The Incas of Peru/Chapter 3

by Clements Robert Markham

CHAPTER III

THE LIST OF KINGS

A long list of a hundred kings of Peru, including the Incas, was given in the writings of Fernando Montesinos, who was in Peru from 1629 to 1642. The writer was credulous and uncritical, and his information was collected a century after the conquest, when all the instructed Indians who could remember the days of the Incas had passed away. Little credence has, therefore, been given to the list hitherto. But Dr. Gonzalez de la Rosa has recently adduced good reasons^[1] for the belief that Montesinos merely copied the list of kings, which was well known long before his time. It was compiled, almost certainly, by Bias Valera, when learned men of the time of the Incas were still living, Valera himself being the son of an Indian mother, and the language of the Incas being his mother tongue. The list, therefore, comes to us on the highest authority, as a genuine tradition of the learned men of Inca times. It is thus placed in quite a different position, and calls for serious consideration.

The list of kings, assuming Blas Valera to have been the compiler, was derived from the ancient quipu records, expounded by learned men of the time of the Incas, called Amautas and Quipucamayocs, who had charge of these records previous to the Spanish conquest. It is conceivable that such records may have been preserved. The ancient Peruvians, like other races in the same stage of civilisation, were genealogists, and had an unusual number of words to distinguish relationships. The chronology of the list, as shown by the length of reigns, is not exaggerated. It gives an average of twenty-five to twenty-seven years for each reign.^[2] It is true that, if the whole represents a succession of fathers and sons, it would take us back to 950 B.C. But a large allowance may be made for successions of brothers or cousins, and for repetitions, which would bring the initial date down to about 200 B.C.

The list commences with the names of the Deity, Illa Tici Uira-cocha. We are told that the first word, Illa, means 'Light.' Tici means 'foundation or beginning of things.' The word Uira is said to be a corruption of Pirua, meaning the 'depository or store-house of creation.' But here there is some confusion. For the name of the first recorded king is given as Pirua Paccari Manco;^[3] and the Deity is said to be his God—the God of Pirua. In modern Quichua Pirua means a granary or store-house. Uira is the store-house or depository of all things—of creation. The ordinary meaning of Cocha is a lake, but here it is said to signify an abyss—profundity. The whole meaning of the words would be 'The splendour, the foundation, the creator, the infinite God.' The word Yachachic was occasionally added—'the Teacher.'

It may well be that the Tiahuanacu carving was an effort to give expression to this idea of the Deity. The names show the sublimity of thought attained by the ancient Peruvians in their conception of a Supreme Being—the infinite cause, the fundamental principle, the light of the world, the great teacher.

The first recorded king, whose Deity is thus described, was Pirua Paccari Manco. His dynasty, which may be called the Pirua dynasty, would include the first eighteen kings in the list, who may possibly be megalithic sovereigns. It may be that some glimmer of light may be afforded by their names. They yield twenty-one words, of which sixteen have meanings in modern Quichua. Three of these are titles which occur frequently. These are Ccapac, occurring eleven times; Yupanqui, four times; and Pachacuti twice in the Pirua dynasty. Ccapac means 'rich,' but applied to a sovereign it conveys the idea of being 'rich in all virtues.'^[4] The word Yupanqui is an equivalent; literally, 'you may count,' but here it is 'you may count for being possessed of all virtues.' The word Pachacuti is composed of the two words Pacha, 'time,' or the 'world,' and Cutini, 'I turn, change back, or reform.' It was applied to sovereigns in whose reigns there was a change in the calendar, or great reforms, or some important event.

These three words were titles, the others are the actual names of sovereigns. Those which belong to the Quichua language have such meanings as princely, august, strong, the scatterer, sun, dawn, crystal, music, a landmark, a brick, a serpent, and a leveller of ground (cozque), whence the name Cuzco. There is also one name after a locality—Huascar—which also means a cable.

Finally, there are three names which have no meaning in Quichua (with the exception of Pirua, a granary), and may be archaic, possibly megalithic. These are Ayar, Manco, Paullu. Paullu may possibly be a name taken from a locality.

It has been suggested by Don Vicente Lopez that the Pirua dynasty ended with the eighteenth king, and that a new Amauta dynasty commenced with the nineteenth. His only reason for this idea is that the successor of the eighteenth king is only called his heir, and not, as heretofore, his son and heir. This is a mistake, for five other Piruan kings are not said to be sons of their predecessors. The theory is, however, convenient, and there is perhaps a better reason for its adoption. After the eighteenth king the title Amauta first appears, and is given to thirteen out of the forty-six succeeding kings who are supposed to form the Amauta dynasty. The name was given to learned men, keepers of the records and revisers of the calendar. The Magian dynasty in Persia, when the same class seized the government, was much more short-lived. The words Atauchi and Auqui first appear as titles in the Amauta dynasty, the one meaning a married prince, and the other also a prince in Quichua, but a father in the southern dialect. There are also the names Raymi and Huquiz, which have no meaning in Quichua. It is said that the king with the former name gave it to the festivals he instituted, while King Huquiz gave his name to the intercalary days. The name Huanacauri occurs twice, and Cauri alone, once. This word is of peculiar interest because it was given to one of the most sacred idols of the Incas, near Cuzco. It has no meaning, though it has a Quichua appearance. Huan means 'with'; Huanac,^[5] 'a warning.' Caura is a laden llama in the southern dialect. But it is useless to speculate. Two kings took the sacred name of the Deity. One was called Uilcañota, after the place where he won a victory over invaders. The other personal names which are not in the Pirua list all have meanings in Quichua, except two or three which are corrupt. Their meanings are light, fire, gold, sacred, a chief, a boy, a beam, a head-dress, left-handed, blood, tobacco, a falcon, a dove, and a foot. There is a name, Marasco, which is suggestive, for Maras was the name of one of the tribes mentioned as following the children of the sun in the Paccari-tampu myth, which will be the subject of the next essay.

The end of the early civilisation is stated to have been caused by a great invasion from the south, when the reigning king was defeated and killed in a battle near Pucara, in the Collao. The whole country broke up into a number of petty tribes, and barbarism returned, with a vicious state of society and intestine feuds. This story may well represent an historical fact. A remnant of the Amautas, with their followers, took refuge in a district called Tampu-tocco,^[6] near the great river Apurimac. Here the tradition of the Deity was preserved, and some remnants of the old civilisation. Elsewhere the religion became degraded—each chief adopting some natural object as his ancestor, and worshipping it instead of the old Deity. The more civilised kings of Tampu-tocco declared themselves to be children of the sun.

There are twenty-seven kings of Tampu-tocco in the list, who may cover a period of 650 years. Few new names appear. The most important is Rocca, which seems to be archaic, having no meaning in Quichua. Another is Ranti Alli (corruptly Arantial). Ranti means a deputy, and Alli, good. Other names which have not occurred before are Huayna, a youth; Atau, fortune of war; Tocco, a window; Huari, and Huispa, corrupt; and Cuis. Cuy means a guinea-pig. The last Tampu-tocco king was Inti Mayta Ccapac, the eighth Pachacuti. The word Mayta occurs first in his name, and a meaning has been given to it. May is where, Ta, through. Perhaps a question 'Whither go I?'—recalling the last verses of the Emperor Hadrian.

After this examination of the list of kings, the question arises whether it throws any light on the problem of the megalithic age and the Tiahuanacu ruins. I am disposed to think that we may obtain a glimmering of light from it. The record of the names and attributes of the ancient Deity is important. The destruction of the old civilisation, in a great battle, and the subsequent disruption, with the preservation of some remnant of civilisation and religion at Tampu-tocco, the place of refuge, explains what follows. The superiority and predominance of the so-called children of the sun is thus explained. It may be that the Pirua and Amatua dynasties may possibly represent the sovereigns of the megalithic empire. Its decline and fall was followed by centuries of barbarism, so that the people had almost forgotten its existence, while the tribes of the Collao were probably of another race, descendants of invaders. As the Bible and the literature and art of Greece and Rome were preserved through centuries of barbarism by the monasteries, so the religion and civilisation of the megalithic empire were preserved through centuries of barbarism by the Amautas of Tampu-tocco. In one case the dark period was succeeded by the age of the Renaissance, in the other by the enlightened rule of the Incas.

1. The reasons will be given in a note in the Appendix.
2. From Henry II to Edward VII the average of reigns is twenty-eight years. From Philip Augustus of France to the present Duke of Orleans the same. From Alfonso VII to Alfonso XIII of Spain twenty-six years. From Alfonso Henriquez to Manoel II of Portugal the same. The same period of 897 years is taken for each, being the period covered by the kingdom of Portugal.
3. Paccari means the dawn; Manco has no meaning in the Quichua language.
4. G. de la Vega.
5. G. de la Vega, I. vi. p. 29.
6. Tampu, a tavern; and tocco, a window. It was in the province of Paruro, department of Cuzco, but the exact locality is uncertain.