Costume and History in Highland Ecuador

Chapter 2. Ecuador under the Inca Empire

CHAPTER 2 Ecuador under the Inca Empire The Incas in Quito john howland rowe The Incas conquered the highland part of what is now Ecuador and incorporated it into their empire. We are not informed in detail by our Spanish sources about the political organization of the peoples the Incas conquered in this area. Elsewhere, Spanish officials who asked the local people what things were like before the Incas came got detailed answers as late as 1586, but in what is now Ecuador, the questions were asked of other Spanish residents rather than native informants. The Incas, however, did preserve some information on this matter in their historical traditions.1 They were ruled by monarchs and naturally considered monarchy to be a superior form of government, so they were especially concerned to keep a record of the native kings they conquered. Kings are identified by the Inca word qhapaq, “king,” written as capac in Spanish texts. According to Inca traditions, the Cañares, in what is now Azuay and Cañar, had three kings, Pisar Capac, Cañar Capac, and Chica Capac (Sarmiento de Gamboa, cap. 44; 1906: 87; Cabello Balboa, 3a pte., cap. 16; 1951: 320; Murúa, lib. 1, cap. 21; 1962–1964, I:52; J. Rowe 1986: 89). Pisar Capac was king of Tumi Pampa (Sarmiento de Gamboa, cap. 46; 1906: 89); perhaps Cañar Capac was king of Hatun Cañar and Chica Capac was king of Cañari Pampa. The kings of the Cañares are the only kings the Inca traditions recorded in what is now Ecuador. The chief or war leader of Quito was named Pillahuaso ; he is not called capac in the Inca records (Sarmiento de Gamboa, cap. 46; 1906: 89; Cabello Balboa, 3a pte., cap. 17; 1951: 321; Murúa, lib. 1, cap. 21; 1962–1964, I:52).2 Two chiefs (caciques) or war leaders of the Cayambis were Ecuador under the Inca Empire 71 remembered by the Incas, Canto and Pinto (Sarmiento de Gamboa, cap. 60; 1906: 109; Cabello Balboa, 3a pte., cap. 23; 1951: 382; Murúa, lib. 1, caps. 35–36; 1962–1964, I:97–98). They are not called capac either. The Inca Conquest The first campaigns of the Inca conquest took place between about 1463 and 1471, according to Cabello Balboa’s chronology. These campaigns took place in the reign of Pachacuti Inca Yupanqui, the real founder of the Inca Empire. The military commander was Pachacuti’s son, Tupa Inca, then a young man learning how to command. Tupa Inca’s first campaign started in what is now Peru and ended with the conquest of the Paltas, in Loja, and the Cañares. Tupa Inca built a fortress at Quinchicaxa to hold the Cañar country, and he founded the Inca town of Tumi Pampa (at what is now Cuenca; Fig. 2.1). The Spanish residents of Cuenca who wrote the reply to a royal inquiry about local history in 1582, Antonio Bello Gayoso and Hernando Pablos, explained that the area had been conquered by the Incas in the reign of Inca Yupanqui (Pachacuti); they summarized subsequent Inca history in full agreement with the Inca traditions recorded in Cuzco, the Inca capital (Bello Gayoso 1965: 267). They said that the Cañares fought with one another be2 .1 Inca ruins in Tumi Pampa. Photograph by Lynn A. Meisch, 1978, 78-50-14A. 72 Costume and History in Highland Ecuador fore the Inca conquest, in spite of speaking the same language.The priest who answered the inquiry for Azogues also said that the area was conquered under Inca Yupanqui (Gallegos [1897] 1965: 275). Subsequently, the Cañares revolted and made an alliance with Pillaguaso, the chief of Quito. Tupa Inca undertook a second campaign in which he defeated the allies, reduced the Cañares to obedience, and conquered Latacunga and Quito. He had left his wife, Mama Ocllo, at Tumi Pampa, and she bore him a son there; the son was named Titu Cusi Huallpa. Next, Tupa Inca marched to the coast and campaigned in Guayas and Manabí. The Incas had a tradition that he assembled a fleet of sailing balsas at Manta and made a maritime expedition in the Pacific to two islands called Nina Chumpi and Hahua Chumpi. According to the tradition, Tupa Inca brought back from these islands some people and some objects that were preserved in the fortress of Cuzco until...