The Canches were of middle height, very bold, restless, inconstant, but good workmen, industrious, and brave. The Canas, though of a darker complexion, were stouter and better made. The Canches loved solitude and were very silent, and built their huts in secluded ravines and valleys. The villages of the Canches were Sicuani, Cacha, Tinta, Checacupe, Pampamarca, Yanaoca, and Lanqui; and those of the Canas were Checa, Pichigua, Yacuri, Coparaque, Tungasaca, Surimani. Sicuani, in the ravine of the Vilcamayu, is the principal place in the country of the Canches and Canas. At the end of the last century it contained a population of four thousand Indians, and one thousand Mestizos. The number of Indians in the whole district was calculated, at the same time, to amount to twenty-six thousand souls. Mercurio Peruano (Nueva Edicion), i, p. 193.
[483] Garcilasso de la Vega relates a tradition respecting this temple at Cacha, which is on the right bank of the river Yucay, sixteen leagues south of Cuzco. A supernatural being is said to have appeared to the Ynca Huira-ccocha, before the battle with Anco-hualluc and his allies on the plain of Yahuar-pampa (see note to p. 280), and after his victory the grateful prince caused a temple to be erected at Cacha, in memory of the phantom. As the vision appeared in the open air, so the temple was to have no roof, and as he was sleeping at the time under an overhanging rock, so there was to be a small covered chapel opening into the temple, which was 120 feet long by 80. The edifice was built of large stones carefully dressed and finished. It had four doors, three of them being merely ornamental recesses, and the fourth, facing to the east, was alone used. Within the temple there were walls winding round and round and forming twelve lanes, each seven feet wide, and covered overhead with huge stone slabs ten feet long. As these lanes went round and round they approached the centre of the temple, and at the end of the twelfth and last there was a flight of steps leading to the top. At the end of each lane or passage there was a window by which light was admitted. The steps were double, so that people could go up on one side and down on the other. The floor above was paved with polished black stones, and on one side there was a chapel, within which was the statue representing the phantom. The Spaniards entirely demolished this temple.
[484] This description of the Collao is very accurate. South of the Vilcañota mountains the Andes separate into two distinct chains, namely the cordillera or coast range and the Eastern Andes, which include the loftiest peaks in South America, Illimani and Sorata. The Collao is the region between these two ranges. It contains the great lake of Titicaca, and consists of elevated plains intersected by rivers flowing into the lake.
[485] The potatoe was indigenous to the Andes of Peru, and the best potatoe in the world is grown at a place called Huamantango, near Lima. I am surprised to find that Humboldt should have doubted this fact, (“La pomme de terre n’est pas indigène au Pérou.” Nouv. Espagne, ii, p. 400), seeing that there is a native word for potatoe, and that it is mentioned as the staple food of the people of the Collao, by Cieza de Leon, and other early writers. Moreover the Solanaceæ are the commonest plants in several parts of Peru. The ancient Quichua for potatoe is ascu or acsu, and the same word exists in the Chinchay-suyu dialect. (Torres Rubio, p. 219.)
[486] Chuñus or frozen potatoes are still the ordinary food of the natives of the Collao. They dam up square shallow pools by the sides of streams, and fill them with potatoes during the cold season of June and July. The frost soon converts them into chuñus, which are insipid and tasteless.
[487] The oca (Oxalis tuberosa Lin.) is an oval shaped root, the skin pale red, and the inside white. It is watery, has a sweetish taste, and is much liked by the Peruvians.
[489] See chapter xxv, p. 90.
[490] The most remarkable of these tower tombs of the Collao are at a place called Sillustani, on a promontory running out into the lake of Umayu, near Puno. This promontory is literally covered with places of sepulture. Four of them are towers of finely cut masonry, with the sides of the stones dovetailing into each other. See a full description of them in my Travels in Peru and India, p. 111; also Vigne’s Travels in South America, ii, p. 31; and Antiguedades Peruanas, p. 293.
[491] A small village of the Collao, on the banks of the river Pucara, near the point where, uniting with the Azangaro, it forms the Ramiz, which empties itself into lake Titicaca at the north-west corner.