The Incas of Peru/Chapter 14

by Clements Robert Markham

CHAPTER XIV

THE CHIMU

One of the most difficult problems in the study of the American races is the origin and history of the civilised people in the northern coast valleys of Peru. Here we find ruins of vast extent with evidence of artistic skill and somewhat florid taste, systems of irrigation on a gigantic scale and planned with marvellous skill, every square foot of ground carefully cultivated. Writing of the Chira to the north, Mr. Spruce says that there are ancient aqueducts all the way down the valley from near its source. Water is conducted across ravines and along the faces of steep declivities. There was also provision for collecting rain water in the años de aguas by canals along the base of the Mancora hills and cliffs of the valleys, and for storing it in reservoirs made by throwing strong dikes across the outlets of ravines. The whole valley was then under cultivation with a dense population, proved by the middings sometimes miles in extent, strewn with fragments of shells and pottery. The richly embossed walls, the gold and silver work, the astonishing versatility in the infinite variety of their pottery, and the patterns of their cotton cloths, all point to a race which had reached a high state of civilisation. A grammar, composed by a descendant of one of Pizarro's followers over a century after the Spanish conquest, has preserved some knowledge of their otherwise lost language, but of their history we know absolutely nothing. We only learn from the Spanish historians of the Incas that the sovereign of the coast people, called by them the Grand Chimu, was subdued by the Incas about four generations before the Spaniards came, and that he possessed great riches. Nothing more. There is only one tradition preserved, and that does not refer to the Chimu, but to his feudatories in the Lambayeque valley.

The kernel of the Chimu problem is in the ruins between the Spanish town of Truxillo and the shores of the Pacific Ocean. Here the Chicama and Muchi rivers combine to form a wide extent of cultivable land, which is situated in the centre of the northern coast valleys, having eight on the north and eight on the south side of it.^[1] The vast extent of the ruins shows that this was the centre of the Chimu's power. The people were perhaps known to themselves as Muchœn, from the river which supplied water to their capital, or possibly Nofœn, their word for a man. Their language was Muchica.

The great Chimu ruins were first described, in any detail, by Don Mariano E. Rivero in his 'Antiguedades Peruanas,' then by Squier, and more recently by the French traveller Wiener. Of these accounts that of Squier's is the most accurate and intelligent. It must be understood that, owing to the elaborate and complicated arrangement of rooms, passages and enclosures, and to the destruction that has taken place in the search for treasure, an intelligible description, even with plans, is exceedingly difficult.

We may picture to ourselves a vast fertile plain, at least ninety miles long from south to north, watered by the three rivers Chicama, Mansiche, and Viru, and bounded on one side by the Andes and on the other by the Pacific Ocean. In the centre, but bordering on the seashore, was the great city of the Chimu, surrounded by highly cultivated land sustaining a dense population. An effective system of irrigation was essential for the cultivation of this extensive area and for the existence of the people in the city. An aqueduct took off the water of the Muchi river high up among the mountains. It was carried across the valley on a lofty embankment of stones and earth sixty feet in height, the channel being lined with stones. On the slope overlooking the ruined city the water is distributed through smaller channels over the plain, and into the numerous reservoirs in the city. A lofty wall of great thickness extended for miles along the eastern or inland borders of the city, and within it were extensive gardens each with its irrigating channel.

The ruins of this unique city now consist of labyrinths of walls forming great enclosures, each containing many buildings, with here and there gigantic mounds. These mounds or pyramids are the most marvellous features of the ruins. The huaca or mound called 'Obispo' by the Spaniards is built of stones, rubble, and adobes, covers an area of 500 square feet, and is 150 feet high. Another was called 'Toledo,' in which great treasure was found. The excavator, Garcia de Toledo, in 1577, dug out gold to the amount of 278,174 castellanos de oro,^[2] of which 61,622 were paid as the royal fifths. Excavations were continued at intervals. In 1797 the treasure called Peje chico was secured. The Peje grande has yet to be found. Altogether millions have been obtained in gold ornaments or bars. The mounds are honeycombed with passages leading to store-houses or sepulchral chambers.

The great mounds presented a very different appearance in the time of the Chimu. Originally they were in terraces, on which buildings were erected with pitched roofs, and tastefully painted walls. Verandahs, supported by the twisted stems of algaroba trees, afforded shade, and there were communications with the interior passages and chambers. From the seashore these structures, with gardens at their bases, must have presented a magnificent effect.

The principal palace has been well described by Squier. Imagine a great hall 100 feet long by 52½ wide, with walls covered with an intricate series of arabesques, consisting of stucco patterns in relief on a smooth surface. The walls contain a series of niches with the arabesque work running up between. The end wall is pierced by a door leading to corridors and passages in the pyramidal mounds. One corridor leads to a place where there was a furnace for metallurgic work, near a walled-up closet full of vessels and utensils of gold and silver.

There is a low, broad mound at a distance of a hundred yards from the palace, which has been excavated and proved to be a cemetery. There were mummies in niches elaborately clothed and plumed, with gold and silver ornaments on the dresses of fine cotton cloth. The patterns, woven into the cloth and coloured, are birds striking the heads of lizards or seizing fish. In the centre there is a structure sixteen feet square and twelve high, with entrances at each end, leading to a space ten feet by five, with a series of platforms on either side. Here, no doubt, the funeral rites were performed.

The two most remarkable structures among the ruins are called palaces by Rivero, and factories by Squier. They are surrounded by exterior walls of adobes on foundations of stone and clay, five feet thick and thirty in height. One factory is 500 yards by 400. An entrance leads to an open square with a reservoir in the centre, faced with stone, sixty feet long by forty. Round the square there are twenty-two recesses, probably shops opening upon it, and at one end a terrace with three rooms leading from it. This square, with its reservoir, appears to have been the market-place. There are six minor courts, and streets or passages with many rooms opening upon them. Of these rooms there are no less than 111, with walls twelve feet high and high-pitched roofs. The objects of these extraordinary buildings were very puzzling. They were certainly not palaces, as Rivero supposed. Squier's conjecture is no doubt the correct one. They were busy factories, hives of industry. Here were the workers in gold, silver and bronze, the designers, the dyers, the potters, and the weavers. It must have taken many generations, nay centuries, for these busy modellers and designers to reach the high standard displayed in their best metal and clay work, and in their cotton fabrics.

The most frequent ornaments are fish, lizards, serpents, a long-legged bird, a bird devouring a fish. The ornament of the head-dress of chiefs was like an inverted leather-cutter's knife, as Squier describes it, with plumes, and diadems of gold and silver. The golden cups and vases were very thin, with the ornaments and figures struck from the inside. Gold ornaments on the dresses were also frequent. Mr. Spruce describes a series of plates, almost like a lady's muslin collar in size and shape, covered with figures. On one of them there were nearly a hundred figures of pelicans. Every figure represents the bird in a different attitude, and, as they have been stamped, not engraved, a separate die must have been used for each figure. Silver vases and cups were of various shapes, sometimes modelled into the form of a man's head. Silver lizards, fishes, and serpents were sewn on the dresses as ornamental borders.

The most astonishing work of the northern coast people was their modelling and painting in clay. The prevailing colours of their vases were white, black, and a pale red, the designs being painted, in various colours, on a white ground. A great number are double, some quadruple, and a prevailing feature is the double spout. It is not too much to say that not only the fauna and flora of the coast, but also the manners and customs of the people, are depicted or modelled on their vases. There are met with various kinds of fruits and vegetables, shells, fish, lizards, deer, monkeys, parrots and other birds, and a sea-lion with a fish in its mouth. In short, there are countless varieties of forms and combinations, hardly two specimens alike. By far the most interesting are the human heads. Some are almost majestic, and are evidently portraits. Others show the face distorted in pain, others smiling or singing, some with a rapt expression as in a trance. There are also figures playing on musical instruments, others spinning. Some vases represent a human hand, others a foot showing how sandals were worn. Architecture, the arts, customs, and religious ideas are depicted. Squier describes one scene of a chief seated in the verandah of a house with a high-pitched roof, raised on four terraces. The chief has a plumed head-dress, a lance in one hand and a drinking-cup in the other. A long procession is approaching, with persons singing and playing on cymbals, tambourines, Pandean-pipes, and trumpets of clay. Another vase has a foot-race painted round it. There is another showing a combat between a serpent-warrior and a crab-warrior, perhaps a legend of a contest between land and sea. There is a vase with winged figures, and another very remarkable one, in the British Museum, of a winged warrior in the act of flying.

Another very striking group of Chimu works of art are the silver models cast in a single piece. Squier mentions a man and woman in a forest, the trees being like algarobas; also a child in a hammock swinging between two trees, and a serpent crawling up one, below a kettle by a fire of sticks. These can only have been intended as ornaments for rooms, but it is a mystery how they can have been cast without wax. Doubtless there was a substitute of some kind.

Warlike implements were lances, darts, and clubs fitted with bronze stars. Warriors carried an oblong shield of thick matting. Vast numbers of tools and agricultural implements in bronze have been found. There are chisels of various sizes with sockets for handles, hoes curved and flat, and knives.

Their textile fabrics were very fine and marked in a variety of patterns, for the coast people cultivated an indigenous cotton, the staple of which is unequalled for length combined with strength. Occasionally the cotton plants produced a boll of a rich nankin colour which was specially valued. The weavers had various dyes for the patterns on their fabrics, and produced tunics and cloaks of great fineness and beauty, often almost covered with thin gold and silver plates, with borders of blue and yellow feathers.

We conclude from the ruins of their buildings, their works of art, and the vast treasure that has been found, that the Chimu kept a court of extraordinary magnificence, and that his subjects, though working hard, lived in abundance and comfort.

There is only one account of the religion of these people, written by Antonio de la Calancha, in his 'Coronica Moralizada del Orden de San Agustin.'^[3] Calancha was prior of the Augustines at Truxillo in 1619, eighty years after the Spanish conquest, when traditions still lingered among the people. He says that the Chimu worshipped the moon, called Si, as the principal god, because it ruled the elements and caused the tempests. The temple of the moon was called Si An. They held that the moon was more powerful than the sun because the latter did not appear in the night, while the moon appears both by day and night. Sacrifices were offered to the moon, consisting, on great occasions, of children wrapped in coloured cloths, with chicha and fruits. Devotion was also shown to some of the stars. The ocean, called Ni, received worship and, apparently, sacrifices; as well as the earth, Vis. Prayers were offered up to one for fish, and to the other for good harvests, with offerings of flour of white maize. Certain rocks were also objects of veneration, called Alespong.

The Si An, or temple of the moon, was to the south, near the banks of the river Muchi. It is a rectangular structure, 800 feet by 470, covering seven acres, with a height of 200 feet. It is built of large adobes. It consists of a level area 400 feet by 350, and 100 feet above the plain, beyond which rises a pyramid of nine stages or terraces, 200 feet square. On the other side of the pyramid, which is the highest part, there is a platform 80 feet lower, and another lower still. The mass of adobes is probably solid.^[4] Here were performed the great religious ceremonies. The gorgeous processions issued from the palace and proceeded to the temple of the moon. There were the musicians with their instruments, the minstrels and singers, the warriors with their long lances and plumed head-dresses showing distinctive ranks, the priests and courtiers, and the Chimu himself in his litter, wearing the jewelled diadem and clothed in robes of fine cotton covered with gold plates, and bordered with fringes of bright-coloured feathers.

Calancha tells us that the physicians, called Oquetlupuc, effected their cures with herbs, and were much venerated, but their punishment, when a patient died owing to their neglect or ignorance, was death. He gives us no details respecting their cemeteries and methods of sepulture, although this is a most important point. Like the Incas, the Chimus thought it a sacred duty to preserve the bodies of the deceased as mummies, and to bury with them their most valued possessions. To this practice we owe the discovery of so many hundreds of specimens of their beautiful works of art. Quite recently Mr. Myring has discovered a great cemetery at the foot of the mountains above the Chicama valley, and has brought to England a magnificent collection of pottery and of gold and silver ornaments. The islands off the coast, called Guañape^[5] and Macabi, were looked upon as sacred cemeteries, and had been so used for more than a thousand years. Besides pottery and other works of art, numerous mummies have been found at various depths,^[6] all females, and all headless. It would seem that they were the victims of sacrifices in remote times.

Cemeteries have been found in all parts of the coast. There are also very interesting ruins in the valleys to the south of Truxillo, all of the same character, and imposing irrigation works. Squier describes a vast reservoir in a lateral valley among the hills, whence water was supplied to the fields of the Nepeña valley. This reservoir was three-quarters of a mile long and half a mile wide, with a massive stone dam across the gorge, eighty feet thick at the base, between the rocky hills. The reservoir was supplied by two channels, one starting fourteen miles up the gorge, the other coming from springs five miles distant. There were houses in the valleys with richly painted walls raised on terraces, verandahs covered with passion-flower plants yielding refreshing fruit, gardens and cultivated land extending to the seashore, dark algaroba woods, and a background of snowy mountains. All this leaves an impression of luxury bordering on effeminacy, but it is qualified by the very numerous representations, on their pottery, of warriors armed to the teeth. It is true that some of the things that are modelled in clay give a low idea of the moral character of the people.

The language, called Mochica by Bishop Oré,^[7] has been preserved in a grammar and vocabularies, though as a spoken tongue it has long been extinct. We are indebted to the priest, Fernando de la Carrera, for the grammar. He was a great-grandson of one of the Spanish conquerors, Pedro Gonzalez de la Carrera, and was brought up at Lambayeque, where he learnt the language in his childhood. It is so excessively difficult, especially the pronunciation, that no grown-up person could learn it. Fernando de la Carrera eventually became cura of Reque, near Chiclayo, and here he composed his grammar, calling the language Yunca, which is the Quichua name for the people of the coast, the Mochica of Oré. It was printed at Lima in 1644, and is very rare. There is a copy in the British Museum which belonged to Ternaux Compans. William Humboldt had a manuscript copy made, which is at Berlin. There is one copy in Peru, belonging to Dr. Villar, for which he gave £25. We are, therefore, deeply indebted to Dr. Gonzalez de la Rosa for having recently edited a reprint. Dr. Middendorf has also translated and edited Carrera's grammar, adding several vocabularies and words collected at Eten.^[8] It was in this little coast village, where the people were famous for their manufacture of straw hats, that the Mochica language lingered down to recent times.

There was another language in the northern coast valleys, which Calancha calls Sec. In 1863 Mr. Spruce collected thirty-seven words of this language, then still spoken at Colan, Sechura, and Catacaos. They have not the remotest resemblance to equivalent words in the Mochica, Chibcha, or Atacama languages.^[9]

The Mochica language is entirely different from Quichua, both as regards words and grammatical construction. It has three declensions depending on the termination of the noun in a consonant, two consonants, or a vowel. The adjective precedes the substantive, and the pronouns precede the verb. The roots of the tenses remain unaltered, the conjugating being effected by pronouns, and the passive voice by the verbs substantive, of which there are two. Prepositions come after the noun. The vocabulary is fairly abundant, and there is a sufficiency of nouns and verbs for the expression of abstract ideas.

We know nothing of the origin of the Chimu and his people. Not the vestige of a tradition has come down to us. All their designs and ornaments refer to their environment. There is nothing which points to a foreign origin. Their civilisation appears to have been developed by themselves without outside contact, in the course of many centuries. Yet the temple of the moon on the Muchi river, and the great pyramids, remind us of similar Maya works. If there was communication it was by sea, and at some very remote period. There is one coast tradition referring not to the Chimu, but to one of his feudatories, the chief of Lambayeque, to the north. It is related by Miguel Cavello Balboa in his work entitled 'Miscelanea Austral.' This cavalier, after serving as a soldier in the French wars, became an ecclesiastic, and went to South America in 1566. He wrote his work, apparently at Quito, between 1576 and 1586.^[10]

Balboa tells us that, a long time ago, a great fleet of boats came from the north under the command of a very able and valiant chief named Naymlap, with his wife Ceterni. The emigration may have been from the coast called by the Spaniards Esmeraldas, or from further north. Naymlap was accompanied by eight officers of his household: his purveyor, Fongasigde; his cook, Ochocalo; his trumpeter and singer, Pitazofi and Ningentue; his litter bearer, Ninacolla; his perfumer, Xam; his bath man Ollopcopoc; and Llapchilulli, his worker in feathers. The chief landed at the mouth of a river called Faquisllanga, where he built a temple called Chot, in which he placed an idol he had brought with him, made of a green stone, and called Llampallec, whence the name of Lambayeque. Naymlap died after a long reign, and was succeeded by his son Cium, married to a lady named Zolzdoñi. After a long reign Cium shut himself up in an underground vault to die and conceal his death from the people, who thought him immortal. A list of eight other kings is given, the last of the dynasty being Tempellec. This unfortunate prince wanted to take the idol out of Chot when an unheard-of thing happened. It began to rain, and the deluge continued for a month, followed by a year of sterility and famine. The priests, knowing of the conduct of Tempellec with regard to Chot, looked upon him as the cause of the calamity. So they put him into the sea, with his feet and wrists tied. Lambayeque submitted to the Chimu, with the other valleys ruled by descendants of Naymlap. Llapchilulli, the feather worker to Naymlap, was a favourite of that chief, who gave him the valley of Jayanca, where his descendants reigned for several generations.

Soon after the extinction of the Naymlap dynasty the Inca invasions began. Authorities differ. Garcilasso de la Vega says that the Inca army advanced along the coast from the south, with a large contingent of allies. Each valley was desperately defended, yet the army of the Chimu was obliged to retreat fighting, and at length the great chief was forced to submit. Sarmiento makes the Inca army descend from the mountains round Caxamarca, subdue the Chimu, and carry off treasure to a vast amount. Balboa tells us that the Incas had many conflicts with the Chimu, but that the details are forgotten. We learn from Montesinos that the Incas finally prevailed over the Chimu by cutting off his water supply. It is certain that the Chimu submitted. He was visited by the Inca Huayna Ccapac, large numbers of artisans were sent to Cuzco, and a military road was made over the valleys and deserts of the coast. This was about four generations before the arrival of the Spaniards, when Cieza de Leon saw and described the Inca roads and buildings. In the height of their power the Chimu must have had considerable trade. Wool and metals came from the mountains; chonta, palm wood, bamboo, parrots, monkeys and other animals from the eastern forests; emeralds and other precious commodities from the northern coast.

The valleys to the north submitted to the Inca without any contest, except from the Penachis, a savage tribe living on the flanks of the mountains. The chief of Jayanca was suspected of complicity with them, and was sent a prisoner to Cuzco, where he lingered for many years. At length his son obtained his release, but he died on the way back. The body was embalmed and sent to Jayanca. The chief of Lambayeque, named Esquen Pisan, was summoned to Cuzco by the Inca Huascar. He went willingly, because he was in love with a young lady of the coast, who was a maid of honour to the widow of Huayna Ccapac. Her name was Chestan Xecfuin. The young chief of Lambayeque sought for his love and found her. They were united and, on their way back, she gave birth to a son, who received the name of Cuzco Chumpi.

Then the Spaniards under Pizarro appeared on the scene, leaving Tumbez on their march southwards on May 16, 1532. Pizarro came to the river Chira at Amotape, where he burnt two chiefs and some other Indians. He founded his town of San Miguel at Tangarara, on the Chira river, afterwards removed to Piura. He was at Pocheos, Zaran in the Piura valley, Copiz and Motupe, eventually reaching Cinto in the valley of the river Leche. Xecfuin Pisan, the chief of Lambayeque, wished to submit to what appeared inevitable, but the people were infuriated. They burnt down his house, and he perished in the flames. His son Cuzco Chumpi submitted, and was baptised with the name of Pedro. We hear also of his son, Don Martin Farro Chumpi. Pizarro rested at La Mamada in the valley of Jequetepeque, and marched thence up the mountains to Caxamarca, which place he reached on November 15, 1532. In 1535 the conqueror was again in these coast valleys. He founded the city of Truxillo, named after his old home in Spain, close to the city of the Chimu in 8° 6′ S., and Balboa tells us that Pizarro was much struck by the grandeur and beauty of the edifices constructed by the ancient kings. But he came as a fell destroyer. The cruelty of the Spaniards extinguished the ancient Chimu civilisation before even a few years had passed. Cieza de Leon tells us of the rapid depopulation of the valleys, and in his time vast tracts were becoming waste for want of people to cultivate the land. The census of the Piura valley alone, made by order of Dr. Loaysa, the first Archbishop of Lima, showed a population of 193,000 Indians. In 1785 it was 44,497, and these chiefly negroes. The race is now practically extinct. The brilliant conceptions, the masterly execution, the untiring industry, the wealth and magnificence, all passed away and are forgotten.^[11]

Yet the story of the coast civilisation of the Chimu is worthy of being rehabilitated. There should be a thorough examination and study of the Mochica language; an exhaustive classification of Chimu works of art in public museums and private collections; a knowledge of all the authorities; and scientific plans of all the ruins. From the works of art alone a fairly complete idea may be obtained of the conditions of life, the manners and customs, even the legends and religious ideas of the extinct people. The result would be the rehabilitation of an ancient people whose history would be quite as interesting, and in some respects even more curious, than the histories of the Aztecs of Mexico, or the Chibchas of Bogota.

1. North Centre South Tumbez Chicama, Viru, and Muchi Guañape Chira Santa Piura Nepeña Motupe or Leche Casma Lambayeque Huarmay Eten Culebra Saña Huaman Pacasmayu Parmunca
2. The castellano de oro and peso de oro were the same (the commercial value being £2 12s. 6d.), equal to 490 silver maravedis, or 14 reals 14 maravedis. Altogether treasure worth £5,500,000 is recorded.

   The amounts are derived from the records of the King's fifths, preserved in the municipal books of Truxillo, which were destroyed by the Chilians. Fortunately Mr. Blackwood had previously made extracts, and he gave copies to Mr. Hutchinson, H.M. Consul at Callao. See his Two Years in Peru, ii. p. 154. A certain Colonel La Rosa was excavating in Squier's time, and had obtained $30,000 worth of gold.

   M. Clemencin wrote an essay on the value of money in the time of Ferdinand and Isabella (Memorias de Acad. Hist. de Madrid, vol. vi.), quoted by Prescott, i. p. 25 n.

3. Lib. II. cap. xi. p. 371; cap. xxxv. p. 484. Lib. III. cap. i. pp. 545, 552, 556.
4. Passages and chambers are supposed to exist, and it is said that there is a vault containing the body of the mightiest of the Chimu princes, and the Peje grande.
5. Guañape, 8° 30′ S., 78° 58′ W.
6. The height of the mass of guano deposit on these islands was 730 feet in many places, and the antiquities have been found at a depth of 100 feet. The accumulation of guano is calculated at ten feet in four centuries, 100 feet in 4000 years. Articles found at 40 feet must, on this estimate of the time taken for the deposits, have been there for 1600 years. It is now doubted whether the deposits can possibly be due entirely to the excreta of birds. The deposits are regularly stratified. But no other explanation has been forthcoming.
7. Rituale seu Manuale Peruanum juxta ordinem Sanctæ Romanæ ecclesiæ per R. P. F. Ludovicum Hieronimum Orerum (Neapoli, 1607). Bishop Oré was a native of Guamanga, in Peru, and was an indefatigable missionary. He gives the Lord's Prayer in Mochica. The word resembles Muchi, the name of the river. I am inclined to think that Mochica was the name of the people whose sovereign was the Chimu.
8. Das Muchik oder Chimu sprache von Dr. E. W. Middendorf (Leipzig, 1892).
9. Chibcha, now extinct, was the language of the civilised people of Colombia. Atacama, also now extinct, was spoken by tribes in the southern part of the coast of Peru.
10. A French translation of Balboa was published by Ternaux Compans in 1840. The original Spanish manuscript has never been edited, and I believe its present locality is unknown.
11. 1 The chief of Mansiche, baptised in 1550 with the name of Don Antonio Chayhuac, is said to have been a descendant of the Chimu. His descendants were living in Lima in the middle of the eighteenth century.—Feijoo, Relacion de la ciudad de Truxillo (Madrid, 1763), pp. 25 and 85. Balboa, p. 73 (n).