_Almaguereños_.
_Engaños_ or _Inganos_.
_Mesayas_.
_Mocoas_.
_Pastuzos_.
_Patias_ (?)
_Sebondoyes_.
Of these, the Patias dwelt on the lofty and sterile plain between the two
chains of the Cordilleras in Popayan. The Sebondoyes had a village on the
Putumayo, five leagues south of the Lake of Mocoa (Coleti).
The region around the Gulf of Guayaquil was conquered by the Inca Tupac
Yupanqui about 1450.[272] The accounts say that it had previously been
occupied by some five-and-twenty independent tribes, all of whom were
brought under the dominion of the Kechuas and adopted their language.
The most prominent of these were the _Cañaris_, whose homes were in the
hot valleys near the coast. Before the arrival of the Incas they had a
certain degree of cultivation, being skilled in the moulding of copper,
which they worked with a different technique from the Kechuas. Many of
their copper axes are ornamented with strange figures, perhaps totemic,
cut into the metal. As much as five or six hundred pounds’ weight of
these axes has been taken from one of their tombs.[273] Some of the most
beautiful gold work from the Peruvian territory has been found in modern
times in this province, but was perhaps the work of Kechua rather than of
Cañari artists.[274]
The original language of the Cañaris, if it was other than the Kechua,
appears to have been lost.