Inca Land: Explorations in the Highlands of PeruBingham, Hiram
History
Inca Land: Explorations in the Highlands of Peru
Bingham, Hiram
Incas; Peru -- Antiquities; Peru -- Description and travel
The fugitives returned to Cuzco and reported their misfortune. The
importance of the reverse will be better appreciated if one remembers
that the size of the force with which Pizarro conquered Peru was less
than two hundred, only a few times larger than Captain Villadiego's
company which had been wiped out by Manco. Its significance is
further increased by the fact that the contemporary Spanish writers,
with all their tendency to exaggerate, placed Manco's force at only
"a little more than eighty Indians." Probably there were not even
that many. The wonder is that the Inca's army was not reported as
being several thousand.
Francisco Pizarro himself now hastily set out with a body of soldiers
determined to punish this young Inca who had inflicted such a blow on
the prestige of Spanish arms, "but this attempt also failed," for the
Inca had withdrawn across the rivers and mountains of Uilcapampa to
Uiticos, where, according to Cieza de Leon, he cheered his followers
with the sight of the heads of his enemies. Unfortunately for accuracy,
the custom of displaying on the ends of pikes the heads of one's
enemies was European and not Peruvian. To be sure, the savage Indians
of some of the Amazonian jungles do sometimes decapitate their enemies,
remove the bones of the skull, dry the shrunken scalp and face,
and wear the trophy as a mark of prowess just as the North American
Indians did the scalps of their enemies. Such customs had no place
among the peace-loving Inca agriculturists of central Peru. There were
no Spaniards living with Manco at that time to report any such outrage
on the bodies of Captain Villadiego's unfortunate men. Probably the
conquistadores supposed that Manco did what the Spaniards would have
done under similar circumstances.
Following the failure of Francisco Pizarro to penetrate to Uiticos,
his brother, Gonzalo, "undertook the pursuit of the Inca and occupied
some of his passes and bridges," but was unsuccessful in penetrating
the mountain labyrinth. Being less foolhardy than Captain Villadiego,
he did not come into actual conflict with Manco. Unable to subdue
the young Inca or prevent his raids on travelers from Cuzco to Lima,
Francisco Pizarro, "with the assent of the royal officers who were
with him," established the city of Ayacucho at a convenient point
on the road, so as to make it secure for travelers. Nevertheless,
according to Montesinos, Manco caused the good people of Ayacucho quite
a little trouble. Finally, Francisco Pizarro, "having taken one of
Manco's wives prisoner with other Indians, stripped and flogged her,
and then shot her to death with arrows."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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