[420] Schinus Molle Lin., the prevailing tree in this part of the Andes.
[421] Pucara is Quichua for a fortress.
[422] Gaspar Rodriguez de Campo Redondo was brother of a distinguished officer who was killed in the battle of Chupas. Gaspar Rodriguez joined Gonzalo Pizarro in his rebellion against the viceroy Blasco Nuñez de Vela, but afterwards, seeing reason to think that he had chosen the losing side, he sent to the viceroy to ask for a safe conduct. This treachery became known to Pizarro and his ruthless lieutenant Carbajal, who came to the traitor’s tent. The wretched man offered many excuses, but Carbajal never showed mercy, and his head was cut off on the spot.
[423] Diego Gavilan, with his brother Juan, joined Francisco Hernandez Giron in his rebellion at Cuzco in 1553; and the rebel chief appointed Diego to the post of captain of infantry. The municipality of Cuzco was obliged to elect Giron captain-general of Peru, more, says Garcilasso, from fear of one hundred and fifty arquebusiers under the command of Diego Gavilan, who were drawn up in front of the court-house, than from good will. After the overthrow and flight of Giron at Pucara, Diego and Juan Gavilan went over to the royal army and received pardon for their share in the rebellion.
[424] Yllan Suarez de Carbajal was the factor of the royal revenue. After the death of Pizarro he fled from the camp of the younger Almagro, and fought bravely under Vaca de Castro in the battle of Chupas. Carbajal was at Lima when Blasco Nuñez de Vela arrived, and one night the hot-headed viceroy sent for him, accused him of treason, and, during the altercation which followed, stabbed him with a poniard. The attendants dispatched him with their swords, and the body was secretly buried before morning. This foul murder was the immediate cause of the viceroy’s downfall.
[425] Manco Ynca, the second legitimate son of Huayna Ccapac, was invested with the royal llautu at Cuzco by the conqueror Pizarro; but he chafed under the yoke of the invaders, and, on the first opportunity, raised the standard of revolt. Then followed the famous siege of Cuzco, and when the place was relieved by Almagro, and Manco’s last chance of regaining the ancient capital of his ancestors failed, he retreated into the forest fastnesses, continued his hostilities against the Spaniards, and led the romantic life described above by Cieza de Leon. On one occasion Gonzalo Pizarro sent a negro slave to him with presents, to open a negotiation, who was murdered by a party of Indians; upon which Gonzalo perpetrated an act of such devilish cruelty upon a young wife of Manco, whom he had made prisoner, as to be barely credible. The story is related by Prescott, on the authority of Pedro Pizarro’s MS. (ii, p. 136). Manco’s end was very melancholy. He was playing at a game with balls, with one Gomez Perez and some other Spaniards of Almagro’s faction, who had taken refuge in the Ynca’s fastness, when the ill-conditioned ruffian was guilty of some act of disrespect. The Ynca pushed him on one side, upon which Gomez Perez hit him such a blow on the head with a ball that he fell dead. (Gomara, cap. clvi.) This was in the year 1544. The gallant young Ynca left two sons, Sayri Tupac and Tupac Amaru. The former was pensioned by the Spaniards and died at Yucay; the latter perished on the scaffold at Cuzco.
[426] After the assassination of Pizarro, the younger Almagro assembled his partizans and prepared to resist the royal forces under the new governor Vaca de Castro. The two armies met on the heights of Chupas, which overhang the city of Guamanga, on the 16th of September 1542. During my residence at Guamanga I went in search of the battle field, which is about three leagues from the town. The field of Chupas is on a sort of terrace of the Andes, with the mountains rising in the rear, a rapid descent towards Guamanga, and slightly wooded ravines to the right and left. The view from it is magnificent. It is now covered with fields of wheat, with a few huts scattered here and there amidst thickets of chilca (a species of Baccharis). A most furious and bloody encounter was the battle of Chupas. It was long doubtful, but at length Vaca de Castro was victorious, and out of 850 Spaniards brought into the field by young Almagro, 700 were killed. The victors lost about 350 men. Among the slain, on the royal side, was Pedro Alvarez Holguin, one of the first corregidors of Guamanga, and formerly a companion of Hernan Cortez—the same who captured Guatimozin in the lakes of Mexico. He was buried in the little church of San Christoval at Guamanga, which was built by Pizarro and still exists. Several of the prisoners, who were implicated in the murder of Pizarro, were beheaded in the plaza of Guamanga.
[427] The country round Guamanga was inhabited, in ancient times, by the nation of Pocras. They joined the Chancas under Anco-huallu in their war against the Ynca (see note at p. 280), and after the bloody defeat of the allied tribes on the plain of Yahuarpampa, and the emigration of Anco-huallu, they again rose in rebellion. They were finally crushed in a bloody battle at the foot of the heights of Condor-canqui, by the Ynca Huira-ccocha, in a place which has ever since been called Aya-cucho (“the corner of dead men”). Four hundred and fifty years afterwards, on the same spot, the battle was fought between the Spaniards and the Patriots, which finally established the independence of Peru. (December 9th, 1824.)
After the overthrow of the Pocras, the Ynca was serving out rations of llama flesh to his soldiers when a falcon (huaman) came wheeling in circles over his head. He threw up a piece of meat crying Huaman-ca (Take! falcon), and the bird caught it and flew away. “Lo,” cried the soldiers, “even the birds of the air obey him:” and the place was ever afterwards called Huaman-ca, corrupted by the Spaniards into Guamanga. Since the independence, the name of the city has been altered to Ayacucho, in honour of the battle.
Others derive the name from Huaman (falcon) and Ccaca (a rock)—“the Falcon’s Rock.”