the foot of the Andes, amid the upper feeders of the Rio Dulce and Rio Salado, between south latitude 26° and 29° and west longitude 63° to 66°, and thereabout. The most interesting portion of this region, archeologcially, is that known as Catamarca, which includes the valleys of Yocavil, Famaifil, Andalgalá, and others. Here are situated the remarkable fortress of Watungasta with its stone walls and cylindrical brick towers; the extraordinary fortified camp of El Pucará, 23 kilometers long and 9 wide, with stone walls 3 meters in height, flanked by circular redoubts with interior banquettes; the majestic remains of the Cerro Pintado; of the Punta de Balasto; and many others. For scores of leagues the soil yields abundant testimony of a dense and advanced ancient population. Foundations of stone and brick walls, fragments of neatly turned painted pottery, cemeteries where the dead were interred in large jars; stone axes, and other stone and bone implements; bells and ornaments of copper, needles of silver, chisels and plaques of bronze, numberless images, idols and amulets of stone, terra cotta, hardwood, and metal, rows of monolithic menhirs recalling those of Brittany, strange figures carved or painted on a flat surface of rocks,—these abounding vestiges of a vanished people still mutely testify to a progress in the arts and a development of social condition scarcely if at all surpassed anywhere on the continent of America by its indigenous inhabitants.
What do we know of these people by history or tradition? That fountain of legendary lore, Garcilasso de la Vega, tells us that they voluntarily submitted themselves to the rule of the Incas,[1] and von Ihering places the date of the occurrence about 1300 A. D. Tucumán thus became part of the Incasic province of Colla Suyu. Certain it is that the Spaniards, exploring the coutry in 1536 and later, found the Quichua tongue understood everywhere by the chieftains, although not by the common herd.
At that date the vales of Catamarca were inhabited by those
- ↑ Comentarios Reales, lib. v., cap. xxv.
