The tradition at Cuzco in 1837, which was said to have been handed down in the families of the Caciques of Belen and San Blas, was that the drama was based on an historical event;[1] but this seems more than doubtful. The stronghold of the rebel is placed among the magnificent ruins in the vale of Vilca-mayu, which are now called Ollanta-tambo from the classical associations connected with the drama, but the greater part of the ruins is far more ancient than the time of Pachacutec. A detailed account of the ruins, and of the vale of Vilca-mayu, will be found in one of my former works on Peru.[2] A bust on an earthen vase was presented to Don Antonio Maria Alvarez, the political chief of Cuzco in 1837, by an Indian who declared that it had been handed down in his family from time immemorial, as the likeness of the general Rumi-ñaui, who plays an important part in the drama of Ollanta.[3] The person represented must have been a general, from the ornament on the forehead called mascapaycha, and wounds were cut in the face. This, so far as it goes, is a confirmation of the genuine antiquity of the drama. Internal evidence inclines me to fix its date, in the reign of the great Ynca Huayna Ccapec, about A.D. 1475 to 1525.[4] Love is allowed to break through the rigid laws of the Ynca court to some extent; but otherwise the state of society, and the manners and customs met with in the drama, agree generally, but not so closely as to justify a suspicion of
