Across South America / An account of a journey from Buenos Aires to Lima by way of Potosí, with notes on Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, and Peru

by Hiram Bingham

These double buildings stand transversely to the general line of the edifices and have a middle or party-wall exactly dividing the gable. It rises to the peak of the structure and once doubtless supported the upper ends of the rafters. These houses bear a striking resemblance to one of the Inca buildings at Ollantaytambo described by Squier[4] in the following words: “It is a story and a half high, built of rough stones laid in clay, and originally stuccoed, with a central wall reaching to the apex of the gables, dividing it into two apartments of equal size.... There seems to have been no access to the upper story from the interior, but there are two entrances to it through one of the gables, where four flat projecting stones seem to have supported a kind of balcony or platform, reached probably by ladders.” This description fits these structures almost exactly. There are other resemblances between Choqquequirau and the Inca fortresses visited and described by Mr. Squier. In fact, one might use many a sentence from his accounts of Pisac and Ollantaytambo that would adequately describe Choqquequirau and its surroundings. Like the buildings of Ollantaytambo, these are nearly perfect, lacking only the roof.

The two-story houses had an exterior measurement of 42 by 38 feet. Similar ones measured by Squier near the temple of Viracocha north of Lake Titicaca, were also divided into two equal apartments and measured 46 by 38 feet. The fronts of each building have two entrances and the interior of every apartment is ornamented with irregular niches within which some of the stucco still remains. The walls are irregular but usually about three feet thick, and are composed of unhewn fragments of lava cemented together with a stiff clay.

In general, all the walls appear to have been built entirely of stone and clay. The construction, compared with that of the Inca palaces in Cuzco, is

extremely rude and rough and no two niches or doors are exactly alike. Occasionally the lintels of the doors were made of timber, the builders not having taken the trouble to provide stones wide enough for the purpose. One such lintel was still standing, the wood being of a remarkably hard texture.

Probably the ruins to-day present a more striking appearance than they did when they were covered with thatched roofs.

Ornamental niches which constitute a characteristic and constant feature in Inca architecture appear on the interior of all the Choqquequirau buildings and on the exterior of a few. Some of those on the outside are of the re-entering variety. Those on the inside are of two kinds. The larger ones about five feet high reach to the floors of the apartments and are mere closets, as it were, without doors, being slightly wider at the bottom, about thirty-four inches, than at the top, about twenty-eight inches, and of varying depth, thirteen to sixteen inches. A second line, smaller and not reaching to the ground, is also found in several of the structures. There is good evidence that some of the walls were faced with stucco and possibly painted in colors. In the case of one wall that had been partly pushed out of the perpendicular by the action of time, several of the niches retained almost entirely their coating of stucco, and so did some of the more protected portions of the wall.

Almost the only ornamentation which the houses contained besides the ever-present niches, were cylindrical blocks of stone about three inches in diameter projecting twelve or fourteen inches from the wall seven feet above the ground between each niche.

In one of the niches I found a small stone whirlbob of a spindle-wheel, in size and shape like those made from wood and used to-day all over the Andes by Indian women. This simple spinning apparatus consists of a stick about as large as the little finger and from ten to twelve inches long. Its lower end is fitted with a whirlbob of wood to give it proper momentum when it is set in motion by a twirl of the forefinger and thumb grasping the upper end of the spindle. It is in universal use by Indian women from the Andes of Colombia to those of Chile, and one rarely sees a woman tending sheep or walking along the high road who is not busily engaged in using this old-fashioned spindle. In the tombs of Pachacamac near Lima have been found spindles still fitted with similar whirlbobs of stone.