Lost City of the Incas (Phoenix Press) (42 page)

Undoubtedly in its last state the city was the carefully guarded treasure house where that precious worship of the sun, the moon, the thunder, and the stars, so violently overthrown in Cuzco, was restored, where the last four Incas had their safest and most comfortable home, and the Chosen Women whose lives had from early girlhood been devoted to all the duties of the Sanctuary found a refuge from the animosity and lust of the conquistadors.

Surely this remarkable lost city which has made such a strong appeal to us on account of its striking beauty and the indescribable grandeur of its surroundings appears to have had a most interesting history. Selected perhaps a thousand years ago as the safest place of refuge for the last remnants of the old régime, becoming the capital of a new kingdom, giving birth to the most remarkable family which South America has ever seen, partially abandoned when Cuzco once more flashed into glory as the capital of the Inca Empire, it was again sought out in time of trouble when another foreign invader arrived – this time from the north – with his burning desire to extinguish all vestiges of the ancient religion, and finally became the home and refuge of those Chosen Women whose institution formed one of the most interesting features of the most humane religion of aboriginal America. Here, concealed in a canyon of remarkable grandeur, protected by nature and by the hand of man, the ‘Virgins of the
Sun’ one by one passed away on this beautiful mountain top and left no descendants willing to reveal the importance or explain the significance of the ruins which crown the beetling precipices of Machu Picchu.

SIR CLEMENTS MARKHAM
was for many years the pioneer in Peruvian history. His translations of the Spanish chronicles have been freely used. Most of them were originally published by the Hakluyt Society. Even Sir Clements, however, never undertook to translate the longest of the old chronicles, Antonio de Calancha’s
Coronica Moralizada
of the Augustinians in Peru. It is an awe-inspiring folio of a thousand pages and was published in 1638, an omnigatherum of fact and pious fancy. No one has dared to attempt another edition since 1639. It gives such a full account of the efforts of those early missionaries to convert the Incas and their people in the province of Vilcabamba that I have tried to give a faithful version of the more interesting parts of the narrative, even though the style is cumbersome and the monastic vocabulary is redolent of the sixteenth century. In this I must acknowledge the help of Professor Osgood Hardy of Occidental College and of Miss Shelby of the Library of Congress.

Another translation which I have attempted is part of the story of Manco II which was written or dictated by his son Titu Cusi and has been published by H. H. Urteaga and Carlos A. Romero, to whom we are greatly indebted for their scholarly edition.

My ideas with regard to the age and accomplishments of the early Peruvians are based in large measure on the observations of O. F. Cook, America’s most distinguished authority on tropical
and sub-tropical agriculture, who was with me in Peru. His article, ‘Staircase Farms of the Ancients’, published in the
National Geographic Magazine
, was an epoch-making contribution to our knowledge of early American culture. Unfortunately his views and mine are not always accepted by other writers!

A very considerable part of the material in this book is of necessity based on my own books and articles, including
Across South America, Vitcos, In the Wonderland of Peru, Inca Land
, and
Machu Picchu, a Citadel of the Incas
, which have all been out of print for some years. I have also included selections from the reports of various members of my Peruvian expeditions, some of which have been printed elsewhere, as set forth in the Bibliography at the end of
Inca Land
.

Philip Ainsworth Means was a member of the Peruvian Expedition of 1914. His
Ancient Civilizations of the Andes
and his
Fall of the Inca Empire
, besides many of his articles and translations of Spanish chronicles, are a treasure house for students of Peruvian antiquity.

Other members of my expeditions to whom I am indebted and whose reports have been used freely are: Dr George F. Eaton, whose
The Collection of Osteological Material from Machu Picchu
is particularly valuable; Elwood C. Erdis, who was in charge of excavations in the city; Edmund Heller, the distinguished naturalist who made a remarkable collection of the birds and mammals of the Cordillera Vilcabamba; Doctors William G. Erving, Luther T. Nelson, and David E. Ford who were our surgeons; Topographers Albert H. Bumstead, Clarence F. Maynard, H. L. Tucker, Robert Stevenson, E. L. Anderson, and J. J. Hasbrouck, who made the maps which enabled us to add to geographical and archaeological knowledge; and Assistants Paul Lanius, Geoffrey W. Morkill, Osgood Hardy, Paul Bestor, and Joseph Little, who helped me in many different ways.

To Melville Bell Grosvenor of the National Geographic Society, whose father, Dr Gilbert Grosvenor, was one of my most enthusiastic backers in the days of my explorations, I am
indebted for generous assistance in helping me to prepare and select the illustrations used in this volume. Most of the photographs were taken by me, but a few were taken by other members of the expeditions, as indicated in the table of illustrations. Complete sets of the twelve thousand photographs which we took in 1911, 1912, 1914, and 1915 are on file in the Hispanic Society of America, the National Geographic Society, and Yale University.

The most important source for the latest estimate of the culture and civilization of the Incas is the collection of monographs published in Volume 2 of the Smithsonian Institution’s
Handbook of South American Indians
, Washington, 1946. Of these the best for readers interested in the builders of Machu Picchu are the following:

The Andean Highlands
, by Wendell C. Bennett. Vol. 2, pp. 1–60.

The Archeology of the Central Andes
, by Wendell C. Bennett. Vol. 2, pp. 61–147.

Inca Culture at the Time of the Spanish Conquest
, by John Howland Rowe. Vol. 2, pp. 183–330.

The Quechua in the Colonial World
, by George Kubler. Vol. 2, pp. 331–409.

The best books for readers desiring to learn more of the history of the Incas and their predecessors are the works of Philip Ainsworth Means, with their remarkably full notes and bibliographies. Of these the most useful are the following:

Ancient Civilizations of the Andes
, by Philip Ainsworth Means, New York, 1931.

Fall of the Inca Empire and the Spanish Rule in Peru:
1530–1780, by Philip Ainsworth Means, New York, 1932.

Memorias Antiguas Historiales del Peru
, by Fernando Montesinos, translated and edited by P. A. Means; with an Introduction by Clements R. Markham. London, 1920.

Relation of the Discovery and Conquest of the Kingdoms of Peru
, by Pedro Pizarro, translated and edited by P. A. Means, 2 vols. New York, 1921.

Those readers who may wish to learn more of the activities of the Peruvian Expeditions of Yale University and the National
Geographic Society will find a fairly complete bibliography in
Inca Land
, by Hiram Bingham, Boston, 1922 (3rd ed. 1923) pp. 347–351. Of the books and articles there listed, the more interesting and important are the following:

The Collection of Osteological Material from Machu Picchu
, by George F. Eaton, New Haven, 1916.

‘A Metallographic Description of Some Ancient Peruvian Bronzes from Machu Picchu’, by C. H. Mathewson, in the
American Journal of Science
, December 1915, pp. 525–602.

‘Staircase Farms of the Ancients’, by O. F. Cook, in the
National Geographic Magazine
, May 1916, pp. 474–534. This is the most important study that has been published regarding the agriculture of the Incas and their predecessors.

The Andes of Southern Peru
, by Isaiah Bowman, New York 1916.

‘Vitcos. The Last Inca Capital’, by Hiram Bingham, in the
Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society
, April 1912, pp. 135–196.

‘The Discovery of Machu Picchu’, by Hiram Bingham, in
Harper’s Magazine
, April 1913.

‘In the Wonderland of Peru’, by Hiram Bingham, in the
National Geographic Magazine
, April 1913, pp. 387–573.

See also
Across South America
by Hiram Bingham, Boston, 1911.

The complete account of the excavations and material found at Machu Picchu is in
Machu Picchu, a Citadel of the Incas
, by Hiram Bingham, New Haven, 1930.

The most important source material is listed in Means’ books, but of particular value are:

Coronica Moralizada del Orden de San Augustin en el Peru
, by Antonio de la Calancha, published in Barcelona in 1638.

Relacion de la Conquista del Peru y Hechos del Inca Manco II
, by Titu Cusi, edited by H. H. Urteaga and Carlos A. Romero, Lima, 1916.

See also the numerous translations of the Chronicles made by Sir Clements R. Markham and published by the Hakluyt Society. All are listed in Means’
Fall of the Inca Empire
.

Dr Paul Fejos has made an important addition to our knowledge of the Inca ruins in the Cordillera Vilcabamba by his excellent report of the Wenner-Gren Expeditions, published by the Viking Fund in 1944. His many photographs, maps, and plans demonstrate how densely populated was the area tributary to Machu Picchu.

In addition to the books that Bingham lists in his Bibliography, the reader may also find the following more recent publications useful:

Alfred Bingham,
Portrait of an Explorer: Hiram Bingham, Discover of Machu Picchu
(Iowa State University Press, 1989). Memoir by his son Alfred which contains invaluable personal details about Bingham and the work of the Yale Peruvian expeditions.

Daniel Buck, ‘Fights of Machu Picchu’ (South American Explorers Club Journal 32, 1993). Considers and dismisses the various rival claims by Europeans and Americans to have discovered Machu Picchu before Bingham.

Richard L. Burger and Lucy Salazar-Burger, ‘Machu Picchu Rediscovered: The Royal Estate in the Cloud Forest’ (
Discovery
24, 1993). Machu Picchu as a ‘country estate’.

Richard L. Burger and Lucy Salazar-Burger, edited by,
Machu Picchu: Unveiling the Mystery of the Incas
(Yale University Press, 2004).

Paul Fejos,
Archaeological Explorations in the Cordillera Vilcabamba, Southeastern Peru
(Viking Fund Publications in Anthropology no. 3, New York, 1944).

Graziano Gasparini and Luisa Margolies,
Arquitectura Inka
(Venezuela, 1977), translated by Patricia J Lyon as
Inca Architecture
(Indiana University Press, 1980).

Ernesto Che Guevara, ‘Machu Picchu: Enigma de Piedra en América’, December 1953 (reprinted in
Revista de la Casa de las Américas
(Havana), Vol. 28, No. 163, July–August 1987). For Guevara’s first published article he chose to write about the place which ‘drives any dreamer to ecstasy’, and commented that ‘Machu Picchu was to Hiram Bingham the crowning of all his purest dreams as an adult child’.

John Hemming,
The Conquest of the Incas
(Harcourt Brace, 1970), revised edition (British Papermac, 1995). The definitive modern history of the Conquest, replacing earlier accounts by William Prescott and Sir Clements Markham.

John Hemming and Edward Ranney,
Monuments of the Incas
(Boston, 1982), revised edition (Thames & Hudson, 2010).

Vincent R. Lee,
Forgotten Vilcabamba
(Sixpac Manco Publications, 2000). Exploration and mapping of the Vilcabamba.

Kim Malville, Hugh Thomson, and Gary Ziegler, ‘El redescubrimiento de Llactapata, antiguo observatorio de Machu Picchu’ (
Revista Andina
39, Cuzco, 2004), translated as ‘Machu Picchu’s Observatory: the Re-Discovery of Llactapata and its Sun-Temple’ (
http://www.thomson.clara.net/llactapa.html
).

Clements Markham,
The Incas of Peru
(London, 1910).

Martín de Murúa,
Historia General del Perú, Orígen y Descendencia de los Incas
(1590–1611), (Madrid, 1962–4). Rediscovered chronicle which includes an account of the last days of Tupac Amaru.

Susan Niles,
The Shape of Inca History: Narrative and Architecture in an Andean Empire
(University of Iowa Press, 1999).

Johan Reinhard,
Machu Picchu – The Sacred Center
(Lima, 1991, revised edition 2002).