Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests

by Johann Jakob von Tschudi

In this Montaña the large animals of prey seldom approach human habitations, though sometimes the ounce pays them a visit, and the Cuguar descends from the Ceja. Other animals of the feline genus are very numerous, and their depredations render it impossible to breed poultry. Even the fabulous animal, called the carbunculo, is said to have been seen oftener than once in Vitoc. In almost every place I visited on the coast, in the Sierra, and in the Montañas, extraordinary stories concerning this animal were related; and many persons even assured me they had seen him. The carbunculo is represented to be of the size of a fox, with long black hair, and is only visible at night, when it slinks slowly through the thickets. If followed, he opens a flap or valve in the forehead, from under which an extraordinary, brilliant, and dazzling light issues. The natives believe that this light proceeds from a brilliant precious stone, and that any fool hardy person who may venture to grasp at it rashly is blinded; then the flap is let down, and the animal disappears in the darkness. Such are the stories related by the Indians; and it appears that the belief of the existence of the carbunculo has prevailed in Peru from the earliest times, and certainly before the conquest, so that its introduction cannot be attributed to the Spaniards. It is even prevalent among many of the wild Indian tribes, by whom the early missionaries were told the stories which they in their turn repeated about the animal. As yet nobody has been fortunate enough to capture such an animal, though the Spaniards always showed themselves very desirous to obtain possession of the precious jewel; and the viceroys, in their official instructions to the missionaries, placed the carbunculo in the first order of desiderata. What animal may have served as a foundation for those fabulous stories, it is certainly difficult to decide; probably a different one in each particular district. On the coast it may have been the añash (one of the mephitic animals), which seeks for his food only at night. I have often observed for a moment a singularly brilliant flashing in the eyes of that animal when irritated.

The worst enemies of the delightful Montaña de Vitoc are the wild Indians, who are only separated from the Christian Indians by the two rivers Aynamayo and Tullumayo. They belong to the ferocious race of the Chunchos, and in their savage manners they somewhat resemble the Casibos and Campas. They have their chief residence in Chibatizo, nine leagues from Pucara. Only three leagues from Pacchapata, at the confluence of the Chanchamayo and Tullumayo, they have a pretty large village; and Palmapata, which they temporarily took possession of, is situated still nearer. They frequently extend their hunting excursions to the banks of the great rivers, and make inroads upon the territory of Vitoc, cruelly murdering all the Cholos they meet with. Any kind of friendly intercourse with them is impracticable. I took some pains to accomplish that object, but without success. While they were on their hunting expeditions I have left in their huts knives, fish-hooks, ear-rings, and other things. In return for these presents they left for me some of their edible roots, among which were yuccas, but all were poisoned, so that, had we not observed caution, I and my venturous companion, Klee, might have fallen victims to the treachery of these Indians. The Chunchos, when on their expeditions, are almost in a state of nudity. Sometimes they wear a short whitish-brown shirt without sleeves. This garment, when worn by the chiefs, is red. Most of them dye their hair with achote (Bixa Orellana, L.), a deep vermilion, and paint the face and breast of the same color. Their weapons consist of a bow of chonta (Guilielma speciosa), with which they use two kinds of arrows. One kind are very long, with round points and barbs of chonta; the others are shorter, and have points made of reed, which inflict deep wounds, very difficult to be healed. They also use the great wooden sword, the macana. A cross having been put up in the forest, they fastened to it a few days afterwards a macana and two arrows, as symbols of irreconcilable enmity to Christians. Their warlike instrument is a reed, two feet long and four inches broad, through which their howlings resound in horrible discord.

It is a custom with the inhabitants of Vitoc to undertake two expeditions every year against the Chunchos. They are the most laughable enterprises imaginable. All the Cholos of the valley, with the Alcalde at their head, or rather in the midst of them, proceed, armed with sticks, axes, forest knives, and two muskets,[101] to explore the banks of both rivers. The front ranks advance with drums beating, and a number of Indians carry large calabashes filled with guarapo, to which they pay their earnest devotions every half hour. When by accident some of the Chunchos are seen, the Cholos fly with all the rapidity that terror can inspire, and cannot be got together again till they reach their village; then they raise a tremendous shout, and when safe in their dwellings boast proudly of their heroic deeds.

The Chunchos are in possession of a very rich bed of salt, some twelve or fourteen leagues from Vitoc, from whence they permit the neighboring tribes with whom they are at peace, to supply themselves with salt. Hostile tribes, such as the Campas and the Callisecas, sometimes attempt to carry away salt, and then a sanguinary contest ensues. This stratum of salt comes from the top of a hill, called the Cerro de la Sal, and it runs in the direction from south-west to north-east, to the length of nearly three leagues, covering a breadth of about thirty ells. The salt is mixed with red earth. It is probably a continuation of the great salt bed of Maynas, stretching eastward along the left bank of the Perene. It may be presumed that it does not extend as far as the immense Pajonal, as the Campas go for their salt to the Cerro de la Sal.

In former times various attempts were made to convert the Chunchos to Christianity; and these attempts were partially successful. The first missionary who ventured among them was the intrepid Fray Geronimo Ximenes. In 1635 he penetrated from Huancabamba to the Cerro de la Sal, and there preached the gospel in the language of the people. He built a chapel, and then directed his course south-west to Vitoc, where he founded the village San Buenaventura. Two years after he embarked on the Chanchamayo, with the intention of extending his mission to the Campas tribe, by whom he was killed, together with his companion, Fray Christoval Larios, and twenty-eight other Spaniards. Several missionaries subsequently proceeded to the Cerro de la Sal, and found favor with the natives, so that in 1640 they had no less than seven villages of converted Chunchos, Amagas, and Campas; but only a few years afterwards all the missionaries and soldiers were killed and the chapels were destroyed. The Franciscan monks, inspired by their indefatigable zeal, ventured in 1671, on a new mission to the fatal Cerro de la Sal; and they had the good fortune to found a village in which eight hundred Neophytes were collected. A second and smaller village was founded in the vicinity of the destroyed San Buenaventura, and named Santa Rosa de Quimiri; but the avarice of some Spaniards who fancied there were gold mines in the Cerro de la Sal, induced them to get the missions withdrawn from the superintendence of the priests, and to turn the whole into a political system. Then commenced the oppression of the Indians in those parts. The consequence was a great insurrection in 1674, when all the whites were massacred. Thus were the labors of the missionaries a second time annihilated. Every attempt for the conversion of Indians was for a long time fruitless, and the missionaries who ventured to approach them were shot. After the lapse of about thirty years, during which interval the Chunchos had fallen back to their original savage state, the founder of the Convent of Ocopa, Fray Francisco de San Jose, with four priests and two lay brothers, penetrated into the valley of Vitoc, and entered upon the territory of the Chunchos. At this time (1709) Vitoc was first peopled, and in the course of twenty years six large villages were built. In the year 1739 these missions, again flourishing, counted ten Christian villages and three thousand baptized Indians. Three years afterwards the Indian insurrection, headed by the apostate Juan Santos, destroyed all the missions of Central Peru.

Juan Santos was an Indian born at Huamanga, and he claimed descent from the last of the Incas. This claim was probably well founded, for before the revolt he was called Atahuallpa, which was the name of the Inca put to death by Pizarro. Juan Santos was haughty, high spirited, and clever. In the year 1741 he killed, in a quarrel, a Spaniard of high rank, and to elude the pursuit of justice, he fled to the forests. There he brooded over plans for taking vengeance on the oppressors of his country. He first addressed himself to the tribes of the Campas, and having gained them over, he proceeded to Quisopongo in the Pajonal. From thence, in the year 1742, he made his first attack on the mission of the Cerro de la Sal. The Spaniards had already been warned of the intended rising, but they considered it too unimportant to call for serious measures of repression; and whilst lulling themselves in their imagined security, they were surprised and massacred by the Indians. The insurrection spread with incredible rapidity. Juan Santos himself led all the principal attacks. In one night he took the fortress of Quimiri with sixty-five men, all of whom were massacred in the most cruel manner. The well-defended fort of Paucartambo was next taken by a small number of Chunchos, commanded by Juan Santos. All the Christian churches were destroyed by the insurgents. The sacred images and the priests were tied together, and cast into the rivers; the villages were burned, and the cultivated fields laid waste. The number of Spanish soldiers killed in this insurrection was 245; the number of priests, 26. In the course of a few weeks all the missions of central Peru were completely destroyed, and terror spread even to the mountains. The Spanish government found it necessary to adopt the most vigorous measures, for there was reason to fear that the mountain Indians would revolt. Castles and forts were built on the frontiers of all the Montañas and strongly garrisoned; but the insurrection did not extend further. The ultimate fate of Juan Santos Atahuallpa has never been satisfactorily ascertained. Some assert that he became a powerful ruler, and that as long as he lived the races of the Chunchos, Pacañes, Chichirrenes, Campas, and Simirinches, were united. On an old manuscript in the monastery of Ocopa I found a marginal note, in which it was said, "As to the monster, the apostate Juan Santos Atahuallpa, after his diabolical destruction of our missions, the wrath of God was directed against him in the most fearful manner. He died the death of Herod, for his living body was devoured by worms."

Shortly after the tragical downfall of these missions, two priests, Fra Francisco Otasua and Fray Salvador Pando, visited the ruins of Quimiri, and endeavored to conciliate the rebels; but in vain. After three months, during which they suffered dreadful ill treatment from the Chunchos, they returned to the monastery of Ocopa.

These missionaries were all monks of the order of San Francisco. Their active zeal and heroic submission to any sacrifice in furtherance of the cause in which they were embarked must excite at once astonishment and admiration. Undaunted by incredible privations and laborious exertions in the pathless forests, without food or shelter; undismayed by the continual apprehension of a violent and cruel death, they courageously obeyed the inward impulse which inspired them to preach the gospel to the wild Indians. When intelligence was received of the violent death of one of the brotherhood, others immediately offered to supply the place of the victim, and the superiors of the order had much difficulty in restraining the zealous monks. In the central and northern missions of Peru, 129 Franciscan monks were murdered by the wild Indians. Those who compose that number are recorded by name, but many others disappeared without leaving a trace of what had become of them, and of course they are not included in the list. The number of lay brethren who perished is much greater. It is indeed melancholy to reflect how little advantage has been obtained by the sacrifice of so many valuable lives. The missions have nearly all disappeared, and the Indians have now retrograded into the savage state in which they were before the conquest of Peru.

The Franciscan monks were mild and patient teachers. They proceeded on the principle of leaving the Christian religion to act for itself, and they scorned to promote it by any kind of compulsion. The Dominicans, on the other hand, who came to Peru with the conquerors, preached Christianity with fire and sword. The Jesuits, who headed the missions of Southern Peru, adopted the one way or the other, as they found most advantageous to the object they had in view. By this means they secured the attachment of the neophytes, and retained most of their conversions. Many of the Jesuit missionaries were highly intelligent and well-informed men. We are indebted to them for important geographical and statistical information, and in particular for some philological works of great value, viz., a grammar and dictionary of the language of every tribe they converted. The Dominican monks, who were mere ignorant fanatics, sacrificed to their blind zeal for conversion all the monuments of the early civilization of the Peruvians, and restrained, rather than promoted, the intellectual development of the people. The Franciscans, animated by pious inspiration, earnestly preached the doctrines of Christ to the wild inhabitants of the distant forests; but they communicated little information to the rest of world. A few imperfect maps, and some scanty notices on the manners and customs of the Indians, are the whole amount of their laical labors.

In the year 1779 an attempt was again made to penetrate to the Cerro de la Sal, and a road was opened leading from Palca to Chanchamayo, where a fort was built; but at the expiration of five years the government destroyed it, as continued irruptions of the Chunchos could not be checked. In 1784, the governor of Tarma, Don Juan Maria de Galvas, supported by the Superior of Ocopa, Fray Manuel Sobreviela, visited the valley of Vitoc, which had been abandoned since the Indian insurrection. The new village of San Teodoro de Pucara was founded, and the destroyed fort, Santa Ana de Colla, was rebuilt. The Montaña was soon peopled, and in a short time it contained upwards of forty haciendas and large chacras. The village of Sorriano, scarcely two leagues from Colla, was then inhabited by Chunchos, who showed a willingness to maintain friendly intercourse with the occupants of Vitoc, from whom they took meat, tools, and other things, which they repaid by agricultural labor. Unfortunately, the plantation owners soon began to take an undue advantage of this friendly intercourse, and to charge exorbitant prices for the articles required by the Indians. For a pin or a needle they demanded two days' work, for a fishing-hook four, and for a wretched knife, eight, ten, or more. A rupture was the consequence. The Chunchos burned their own village, and returned again to Chanchamayo. Still, however, they continued on a sort of amicable footing with the Cholos, until one of the latter wantonly shot a Chuncho at a festival. The tribe then mustered in thousands to avenge the murder. They destroyed the Christian villages, and massacred all the inhabitants who were not able to fly. Thus was Vitoc once more depopulated: Cardenas, the military governor of Tarma, made a fresh endeavor to restore the cultivation of this fine valley. He made the road again passable, laid out the large plantation Chuntabamba, built and garrisoned the Colla fort. The site of the former Chuncho village, Sorriano, was converted into a cocal (or coca field), and the Montaña began once more to assume a flourishing aspect. Still, however, the Chunchos continued to harass their neighbors, particularly during the time of the coca harvest, which could not be gathered without military protection. During one of the harvests a laborer was shot by the wild Indians, which so terrified the Cholos, that they all fled to Sorriano. Soon after, Cardenas died, and the coca plantation being neglected, became a waste. A few years afterwards the hacienda of Pacchapata was laid out. During the war of independence the Spaniards destroyed Fort Colla, and the inhabitants of Vitoc were left without any means of defence against their savage enemies. The last attempt to reduce the Chunchos to subjection and order was made by a military expedition under the command of General Don Francisco de Paula de Otero, but owing to ill-arranged plans it totally failed. No more than twenty-five years have elapsed since the valley of Vitoc, with its rich plantations, was in the most flourishing prosperity. Now only faint traces of its past cultivation are discernible.