_Ayahucas_, south of Quitu.
_Canas_, east of the Vilcañeta Pass.
_Caras_, on the coast from Charapoto to Cape San Francisco.
_Casamarcas_, on the head-waters of the Marañon.
_Chachapuyas_, on the right bank of the Marañon.
_Chancas_, near Huanta, in department Ayacucho.
_Chichasuyus_, in the inter-Andean valley, from Loxa to Cerro
de Pasco.
_Conchucos_, near Huaraz.
_Huacrachucus_, on both banks of the gorge of the Marañon.
_Huamachucus_, on the upper Marañon.
_Huancapampas_, near Juan de Bracamoros.
_Huancas_, in the valley of Sausa.
_Huancavillcas_, on and near the river Guayaquil.
_Huanucus_, near Tiahuanuco.
_Incas_, between Rio Apurimac and Paucartambo.
_Iquichanos_, near Huanta.
_Kechuas_, from Lake Apurimac to the Pampas.
_Lamanos_ or _Lamistas_, about Truxillo.
_Malabas_, on Rio San Miguel (a branch of the Esmeraldas).
_Mantas_, on the coast north of the Gulf of Guayaquil.
_Morochucos_, in the department of Ayacucho.
_Omapachas_, adjacent to the Rucanas.
_Quitus_, near Quito.
_Rucanas_, near the coast, about lat. 15°.
_Yauyos_, near Cañete.[304]
_2. The Aymaras._
I have thought it best to treat of the Aymara as a distinct linguistic
stock, although the evidence is steadily accumulating that it is, if not
merely a dialect of the Kechua, then a jargon made up of the Kechua and
other stocks. In the first place, the name “Aymara” appears to have been
a misnomer, or, as Markham strongly puts it, a “deplorable blunder,” of
the Jesuit missionaries stationed at Juli.[305] The true Aymaras were
an unimportant _ayllu_ or gens of the Kechuas, and lived in the valley
of the Abancay, hundreds of miles from Juli. A number of them had been
transported to Juli to work in the mines, and there had intermarried
with women of the Colla and Lupaca tribes, native to that locality. The
corrupt dialect of the children of these Aymara colonists was that to
which the Jesuit, Ludovico Bertonio, gave the name Aymara, and in it,
Markham claims, he wrote his grammar and dictionary.[306]
Its grammar and phonetics are closely analogous to those of the southern
Kechua dialects, and about one-fourth of its vocabulary is clearly
traceable to Kechua radicals. Moreover, the Colla, Lupaca, Pacasa and
allied dialects of that region are considered by various authorities as
derived from the Kechua. For these reasons, Markham, Von Tschudi, and
later, Professor Steinthal, have pronounced in favor of the opinion that
the so-called Aymara is a member of the Kechua linguistic stock.[307]
On the other hand, the decided majority of its radicals have no affinity
with Kechua, and betray a preponderating influence of some other stock.
What this may have been must be left for future investigation. It does
not seem to have been the Puquina; for although that tongue borrowed from
both the Aymara and the pure Kechua dialects, its numerals indicate a
stock radically apart from either of them.
The Aymara was spoken with the greatest purity and precision by the
Pacasas; and next to these, by the Lupacas; and it was especially on
these two dialects that Bertonio founded his Grammar, and not upon the
mongrel dialect of the imported laborers, as Markham would have us
believe.[308]
The physical traits of the Aymara Indians offer some peculiarities. These
consist mainly in an unusual length of the trunk in proportion to the
height, in a surprising development of the chest, and short extremities.
The proportion of the thigh to the leg in length is under the average.
The leg and calf are well developed, and the general muscular force good.
The hands and feet are smaller even than is common in the American race.
The skull has a tendency to dolichocephaly.[309] The unusual thoracic
development is plainly attributable to the tenuity of the atmosphere
breathed by these residents of heights varying from 4,000 to 17,000 feet
above sea level. Making allowances for the results of this exposure, they
do not differ materially from the general physical habits of the Kechuas.
The location they occupied was generally to the south and east of the
Kechuas, upon the plateau and western slopes of the Andes, from south
latitude 15° to 20°, and through about six degrees of longitude. It may
be said roughly to have been three hundred miles from north to south,
and four hundred from east to west. The total native population of this
area to-day is about six hundred thousand, two-thirds of whom are of pure
blood, and the remainder mixed. Some of them dwell along the sea coast,
but the majority are on the Bolivian plateau, the average altitude of
which is more than twelve thousand feet above sea level.
The old writers furnish us very little information about the Aymaras. At
the time of the discovery they were subject to the Kechuas and had long
been thus dependent. Many, however, believe that they were the creators
or inspirers of the civilization which the Kechuas extended so widely
over the western coast. Certain it is that the traditions of the latter
relate that their first king and the founder of their higher culture,
Manco Capac, journeyed northward from his home on the shores of Lake
Titicaca, which was situated in Aymara territory. From the white foam of
this inland sea rose the Kechua culture-hero Viracocha, who brought them
the knowledge of useful arts and the mysteries of their cult.
On the cold plain, higher than the summit of the Jungfrau, which borders
this elevated sea are also found the enigmatical ruins of Tiahuanuco,
much the most remarkable of any in America. They are the remains of
imposing edifices of stone, the cyclopean blocks polished and adjusted
so nicely one to the other that a knife-blade cannot be inserted in
the joint.[310] In architectural character they differ widely from the
remains of Incarian structures. The walls are decorated with bas-reliefs,
there are remains of columns, the doors have parallel and not sloping
sides, all angles are right angles, and large statues in basalt were
part of the ornamentation. In these respects we recognize a different
inspiration from that which governed the architecture of the Kechuas.[311]
No tradition records the builders of these strange structures. No one
occupied them at the time of the conquest. When first heard of, they
were lonely ruins as they are to-day, whose designers and whose purposes
were alike unknown. The sepulchral structures of the Aymaras also
differed from those of the Incas. They were not underground vaults, but
stone structures erected on the surface, with small doors through which
the corpse was placed in the tomb. They were called _chulpas_, and in
construction resembled the _tolas_ of the Quitus. Sometimes they are in
large groups, as the _Pataca Chulpa_, “field of a hundred tombs,” in the
province of Carancas.[312]