Lost City of the Incas (Phoenix Press) (14 page)

Manco’s success in securing such an excellent place of refuge and in using it as a base from which he could make frequent raids led many Inca nobles to follow him and take up residence in the Cordillera de Vilcabamba. While they had none of the weapons or armour used by the Spaniards, they were very efficient with the
bolas
and with slings. The Spaniards reported that the
bolas
were frequently thrown at their horses, binding their legs together and enabling them to be captured. They said that sometimes the
bolas
even pinned a man’s arms to his side. They reported that the Incas, using large slings, could hurl heavy stones with sufficient force to kill a horse and even break a sword at a distance of thirty paces.

Manco’s raids finally became so annoying that Pizarro sent an expeditionary force from Cuzco to attempt to capture him, disperse his army, and destroy his castles.

The Spanish soldiers found it impossible to use their horses and attempted to make a successful raid on foot. As might have been expected, while they were suffering from fatigue, exhausted by their difficult march and the
soroche
, or mountain sickness which is very likely to affect Europeans at altitudes of more than 13,000 feet, they were ambushed by Manco’s soldiers and almost all of them perished. To anyone who has climbed over the Pass of Panticalla, it is not surprising that Pizarro’s expedition was a failure or that the Inca, warned by keen-sighted Indians, posted according to their custom on appropriate vantage points where they could signal with beacon fires, succeeded in defeating a small force of weary soldiers clad in
armour and carrying the heavy blunderbuss of those days. Pizarro’s men were probably stoned to death by the skilful operators of slings before they could even prepare their clumsy weapons for firing. The survivors returned to Cuzco with a vivid story of disaster and the conviction that the Pass of Panticalla was not to be used easily by an invading force. The effect of their story on Pizarro and his advisers and the importance of this reverse will be better appreciated if one remembers that the original size of the expedition which conquered Peru and captured Atahualpa was less than two hundred, only a few times larger than the company which had been wiped out by Manco’s little band estimated by the Spaniards at only about eighty Indians. Possibly there were not even that many.

News of the disaster to his men was so startling, and so likely to cause further trouble among the thousands of Indians whom he was attempting to govern, that Pizarro himself hastily set out with a body of soldiers determined to punish young Manco who had inflicted such a blow on the prestige of Spanish arms. This attempt, however, also failed, even though they succeeded in using the Pass of Panticalla, because the Inca had withdrawn across the rivers and mountains, destroying bridges and trails, safely reaching the inaccessible region around Vitcos.

Gonzalo Pizarro, the brother of the great Francisco, undertook the pursuit of the Inca and occupied some of the passes and bridges, but was also unsuccessful in penetrating the mountain labyrinth. He did not come into actual conflict with Manco. Unable to subdue him or prevent disastrous raids on travellers between Cuzco and Lima, Francisco Pizarro established a fortified city called Ayacucho at a convenient point on the road so as to make it secure for travellers.

Francisco Pizarro was made a Marshal by the King of Spain, Charles V, but was bitterly opposed by Almagro, his original partner. In 1541 some of the followers of Almagro assassinated the Marshal, an event which must have brought joy to Manco in Vitcos. His joy did not last long, however, because the Almagrists were soon defeated and had to flee. Half a dozen of the refugees managed to get across the Apurímac and, protesting allegiance to
the Inca, were kindly received by him in 1542. The leaders of the band were Gomez Perez and Diego Mendez, ‘rascals’, says Father Calancha, ‘worthy of Manco’s favour’. (Father Calancha wrote a missionary chronicle from reports of Augustinian Friars who lived near Vitcos for some years.)

It is said that Perez and Mendez instructed Manco in the use of firearms and in horsemanship. They may have been able to bring their horses with them. They also taught him how to play various games with which they were familiar – quoits, bowls and even chess and checkers – at least that is what we are told by the chroniclers. They took their games very seriously and occasionally violent disputes arose in which they were inclined to forget the rank of their host and how highly he was regarded by his people.

As long as Gonzalo Pizarro was in power they were glad to be Manco’s guests, but one day they heard that Charles V had had enough of the rough conquistadors. In 1544 he sent out a Viceroy with a new code, the ‘New Laws’, a result of the efforts of the good Bishop Las Casas to alleviate the sufferings of the Indians. The ‘New Laws’ provided, among other things, that all the officers of the crown were to renounce their
repartimientos
or holdings of Indian serfs, and that compulsory personal service was to be entirely abolished.
Repartimientos
given to the conquerors were not to pass to their heirs, but were to revert to the king. In other words, the ‘New Laws’ gave evidence that the Spanish crown wished to be kind to the Indians and did not approve of the Pizarros. This was good news for Manco and highly pleasing to the refugees. They persuaded the Inca to write a letter to the Viceroy, asking permission to appear before him and offer his services to the king. The Spanish refugees told the Inca that by this means he might some day recover his Empire, ‘or at least the best part of it’. Their object in persuading the Inca to send such a message to the Viceroy becomes apparent when we learn that they ‘also wrote as from themselves desiring a pardon for what was past’ and permission to return to Spanish dominions.

Gomez Perez, who seems to have been the most active leader of the little group, was selected to be the bearer of the letters
from the Inca and the refugees. Attended by a dozen Indians whom the Inca instructed to act as his servants and bodyguard, he left Vitcos, presented his letters to the Viceroy, and gave him ‘a large relation of the State and Conditions of the Inca, and of his true and real designs to do him service. The Vice-king joyfully received the news and granted a full and ample pardon of all crimes, as desired. And as for the Inca, he made many kind expressions of love and respect, truly considering that the interest of the Inca might be advantageous to him, both in war and peace. And with this satisfactory answer Gomez Perez returned both to the Inca and to his companions.’ The refugees were delighted with the news and got ready to return to king and country. Their departure, however, was prevented by a tragic accident, thus described by Garcilasso Inca de la Vega:

‘The Inca, to humour the Spaniards and entertain himself with them, had given directions for making a bowling-green; when playing one day with Gomez Perez, he came to have some quarrel and difference with this Perez about the measure of a cast, which often happened between them; for this Perez, being a person of a hot and fiery brain, without any judgment or understanding, would take the least occasion in the world to contend with and provoke the Inca. Being no longer able to endure his rudeness, the Inca punched him on the breast, and bid him consider with whom he talked. Perez, not considering in his heart and passion either his own safety or the safety of his companions, lifted up his hand, and with the bowl struck the Inca so violently on the head, that he knocked him down. [He died three days later.] The Indians hereupon, being enraged by the death of their Prince, joined together against Gomez and the Spaniards, who fled into a house, and with the swords in their hands defended the door; the Indians set fire to the house, which being too hot for them, they sallied out into the Marketplace, where the Indians assaulted them and shot them with their Arrows until they had killed every man of them; and then afterwards, out of mere rage and fury they designed either to eat them raw as their custom was, or to burn them and cast their ashes into the river, that no sign or appearance might remain of them; but
at length, after some consultation, they agreed to cast their bodies into the open fields, to be devoured by vultures and birds of the air, which they supposed to be the highest indignity and dishonour that they could show to their Corps.’ Garcilasso concludes: ‘I informed myself very perfectly from those chiefs and nobles who were present and eye-witnesses of the unparalleled piece of madness of that rash and hare-brained fool; and heard them [he was five years old] tell this story to my mother and parents with tears in their eyes.’

There are many versions of the tragedy. One is that the quarrel was over a game of chess between the Inca and Diego Mendez, another of the refugees, who lost his temper and called the Inca a dog. Angered at the tone and language of his guest, the Inca gave him a blow with his fist. Diego Mendez thereupon drew a dagger and killed him.

A totally different account from the one obtained by Garcilasso from his informants is that given by an eye-witness, Manco’s son, Titu Cusi, twenty years after the event.

He says that his father ‘because he did not like to be without me, sent to Cuzco for me. The messengers took me and my mother secretly to the town of Vitcos, where my father had come for fresh air, it being a cold land. There I and my father stayed for many days. At different times seven Spaniards arrived, saying that they were fugitives owing to having committed offences, and they protested that they would serve my father with all their power, for the remainder of their lives. They prayed that they might be allowed to remain in that land and end their days there. My father, thinking that they came with good intentions, ordered his captains to do them no harm, for he wished to keep them as his servants, and that they should have houses in which to live. The captains would much rather have put an end to them, but obeyed my father’s orders. My father had them with him for many days and years, treating them very well, and giving them all that they needed, even ordering his own women to prepare their food and their beverage, and taking meals with them. He treated them as if they were his own brothers.

‘After these Spaniards had been with my father for several years in the said town of Vitcos they were one day, with much good fellowship, playing at quoits with him; only them, my father, and me, who was then a boy. [He was about fifteen years old.] In this game, just as my father was raising the quoit to throw, they all rushed upon him with knives, daggers, and some swords. My father, feeling himself wounded, strove to make some defence, but he was one and unarmed, and they were seven fully armed; he fell to the ground covered with wounds, and they left him for dead. I, being a little boy, and seeing my father treated in this manner, wanted to go where he was to help him. But they turned furiously upon me, and hurled a lance which only just failed to kill me also. I was terrified and fled amongst some bushes. They looked for me, but could not find me. The Spaniards, seeing that my father had ceased to breathe, went out of the gate, in high spirits, saying, ‘Now that we have killed the Inca we have nothing to fear.’ But at this moment the Captain Rimachi Yupanqui (‘rich in all virtues’) arrived with some Antis, and presently chased them in such sort that, before they could get very far along a difficult road, they were caught and pulled from their horses. They all had to suffer very cruel deaths and some were burnt. Notwithstanding his wounds my father lived for three days.’

On the death of the Inca Manco in 1545, his oldest son, Sayri Tupac, still a minor, ruled in his father’s stead. He was not at all warlike; on the contrary he seems to have been fond of luxury and comfort. With the aid of the nobles and chieftains who had been his father’s friends and supporters he reigned for ten years without disturbing his Spanish neighbours or arousing their hostility.

In 1555 a new Viceroy from Spain decided to attempt to make a peaceful conquest of this difficult region by inviting young Sayri Tupac to come out of the inaccessible wilds of the Cordillera Vilcabamba and live in the fertile and attractive
valley of Yucay, not many miles from Cuzco. It has a temperate climate, produces lovely flowers and luscious fruits, and has frequently been called one of the beauty spots of the world.

The Viceroy undertook to accomplish this matter through an aunt of the young man who was living in Cuzco. She sent a trusted ambassador, one of her relatives of the blood royal, attended by faithful retainers. Sayri Tupac’s counsellors permitted the messenger to enter Vitcos and deliver the Viceroy’s invitation. But with their knowledge of the conquistadors, who had not built up much of a reputation for integrity and honour, the Inca nobles were not inclined to advise Sayri Tupac to place himself in the Viceroy’s hands. Accordingly they kept the visitor as a hostage and sent a messenger of their own to Cuzco to ask that a more trusted cousin be sent as ambassador.

In the meantime the Viceroy had become annoyed with this delay and sent from Lima a priest, and a soldier who had married the daughter of the unfortunate Inca Atahualpa and had learned to speak Quichua. They started off quite confidently on their mission, taking with them as presents for the young Sayri Tupac and his friends silver cups and Spanish velvet. They travelled as fast as they could but were detained at the bridge of Chuquichaca, which was the key to the valley in which Vitcos was situated. Here they were joined by the Inca’s cousin, who had been sent for by the nobles and who arrived at the bridge a few days after them. He was welcomed by the Inca nobles and did his best to encourage Sayri Tupac to accept the Viceroy’s offer. At his suggestion the Viceroy’s messengers were admitted to the presence of the Inca. They offered the presents which the Viceroy had sent, but were disappointed to find that Sayri Tupac seemed to prefer to remain free and independent in his secluded valley. He asked them to take back the silver cups to the Viceroy. A few days later, however, after listening to the many interesting stories of life in Cuzco as told by his cousin, the young Inca finally decided to reconsider the matter and accept the Viceroy’s invitation, notwithstanding the advice of his nobles.