This city, one of the largest in Peru, occupies an excellent central situation and from it diverge roads in every direction. Yet so great is the difficulty of bringing foreign merchandise over these mountain roads, that we found few shops here of any importance, and almost all seemed to be owned by natives of the country. The streets were all of the same pattern, paved with rough stones, sloping, not away from the centre as with us, but towards the centre, where in the middle there is invariably a ditch, practically an open sewer. For those walking on the sidewalk, it is certainly much pleasanter to have this ditch in the middle of the street.
In anticipation of the joys of eating and drinking connected with Carnival, Indian women with huge cauldrons of chupe and immense jars of chicha were preparing to take up all-night stands, sometimes in the centre of the street or else on a busy corner where they would be sure to attract trade. The effect of the women’s head-gear was most curious. It was exactly as though the lady had found her shawl a bit too warm and had taken it off, folded it into a square, and proceeded to carry it on her head for convenience. We went through one old crumbling archway, attracted by some beautiful clay jars, and found ourselves in a backyard that would have delighted a painter. Not all painters, but the kind that loves a natural combination of picturesque ruins, fine old jars tumbled about helter-skelter, dirty little Indian children in dirtier hats and ponchos, very much too big for them, a cat, and a long-legged pig who nosed about among the jars trying to see which one contained chicha fit to gratify his thirst.
From the tower of one of the oldest churches we secured a splendid view of the city and the surrounding country including nearly the entire region occupied by the forces of Sucre and La Serna in the week preceding the final battle of Ayacucho.
The old name of Ayacucho was Guamanga, which is said to have been a Spanish adaptation of the Inca Huaman-ca (Take it, Falcon), a name that was given to the district by an incident that followed a fierce battle in which a warlike tribe of this vicinity was defeated and almost annihilated by the armies
of the Inca Viracocha. It is said that when serving out rations of flesh to his troops after the battle, the Inca threw a piece to a falcon that was soaring over his head, saying “Huaman-ca.” However this may be, the town of Guamanga was one of the earliest to be founded by Pizarro and was later the site of a bloody encounter between Vaca de Castro, the legitimate Viceroy, and young Almagro and his followers, who had assassinated Pizarro.
The name Ayacucho was given to the town after the famous battle of December 9, 1824, which was fought near the village of Quinua, thirteen miles north. “Ayacucho” means “corner (or heap) of dead men” and refers to the bloody character of this conflict and of those that had preceded it in the Inca Conquest and in the Spanish Conquest of Peru.