Lost City of the Incas (Phoenix Press) (17 page)

Calancha says that while Friar Diego was busy with the advancement of his church, beloved by all, Friar Marcos ‘was suffering persecution, because he, with Catholic courage, rebuked some superstitions among the principal Indians, and some heathen actions on the part of the Inca, exhorting them to put an end to the drunkenness which is the cause of all the misfortunes of these Indians. It precipitates them into incest, sodomy, and homicide, and there is rarely a drinking bout that is not mixed with heathen rites, the Devil often being visibly present, disguised in the person of an Indian.’ Friar Marcos carried on such a violent crusade against the bibulous habits of Titu Cusi and his nobles that he greatly irritated the Inca and his caciques. They even attempted to kill the father secretly, ‘by giving him deadly herbs and powders. Notwithstanding that secrecy was imposed, there was one who pretended to hate Father Marcos, in order not to anger the Inca, but was a Catholic and secretly the father’s friend. He warned him that they wished to kill him and that he should be careful. The afflicted monk remained in his place, but seeing that the poisoners stayed near him, he determined to go to Cuzco.’

He notified Father Diego of his decision, ‘entrusted to him the ornaments of the church, and alone, on foot, with two fragments of bread, he advanced slowly through the country, planning to travel more rapidly after dark and enter a less dangerous valley at daybreak, reaching Cuzco in two to four days. The Inca learned of it. The news must have been given to him by the Indian with whom the father left the church ornaments, not through enmity but in order that the father, whom the poor and lowly Indians loved so devotedly, might not leave them. The Indians would not have known that they were attempting to kill him.’

The Inca was angry and sent five of his captains with lances to fetch the father. Titu Cusi gave him ‘an insulting reprimand, abusing him for leaving his province without permission’.
Father Marcos prudently replied, ‘Señor, the Indians whom you have in this pueblo do not desire to receive the faith, nor to hear the word of God; they run away from me and insult the holy doctrines which I preach to them, most of those who requested baptism being already enemies of Christ our Creator. If your Indians had received the faith, or if those who did receive it had not apostatized, I would remain among them until death. Those who now accept the faith and are baptized are Indians who came from Cuzco; others fear to come to me.’ The Inca then told him to return to his church.

One day Friar Marcos and Friar Diego were with Titu Cusi when he said that he was willing to take them to the city of Vilcapampa, his ‘principal seat’ which neither of them had seen. He said, ‘Come with me; I desire to entertain you.’ They left the next day with the Inca, who was accompanied by a small party of his captains and caciques. ‘They came to a place called Ungacacha, and there perpetrated the infamy they had plotted, which was that they covered the roads with water, the country being inundated by turning the river from its course, because the fathers desired and had often attempted to go to Vilcapampa to preach, because it was the chief town and the one in which was the University of Idolatry and the professors of witchcraft, teachers of the abominations.

‘The Inca, in order to frighten them, so that they would not attempt to live or preach in Vilcapampa, but would leave the province, plotted a sacrilegious and diabolical scheme. Shortly after daylight, on descending to a plain, the monks thought they had come to a lake. The Inca said to them, “all of us must pass through this water.” O cruel apostate! [The Inca did not take his Christian baptism as seriously as the monks wished he had.] He travelled in a litter and the two priests on foot, without shoes! The two ministers went into the water and proceeded joyfully, as if they were treading on fine carpets, for they knew they were receiving these insults and torments because of the Inca’s hatred of their preaching.’ Waist-deep in water and chilled through, they slipped and fell ‘and there was no one to help them up. They held each others’ hands while those sacrilegious ones
shouted with laughter and amused themselves by insulting them. With their habits soaked in water, and in bitter cold weather, these servants of God travelled on, not showing signs of anger or irritation.

‘Cold and covered with mud, they came out on dry land and there the Inca told them that he had come by that difficult route because he thought it would so disgust them with the attempt to settle in Vilcapampa that they would go from thence to Cuzco.’ It is three days’ journey from Puquiura to Machu Picchu.

It is important to remember that the missionaries reported that it was a terribly cold and tiresome journey of three days’ duration between the two capitals of Titu Cusi, the headquarters of his army at Puquiura and his principal seat, the great sanctuary of Vilcapampa the Old, a place the Spaniards never found or saw. Nevertheless Father Calancha says the monks finally reached its vicinity and continued preaching for three weeks. ‘The Inca did not wish the fathers to live in the town and ordered that they be given lodging outside so that they might not see the worship, ceremonies and rites in which the Inca and his captains participated daily with their sorcerers.’

Undoubtedly, since this was the principal city in the whole province and admittedly a great sanctuary, it must have had fine temples and palaces as well as priests and Virgins of the Sun, but the Inca kept the missionaries from seeing the sacred city or even getting any idea of its beautiful buildings. Titu Cusi had no intention of allowing the Friars to enter his ‘University of Idolatry’ or to desecrate the precious sanctuary. He had done his best to keep them away and discourage them from ever wanting to come again. Nothing daunted, the monks took advantage of their situation to preach against the idols, emphasizing their abomination. Since the great mass of the common people were not admitted to the sanctuary but lived in its vicinity, the friars had a large audience whom they attempted to convert. This naturally put the Inca and his captains in a rage, and set them to plotting revenge. He consulted his sorcerers as to what could be done to subdue the friars and silence them. ‘The sorcerers asked
for a day in which to consult on the matter with the demons that they called idols or Gods.

‘The result of the infernal conference was that since their enemies the friars would not succumb to offers of gold or silver, they must be subdued by being made to violate their vow of chastity.’ Titu Cusi and his advisers selected among the Chosen Women the very handsomest, not only those from the highlands but particularly ones from the warm and humid valleys in the coastal provinces where modesty and chastity were unknown, women regarded as the ‘most beautiful and pleasing of those regions, the most elegantly adorned and doubtless the most seductive’.

The Chosen Women were ‘assured that they could subdue these servants of God and thus win the Inca’s praise’. They ‘made use of all that the devil knew how to teach them, practising all the arts of sensuality and the most dangerous gifts of seduction. But these apostolic men defended themselves so valiantly that the women returned, defeated and abashed, the friars remaining humble and victorious.

‘The Inca and his sorcerers, irritated by their failure and raging at the affront, went again to consult the devil, and from this conference came another and more outrageous expedient. They made habits from black and white blankets, dressed many of the most beautiful and dissolute Indian women in them, and sent them [to the friars] in this order: two went out wearing black habits and came to where the priests were, pretending that it was a gesture to amuse and entertain them. There they did what the demons had instructed them, but the servants of God thrust them out with reproaches.’ At an unseemly hour two others came wearing white habits, who looked like friars. Since neither the Indians’ rooms nor their taverns had any keys or doors, the women were able to reach the friars’ beds. However, these emissaries of hell, novices of deceit and devotees of lust made no impression on the friars. If they came by day to their infernal battle, they reproached them; if by night, they preached to them until, seeing that they were defeated they did not return. This battery of women continued day and night, the habits
being changed and different Indians always being sent. If the monks left their houses and went into the country, they sought them out. The attackers did not cease to contrive new wiles and to present terrible temptations.’

While the efforts of the Inca and the Priests of the Sun were in vain, the friars finally became discouraged, realizing that they were not making any headway and were not to be allowed in the sanctuary of Vilcapampa. So they asked the Inca’s permission to go back to their churches and schools in Puquiura and Guarancalla.

Notwithstanding their unpleasant experiences in the neighbourhood of Vilcapampa the Old, they were still willing to try to please Titu Cusi. Matters seem to have gone along smoothly for a time and Titu Cusi even went so far as to dictate to Friar Marcos the account of the life and death of his father Manco. He in turn dictated it to Martin Pando, the educated young
mestizo
, trusted by the Inca, who got into the Vilcabamba valley with Rodriguez. He says he wrote it with his very own hands in the presence of Father Diego Ortiz and three of Titu Cusi’s captains. He gives the location as ‘San Salvador de Vilcabamba’, a place not known today, possibly the residence of Friar Marcos. The account was signed by Titu Cusi and witnessed by both the Augustinian monks in February 1570. It was in the nature of a memorial addressed to Philip II that he ‘may show favour to me [Titu Cusi] to my sons and my descendants’. He wrote:

‘I Don Diego de Castro Titu Cusi Yupanqui, natural son of Manco Inca, rich in all virtues, late Lord of these kingdoms of Peru, declare that, as it is necessary for me to make this statement to the King Don Philip our Lord, containing things of importance to me and my successors, and not knowing the style and manner used by Spaniards in such reports, I requested the very Reverend Father Friar Marcos Garcia and Martin de Pando that, in conformity with the usage on such occasions, they would order and compose the above narrative, for the very illustrious Lord, the Licentiate Lope Garcia de Castro, to send to Spain; that for me, in my name, holding, as I do hold, my power,
all may be explained to his Majesty Don Philip our King and Lord.’

After this literary task was completed, Titu Cusi probably went back to his principal court at Vilcapampa where he and his mother could be well taken care of by the Chosen Women. His ‘apostasy’, however, convinced Father Marcos that something drastic should be done to discredit the Inca’s gods and encourage the Indian converts. So he and Father Diego decided to invade a Temple of the Sun which was ‘in a village called Chuquipalpa’ and contained ‘a white rock over a spring of water’. According to Father Calancha, this was the principal centre of Sun worship where the people went to kiss their hands to the sun, probably in June, the time of the winter solstice, to beg for its eagerly desired return.

The author of the Book of Job quotes him as referring to an act of adoration of the Gentiles who ‘when the sun rises resplendent or the moon shines clear, exult in their hearts and extend their hands toward the sun and throw kisses to it’. It was one of the most natural and widespread forms of religious worship in the ancient world.

As has already been said, Friar Marcos and Friar Diego decided to make a spectacular attack on the particular devil who could be encountered there. They took advantage of the absence of the Inca and his mother and chief councillors, and probably his bodyguards, to summon such converts as they had to gather at one of the churches, bringing with them stacks of firewood in order that they might burn up this devil who had tormented them.

Father Calancha asks us to believe that the converted Indians were most anxious to get even with this devil who had slain their friends and inflicted wounds on themselves. Doubters were curious to see the result. Inca priests were there to see their god defy the Christians. While, as may be readily imagined, the rest of the population came to see the excitement.

It took great courage on the part of the two Augustinians thus to desecrate one of the chief shrines of the Inca and the people among whom they were dwelling. It is almost incredible that in
this remote valley, far from the protecting hand of any Spanish officials, they should have dared to insult so wantonly the religion of their hosts.

Nevertheless, Friars Marcos and Diego marched over here with their converts from Puquiura, each carrying a stick of firewood. Calancha says the Indians worshipped the water as a divine thing, that the devil had at times shown himself in the water. The Augustinian monks here raised the standard of the cross, recited their orisons, and piled firewood all about the rock and temple. Exorcising the devil and calling him by all the vile names they could think of, the friars commanded him never to return. Setting fire to the pile, they burned the temple and scorched the rock, making a powerful impression on the Indians and causing the poor devil to flee, ‘roaring in a fury’. ‘The cruel devil never more returned to the rock nor to this district.’ Whether the conflagration temporarily dried up the source or interfered with the arrangements of the water supply so that the pool disappeared for the time being is a matter for speculation.

It is possible that the Inca Titu Cusi and his mother were visiting the University of Idolatry when this happened. At any rate, as soon as they heard of it they were furious and immediately returned to Vitcos. The nobles wished to kill the missionaries and probably would have done so had it not been for the regard in which Friar Diego was held, owing to his skill in curing disease. Friar Marcos, however, was stoned out of the province and threatened with death if he should return. Friar Diego, beloved by the Indians who came from the fever-stricken jungle in the lower valley, was not only allowed to remain but finally became a trusted friend and adviser of Titu Cusi.