The Oldest City in South America
Cuzco, the oldest city in South America, has changed completely since
Squier's visit. In fact it has altered considerably since my own
first impressions of it were published in "Across South America." To
be sure, there are still the evidences of antiquity to be seen on
every side; on the other hand there are corresponding evidences
of advancement. Telephones, electric lights, street cars, and the
"movies" have come to stay. The streets are cleaner. If the modern
traveler finds fault with some of the conditions he encounters he
must remember that many of the achievements of the people of ancient
Cuzco are not yet duplicated in his own country nor have they ever
been equaled in any other part of the world. And modern Cuzco is
steadily progressing. The great square in front of the cathedral was
completely metamorphosed by Prefect Nuñez in 1911; concrete walks
and beds of bright flowers have replaced the market and the old
cobblestone paving and made the plaza a favorite promenade of the
citizens on pleasant evenings.
The principal market-place now is the Plaza of San Francisco. It is
crowded with booths of every description. Nearly all of the food-stuffs
and utensils used by the Indians may be bought here. Frequently
thronged with Indians, buying and selling, arguing and jabbering,
it affords, particularly in the early morning, a never-ending source
of entertainment to one who is fond of the picturesque and interested
in strange manners and customs.
The retail merchants of Cuzco follow the very old custom of
congregating by classes. In one street are the dealers in hats; in
another those who sell coca. The dressmakers and tailors are nearly
all in one long arcade in a score or more of dark little shops. Their
light seems to come entirely from the front door. The occupants are
operators of American sewing-machines who not only make clothing to
order, but always have on hand a large assortment of standard sizes and
patterns. In another arcade are the shops of those who specialize in
everything which appeals to the eye and the pocketbook of the arriero:
richly decorated halters, which are intended to avert the Evil Eye
from his best mules; leather knapsacks in which to carry his coca or
other valuable articles; cloth cinches and leather bridles; rawhide
lassos, with which he is more likely to make a diamond hitch than
to rope a mule; flutes to while away the weary hours of his journey,
and candles to be burned before his patron saint as he starts for some
distant village; in a word, all the paraphernalia of his profession.
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FIGURE
Map of Peru and view of Cuzco
From the "Speculum Orbis Terrarum," Antwerp, 1578.
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In order to learn more about the picturesque Quichuas who throng the
streets of Cuzco it was felt to be important to secure anthropometric
measurements of a hundred Indians. Accordingly, Surgeon Nelson set up
a laboratory in the Hotel Central. His subjects were the unwilling
victims of friendly gendarmes who went out into the streets with
orders to bring for examination only pure-blooded Quichuas. Most
of the Indians showed no resentment and were in the end pleased and
surprised to find themselves the recipients of a small silver coin
as compensation for loss of time.
One might have supposed that a large proportion of Dr. Nelson's
subjects would have claimed Cuzco as their native place, but this was
not the case. Actually fewer Indians came from the city itself than
from relatively small towns like Anta, Huaracondo, and Maras. This
may have been due to a number of causes. In the first place,
the gendarmes may have preferred to arrest strangers from distant
villages, who would submit more willingly. Secondly, the city folk
were presumably more likely to be in their shops attending to their
business or watching their wares in the plaza, an occupation which the
gendarmes could not interrupt. On the other hand it is also probably
true that the residents of Cuzco are of more mixed descent than those
of remote villages, where even to-day one cannot find more than two
or three individuals who speak Spanish. Furthermore, the attention
of the gendarmes might have been drawn more easily to the quaintly
caparisoned Indians temporarily in from the country, where city
fashions do not prevail, than to those who through long residence
in the city had learned to adopt a costume more in accordance with
European notions. In 1870, according to Squier, seven eighths of
the population of Cuzco were still pure Indian. Even to-day a large
proportion of the individuals whom one sees in the streets appears
to be of pure aboriginal ancestry. Of these we found that many are
visitors from outlying villages. Cuzco is the Mecca of the most
densely populated part of the Andes.
Probably a large part of its citizens are of mixed Spanish and Quichua
ancestry. The Spanish conquistadores did not bring European women
with them. Nearly all took native wives. The Spanish race is composed
of such an extraordinary mixture of peoples from Europe and northern
Africa, Celts, Iberians, Romans, and Goths, as well as Carthaginians,
Berbers, and Moors, that the Hispanic peoples have far less antipathy
toward intermarriage with the American race than have the Anglo-Saxons
and Teutons of northern Europe. Consequently, there has gone on for
centuries intermarriage of Spaniards and Indians with results which
are difficult to determine. Some writers have said there were once
200,000 people in Cuzco. With primitive methods of transportation
it would be very difficult to feed so many. Furthermore, in 1559,
there were, according to Montesinos, only 20,000 Indians in Cuzco.
One of the charms of Cuzco is the juxtaposition of old and new. Street
cars clanging over steel rails carry crowds of well-dressed Cuzceños
past Inca walls to greet their friends at the railroad station. The
driver is scarcely able by the most vigorous application of his
brakes to prevent his mules from crashing into a compact herd of
quiet, supercilious llamas sedately engaged in bringing small sacks of
potatoes to the Cuzco market. The modern convent of La Merced is built
of stones taken from ancient Inca structures. Fastened to ashlars which
left the Inca stonemason's hands six or seven centuries ago, one sees a
bill-board advertising Cuzco's largest moving-picture theater. On the
2d of July, 1915, the performance was for the benefit of the Belgian
Red Cross! Gazing in awe at this sign were Indian boys from some remote
Andean village where the custom is to wear ponchos with broad fringes,
brightly colored, and knitted caps richly decorated with tasseled
tops and elaborate ear-tabs, a costume whose design shows no trace
of European influence. Side by side with these picturesque visitors
was a barefooted Cuzco urchin clad in a striped jersey, cloth cap,
coat, and pants of English pattern.
One sees electric light wires fastened to the walls of houses
built four hundred years ago by the Spanish conquerors, walls which
themselves rest on massive stone foundations laid by Inca masons
centuries before the conquest. In one place telephone wires intercept
one's view of the beautiful stone facade of an old Jesuit Church, now
part of the University of Cuzco. It is built of reddish basalt from
the quarries of Huaccoto, near the twin peaks of Mt. Picol. Professor
Gregory says that this Huaccoto basalt has a softness and uniformity
of texture which renders it peculiarly suitable for that elaborately
carved stonework which was so greatly desired by ecclesiastical
architects of the sixteenth century. As compared with the dense
diorite which was extensively used by the Incas, the basalt weathers
far more rapidly. The rich red color of the weathered portions gives
to the Jesuit Church an atmosphere of extreme age. The courtyard of
the University, whose arcades echoed to the feet of learned Jesuit
teachers long before Yale was founded, has recently been paved with
concrete, transformed into a tennis court, and now echoes to the
shouts of students to whom Dr. Giesecke, the successful president, is
teaching the truth of the ancient axiom, "Mens sana in corpore sano."
Modern Cuzco is a city of about 20,000 people. Although it is the
political capital of the most important department in southern Peru,
it had in 1911 only one hospital--a semi-public, non-sectarian
organization on the west of the city, next door to the largest
cemetery. In fact, so far away is it from everything else and
so close to the cemetery that the funeral wreaths and the more
prominent monuments are almost the only interesting things which the
patients have to look at. The building has large courtyards and open
colonnades, which would afford ideal conditions for patients able to
take advantage of open-air treatment. At the time of Surgeon Erving's
visit he found the patients were all kept in wards whose windows
were small and practically always closed and shuttered, so that the
atmosphere was close and the light insufficient. One could hardly
imagine a stronger contrast than exists between such wards and those
to which we are accustomed in the United States, where the maximum
of sunlight and fresh air is sought and patients are encouraged to
sit out-of-doors, and even have their cots on porches. There was
no resident physician. The utmost care was taken throughout the
hospital to have everything as dark as possible, thus conforming to
the ancient mountain traditions regarding the evil effects of sunlight
and fresh air. Needless to say, the hospital has a high mortality
and a very poor local reputation; yet it is the only hospital in the
Department. Outside of Cuzco, in all the towns we visited, there was
no provision for caring for the sick except in their own homes. In
the larger places there are shops where some of the more common drugs
may be obtained, but in the great majority of towns and villages
no modern medicines can be purchased. No wonder President Giesecke,
of the University, is urging his students to play football and tennis.
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FIGURE
Towers of Jesuit Church With Cloisters and Tennis Court of University,
Cuzco
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On the slopes of the hill which overshadows the University are the
interesting terraces of Colcampata. Here, in 1571, lived Carlos Inca,
a cousin of Inca Titu Cusi, one of the native rulers who succeeded
in maintaining a precarious existence in the wilds of the Cordillera
Uilcapampa after the Spanish Conquest. In the gardens of Colcampata
is still preserved one of the most exquisite bits of Inca stonework to
be seen in Peru. One wonders whether it is all that is left of a fine
palace, or whether it represents the last efforts of a dying dynasty
to erect a suitable residence for Titu Cusi's cousin. It is carefully
preserved by Don Cesare Lomellini, the leading business man of Cuzco, a
merchant prince of Italian origin, who is at once a banker, an exporter
of hides and other country produce, and an importer of merchandise of
every description, including pencils and sugar mills, lumber and hats,
candy and hardware. He is also an amateur of Spanish colonial furniture
as well as of the beautiful pottery of the Incas. Furthermore, he
has always found time to turn aside from the pressing cares of his
large business to assist our expeditions. He has frequently brought
us in touch with the owners of country estates, or given us letters
of introduction, so that our paths were made easy. He has provided us
with storerooms for our equipment, assisted us in procuring trustworthy
muleteers, seen to it that we were not swindled in local purchases
of mules and pack saddles, given us invaluable advice in overcoming
difficulties, and, in a word, placed himself wholly at our disposal,
just as though we were his most desirable and best-paying clients. As
a matter of fact, he never was willing to receive any compensation
for the many favors he showed us. So important a factor was he in
the success of our expeditions that he deserves to be gratefully
remembered by all friends of exploration.
Above his country house at Colcampata is the hill of Sacsahuaman. It
is possible to scramble up its face, but only by making more exertion
than is desirable at this altitude, 11,900 feet. The easiest way to
reach the famous "fortress" is by following the course of the little
Tullumayu, "Feeble Stream," the easternmost of the three canalized
streams which divide Cuzco into four parts. On its banks one first
passes a tannery and then, a short distance up a steep gorge, the
remains of an old mill. The stone flume and the adjoining ruins
are commonly ascribed by the people of Cuzco to-day to the Incas,
but do not look to me like Inca stonework. Since the Incas did not
understand the mechanical principle of the wheel, it is hardly likely
that they would have known how to make any use of water power. Finally,
careful examination of the flume discloses the presence of lead cement,
a substance unknown in Inca masonry.
A little farther up the stream one passes through a massive
megalithic gateway and finds one's self in the presence of the
astounding gray-blue Cyclopean walls of Sacsahuaman, described in
"Across South America." Here the ancient builders constructed three
great terraces, which extend one above another for a third of a mile
across the hill between two deep gulches. The lowest terrace of the
"fortress" is faced with colossal boulders, many of which weigh ten
tons and some weigh more than twenty tons, yet all are fitted together
with the utmost precision. I have visited Sacsahuaman repeatedly. Each
time it invariably overwhelms and astounds. To a superstitious Indian
who sees these walls for the first time, they must seem to have been
built by gods.
About a mile northeast of Sacsahuaman are several small artificial
hills, partly covered with vegetation, which seem to be composed
entirely of gray-blue rock chips--chips from the great limestone blocks
quarried here for the "fortress" and later conveyed with the utmost
pains down to Sacsahuaman. They represent the labor of countless
thousands of quarrymen. Even in modern times, with steam drills,
explosives, steel tools, and light railways, these hills would
be noteworthy, but when one pauses to consider that none of these
mechanical devices were known to the ancient stonemasons and that
these mountains of stone chips were made with stone tools and were all
carried from the quarries by hand, it fairly staggers the imagination.
The ruins of Sacsahuaman represent not only an incredible amount of
human labor, but also a very remarkable governmental organization. That
thousands of people could have been spared from agricultural
pursuits for so long a time as was necessary to extract the blocks
from the quarries, hew them to the required shapes, transport them
several miles over rough country, and bond them together in such an
intricate manner, means that the leaders had the brains and ability
to organize and arrange the affairs of a very large population. Such
a folk could hardly have spent much time in drilling or preparing for
warfare. Their building operations required infinite pains, endless
time, and devoted skill. Such qualities could hardly have been called
forth, even by powerful monarchs, had not the results been pleasing
to the great majority of their people, people who were primarily
agriculturists. They had learned to avert hunger and famine by relying
on carefully built, stone-faced terraces, which would prevent their
fields being carried off and spread over the plains of the Amazon. It
seems to me possible that Sacsahuaman was built in accordance with
their desires to please their gods. Is it not reasonable to suppose
that a people to whom stone-faced terraces meant so much in the way
of life-giving food should have sometimes built massive terraces of
Cyclopean character, like Sacsahuaman, as an offering to the deity
who first taught them terrace construction? This seems to me a more
likely object for the gigantic labor involved in the construction
of Sacsahuaman than its possible usefulness as a fortress. Equally
strong defenses against an enemy attempting to attack the hilltop
back of Cuzco might have been constructed of smaller stones in an
infinitely shorter time, with far less labor and pains.
Such a display of the power to control the labor of thousands of
individuals and force them to superhuman efforts on an unproductive
undertaking, which in its agricultural or strategic results was out
of all proportion to the obvious cost, might have been caused by the
supreme vanity of a great soldier. On the other hand, the ancient
Peruvians were religious rather than warlike, more inclined to worship
the sun than to fight great battles. Was Sacsahuaman due to the desire
to please, at whatever cost, the god that fructified the crops which
grew on terraces? It is not surprising that the Spanish conquerors,
warriors themselves and descendants of twenty generations of a fighting
race, accustomed as they were to the salients of European fortresses,
should have looked upon Sacsahuaman as a fortress. To them the military
use of its bastions was perfectly obvious. The value of its salients
and reëntrant angles was not likely to be overlooked, for it had
been only recently acquired by their crusading ancestors. The height
and strength of its powerful walls enabled it to be of the greatest
service to the soldiers of that day. They saw that it was virtually
impregnable for any artillery with which they were familiar. In fact,
in the wars of the Incas and those which followed Pizarro's entry
into Cuzco, Sacsahuaman was repeatedly used as a fortress.
So it probably never occurred to the Spaniards that the Peruvians,
who knew nothing of explosive powder or the use of artillery, did
not construct Sacsahuaman in order to withstand such a siege as the
fortresses of Europe were only too familiar with. So natural did it
seem to the first Europeans who saw it to regard it as a fortress
that it has seldom been thought of in any other way. The fact that
the sacred city of Cuzco was more likely to be attacked by invaders
coming up the valley, or even over the gentle slopes from the west,
or through the pass from the north which for centuries has been
used as part of the main highway of the central Andes, never seems
to have troubled writers who regarded Sacsahuaman essentially as a
fortress. It may be that Sacsahuaman was once used as a place where
the votaries of the sun gathered at the end of the rainy season to
celebrate the vernal equinox, and at the summer solstice to pray for
the sun's return from his "farthest north." In any case I believe
that the enormous cost of its construction shows that it was probably
intended for religious rather than military purposes. It is more
likely to have been an ancient shrine than a mighty fortress.
It now becomes necessary, in order to explain my explorations north
of Cuzco, to ask the reader's attention to a brief account of the
last four Incas who ruled over any part of Peru.