The catalogue of kings given by Montesinos, allowing an average of twenty years for each, would place the commencement of the Pirua dynasty in about 470 b.c.; in the days when the Greeks, under Cimon, were defeating the Persians, and nearly a century after the death of Sakya Muni in India. This early empire flourished for about 1,200 years, and the disruption took place in 830 a.d., in the days of King Egbert. The disintegration continued for 500 years, and the rise of the Incas under Manco was probably coeval with the days of St. Louis and Henry III of England.[1165] By that time the country had been broken up into separate tribes for 500 years, and the work of reunion, so splendidly achieved by the Incas, was most arduous. At the same time, the ancient civilization of the Piruas was partially inherited by the various peoples whose ancestors composed their empire; so that the Inca civilization was a revival rather than a creation.
The various tribes and nations of the Andes, separated from each other by uninhabited wildernesses and lofty mountain chains, were clearly of the same origin, speaking dialects of the same language. Since the fall of the Piruas they had led an independent existence. Some had formed powerful confederations, others were isolated in their valleys. But it was only through much hard fighting and by consummate statesmanship that the one small Inca lineage established, in a period of less than three centuries, imperial dominion over the rest. It will be well, in this place, to take a brief survey of the different nations which were to form the empire of the Incas, and of their territories.
The central Andean region, which was the home of the imperial race of Incas, extends from the water-parting between the sources of the Ucayali and the basin of Lake Titicaca to the river Apurimac. It includes wild mountain fastnesses, wide expanses of upland, grassy slopes, lofty valleys such as that in which the city of Cuzco is built, and fertile ravines, with the most lovely scenery. The inhabitants composed four tribes: that of the Incas in the valley of the Vilcamayu, of the Quichuas in the secluded ravines of the Apurimac tributaries, and those of the Canas and Cauchis in the mountains bordering on the Titicaca basin. These people average a height of 5 ft. 4 in., and are strongly built. The nose is invariably aquiline, the mouth rather large; the eyes black or deep brown, bright, and generally deep set, with long fine lashes. The hair is abundant and long, fine, and of a deep black-brown. The men have no beards. The skin is very smooth and soft, and of a light coppery-brown color, the neck thick, and the shoulders broad, with great depth of chest. The legs are well formed, feet and hands very small. The Incas have the build and physique of mountaineers.
To the south of this cradle of the Inca race extended the region of the Collas[1166] and allied tribes, including the whole basin of Lake Titicaca, which is 12,000 feet above the level of the sea. The Collas dwelt in stone huts, tended their flocks of llamas, and raised crops of ocas, quinoas, and potatoes. They were divided into several tribes, and were engaged in constant feuds, their arms being slings and ayllos, or bolas. The Collas are remarkable for great length of body compared with the thigh and leg, and they are the only people whose thighs are shorter than their legs. Their build fits them for excellence in mountain climbing and pedestrianism, and for the exercise of extraordinary endurance.[1167] The homes of the Collas were around the seat of ancient civilization at Tiahuanacu.
A remarkable race, apart from the Incas and Collas, of darker complexion and more savage habits, dwelt and still dwell among the vast beds of reeds in the southwestern angle of Lake Titicaca. They are called Urus, and are probably descendants of an aboriginal people who occupied the Titicaca basin before the arrival of the Hatun-runas from the south. The Urus spoke a distinct language, called Puquina, specimens of which have been preserved by Bishop Oré.[1168] The ancestors of the Urus may have been the cromlech builders, driven into the fastnesses of the lake when their country was occupied by the more powerful invaders, who erected the imperishable monuments at Tiahuanacu. These Urus are now lake-dwellers. Their homes consist of large canoes, made of the tough reeds which cover the shallow parts of the lake, and they live on fish, and on quinua and potatoes, which they obtain by barter.
North of Cuzco there were several allied tribes, resembling the Incas in physique and language, in a similar stage of civilization, and their rivals in power. Beyond the Apurimac, and inhabiting the valleys of the Andes thence to the Mantaro, was the important nation of the Chancas; and still further north and west, in the valley of the Xauxa, was the Huanca nation. Agricultural people and shepherds, forming ayllus, or tribes of the Chancas and Huancas, occupied the ravines of the maritime cordillera, and extended their settlements into several valleys of the seacoast, between the Rimac and Nasca. These coast people of Inca race, known as Chinchas, held their own against an entirely different nation, of distinct origin and language, who occupied the northern coast valleys from the Rimac to Payta, and also the great valley of Huarca (the modern Cañete), where they had Chincha enemies both to the north and south of them. These people were called Yuncas by their Inca conquerors. Their own name was Chimu, and the language spoken by them was called Mochica. But this question relating to the early inhabitants of the coast valleys of Peru, their origin and civilization, is the most difficult in ancient Peruvian history, and will require separate consideration.[1169]
INCA MANCO CCAPAC.
[After a cut in Marcoy’s South America, i. 210 (also in Tour du Monde, 1863, p. 261), purporting to be drawn from a copy of the taffeta roll containing the pedigree of the Incas, which, in evidence of their claims, was sent by their descendants to the Spanish king in 1603. This genealogical record contained the likenesses of the successive Incas and their wives, and the original is said to have disappeared. Mr. Markham supposes this roll to have been the original of the portraits given in Herrera (see cut on p. 267 of the present volume); but they are not the same, if Marcoy’s cuts are trustworthy. A set of likenesses appeared in Ulloa’s Relacion Histórica (Madrid, 1748), iv. 604; and these were the originals of the series copied in the Gentleman’s Mag., 1751-1752, and thence are copied those in Ranking. These do not correspond with those given by Marcoy. See post, Vol. II., for a note on different series of portraits, and in the same volume, pp. 515, 516, are portraits of Atahualpa. A portrait of Manco Inca, killed 1546, is given in A. de Beauchamp’s Histoire de la Conquête du Pérou (Paris, 1808).—Ed.]
North of the Huanca nation, along the basin of the Marañon, there were tribes which were known to the Incas by their head-dresses. These were the Conchucus, Huamachucus, and Huacrachucus.[1170] Still further north, in the region of the equator, was the powerful nation of Quitus.