the western world in 1805.240 The Reichlens Revash Phase
ceramic sequence was named after a spectacular funeral site near the Utcubamba
River, and the discovery of the Laguna de los Cndores mausoleums recently brought
worldwide attention the Chachapoya region.241 Funeral sites were first recorded at
Kuelap when Judge Juan Crisstomo Nieto recorded elite mausoleums and cliff
burials in the report from his initial investigation of the ruin in 1843.242 Werthemann
found mummies at Kuelap and later in the century Bandelier recorded them interred
in the eastern perimeter.243 Both Narvaez and Langlois recorded possible cemeteries
in Kuelaps upper level. Narvaez called one of the ruined rectangular buildings a
240
Schjellerup (1997) page 56 and Skinner, Joseph, The Present State of Peru, London, 1805
241
For the sensational Laguna de los Condores find see Adriana Von Hagen & Sonia Guillen, Tombs
with a View, Archaeology 51, #2, April, 1998
242
See Kauffmann Doig (2003) pages 142-143
243
Werthemann (1892) page 150 & Bandelier (1940) page 35
116
(grave robbers).244 Langlois diagramed a funeral area just north on the torreon plaza
and added that he was told precious metals had been excavated from this site.245 But
by far the most startling mortuary finds at Kuelap were the over one hundred burials
that have been found placed in the ruins colossal walls. 246 These interments need to
be studied in conjunction with the Chachapoya penchant for cliffside funeral sites. To
put it more precisely, do the walls of Kuelap have some connection with the
constructions from the sacred cliff locations: the sites where the Chachapoya
routinely put their dead? I will continue the discussion of this line of thought in
chapter seven.
rhomboid shapes and another separate zigzag design. (Appendix E) In 1995 Peter
Chachapoyas region, which was later elaborated upon by Inge Schjellerup. Lerche
read the symbolism as zoomorphic, and he associated the rhombus with the eye of a
predatory cat and the zigzag with the movement and coiling of a serpent. The cat
predators in this part of the Andes, but the assignment of a serpent designation to the
chapter seven.) Schjellerup has added that the invasion of the Incas, and the
244
Narvaez (1987) page 136
245
Langlois (1939) the diagram is on page 42 and text on page 44. One has to wonder who the
excavators of this precious metal artifacts were considering there is no other record of sumptuary
goods found at Kuelap
246
See Narvaez (1987) page 118, Von Hagen (2002b) page 18 and Muscutt (1998) page 16
247
Calancha, Antino de la, Cronica Moralizada. six volumen. Ignacio Prado Pastor, 1974
117
this generic frieze work. In other words Schjellerup suggests that the Chachapoya
necessity for this imagery increased after they experienced the destabilizing effects of
Inca occupation.248 The zigzag form of frieze is ubiquitous to the entire area of the
pre-Columbian Chachapoya from the northern Utcubamba to the less known southern
Chachapoyas area which contains the ruins of Abiseo. It is the most widespread and
commonly used Chachapoya symbol. The rhombus shape is rarer and is mostly seen
in the area north of the town of Leymebamba. Other variations on these simple
geometric shapes have been recorded, but a step fret like design, prominent in the
Although zoomorphic significance has been suggested for the first two simple
friezes (cat eye/rhombus and zigzag/ serpent) the only positive zoomorphic
high mountain bird was probably the shape for the major Chachapoya deity
Chachapoya ruin of Abiseo, Gran Pajaten. (Fig. 21b.) This elaborate representation is
seen only in the southern area of Abiseo and not in the Utcubamba drainage. The
other elaborate representation from the Abiseo area is decidedly anthropomorphic and
248
See Lerche (1995) pages 49-51 & Schjellerup (1997) page 37. Lerches iconography is interesting,
but Kuelap, does not have an indigenous dangerous or large serpent. Further east in the ceja de selva
there are very venomous snakes and the community of Chilchos recorded a fatality two years ago
(personal conversation with the villagers) but the Utcubamba area has a benign reptilian population.
Jaguars (very rare in even the most remote parts of the montaa) and puma disappear in direct
proportion to the arrival of man, so even the pre-Columbian Chachapoya population would have taxed
the food supply and endangered these predators. Of course the people could still have used this power
imagery even though the symbols had no real authority. For example, we in the US often use symbols
(animal and human) for sports teams that we have almost all but destroyed.
249
Espinoza Soriano (1967) page 235
118
it displays a human central figure with headdress. (Fig. 21a. Compare this frieze with
easiest identifiable forms are human heads and coiled lines. The human head near the
tintero is perhaps Kuelaps most famous artwork because of the stylized face. The
cheeks of the individual are puffed out; the eyes are rendered with a distant gaze. The
overall effect of this sculpture has been suggested as resembling someone under a
narcotic-like effect, perhaps he is chewing coca. Today most campesinos chew coca
leaves (with tiny amounts of the mineral lime) to ward off fatigue, thirst and hunger
and break the monotony of their laborious existence. Chewing coca is roughly their
equivalent of our cigarette break or perhaps in this more health conscious era, having
an energy drink. In pre-Columbian times chewing coca was a way of life that
permeated all aspects of culture. Today the chewing of coca is a pastime associated
only with the working class, but in Museums we have artifacts which indicate coca
was also an elite habit in the pre-Columbian era (chewing paraphernalia made from
precious materials). Therefore it is likely that the face depicted on the stone of the
The coil reliefs are small (about a foot). The most visual is carved on one of the
large stones at Kuelaps main entrance. Other forms from the site are geometric and
they resemble eyes and a line curled in at each end. These shapes seem related to the
I want to close this chapter with a discussion about water. As I cited earlier the
summer months (June-August) can be very dry at Kuelap and there is no natural
water source at the site. Today the visitors who climb up, or who decide to stay
overnight at the Instituto Nacional de Culturas hotel, must either bring their own
water or purchase refreshment that has been brought in to the site. In the 19th century
Werthemann suggested the holes in the floor seen in many of the Chachapoya circular
comparing these wells to similar forms he saw in the Great Pyramid of Egypt, 251but
these holes were most probably used for the fire which provided warmth for cooking
and comfort. Again Langlois believed the external gutters of the houses provided a
temporary source of water but he saw use for this system only in the case of
referencing a 17th century colonial text. This record chronicled the inhabitants of
From this document Espinoza Soriano proposed that water for Kuelap was
laboriously carried on a daily basis up from the Utcubamba River to the settlement.252
On the surface this suggestion defies logic. If Kuelap was a community of 3,000
251
Werthemann (1892) page 150
252
Espinoza Soriano (1967) page 236
253
Narvaez (1987) page 140
120
water stress the settlements population? I would suggest (I will discuss this idea
And finally keeping within the water theme, three Chachapoya ruins dot the
upper banks of the Utcubamba River a thousand meters below Kuelaps heights.
These sites Condorchaca, Tunich and Macro lay at the confluence of three of the
areas rivers: the Utcubamba, the Tingo and the Yuyac. These lowland and
the Late Intermediate Period has exceptions to this categorization, but the utter
holistic study of the confluence of these rivers, including the ruins of the lower
254
Personal conversation 7/03, for good overview of the confluence of these rivers see the IGN map of
Chachapoyas, J631, 1358, (13H)
121
CHAPTER SEVEN
THEORIES
Previous studies concerning Kuelap have been marked by three flawed premises.
The first faulty premise is a pan-Andean assumption that the Late Intermediate Period
in the Andean Highlands was a ubiquitous time of localization and discord. The
second is that most prejudiced Inca accounts of the warlike Chachapoya are more
chapter two, criticisms of the Andean chronology and the use of a horizon approach
122
to classify cultures, which privileges expansionistic polities, are not new. In the early
to find a way out of the now oppressive temporal framework within which we
work256
But the standards for categorization put into play by this temporal framework persist.
been eradicated from Andean studies. For example, from the discussion of the record
concerning Kuelap (chapter three) we know there is no historical account of the site
ever functioning as a fortress. So, even though the evidence from chapter three
reveals that a martial history for the site is an artificial construct, Kuelap to this day
buttress this erroneous conviction. With its sixty foot walls and hilltop location,
to this mindset the static defense offered by Kuelaps walls must be a response to the
uncertain era of fighting which defines the Late Intermediate Period. However it is
Who was the enemy that Kuelaps walls were made to defend against?
255
See Latin American Horizons, Don Stephen Rice editor, Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and
Collection, Washington D. C., 1993
256
See Silverman, Helaine, Introduction: Space and Time in the Central Andes, In Andean
Archaeology, edited by Helaine Silverman, Blackwell Publishing, Malden, MA, 2004
123
Soriano offered one of the most imaginative foes when he suggested wild animals
could be the impetus for Kuelaps massive perimeter wall.257 Obviously, against any
beastly adversary, a camp fire would have had accomplish the same function as a
sixty foot wall. The history of contact between people and predators clearly
demonstrates that the inhabitants of Kuelap would have killed and eaten any four
legged threats to their community. Mankind has been securely atop the food chain for
at least the past 10,000 years. Surely the community of Kuelaps inhabitants could
have formed a hunting party with far less effort than undertaking the construction of
60 foot walls. Espinoza Sorianos more serious proposal was that Kuelap was built in
response to raiders from the general vicinity.258 But again the idea the threat and the
time necessary to form the defense needs consideration. In other words couldnt any
the world has ever seen, the Great Wall of China, was no deterrent to the northern
nomadic raiders. Stopping the raiders took the efforts of the Emperor Han Wu Ti, who
assembled a fighting force to deal with the attackers.259 However these Chinese
defenders were pitted against a force equipped with lighting quick horses and tactics.
The suggested raiders attacking Kuelap would have done so on foot. Therefore escape
257
See Espinoza Soriano (1967) page 234
258
See Espinoza Soriano (1967) pages 235-236
259
Barfield, Thomas J., The Perilous Frontier: Nomadic Empires and China 221 BC to AD 1757,
Blackwell Publishers, Cambridge MA, 1989
124
and evasion, with captives in tow, would have been an impossible task for these
Andean raiders.
Perhaps Kuelaps perimeter wall was erected in response to a large outside enemy
force threatening the region? The short list of candidates for such an excursion during
the time period AD 800 until the arrival of the Inca has one prominent nominee: the
Huari. Earlier in chapters two and four I mentioned Ruz Estradas suggestion that
Kuelap could have been constructed in response to the advancing Huari threat. The
southern Peruvian centered Huari polity created an outpost far from the center of their
Chachapoya territory on the western side of the Maraon River gorge (Fig. 6b.). The
Huari colony in this area, Viracochapampa (Fig. 6a.), places this expansionistic state
on the fringes of the Chachapoyas, but aside from ceramic shards and textiles of
Perhaps we need to look in the opposite direction and consider a threat to the
Chachapoyas from the eastern lowlands? Schjellerup did just this when she cited
evidence from local oral tradition at Kuelap, and used her findings to suggest that fear
wall. Specifically Schjellerup hypothesized that this perimeter could have been
Jivaro260 But whereas a trade network was probable from lowland to highland (and
visa versa),261 any hostile pressure from the selva (jungle) was unlikely. Certainly any
260
Schjellerup, (1997), page 238
261
Although no definitive study has been published, the Chachapoya probably had some kind of
exchange network with lowland people from the selva. In Native Lords of Quito in the Age of the
Incas, (pages 102-102) Frank Salomon applied the quechua term mindales to great effect. Mindales
125
lowland threat did not warrant a construction on the scale of Kuelap. Consider, for
instance, Schjellerups suggestion of the lowland Jivaro. These forest dwellers would
have had to navigate upriver an enormous distance (against the current of many
different chilly rivers) to exert any pressure on the Chachapoya. Any force would then
have had to scale heights of about a thousand meters in order to attack the cold high-
altitude Chachapoya settlements. This would have been a daunting task for the Jivaro
(or any other lowland group) accustomed to a tropical climate and topography.
What about the idea then of conflict between different Chachapoya ethnic
groups? Could interregional warfare have been the catalyst for Kuelaps perimeter
balkanized conflict in the Andean highlands from 1000 AD until the arrival of the
Inca, would have us believe this scenario. However, to counter this mindset, we only
warfare was ubiquitous during this time in this region, then how long could the
defenders of Kuelap resist a dry season siege without a water source inside the walls?
The inhabitants would have had to climb down to the Utcubamba for their water
during an attack. And keeping this thought, how then do the indefensible ruins of
Macro (Fig. 8a.) and Condorchaca, located directly below Kuelap, just above the
banks of the Utcubamba, fit into this supposedly hostile environment? These ruins do
were a merchant Indian class but he added that evidence for these groups south of Quito is scarce.
However the burials offerings in the Museum at Leymebamba and the Chachapoya sites that line the
entradas (entrances into the rainforest from the highlands) are indicative of exchange and could be
attributed to these mindales. Salomon, Frank, Native Lords of Quito in the Age of the Incas,
Cambridge University Press, 1986
262
DAltroy (2002) page 206
126
generalize about the entire Andean highlands from time period 800-1400 AD. But
florescence of complex social interaction during this era. The intricacy of architecture
from this part of the Utcubamba River valley provides traces of political
sophistication.
culture when he observed that the large amounts of manpower necessary for the
Unfortunately, we are left with only the scarcest remnants of the Chachapoya culture
and language. What has come down to us through history is a biased Inca record of a
and other sites in the immediate vicinity, could possibly remain a mystery.
But there are pre-Columbian models which are instructional. These models can
be applied with effect to Kuelap. I want to enlist a study of naturalistic forms from the
263
Brush, Family the Economy and Human Ecology of an Andean Valley, University of Pennsylvania
Press, 1977, page 44
127
mound at La Venta. Up until this time that Heizer presented his work, the Olmec
mound had been considered a pyramid, a common form in Mesoamerica. But Heizer
added that the mounds natural fluting and roundness could be an imitation of a
volcano found about seventy kilometers away in the Tuxtla Mountains.264 Elizabeth
Columbian studies, when she presented her book Mochica: A Culture of Peru. In her
work she suggested that Moche platform mounds were constructed to imitate sacred
In his quote Bawden tied the construction of synthetic alpine Moche mounds to Jerry
Moore had earlier assigned the qualities of permanence, scale, centrality, ubiquity and
coast architecture to great effect. Similarly, all of these classifications also work in
264
See New Observations on La Venta in Dumbarton Oaks Conference on the Olmec, Elizabeth P.
Benson editor, 1967, pages 19-20
265
Benson (1972) page 98
266
See Joanne Pillsbury (2001) page 289
267
Moore, (1996) page 223
128
underscores its permanence. Kuelaps scale is obvious. And Kuelap can be seen from
all surrounding hilltops. Therefore the site can easily be characterized by the qualities
mountain. Instead I suggest that the architects of Kuelap formed the perimeter walls
in imitation of a cliff! (Fig. 4b.) Like the small arid mountains and hills that rise up
on the coast of Peru near the Moche centers, the ubiquitous natural form in highland
Chachapoyas is the cliff face. Natural canyons line the terrain in this part of the
northeastern Andes. These lush gorges were the preferred location for Chachapoya
significance for the Chachapoya. So why not consider Kuelap a mimetic cliff? If we
make this assumption, then Kuelaps architecture could have been a man-made
attempt at imitating the ultimate powerful and ubiquitous form of this region.
Kuelaps perimeter wall is actually the faade of a faux terrace (Fig. 4a illustrates this
nicely).268 So the wall is not really a wall but instead an artificial mound with a steep
sides resembling a precipice.269 This mound contained more than one hundred
cliffside funeral sites.271 Parsons, Hastings and Matos M. have aptly pointed out that
268
See Muscutt (1998) page 13
269
Again it is helpful to remember Heizers identification of fluting and the round form as suggestive
of a natural form (a volcano). Kuelaps perimeter is not a wall, but an artificial terrace, which perfectly
imitates a cliff!
270
See Narvaez (1987) page 118, Von Hagen (2002b) page 18 and Muscutt (1998) page 16
271
With burials contained in the walls would they then be defensive? Would the Chachapoya want
attackers to first encounter their sacred dead? It is possible they could have considered the dead a first
line of defense, a ghostly moat, but considering pan-Andean concepts of reverence for the dead and
specifically the careful placement of the Chachapoya dead in chullpas throughout the region I think
this would be unlikely.
129
whatever defensive function the walls in the Late Intermediate Period settlements had
they also played some significant role in public ritual. The authors went on to
specifically note the importance of public ritual setting of the tomb/wall at Kuelap.272
mistake!
The perimeter wall of Kuelap has impressed every visitor to the site for the past
one hundred and fifty years. But how good is a sixty foot wall defensively which
completely lacks parapets? Without these ramparts a large wall loses its defensive
qualities because it then affords cover which would conceal an enemys advance.
(Consider Fig. 22., the Inca fortress Saqsahuaman. This structure allows defenders to
see over the barrier and yet the stonework affords cover.) Theresa and John Topic
have noted: There is a longstanding misconception that a high wall implies a defense
function. Certainly a high wall serves as a barrier but true defensibility requires the
presence of a parapet.273 Narvaez wrote that he found no clear evidence for these
first glance the defense would be sound but a quick probe by the enemy would reveal
272
See Jeffrey R. Parsons, Charles M. Hastings, and Ramiro Matos Mendieta, Rebuilding the State in
Highlands Peru: Herder-Cultivator Interaction during the Late Intermediate Period in the Tarama-
Chinchaycocha Region in Latin American Antiquity, vol. 8, #4, (1997) pages 331-333
273
Topic, John & Theresa, The Archaeological Investigation of Andean Militarism: Some Cautionary
Observations, in The Origins and Development of the Andean State, edited by J. Haas, S. Pozorski,
and T. Pozorski, Cambridge University Press, 1987, page 48
274
Narvaez, (1987), page 120
130
Finally, perhaps the most compelling evidence for fortelaza Kuelap was the
discovery of 2,500 sling stones in the upper level by the excavation of Alfredo
Narvaez in the 1980s. This cache of stones was almost certainly a weapons store of
projectiles. Small smooth stones, able to fit in the palm of the hand, were a pre-
defensive positions. These stones were fired from a sling not unlike the device used
by the Biblical David to defeat Goliath. The 16th century chronicler Felipe Guaman
Poma de Ayala illustrated this weapon numerous times in drawings which he sent to
the King of Spain in 1615. But Pomas only depiction of the Chachapoya shows them
meeting the Inca sling man with clubs and spears (probably made of Chonta palm)
(Fig. 13.). The Chachapoya warriors have distinct headbands, which could be used as
slings, but in this Guaman Pomas drawing these are not employed either indicating a
Poma.275 But even though the Chachapoya order of battle is lost to us, the importance
and use of the sling by the Chachapoya in warfare comes to down us from Valera
their [the Chachapoya] principal weapon was the sling, of which they wore the
emblem on their headdress.276
important to note that the sling stones discovered by Narvaezs team were found on
275
See pages 85, 121, 187 and 251 in Guaman Poma Nueva Cornica Y Buen Gobierno, prologue by
Franklin Pease (1993) volume 1, for examples of the Inca preferred use of the sling in battle. Page 124
of the same volume shows the Chachapoya fighting the Inca. (Guaman Poma de Ayala, Nueva
Cornica y Buen Gobinero, edicin y prlogo de Franklin Pease G. Y., vocabulario y traducciones de
Jan Szemiski, Fondo de Cultura Econmica, Per, 1993 [1615])
276
Garcilaso de la Vega, The Incas: The Royal Commentaries of the Inca, Avon Books, 1961 [1609],
page 296
131
the upper northwest level of Kuelap near the tower (torren). This upper level is the
sector of Kuelap which contains most of Kuelaps rectangular structures (Fig. 11a.).
(compare Fig 16a. to Fig 16b.) In fact this form of construction is so ubiquitous to
settlement, I would immediately presume that the structure had some kind of funerary
think the corner in a Chachapoya construction could be compared, with great effect,
to the basements of our houses. A basement is a room in the ground. The smell, the
quiet and the lack of air are not our ideal living space. These conditions do signal
foreboding or more exactly death. How many stories of death and ghosts emanate out
from the basement? I understand many people do live in basements, I myself resided
in a in ground apartment for a year, but given a preference I imagine nine out of ten
people would opt for an above ground dwelling. Some would be able to articulate
specific misgivings but I think many, even without specifically saying so, would find
So then we know that more than ninety five percent of the four hundred or so
Chachapoya funeral houses are located affixed to cliff faces. Kuelap on the other
hand is a hilltop settlement and circular buildings are predictable. Also we must
remember there are more than 100 burials in the faux cliff face that is Kuelaps
132
perimeter wall. The inhabitants of Kuelap did not need chullpas (funeral houses)
In fact the rectangular form is often an Inca footprint in this northern part of the
Andes. Is it possible then that the rectangular constructions predominant on the upper
level are indicative of permanent Inca presence? More precisely could the
constructions and cache of arms signify a garrison of conquerors inside the perimeter,
occupying and scrutinizing the settlement below? Kuelaps sling stones were always
imagined for use outside the wall, but the northwest tower complex is the most
impregnable section of the site. The entire northern wall of Kuelap is protected by a
steep cliff making any artificial defense almost redundant. This sector however looms
over the dwellings in the settlement below like the bridge of a ship. (Fig. 20a.)277
suggesting here is the possibility that the hoard of stones could have supplied an
armory of occupying Incas. If this was the case the stones were not projectiles to be
used against a force outside the perimeter wall, but they were to be used against the
enemy within. In other words the weapons were for the Inca force to check disorder
and coerce the Chachapoya within and not to quiet disorder from without!
the midst of their Chachapoya subjects. For example, data from Inge Schjellerups
excavation at the settlement La Pea Calata (Fig. 8b.) reveals an Inca structure
plunked in the middle of this Chachapoya site. She added that other Inca structures
277
French General Louis Langlois noted how the upper level dominated the lower city. (1939) page
39
133
were built below the site,278 but imagine for a minute the intimidating and
disenfranchising effect of an Inca force placed in the midst of the conquered. This
imperial tactic of coercion echoes though the past in examples as diverse as northern
Roman garrisons, Saharan Foreign Legion outposts and Vietnam fire bases. But
returning to the Andean region, Andeanist Fernando Plaza Schuller noted Inca
Plaza Schullers study specifically cites Inca cooption of native forts and their
subsequent reuse as Inca imperial installations. So far I have stressed that the
evidence of Inca capture and reuse of indigenous fortresses would then undermine my
argument. But suppose the Inca, like almost all 19th and 20th century visitors, never
saw past the walls. In other words the Inca perception was akin to the previously
mentioned mind set which originated with the initial Spanish conquerors from late
Medieval Europe. Recall this type of thinking labels as a fortress any building with
stone enclosures and a few entrances situated in broken terrain.280 In other words the
Europeans had their medieval fortresses as a reference point but the Inca had an
equally secure point fortress prototype in Saqsawaman: their large hilltop citadel just
above Cuzco. An Inca outpost placed on top of Kuelap, in the midst of the most
symbolic power and security of Kuelap in the region! Additionally this recycling
would in effect provide a secure base for the imperial occupation. The best example I
278
Schjellerup (1997) page 176
279
See Plaza Schuller, Fernando, El Complejo de fortalezas de Pambamarca in Serie Arqueologa, no.
3, Instituto Otavaleo de Antropologa, Otavalo, 1980
280
Gasparini & Margolies, 1980, page 280
134
can propose which imagines Kuelaps realignment by the Inca is the common
pre-Columbian site near modern Bolivar (about a five day walk south from Kuelap).
This site is today called Pakariska (Fig. 5b.) Quechua for ancestor or forefather, but
this is obviously not the original designation for the site. The pre-conquest (Inca)
name for Pakariska is probably lost because that name would have been a
Chachapoya name and not a Quechua name. Pakariska rises from a plane in the
shadow of the mountain Cajamarquilla. The ruin is oriented on a north/south axis just
like Kuelap. The north end has a tower like construction which has a similar look and
feel to Kuelap. Pakariska has never been excavated, but there are rectangular
area of stiff resistance to the Inca imperial army.281 It is then possible that this site,
which dominates the plain around Bolivar (Cajamarquilla), could have been co-opted
as an Inca outpost. If so, perhaps Pakariska was a prototype for the tower complex
addition to Kuelap.282 Pakariskas tower area certainly has the appearance of a fortress
from almost any perspective and the heights of the site provide great visuals of the
positioned above the vertically distant Utcubamba it is useless as a lookout point for
the valleys below. But Pakariska is only a few hundred meters about the major access
point connecting the eastern cordillera with the western decent to the dry Maraon
281
Garcilaso (1961) [1609], page 298
282
Dale McElrath considered the significance of this ruin in his 1975 paper Preliminary Report of
Excavations in the Uchumarca Valley: North Highlands of Peru. My observations are from my
fieldwork in the summer of 2003, with special thanks to Peter Lerche.
135
River Gorge. Pakariskas strategic visual advantage is profound. Even though I would
suggest that Kuelap and Pakariska served completely different functions for the
Chachapoya, it is possible they were enlisted to serve somewhat similar ends by the
Inca.
Indeed I have illustrated that a martial historiography concerning the site is a modern
of the ruin of Kuelap until 1843 when the site appears as the mislabeled Tower of
Babel. Then what was the settlement of Kuelap? If Kuelap wasnt a hilltop citadel
what purpose did Kuelap serve? To understand this we need to go back to my earlier
suggestion that the perimeter wall was faux cliff symbolizing power. If this is the case
then who were the powerful people living inside this perimeter, and why would the
Inca want to scrutinize them? Again we are dealing with a complete absence of any
record concerning these issues. However, a Mesoamerican model can once more be
applied to this discussion with some effect. This time we need to refer to the hilltop
settlement of Monte Alban in the valley of Oaxaca (Fig. 12a.). Early studies
terrain upon which it is built. Today the classic era Monte Alban settlement is
partially autonomous local polities. This capital must be able to transcend local
Chachapoya society was never a polity on the level of complexity like that
established in the ancient Valley of Oaxaca, Kuelap fulfills the criterion outlined
above. If the perimeter wall of Kuelap was in fact a man-made cliff, what could be a
better regional symbol of power, or what could offer a better generic placement for
Kuelaps walls create a neutral burial space which while constructed would also be
Cemetery. The prestige of interment in this location would trump any loss of status by
geographical displacement. Additionally, the site of Kuelap has a building like Mound
J at Monte Alban (Fig. 12a.) which has been postulated as a solar observatory like
Kuelaps tintero (Fig. 9b.).285 Although this comparison seems somewhat contrived,
imagine the universalizing effect of solar observation. Even in the complex world we
live in today the solar observatory is universally accepted architectural form that
brings together disparate groups of people. Simply, pondering the cosmos unifies us
earthlings. In the instance of Kuelap, Monte Alban, the Maya etc, the solar
observation would have had a unifying effect on the inhabitants of this hilltop site.
Whereas the architectural form listed above would break down barriers between
ethnic groups, Kuelaps three channeled entrances are signs of the exclusiveness of
the site. These passageways symbolize restricted access into the site (Figs. 10a &
284
See Blanton, Richard E., Ancient Oaxaca: The Monte Alban State, with Gary M. Feinman, Stephen
A. Kowalewski and Linda M. Nicholas, Cambridge University Press, 1999, page 65
285
See McGraw, Oncina, Sharon and Torres Ms, (1996) for the tintero and Kubler, George, The Art
and Architecture of Ancient America: The Mexican, Maya and Andean Peoples, Yale University Press,
New Haven, 1990, pages 162-163 for the calendric significance of Mound J
137
10b.). This admission was likely limited to a chosen few. Blanton, Kowalewski,
Feinman & Finsten noticed a similar limit of access at Monte Alban when the wrote
the entire plaza complex could be entered only through three narrow, easily guarded
this logic we should then intuit that the restricted access at Kuelap is indeed similar.
Outside the perimeter wall of Kuelap was the powerful image of a man made cliff.
This construction was and is seen from miles in all directions. But access inside the
wall to structures like the tintero was restricted to the elite inhabitants. Perhaps the
most compelling evidence for the high social status of Kuelaps inhabitants is the
has no natural source of water, and Mesoamerican scholars have assumed for a time
all water was laboriously carried up to the population.287 Espinoza Soriano suggested
this seemingly ridiculous but (I believe) plausible assumption more than thirty years
ago when he wrote about the hilltop llactas of Chachapoyas, and in particular
Kuelap.288 But the problem underlying Espinoza Sorianos argument is the question,
who were the water bearers involved in this daily routine? Kuelap imagined as a
slaughtered during a siege. But supplying an elite settlement with water could easily
be accomplished by a large group of workers assigned to this daily task. But where
would these retainers live? To answer this question we need to refer to the discussion
286
See Blanton, Richard E., Ancient Mesoamerica: a Comparison of Change in Three Regions, with
Stephen Kowalewski, Gary M. Feinman, and Laura M. Finsten, Cambridge University Press, 1993,
page 93
287
See Blanton, Feinman, Kowalewski & Nicholas (1999) page 50
288
See Waldemar Espinoza Soriano (1967), page 236. Espinoza Soriano uses the colonial account of
Gonzalo Fernndez de Oviedo & Antonio de Herrera which specifically refers to water bearers from
the province of Nasaya.
138
recorded by Ruz in 1972. Imagine these buildings as dwellings for the inhabitants
Lahuancho was the home of the water bearers. This scenario provides circumstantial
I want now to discuss an Inca prejudice which has thrived for almost five
hundred years: the Chachapoya, located in Northeastern Peru, and the Caari, their
far northern neighbors centered in highland Ecuador, are the same ethnic group. Their
common ethnic trait, according to the slanted Inca viewpoint, was their distain of
order which manifested itself in their penchant for warlike barbarity. I believe this
Inca doctrine was fundamentally flawed and it developed from their frustration in
controlling the Northeastern extremes of their Empire. This frustration led to a basic
disdain for the defenders of this fertile pramo Andean environment and a subsequent
cover for alarming events has a familiar ring to the modern reader but this technique
was also used actively in the pre-Columbian world. For example the Aztecs spun
the details surrounding their ignominious defeat at the hands of their bronze wielding
neighbors the Tarascans.289 Later in this chapter I will provide an Andean example of
imperial propaganda when I discuss at length the brother of Topa Inca, Inca Achache
and his metaphorical battle with a jaguar. The purpose of this elaborately graphic
289
Pasztory (1983) page 52
139
story was to create of a victory out of the misguided Inca military campaign into the
unconquerable rainforest.
But to begin a discussion of the Inca disdain for the defenders of the pramo
Andean environment, we need first to return to Carl Trolls discussion, later enhanced
by Frank Salomon, of puna and pramo Andes. (Appendix C)290 Trolls original idea
was that the lack of rainfall and natural resources of the high and dry southern puna
crystallized in the formation of the Inca Empire.291 In other words the puna Andean
ethnic groups of the Late Intermediate Period near Cuzco banded together to form the
Inca Empire. They reached this imperial critical mass because their environment was
deficient in natural resources. After this cohesion the now imperial southern puna
Andean highlanders attacked outside their realm in order to conquer terrain with, for
criticized the down side of Trolls argument which implied that the resource and water
rich pramo Andean groups, which the Inca conquered, were basically too fat and
happy to concern themselves with empire building.292 I am not concerned here with
racist overtones (indeed Trolls original text seems very much to conform to the 1943
publication date). Instead I want to look at this argument from again another
perspective which is: the resource abundant pramo Andean reputation for ferocity
and belligerence stemmed from the necessity to resist an occupation which had little
or nothing to present in return. In other words these areas were not the dry and barren
290
See Chapter two
291
See Troll, Carl, Die Stellung der Indianer-Hochkulturen im Landschaftsaubau der tropischen
Anden, Ztsch. Ges. F. Erdk. Berlin, 1943, pages 93-128
292
See Salomon, (1986), pages 22-29
140
southern Andean sphere which could benefit from Inca rule.293 These areas only
Presented with these enormous stakes it would be natural for the larger northern
Andean ethnic groups to vociferously resist and, given the opportunity, revolt. It
would also be expected for the Inca to be contemptuous, almost to the point of
racism, of this resistance because such opposition to their imposed order would seem,
to them, the willfulness of brutish barbarians. This one sided Inca imperial perception
served as the vehicle upon which the Chachapoya, hopelessly entangled in Inca
records with their northern pramo neighbors the Caari, entered our history. As I
mentioned earlier the Chachapoya and Caari are two distinct ethnic groups. Their
territories were located hundreds apart in what is today northeastern Peru for the
Chachapoya and highland Ecuador for the Caari. However these distinct pre-
Columbian ethnic groups were, and are, always lumped together as the epitome of
warlike Late Intermediate Period peoples. For instance consider Guaman Pomas
drawing of the Inca military leader Challcochima: one of his several hundred
depictions from his 16th century visual ethnography (Fig. 13.). In this four hundred
year old picture the Inca captain is shown in a graceful attacking mode fighting
animalistic Chachapoya and Caari hordes.294 The two groups are imagined as one
we consider that the two groups were conquered during the northern campaigns of
293
Refer back to Bruce Owens & Marylin Norconks appendix 1, page 110 in Earles (1987)
Archaeological Field Research in the Upper Mantaro, Peru 1982-1983. In their table the older burials
increase which is indicative of a longer life span. On page 101 there is also an interesting discussion of
the nutritional benefit of increased protein (camelid) consumption among non-elites after the Inca
conquest.
294
See Guaman Poma (1993) page 124
141
Topa Inca.295 But we are left with a lack of differentiation in the record between these
groups and the wars against them in these regions. It was in this manner that the
We also know from the colonial chronicles that the Chachapoya and the Caari
were prized for their service as Inca Emperors personnel guard. The justification for
this selection was again their supposed toughness and aggressiveness. However
Thomas Patterson has noted an aspect of Inca upward mobility which could explain
the Chachapoya penchant for service as bodyguards. Patterson observed in the Inca
state the development of a plunder economy which rewarded the exploits of a soldier
class. This plunder economy offered a means for advancement and accumulation of
wealth for soldiers in the Inca Empire. If we then remember this scheme of reward for
service and apply it to a conquered lord, and his finest fighters, we then can see that
the personnel guard had a powerful incentive to serve the emperor. Even though the
destructive Inca system afforded their rewards is secondary to the prominence they
gained. In other words the job of loyal retainer, in service of the Emperor, must have
(Remember this occupation was also dismantling their pramo environment). So the
studies to this day. The erroneous concept of the Chachapoya as natural born fighters
295
See Garcilaso (1961) book eight
296
See DAltroy, (2002) page 219 and Patterson, Thomas C., The Inca Empire: The Formation and
Disintegration of a Pre-Capitalist State, Berg Publishers, New York, 1991, page 58
142
contributes greatly to the label fortaleza Kuelap.297 This mythical image of ferocity is
promoted in modern day Chachapoyas to improve tourism. The strong and fierce
perhaps intentionally, a climate receptive for hardy Andean tourists (the regions
principal visitors). For the Caari, although they are far from my specialty, the
misleading stereotyping seems no better. For example, this ethnic group was recently
Before finishing this chapter, we need bring into question the geographic limits
of the people the Inca called the Chachapoya. As I have now stated numerous times,
we inherited the Andean pre-Columbian setting from the Inca imagination. But this
Inca-centric worldview failed to measure the scope and territorial complexity of the
four parted whole. Unfortunately the area of the Chachapoya did not fit seamlessly
into this Inca worldview. Chachapoyas was highland. But Chachapoyas was surely
also forested montaa. This mountain cloud forest is basically dense jungle at
297
Oberem & Hartmann noticed this continuing mixing of Chachapoya and Caari almost thirty years
ago. See Oberem, Udo & Roswith Hartmann, Indios Caaris de la Sierra Sur del Ecuador en el Cuzco
del Siglo XVI, in El Cuzco del Siglo XVI, Seminar fr Vlderkunde, Universitt Bonn, 1976
298
See the 22nd Northeast Conference on Andean Archaeology and Ethnohistory paper entitled Trans-
Pacific Contact in the Ecuadorian Gulf of Guayaquil?
143
but we do know of the existence of at least one important site: Abiseo. Chachapoya
scholars have documented only a fraction of the Chachapoya sites in the eastern
montaa. But whereas the extent of the Chachapoya influence is this region is
unknown, their presence was assured. Many of the funeral sites and hidden
country. On the other hand, Chachapoya highland sites, 2,700 meters and above, are
common and known. These highland locations are often cold and isolated while the
montaa sites are temperate and wet. The highland sites also lack the heavy forested
cover which nature lavishes upon the montaa settlements. Clearly then, when we use
the Inca delineation of the world we find that Chachapoyas encompassed two corners
cited land of plenty, coveted by the Inca. This is the area of temperate rainfall, replete
with corn, which collectively resisted Inca domination. But Chachapoyas also
extended into the eyebrow of the jungle. This was the boundary of imperial Inca
influence. The montaa was an area of limitless cloud forest which shrugged at
colonization and military might. The montaa was an expanse where the largest
military ever assembled in the history of South America, the Inca army, proved
ineffective. Schjellerup has recently compared an elite Inca compound in the eastern
montaa location of la meseta to an oasis in the dense forest.299 This site must have
seemed a green wilderness on the edge of the world for the unfortunate Inca colonists.
The Incas fruitless venture into antisuyu, or the forest, has antecedents in history
both real and imagined. Events like the ill-fated El Dorado Expedition of the
conquistador Alvarado and the fruitless attacks of Joseph Conrads fictional man-of-
299
Schjellerup (2003) page 263
144
war in Heart of Darkness are but a few examples. But where their armies failed, Inca
legendary history triumphed. For example, according to the chronicles the brother of
Topa Inca, Inca Achache, carried the day for the Emperor when the people of the
antisuyu revolted. In this insurrection Achache supposedly killed a jaguar that had
attacked him and ate the raw meat of its flesh in front of his rebellious enemies.300
Achache demonstrated that he was more ferocious than the most powerful jungle
predator by killing the jaguar. The predatory symbol of a cat epitomizes all that is
powerful in the selva. But Inca Achache also engaged in a sort of barbaric one-
upmanship by eating the uncooked cat. This action is so fearsome and revolting even
uncivilized and ferocious lowlanders fled in terror from the sight. Symbolically then
neglecting the highland part of the Chachapoya territory. For instance, the importance
of the feline, and the snake, has been emphasized in Chachapoya art even though the
best. The cat as a universal Chachapoya symbol is somewhat grounded,301 but the
sierra was and is not snake country. Currently, for instance, it is possible to search
under rocks and find a serpent at Kuelap, but this task would likely take all day and
the result would be a creature less then intimidating. For a feline example we need
300
See Betanzos (1996) page 141. The jaguar is a notoriously stealthy predator an even today, with
modern tracking equipment, sighting this animal is considered a privilege. I presume many Inca
soldiers used some system to corner and kill this animal in order to use it as a psychological tactic
against their enemy. Of course the story could be a complete fiction and the skin perhaps obtained
through trade.
301
Von Hagens article Chachapoya Iconography and Society at Laguna de los Cndores, Peru cites
the oncilla (a Central American term for felis tigrina) as having a range up to 3,200 meters. This
species is what we would call a tomcat or a small bobcat, so they are like wild versions of domestic
pets. In the Utcubamba area they refer to this feline as tigrina, and although I have never seen one, I
image many of these sightings are really abandoned domestic cats gone feral. For Von Hagens
reference see Silverman and Isbell (2002) page 151.
145
only to refer to the red puma. At present the red puma of the ceja de selva lives a
precarious existence on the fringes of the Chachapoya region. If the cat is seen, in
what is today a remote and sparsely populated area, it would be hunted down and
eaten. It is likely that the highland cousin of this feline disappeared hundreds of years
earlier, and, as I previously discussed, a predator like this would have been greatly
the Andes would simply not have been tolerated by humans at the top of the food
chain.
(Fig. 18a. shows both designs), we can see that this iconography fails to resonate
throughout the entire realm. This iconography flirts with the lowland carnivorous
animal influence on highland areas first suggested in Chavin studies.303 But I believe
not the sierra, and until a link is established from lets say Chavin to Recuay and then
Adriana Von Hagen, a detailed report and analysis on the symbolism of many objects
found in the famous Laguna de los Cndores archeological rescue operation, is much
302
Garcilaso mentioned that there were lions in the pre-Columbian Andean environment but they were
not numerous in the highlands. He also recorded that the Incas reduced the number of wild cats by
hunting. Garcilaso (1966) page 518
303
Burger (1992) page 150
304
I will however remain open minded because both George Lau Northern Exposures: Evidence for
Recuay-Cajamarca Interaction, 23rd Northeast Conference on Andean Archaeology and Ethnohistory,
Yale University, November 12-14, 2004 & Alex Mantha Late Prehispanic Households and Settlement
Patterns of the Rapayan Valley, Upper Maraon Drainage, Central Andes of Peru, 23rd Northeast
Conference on Andean Archaeology and Ethnohistory, November 12-14, Yale University, 2004, are
working on these topics.
146
in the same vain.305 Von Hagens work outlined the early influence of pre-Columbian
cultures west and east, but in her study relies on the impact of the eastern montaa
images and their importance in Chachapoya art. Von Hagen emphasized these feline
representations on vessels and textiles. She also emphasized a mummified cat interred
with the mummies from the Laguna de los Cndores. Von Hagens iconology
resonates perfectly with Lerches cat eye and rhombus association. However, for the
time being, I want refrain from emphasizing of such predatory animal icons. I am not
ignoring the animal iconography, but instead I prefer to look at another more human,
and more firmly grounded, source for the geometric frieze work of Chachapoya
first discuss the sumptuous finds at the Laguna de los Cndores and cliffside
Adriana Von Hagen has presented a number of papers on the material goods
rescued from the looters at the Laguna de los Cndores. Above I mentioned that Von
Hagen chose primarily to concentrate on the textiles and ceramics from the site and
305
See Von Hagen Chachapoya Iconography and Society at Laguna de los Cndores, Peru in
Silverman and Isbell (2002) pages 137-155
306
Extreme topographical changes over relatively short distances, foster an environment where
legendary exploits and assumptions, whether reasonable or not, move from the imagination into reality.
In this shift the fiercer and stronger are always on the other side of the mountain. For Example, on the
Peruvian coast the Serrano is the subject of myth, while the highlanders in turn romanticize the eastern
lowlands. Today in the center of South American tourism (Cuzco) tour agencies push jungle excursions
to travelers who have yet to acclimatize to their mountainous surroundings. The lowland with its
mystery and teeming life serves as a perfect foil to the highlands. Anthropologist Michael Taussig has
remarked that even though the Qollahaya medicine men of northern Bolivia regard the lowlanders of
the hot eastern Andes as inferior naked Indians, these people are the source of their power: plants
essential to their medicine. Therefore the power and reputation of the lowlands even supplants
prejudice, a most resilient human belief system. Taussig, Folk Healing and the Structure of Conquest
in Southwest Columbia, in Journal of Latin American Lore, 6:2 (1980) page 230
147
not on the architecture of the chullpas, or the nearby cliff face rock art. Von Hagen did
present a brief treatment of some of the pictographs from the lake in an earlier
Laguna de los Cndores article, but again her concentration was on the funerary
discussion of these sites based on as yet incomplete data. However, even though our
these paintings have faded over time and therefore they have become large
indecipherable red ink blots on the cliff face. However, some of these paintings are
legible enough to reveal at least their outline and some content. If I presented a theme
common practice in pre-Columbian South America. For example the Initial Period
site of Cerro Sechn contains stone friezes replete with depictions of severed heads,
and the later Paracas and Nazca cultures elevated headhunter art to an unprecedented
level of beauty and status. In Chachapoyas art the theme is also prominent. For
example, Keith Muscutt recorded headhunter renderings on the artwork of the cliffs
of la Petaca. Muscutts photos clearly illustrate the headhunter and his victim. His
307
See Von Hagen (2002b) pages 39-40
308
Muscutt has done some pioneering work with chullpas in the eastern montaa, and the future of
these studies looks promising. At the Primera Conferencia Internacional sobre el Arte, la Arqueologa
y la Etnohistoria de los Chachapoyas, held at the museum in Leymebamba (August 2003) the scholars
Jose Ruz Barcillos and Ken Nystrom both presented excellent new archaeological studies.
309
Chullpas are funeral houses: buildings. Funeral platforms are less architecturally complete
versions of chullpas but I will reluctantly combine them in this discussion for simplicitys sake.
148
shots of the red paintings show a victorious figure presenting a trophy head next to
what is apparently the losers spasmodically contorting body.310 This content of this
imagery was reinforced by the recent discovery of headhunter motif at the site of
Quinta Cocha (just above the Laguna de los Cndores). This site has a moving
headless victim gushing fountains of blood from his severed neck. The victim is
literally dancing like a chicken with its head cut off! When I was first shown photos
from this site someone in the room suggested the victim was a stylized dancer. This
benign iconographic reading also occurred at the Mesoamerican site of Monte Alban.
depictions of dancers and therefore these sculptures were named danzantes (Fig.
12b.). Later analysis indicated the figures were not dancing but instead they were
detached from the head. In other words the headhunter tradition would have
illustrated the macabre movement of the headless body. I therefore want to suggest
the head as the center of being to the Chachapoya. Support for this line of thought is
easy to discern in Chachapoya art, religion and symbolism. Many Chachapoya ruins
are replete with low relief stone renderings known as a cabezas clavas. (Fig. 14b.)
These carvings are often referred to as nail heads because of their long cylindrical
form and architectural placement, which calls to mind a nail being driven into a
310
See Muscutt (1998) page 53. Unfortunately we do not have any dates associated with the cliff art.
However, stylistically speaking the art is certainly Chachapoya. The proximity to the chullpas with a
holistic compositional effect adds to this identification.
311
See Coe, Michael D., Mxico, Praeger, New York, 1977, page 64
149
board. Typically, the imagery of these cabezas clavas consists of two bulging eyes
and a jaw displaying prominent teeth. (Von Hagen has pointed out these forms
resemblance to Early Horizon era Chavin Teton heads).312 Again their theme is head-
centric. Continuing on with this line of thought, many Chachapoya cliffside red
funerary paintings, tucked away in the green slopes east of the Utcubamba River
Valley, prominently display an eye.313 Again the theme here is vision. In addition to
the nail head sculpture I have previously cited, low relief carvings of stylized heads
are found inside the walls of Kuelap. (Appendix D. f,g,h,i, & j) Indeed one of these
heads adorns the wall of a building the tintero which has been postulated as a solar
observatory.314 If correct then this artistic placement links the head and sight with the
Artistic depictions of heads are really the only known manifestation of the human
form in Chachapoya artwork except for the abstract and stylized full body frieze work
found in the ruins at Abiseo and small human forms from the Chilchos lintel (now in
the Museum at Leymebamba). But in the sculptures from this lintel, the head is
proportionally equal to the figures entire body and the full body friezes of Abiseo do
not illustrate cats or snakes. Instead this art work is anthropomorphic! (Fig. 21a.)
These works mimic the common Andean artistic convention of an oversized head
dominating the form. Examples are easily found in the smiling god from the New
Temple at Chavin, the staff god on the Gateway of the Sun at Tiwanaku, and the
figure atop a Sicn tumi knife in the Miguel Mijica Gallo museum in Lima. In
312
Von Hagen has referred to a least one of these heads as feline. (See Von Hagen Chachapoya
Iconography and Society at Laguna de los Cndores, Peru in Silberman & Isbell (2002) page 150)
313
Muscutt has noted this painting does not appear west of the montaa. See Muscutt, Keith, Vira
Vira: A New Chachapoyas Site in South American Explorer, with Vincent Lee and Douglas Sharon,
1994, page 6
314
See Narvaez (1987) page 133
150
addition, Chachapoya funeral sites provide other links to the head and its senses. For
instance, why did the Chachapoya inter their dead in cliffs? The precipitous
selection of cliff interments highlights the sense of sight centered in the head. These
cliffs are also good natural amphitheatres and from these locations voices can carry
over great distances. This phenomenon again stresses a cranium-centric sense: human
speech. Keith Muscutt has even suggested some funeral platforms could be a stage for
heredity and power staged from these lofty perches. We also know that when the Inca
arrived in the region they appropriated these venerated Chachapoya sites. The
Laguna de los Cndores discovery revealed that the Inca removed Chachapoya dead
from the chullpa to make space for their own deceased.316 Perhaps this repositioning
even caused the end of the previously suggested performances and could have
prominent head design stressing eye, nose and mouth. Lerche has proposed that when
these mummy bundles were placed in a typical wooden plank Chachapoya coffin a
carved figure of a head was placed at the top of the interment.317This artwork could be
315
See Muscutt, Keith, Cueva de Osiris: A Pictograph Site in the Peruvian Amazon in Rock Art
Papers, Ken Hedges editor, San Diego Museum Papers, volume 6, #24, 1988, page 110
316
See Von Hagen Chachapoya Iconography and Society at Laguna de los Cndores, Peru in
Silverman & Isbell (2002) page 142
317
Personal communication 7/02
151
elements as associated with the head? The rhombus, in all its forms, would, of course,
be the eye component. (compare Figs. 14a. & 18a. right frieze) The zigzag I suggest
is teeth! (compare Figs. 14b. & 18a left frieze) As I have stated the jagged teeth
element is a common theme for Chachapoya nail heads.318 This feature highlights the
mouth and the process consumption or sustenance. This symbol was the most widely
spread form in the pre-Columbian Chachapoyas. Why not? The mouth and teeth are
in the Chuquibamba area Schjellerup noted that the dental conditions of the
population showed teeth and jaws were functioning up until old age and from an
examination of the remains of the inhabitants, the population appears to have eaten
well in life.319 Chinchasuyu (or the corner of corn production) was the breadbasket of
part of this Inca designated corner of their Empire. Frank Salomon has even
suggested that acquisition of Chinchasuyus abundant corn production was the reason
for the Inca conquests in this northern part of their realm.320 The term Chincha (maybe
the same as chicha), could perhaps reference corn. Corn beer which was a prized elite
drink in Andean pre-history. Consumption, the primary purpose of the mouth and
318
See Muscutt (1998) page 40 and Von Hagen (2002b) page 19
319
See Schjellerup, (1997) page 225
320
See Salomon, (1986) chapter #1. Again Salomon amplifies Trolls idea of puna and pramo Andean
ecosystems, the puna being high dry terrain suitable for only tubers and pasture and the northern
pramo characterized by rainfall and agricultural abundance.
152
Continuing on with the elements of the head analogy we then come to the
stylized step fret (Fig. 15b.). This design is manifested in the decoration of buildings
at Abiseo and los Pinchudos. I see this artwork as representative of the human ear
(compare Figs. 15a. & 15b.). Some wooden sculptures in the Museum at
ears which mimic this fret design (Fig. 7b. shows this sculpture without ear
piece).321In the 1990s Lerche brought the previously mentioned Chilchos wooden
But, most importantly for the purposes of this discussion, is the fact that the
anthropomorphic figures from the two ends of this sculpture have a stylized ear
Chachapoya forms that adorn the outside of many of their circular structures. Also,
course having another way of considering the art of the Chachapoya can only be
beneficial but I would also suggest that not only are the identifications more simple,
they also are less grounded in the predator symbolism of antisuyu. This iconography
frames these geometric design forms more in human terms. The artwork decorating
the buildings of the Chachapoya could also be indicative of the mitigation of the
unified polity. Small groups thriving on hostility toward each other is almost a
321
See Von Hagen Nueva Iconografa Chachapoya de la Laguna de los Cndores, in Iconos #4,
(2000-2) page 13
322
See Lerche (1995) page 69
153
universal form for the practice of headhunting.323 But could a group or a people
remaining so belligerent build a structure like Kuelap? Is it possible over time the
became more stylized. Is this indicative of a Chachapoya cultural shift from an early
the scale of Kuelap? More precisely is the artwork indicative of cultural cohesion and
covers a time frame of at about five hundred years. The expansionistic Inca Empire is
typically assigned less than one fourth of this duration. Andean pre-Columbian
according to the Late Intermediate Period stereotype, the Chachapoya, and all the
other neglected highland cultures of this era, are envisioned as a brutish and warlike
assembly of fractious communities that unify solely in response to the Inca invasion.
embodied by references to the puma and the snake, which has been assigned to the
Chachapoya artwork, the evidence cited in the previous discussion also supports the
elements of a head reading. This iconography does not rely on cult-like predator
symbolism which reinforces an enduring and timeless vision of ferociousness and its
propaganda. This dubious representation of the Chachapoya gained a life of its own
from colonial history to the present. The result of this propagation was the creation an
323
See Pasztory, Esther, Pre-Columbian Art, Cambridge University Press, 1998, page 109
154
image of the Chachapoya which was both cult-like and opaque and the stuff of legend
and myth. Blas Valeras reference to the strong men324 of Chachapoyas became
distorted into an image of relentless warriors. This vision was far removed from the
aborted.
CHAPTER EIGHT
CLOSING REMARKS
About a decade ago I viewed an exhibition of the works of Henri Darger at the
Museum of American Folk Art in midtown Manhattan. After walking through the
324
Garcilaso (1961) page 296
155
show I immediately realized how much I greatly appreciated Dargers works. Perhaps
impulses. But I think what most impressed me about Dargers work was that the
exhibition was displayed in such a humble venue. The location appealed to the pre-
and ceramics for example, are consigned to the folk art and crafts sections of
museums. I was very comfortable in this unassuming locale. When I read the
curators wall mounted text I paused. Observations contained in this catalog have
the lack there of. This passage relayed that Darger, because of his difficult origins,
mastery as an artist by cutting and pasting pictures from magazines. The arrangement
and selection of Dargers unique collages brought to life the adventures of his
heroines, the Vivian Girls. What Darger lacked in formal training he made up in
imagination. In other words Darger used what was available to create his art!
156
I make no claim to being on Dargers artistic level, and I certainly would not
want to suffer his life even for any sort of artistic mastery. But I often thought of
the curators statement about using what was available, in absence of a singular
well versed in the languages necessary (Latin, Italian, Quechua etc.) for a
this function (at least in the Americas) in the sixties during the previously
anthropologist, and even though I have lived and worked for six years in
Chachapoyas I have no charts, graphs and DNA analysis to show for my efforts.
But I genuinely think of myself as wielding some of the instruments of all of the
above. I am not expert in any one of these fields. But my knowledge of the
adequately investigate Chachapoyas through the lens of any one specific field.
study. In the future Chachapoyas will provide a bounty for the graduate student
household water and food requirements for a specific kin group inhabiting
Chachapoya circular dwellings. These research papers are, for now, in the future.
languish for the next few years until the area draws the interest of well funded multi-
disciplinary projects? Do we in the field have to wait for another Laguna de los
Cndores find, and this time capitalize on the fame for the overall benefit of the
region? Certainly, the Chachapoya montaa is replete with hidden treasures waiting
for revelation. But as this dissertation has shown, even the regions most distinct and
scientific attention in the future. But this scientific investigation should be like that
Chavin de Huantar325 was an updated scientific analysis which calls to mind of the
artistic work of Tatiana Proskouriakoff four decades earlier. In her An Album of Maya
325
Kembel, Silvia Rodriguez & John W. Rick, Building Authority at Chavin de Huntar: Models of
Social Organization and Development in the Initial Period and Early Horizon, In Andean
Archaeology, edited by Helaine Silverman, Blackwell Publishing, Malden, MA, 2004
158
Architecture, Proskouriakoff illustrated the history the Maya temple Structure A-V
Proskouriakoffs drawings peeled back the phases of construction, like skin of the
employed more science than imagination but the result was the same: a deep
her team developed new technology and used a new methodology to collect data from
technology they mapped the temple at Chavin much like the imagination and artistic
societys struggle to find uses for new technological applications. After all Kembels
old-fashioned archeology: i.e., digging.328 Therefore, this high tech alternative to more
seem more and more outdated in this hyper-modern era. By hyper-modern era I mean
we need to remember that todays museum cellars are filled with stuff. Additionally
young and previously under funded governments have, of necessity, adapted a more
defensive attitude toward their patrimonial resources. Therefore the physical moving
of the earth does not seem to be archaeologys immediate future. So then if three
326
Proskouriakoff, (1963) pages 111-130
327
Kembel, Silvia Rodriguez, Architectural Sequence and Chronology at Chavin de Huntar, Peru,
Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropological Sciences, Stanford University, 2001, pages 14-16
328
See Proskouriakoff, (1963) pages 112 and Kembel (2001) page 14
159
excavations and restorations. Some of these efforts have been first-rate, like the
previously cited work of Alfredo Narvaez; however, many have not. On the
positive side I am certain that Kuelap has been cleared and dug so often that
the ruin would likely benefit from the kind of study Kembel accomplished at
help to answer many important questions. How many decades or centuries did it
take to complete the construction in its present form? What architectural forms
were completed first? How does the upper level and tower complex relate to the
settlement as a whole? With some of these answers the Theories chapter of this
studies.
Before closing this section on future studies I need to mention the recent work of
Ken Nystrom. Nystrom has contributed greatly to the field of Chachapoya studies
anthropologist, reveals that the skeletal remains he examined showed little evidence
of the internecine warfare one would expect from a people (the Chachapoya) with
such a belligerent reputation. Although Nystroms sampling of remains was small, his
results are provocative because they could begin to provide material evidence, in
160
addition to art historical musings, for the need to deconstruct our image of the
Chachapoya.329
Before closing this dissertation I want to again recall the position of the lead
inspector outlined in chapter one of this study. Remember, I selfishly positioned the
art historian as this actor, the mediator of evidence and arguments put forward by the
archaeologist (the forensic expert) and the ethnohistorian (the interrogator). This lead
inspector was, in my analogy, assigned with the task of developing a hunch from
the body of evidence which would sum up the claims and solve the problem at hand.
My hunch, put forward in this study, should by now be clear: the Chachapoya were
falsely assigned a belligerent reputation by their Imperial conquerors, the Inca. This
framing has misdirected Chachapoya studies and it has filled the blank spaces of this
lost culture with a bellicose stereotype lacking any factual basis. This stereotype has
function. Simply, our initial record from the Inca was not impartial.
alternate functions become apparent for the site. The imitation of a cliff presented in
astronomical construction (the tintero) lead to the conclusion that Kuelap was a site
329
Nystrom, Kenneth C. Warriors of the Clouds: Interface and Interpretation of Trauma from
Chachapoya, Per. 73rd American Association of Physical Anthropology Meetings. Tempe, AZ, April
23-26, 2003
161
inhabited by elites. This site was so important it was avoided during the Inca
invasion. After the Inca conquest, Kuelap was occupied but we need a better
archaeological to state more than this with certainty. Kuelap was uninhabited and
possibly forgotten by the time the Spanish arrived. Could Kuelap have been emptied
after the Chachapoya rebelled? Again we need more archaeological work. One fact
from this study is however certain. Kuelap was much more than just a fortaleza!
BIBLIOGRAPHY
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177
Fig. 3. Map of ethnic Chachapoya groups from a three river region (Waldemar
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180
Fig. 3a. Map of Kuelap and Immediate Vicinity (IGN series 1/100,000)
181
182
Fig. 4a. Bandeliers (1894) drawing of the cross section of Kuelap illustrating the
construction technique for Kuelaps walls. The right side is the western wall.
(AMNH)
Fig. 8b. The Chachapoya site of La Pia Calata just above Atuen
189
Fig. 9a. Bandeliers (1894) drawing of the tintero at Kuelaps southern end
(AMNH)
Fig. 10b. Bandeliers (1894) drawing of the main entrance, entrance at left
(AMNH)
191
Fig. 11a. A rectangular foundation for a structure from Kuelaps upper level,
north end
Fig. 12a. Building J from Monte Alban, Oaxaca, Mexico (Tulane U.)
Fig. 12b. Danzantes sculpture from Monte Alban, Oaxaca, Mexico (Tulane U.)
193
194
Fig. 13. Guaman Pomas depiction (1615) of Inca captain Challcochima fighting
an unlikely combination of Chachapoya and Caari warriors. (Royal
Library, Copenhagen)
195
Fig. 17a. Wall from the Chachapoya ruin of Teya a five hour walk from
Kuelap
(AMNH)
202
Fig. 21a. Anthropomorphic Frieze from Abiseo, Gran Pajaten (Warren Church)
Fig. 21b. Condor Frieze from Abiseo, Gran Pajaten (Warren Church)
205
200 d.C.
Lambayeque,Moche I-V,
Vicus, Lima, Wari, Recuay,
[100 - Desarrollos [355 a.C.- 400
100 d.C. Higueras, Ayacucho Huarpa,
800 d.C.] Regionales d.C.]
Rancha, Waru, Tiawanaku
III-IV
Mochica, Santa,
Lambayeque
Lima, Interlocking
Nazca A y B, Paracas [1-800
1 d.C. Auge
Necrpolis, Chanca d.C.]
Cajamarca, Santa,
Pallasca, Quilque,
Tiahuanaco, Pucar
Cumancaya, Cuelap- [0 - 1300 Desarrollo
0
Chancharin, El Salado d.C.] Regional
100 a.C. Zeidler (1994:204)
Moche (I-IV), Lima
[200 a.C.
(Maranga), Vics, Paracas Intermedio
200 a.C. - 400
Necrpolis, Huaraz, Huarpa, Temprano
d.C.]
Chanapata
[200
Moche: Sipan; Nazca:
200 a.C. a.C.- 600 Early Intermediate
Nazca
d.C.]
300 a.C.
Tefra II [355 -
355 a.C.
400 a.C.]
400 a.C.
Tigre y Shakimu, Bagua- [500 a.C.
500 a.C.
Pacopampa, Cerezal - 0 d.C.]
600 a.C. [1000-355 a.C.]
700 a.C. Formativo tardo
800 a.C. Zeidler (1994:204)
Chavn, Garagay,
[900-300 Horizonte
900 a.C. Cupisnique, Huaca Luca,
a.C.] Temprano
Pacopampa, Kotosh
[1000 -
1000 a.C. Chavin: Chavin Early Horizon
200 a.C.]
1100 a.C. [3500-355 a.C.]
Vir,Salinar,Cupisnique,
Miramar, Ancon, Nasca I -
IV,
Cajamarca I-II, Huaraz [1200
1200 a.C. Chavin (Rocas), San Blas, a.C.-100 Formativo Formativo
Chavin, Kotosh, Wayrajirca, d.C.]
Rancha, Chupas, Wichgana,
Pagallamoqo Chanapata,
Tiawanaku I-II
Complejo Mochica,
[1250
Anaranjados, Vicus, Vir,
1250 a.C. a.C.-1 Formativo
Salinar, Cupisnique
d.C.]
Paracas Cavernas
1300 a.C. Zeidler (1994:204)
1400 a.C.
209
1500 a.C.
Tefra I [1635
1635 a.C.
a.C.]
1700 a.C.
Guaape, La Florida,
[1800-
1800 a.C. Chira-Villa, Pacopampa, Inicial [3300-1500 a.C.]
800 a.C.]
Huaricoto, Kotosh
Formativo
1900 a.C.
temprano
[2000-
Inicial de Stothert (1998:
2000 a.C. Queneto 1250
Cermica Tabla 1)
a.C.]
2300 a.C.
2600 a.C.
2900 a.C.
Huaca Prieta, El Paraiso,
Chilca, La Galgada, Kotosh- [3000-
3000 a.C. Mito, 1800 Precermico Tardo
Chambira, Pandanche y a.C.]
Wairajirca
3300 a.C.
3500 a.C. [4600-3300 a.C.]
Guaape, Huaca Prieta,
Haldas, Paraiso, Encanto,
Ocucaje (Paracas), Hachas, ? [4000-
4000 a.C. Otuma, Cabeza larga, 1200 Arcaico Hiato
Kunturwasi, Kishkipunku, a.C.]
Mito, Lauricocha III, Cunas,
Chiripa Qalayu
(Stothert 1998:
4650 a.C.
Tabla 1)
5000 a.C.
6000 a.C. [9050-4650 a.C.]
7800 a.C. Precermico
[8000-
Huaca Prieta, Pampa de Salazar (1990: 95 y
8000 a.C. 2000 Pre-Cermica
los fsiles ss)
a.C.]
9050 a.C.
[10,000-
10,000 a.C. 8000 Fin de Pleistoceno
a.C.]
[11,000-
Paijan, Telarmachay, Precermico
11,000 a.C. 3500
Lauricocha, Toquepala Temprano
a.C.]
12,000 a.C.
13,000 a.C.
14,000 a.C.
Quirihuac, La Cumbre,
Paijan, Canario, Luz, Arenal,
[15,000-
Oquendo, Chivateros, Santo
15,000 a.C. 3000 Litco
Domingo, Kishkipunku,
a.C.]
Lauricocha I-II, Cunas,
Ichua Viscachani
210
[19,000-
19,000 a.C. Michinal 8000
a.C.]
Abreviaturas Abbreviations
"Fechas" a "Dates"
"antes de Cristo" a.C. "Before Christ"
"Acontecimiento/Cultura: Fase/Sitio b "Event/Culture: Phase/Site
"Desde - Hasta" c "From - To"
"Perodo/poca (Andes Centrales)" d "Period/Epoch (Central Andes)"
"despus de Cristo" d.C. "anno domini"
"Perodo (Costa ecuatoriana)" e "Period (Coastal Ecuador)"
"(y las) sigientes (pginas)" y ss "(and the) following (pages)"
"sin fecha" sf "no date"
"antes de" < "before"
"entre" / "between"
211
Appendix D Stone Carvings from Kuelap after Narvaez 1987 (Serenella Rios
Bradley)
213
Appendix E Architectural Friezes from Kuelap after Narvaez 1987 (Serenella Rios
Bradley)
214