Stone on top of stone
Located in the Huatanay River valley, the city of Cusco, originally
named Acamama, was populated long before the arrival of the
Incas. Its first inhabitants came there more than five thousand
years ago and prospered as farmers and llama shepherds, circa 1000 B.C.,
when the Marcavalle culture ruled the lands around the Huatanay. Later,
other ethnic groups flourished like the Huaru and the Chanapata, who
were present in that region for a very long time. Thereafter came the
Tiahuanaco-Huari tribes to dominate the area between the sixth and
twelfth centuries A.D. until their expulsion
by the Lucre in the year 1,100 A.D.
Free of the Tiahuanaco-Huari control, the local
ethnic groups fought amongst themselves
for domination and around 1200 A.D. the
powerful Incan government was formed. Due
to the fact that these cultures had no written
languages, it is difficult to ascertain the exact
origin of the Incas or the names of their first monarchs known as Sapallac
Inca Cuna or Sapa Inca. Garcilaso de la Vega does resurrect two legends about
the origin of the Tahuantinsuyu in his Royal Commentaries of 1609. The
first makes reference to Manco Cápac and Mama Ocllo, children of the sun
and brother and sister / husband and wife, who emerged from the waters of
Lake Titicaca with the mission to found an empire; it is told then that as they
were walking, Manco Cápac took his staff and jabbed it into the ground and
the place where it embedded itself was where the kingdom was to be; this
happened to be the hill called Huanacaure, close to Cusco, where they settled
and instructed the men in the ways of agriculture and cattle raising. The other
tale speaks of four brothers, the Ayar, and their respective wives, who left the
caves of Paccaritambo with the purpose to establish a city.
After the mythical founding of the city, a line of rulers was established, known
as the legendary Incas since their existence has not been irrefutably proven.
With the arrival of Pachacútec in 1438, the Incas start their stage of known
history. This government began the expansion of the territory, remodeled the
city, and started a war in the south against the Chanca tribe, a powerful ethnic
group that stopped the Incas advancement into new territories. From the
beginning of Pachacútec's government until the arrival of the Spanish in 1535,
the Incas managed to carve out an empire that extended from the central
valleys of Chile in the south up to Ecuador and Colombia in the north. Making
Cusco the center of their realm, the Incas divided their empire into four suyos
or quarters: Antisuyo, Chinchaysuyo, Collasuyo y Contisuyo.
In order to govern such a vast territory, the Incas created a complex sociopolitical
organizational system based upon duality and reciprocation. The
monarchs were chosen for their capacity and not for being the first born
son of the king, and it was common for there to be two contenders for the
thrown, who then faced each other in ritual power struggles, as was the
case with Huáscar and Atahualpa after the death of Huayna Cápac, which
the historians called a civil war.
As with all Andean cultures, the main challenge facing the Incas was
to increase the agricultural frontier in order to benefit everyone. To
accomplish this, there was a complex land and labor distribution system
that managed to generate excesses in production, something reflected
in their capacity to mobilize a huge army. However, the Tahuantinsuyo
was not sufficiently cohesive nor its alliances completely solid, as was
the experience of the Spanish when they arrived in 1532 and found easy
support from many of the ethnic groups that opposed the Cusco regime,
especially those like the Chancas who had been won over through force.
