When one looks at the great amount of arable slopes on most of the hills of the Cuzco Basin and the unusually extensive flat land near the Huatanay, one readily understands why the heart of Inca Land witnessed a concentration of population very unusual in the Andes. Most of the important ruins are in the northwest quadrant of the basin either in the immediate vicinity of Cuzco itself or on the “pampas” north of the city. The reason is that the arable lands where most extensive potato cultivation could be carried out are nearly all in this Page 146quadrant. In the midst of this potato country, at the foot of the pass that leads directly to Pisac and Paucartambo, is a picturesque ruin which bears the native name of Pucará.
Pucará is the Quichua word for fortress and it needs but one glance at the little hilltop crowned with a rectangular fortification to realize that the term is justified. The walls are beautifully made of irregular blocks closely fitted together. Advantage was taken of small cliffs on two sides of the hill to strengthen the fortifications. We noticed openings or drains which had been cut in the wall by the original builders in order to prevent the accumulation of moisture on the terraced floor of the enclosed area, which is several feet above that of the sloping field outside. Similar conduits may be seen in many of the old walls in the city of Cuzco. Apparently, the ancient folk fully appreciated the importance of good drainage and took pains to secure it. At present Pucará is occupied by llama herdsmen and drovers, who find the enclosure a very convenient corral. Probably Pucará was built by the chief of a tribe of prehistoric herdsmen who raised root crops and kept their flocks of llamas and alpacas on the neighboring grassy slopes.
A short distance up the stream of the Lkalla Chaca, above Pucará, is a warm mineral spring. Around it is a fountain of cut stone. Near by are the ruins of a beautiful terrace, on top of which is a fine wall containing four large, ceremonial niches, level with the ground and about six feet high. The place is now called Tampu Machai. Polo de Ondegardo, Page 147who lived in Cuzco in 1560, while many of the royal family of the Incas were still alive, gives a list of the sacred or holy places which were venerated by all the Indians in those days. Among these he mentions that of Timpucpuquio, the “hot springs” near Tambo Machai, “called so from the manner in which the water boils up.” The next huaca, or holy place, he mentions is Tambo Machai itself, “a house of the Inca Yupanqui, where he was entertained when he went to be married. It was placed on a hill near the road over the Andes. They sacrifice everything here except children.”
The stonework of the ruins here is so excellent in character, the ashlars being very carefully fitted together, one may fairly assume a religious origin for the place. The Quichua word macchini means “to wash” or “to rinse a large narrow-mouthed pitcher.” It may be that at Tampu Machai ceremonial purification of utensils devoted to royal or priestly uses was carried on. It is possible that this is the place where, according to Molina, all the youths of Cuzco who had been armed as knights in the great November festival came on the 21st day of the month to bathe and change their clothes. Afterwards they returned to the city to be lectured by their relatives. “Each relation that offered a sacrifice flogged a youth and delivered a discourse to him, exhorting him to be valiant and never to be a traitor to the Sun and the Inca, but to imitate the bravery and prowess of his ancestors.”
Tampu Machai is located on a little bluff above the Lkalla Chaca, a small stream which finally joins Page 148the Huatanay near the town of San Sebastian. Before it reaches the Huatanay, the Lkalla Chaca joins the Cachimayo, famous as being so highly impregnated with salt as to have caused the rise of extensive salt works. In fact, the Pizarros named the place Las Salinas, or “the Salt Pits,” on account of the salt pans with which, by a careful system of terracing, the natives had filled the Cachimayo Valley. Prescott describes the great battle which took place here on April 26, 1539, between the forces of Pizarro and Almagro, the two leaders who had united for the original conquest of Peru, but quarreled over the division of the territory. Near the salt pans are many Inca walls and the ruins of structures, with niches, called Rumihuasi, or “Stone House.” The presence of salt in many of the springs of the Huatanay Valley was a great source of annoyance to our topographic engineers, who were frequently obliged to camp in districts where the only water available was so saline as to spoil it for drinking purposes and ruin the tea.
The Cuzco Basin was undoubtedly once the site of a lake, “an ancient water-body whose surface,” says Professor Gregory, “lay well above the present site of San Sebastian and San Geronimo.” This lake is believed to have reached its maximum expansion in early Pleistocene times. Its rich silts, so well adapted for raising maize, habas beans, and quinoa, have always attracted farmers and are still intensively cultivated. It has been named “Lake Morkill” in honor of that loyal friend of scientific Page 149research in Peru, William L. Morkill, Esq., without whose untiring aid we could never have brought our Peruvian explorations as far along as we did. In pre-glacial times Lake Morkill fluctuated in volume. From time to time parts of the shore were exposed long enough to enable plants to send their roots into the fine materials and the sun to bake and crack the muds. Mastodons grazed on its banks. “Lake Morkill probably existed during all or nearly all of the glacial epoch.” Its drainage was finally accomplished by the Huatanay cutting down the sandstone hills, near Saylla, and developing the Angostura gorge.
In the banks of the Huatanay, a short distance below the city of Cuzco, the stratified beds of the vanished Lake Morkill to-day contain many fossil shells. Above these are gravels brought down by the floods and landslides of more modern times, in which may be found potsherds and bones. One of the chief affluents of the Huatanay is the Chunchullumayo, which cuts off the southernmost third of Cuzco from the center of the city. Its banks are terraced and are still used for gardens and food crops. Here the hospitable Canadian missionaries have their pleasant station, a veritable oasis of Anglo-Saxon cleanliness.
On a July morning in 1911, while strolling up the Ayahuaycco quebrada, an affluent of the Chunchullumayo, in company with Professor Foote and Surgeon Erving, my interest was aroused by the sight of several bones and potsherds exposed by recent erosion in the stratified gravel banks of the Page 150little gulch. Further examination showed that recent erosion had also cut through an ancient ash heap. On the side toward Cuzco I discovered a section of stone wall, built of roughly finished stones more or less carefully fitted together, which at first sight appeared to have been built to prevent further washing away of that side of the gulch. Yet above the wall and flush with its surface the bank appeared to consist of stratified gravel, indicating that the wall antedated the gravel deposits. Fifty feet farther up the quebrada another portion of wall appeared under the gravel bank. On top of the bank was a cultivated field! Half an hour's digging in the compact gravel showed that there was more wall underneath the field. Later investigation by Dr. Bowman showed that the wall was about three feet thick and nine feet in height, carefully faced on both sides with roughly cut stone and filled in with rubble, a type of stonework not uncommon in the foundations of some of the older buildings in the western part of the city of Cuzco.
Huatanay Vallye, Cuzco, and the Ayahuaycco Quebrada