Franklin Pease García-Yrigoyen (1939-1999). Ph.D. in History from the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Peru, where he taught from 1965.
He was director of the National Library of Peru, director of the National Museum of History, and founder and director of the journal Historica.
By Franklin Pease García Yrigoyen
The Incas
Translated by Simeon Tegel
The Incas
Franklin Pease García Yrigoyen
© Mariana Mould de Pease, 2011
© Fondo Editorial de la Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, 2015
Av. Universitaria 1801, Lima 32 - Perú
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ISBN: 978-612-317-110-0
Introduction
Celebrated in the history of civilizations, the Andes were home to numerous societies from prehistory until the beginning of the 16th century when, during the period of the great European geographical expansion, the arrival of the Spaniards put an end to the Tawantinsuyu, known ever since as the Inca Empire. The region has thus formed part of the historical experience of humanity and, since the historians of the Indies of the 16th century, has been incorporated into historiography.
The Incas inhabited Andean space. Along the length of the region, between Colombia and Chile, the mountain range reaches peaks of 6,000 metres. The highest altitudes are found on the eastern side of the Andes, between Argentina and Chile, but in those zones where the various ranges spread apart, there grew the paramos in the north and the puna in the south, elevated plains which comprised a specific landscape of high altitude deserts. West of the Andes, there are tropical forests in Colombia, Ecuador and the north of Peru, and then, further south, from the Peruvian coast to central Chile stretches a varied coastal desert crossed by transversal valleys, many of which are dry for part of the year. East of the Andes is found the vast territory watered by the Amazon River and its tributaries. In this book, dedicated to the Incas of Cusco and their time, the theme of the Andes is not just a mere formality, given that the presence of the Andes drew specific lines in the demographic distribution of the region, as well as originating specific methods of adaptation by the populations to a natural environment, sui generis, in and with which they lived. When the Spaniards invaded the Andes in the 16th century, they found a region both terrible and filled with grandeur, and over time a stereotype was generated which identified it as inhospitable. Certainly, the chroniclers of the 16th century left testimony of the ferocity of the inter-Andean valleys; they also spoke of the bounty of its temples, but at the same time noted the difficult conditions created by the great heights.
In the 1930s, the German geographer Carl Troll had drawn attention insistently to the relationship between the puna and high Andean culture, emphasizing the crops and high altitude pasture animals. And the chroniclers of the 16th century (Pedro Cieza de Leon, for example ) had stressed the fact that Inca paths, and Andean paths in general, usually traced the highest parts of the terrain whereas the Spaniards preferred the lowest routes crossing the valleys. This natural preference of the Europeans was the result of their difficulties in adapting to altitude, and it helped to generate an image of the Andes as an inhospitable and difficult land. Following in the footsteps of Troll, specialists highlighted the adaptation of the Andean population to the high zones (Carlos Monge studied this in Peru) as well as the way this benefited them. Thus, John V. Murra developed the theory that privileged the simultaneous utilization of the maximum number of steps of ecological levels by Andean societies.
Even in the 16th century, the aforementioned Cieza de León called attention to the geographic classifications which the Europeans of the time introduced and learnt in the Andes. The example that he used was yunga, a term that the Europeans popularized for the coast, which was also known as the llanos. Cieza confirmed that the term was valid when applied to any hot and humid zone on the coast, in the highlands or the Amazon rainforest. It therefore dealt with an ecologically defined boundary rather than a geographic space.
Over time, the Incas acquired a historical image, initiated by the chroniclers who converted into history the tales that, with real communication difficulties, they gathered. Generally, they related to myths and rituals through which the Andean population explained itself. At the same time, the chroniclers used the European historical and mythological tradition, translating it to the New Continent and the Andes. In this way, men from the Andes and the Americas were transformed into descendants of Noah; American geography was nourished from memories of Mediterranean classics and of mediaeval travelers to other worlds. Even the local gods were identified with biblical categories, whether from Hebrew or gentile religion.
Modern historiography did not exclude such arbitrary criteria as these. In the 19th century, early archaeologists were able to accept that the Incas, like the Mayas and Aztecs, had formed part of an ancient lost race (Ephraim George Squier, for example) and in the 20th century, an author such as Louis Boudin achieved fame by popularizing a socialist image of the Incas. Often, as in the 16th century, historians sought to explain the Incas with categories from European historiography. Just as Europe had achieved a world economy, it was establishing a world history, generalizing a historical explanation of all societies.
This book aims to be an introduction to the Incas, an ordering of existing information. By its nature, footnotes have been omitted, but there is a bibliography of the classic texts of the 16th and 17th centuries as well as a basic list of modern authors.