Lost City of the Incas (Phoenix Press) (36 page)

Not far from the rock-sheltered terrace another place of burial was found under an overhanging crag or boulder which projected from the mountain side for about 30 feet. It was explored under the direction of Dr Eaton, who found a fragment of a female skull with the lower jaw showing slight Aymara deformation. A
chicha
jug, with a grotesque fat man modelled in relief on the neck, was found buried close to the skull. Alvarez, one of his Indians, while excavating at random, lightly drove the point of a small combination pick and mattock through the loop of the jug handle, and drew forth the piece
uninjured. The rascal then insisted on going through the whole performance again, just to show how skilful and careful he was. He may thank the great and small gods of the mountains that his encore was successful.

Among the various skeletons which were found beneath the surface of this large cave was a fragment of a large and heavy male skull, with fragmentary skeleton. The very decayed condition of these remains suggests a burial considerably older than some of the others. The skull undoubtedly belonged to a large male of the coastal type, and the long bones were of corresponding proportion. Close to this skull, and presumably placed with it, was a bronze crow-bar, a
champi
, one of the best we found. Its owner may have been one of the principal stonemasons who built the city, long before the days of Manco II and his sons.

Llama bones were found in profusion beneath the floor of the caves, around and above the interments, the skeletal material of these useful beasts being almost as plentiful as the human remains. Nearly every skeletal part of the animal was represented. However, it should be noted that, with the exception of the toes and the knee caps, no entire llama bones were to be seen.

The long bones of the llama may have been split in order that the marrow could be eaten by the friends of the deceased. In some places it is known to have been the practice of the persons who had charge of the mummies to consume the offerings of food made to the dead during the annual festivals.

In a cave from which pottery on the surface might easily have been removed was the undisturbed grave of a young woman. With the bones were found the young woman’s two shawl-pins. She must have been a person of consequence, for these were of silver. Near the grave was a large flat rocking muller of rare shape, used for grinding corn. Since one of the chief occupations of the Chosen Women was the making of
chicha
for the Inca and his nobles and priests, and the making of it required the crushing of the sprouted corn after it had been boiled, this was probably used in the sanctuary.

On the northern slopes of Machu Picchu Mountain, above
the ruins, we found a large cave, 30 feet long and 15 feet wide, which, although containing a walled-up grave, seems to have been used as a primitive dwelling or rock shelter. There was no protecting wall in front of it, but the sides and back had been nicely finished off with neatly laid stone walls. These walls may have been intended to act as partial insurance that the huge boulder, a portion of whose flat under surface formed the roof of the shelter, would not settle down on the occupants. Since no human bones were found except those in a walled-up grave at one end, it seems likely that this fine dry cave was once occupied as a shelter for workmen engaged in neighbouring quarries, or carriers who had occasion to use the old Inca road not far away. It was by this road, as we learned later, that the inhabitants normally came down to the city from the plateau behind the mountain, where there were a large number of agricultural terraces and several Inca towns in ancient times.

In one cave, with the skeleton of a young woman, we found a collection of bones of various animals including a llama, an agouti, a small deer, and a Peruvian hare. While these are all edible animals, particularly the agouti, a cavy the size of a rabbit which I learned years ago in Venezuela to prize as a tasty morsel, it seemed strange that this young lady should have been provided with so many ‘baked meats’. Possibly, however, these little bones had been carefully collected by her and she had intended to carve them into tools. We found in her grave a very well-made specimen of the kind of pointed instrument used by Peruvian weavers in beating up or striking into place the weft threads in the fabric. There was also a small knife-like instrument of bone. Since the Chosen Women were taught useful arts and needed weaver’s tools, their fashioning may have been her special hobby.

In a small chamber at the rear of another large natural cave with the skeleton of a woman about fifty years of age was a plant-spine needle, a child’s jaw-bone, an imperfect beaker-shaped
olla
, or cooking pot, and a deep plate with a broken handle, also several fragments of llama bones, representing food for the dead. In another grave, apparently undisturbed, a small adult female was buried beneath a mass of earth and stones,
with a broken
olla
. In an adjoining cave was the skeleton of a woman about fifty years of age accompanied by a heavy bronze shawl-pin, and a beaker-shaped
olla
. It is interesting to note that in many of the caves where women had been buried we found their blackened cooking pots. They were usually placed on top of the ground, presumably next to the mummy bundle. Frequently there were no other dishes.

In one cave two persons of importance, both small adult women, were buried at a depth of nearly 5 feet. Over their bones, but well concealed beneath the earth and cobbles of the floor, was a complete set of Cuzco-style dishes and jars suitable for ladies. They included two beaker-shaped cooking
ollas
, two two-handled food dishes, two deep plates, two pelike-shaped jugs, and two containers for liquid refreshment. Evidently the owners were important ladies. Not far from here another grave was found to contain the bones of a woman who also may have been a favourite of the Inca. She was buried with a bronze knife, a bronze shawl-pin, and two silver pins of similar size and shape. Among the well-to-do Indian women of Peru and Bolivia today, silver shawl-pins are often the most valuable of their personal belongings.

A single undisturbed stone-lined grave or cist was found to contain the bones of a woman and four oblong stone pendants, probably pieces of a necklace. Necklaces of durable material do not seem to have been common.

In another locality a large boulder covered the remains of three women and a child of six years. With the bones was a perfect specimen of a drinking ladle and the nearly complete remains of three beaker-shaped
ollas
, four two-handled dishes, a two-handled bowl, and a fragment of a large
amphora
.

One locality one mile south-east from the city, in a saddle of Machu Picchu Mountain, contained the bones of a man and a woman, both of small stature. Their property consisted of two two-handled dishes, a diota-shaped
olla
, a deep plate, a wooden deep plate, a wooden spindle-whorl, a stone counter, two small bone awls, and seven ‘polishing stones’. A few llama bones and the lower jaw of an agouti represented the funeral ‘baked
meats’. If they used the
olla
for cooking, the dishes for serving their stews, the two plates for drinking, we have their entire kitchen furniture. The woman, like all Indian women in the Andes to-day, had her spinning and weaving to do. The man was a stonemason but possibly he was fond of wood-working. He did some hunting. They were temperate folk. They had no jugs. They were poor. They had nothing of metal, no silver or bronze. They may have been llama drivers. They were buried not far from the old Inca stone-paved road which led round the slopes of the mountain to the open country and the llama pastures beyond.

Late in the season I was conducted by Richarte along a narrow and dangerous trail under the cliffs, on the west side of Huayna Picchu, to a very large cave, nearly 90 feet in length and partly lined with walls of cut stone. It could have been used as a shelter for a considerable number of people. It might have been used as a burial cave. On account of its accessibility from the lower slope of Huayna Picchu, which can easily be approached at low water, it had probably long been known to Melchor Arteaga and other Indian treasure hunters of the neighbourhood. Nevertheless, it was new to Richarte and he was greatly excited by its discovery, thinking that it was going to yield him a rich return in the way of bonuses and prizes. Greatly to his disappointment, although a grave or two were found near by, the cave contained nothing at all, not even a bone. It had probably been used as a rock shelter by workmen engaged in cultivating the fields of Huayna Picchu rather than as a burial cave.

A certain proportion of the burial caves showed evidences of having been visited before, even as long ago as the days when the city was still occupied. The object of these visitors was to make room for later burials and they ruthlessly swept the earlier occupants into a corner. Other visitors were probably the treasure seekers of the generation past. Señor Lizárraga, for instance, is known to have sold a pot or two which he said came from Machu Picchu, but the difficulty of the climb up to the ruins and the low price of pots probably dissuaded him from making any serious effort to locate graves. Richarte and his friends had
small inducement to disturb any graves until the days of our arrival and the opportunity of securing liberal gratuities. They could not have sold more than one or two
ollas
without being detected by their landlord, who would have immediately claimed anything of this kind. The most frequent visitors to the caves on the mountain side were undoubtedly animal prowlers searching for food and shelter, and especially the spectacled bears, which are still common in this vicinity.

A cave 200 feet from the city gate contained the well-preserved skeletons of two men, one about twenty years of age, the other a small man approaching middle age. These men were not builders, no hammer-stones or crow-bars being buried with them. The younger man had an elaborately carved grey talc necklace ornament of unique design, a number of bone beads, and pieces of what appears to be a bead made of fused green glass! The older man had a few ornaments, small stone tokens and bronze necklace pendants. Also he had a jug, the only jug, by the way, that was not found associated with women’s bones. His bones were free from decay. The muscles of his left thigh still adhered to the bone. There were even a few pieces of cloth and cord made from brown llama wool. Evidently this was one of the most recent of all burials. It is curious and significant that these two men should have female ornaments as well as a woman’s jug. Their unusual place of burial, their feminine adornments, the absence of masculine possessions, the extraordinary presence of a mass of desiccated muscle tissue on the older man’s thigh, the little jug, all point to something peculiar about these two. Why were they buried in this unusual place? Were they unwelcome visitors who came to the outskirts of the sacred city and were buried near the gate without being admitted to the society of the Virgins of the Sun? And what about that bead of fused green glass? Where did the young man get that? It is probably of European origin. To be sure, it is only a little thing, but it would seem to say that the young man came here after the Spaniards had reached Cuzco. Were these men spies, sent by the Spaniards to try to locate the refuge of the Virgins of the Sun who had escaped from the holy city? Did they bring presents
for the sacred women, necklaces, and a jug and a precious glass bead, the like of which none of the women had ever seen before? Who can tell? It seems to be an insoluble puzzle.

It will be remembered that our excavations in the fortress of Vitcos, the last Inca capital, resulted in the finding of a number of iron articles of European manufacture, including a buckle, a pair of scissors, several saddle ornaments, and three jews’ harps, mementos of the days of the Spanish Conquest. Had Machu Picchu been known to the conquerors or been occupied by Inca soldiers who had opportunities, as did the followers of the last Inca Manco, to waylay Spanish travellers, we might expect to find similar foreign artifacts here. It is all the more striking and significant, therefore, to note that after the most thorough and painstaking search in the one hundred caves or graves which contained objects of interest, as well as in the many other caves which yielded only negative results, only two others contained objects which could without doubt be assigned to the post-Columbian era. Furthermore, in no case was the object one that might not perfectly well have been brought to the caves long after the burials had taken place and Machu Picchu had been abandoned as a place of residence. In a cave halfway down the mountain side, east of the hut of Richarte, at a considerable distance from the city and the principal cemeteries, was found a piece of rusty iron, little more than a thin rust flake about 3 cm long and 1 cm wide. It looks as if it might be the shard of a knife blade. There is no reason why it may not be from the knife of a treasure hunter, particularly in view of the fact that no objects of bronze or pottery of marketable value were found in this cave. The presence of several artistic little carved stone chips of animals in silhouette makes it seem likely that other attractive articles were once here. On the other hand, it may have belonged to one of the occupants of the neighbouring grave. The knife blade, if such it was, may have been used to carve the little stone tokens. In the only burial cave near this one was found a well-preserved example of typical coast pottery, a stirrup-shaped spherical bottle, totally unlike anything of Inca workmanship; also more carved animals. The contents of these caves as well as
their location would seem to dissociate their occupants from those who were buried in one of the regular cemetery areas. On the other hand, the use of the local chloritic schist as the medium for perpetuating the appearance of certain animals would seem to identify the individuals as permanent residents rather than as transients.