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 church is large. Near it, and slightly apart from the building,
is a picturesque stone belfry with three old Spanish bells. Condoré
said that the church was built at least three hundred years ago. It
is probably the very structure whose construction was carefully
supervised by Ocampo. In the negotiations for permission to move
the municipality of San Francisco de la Victoria from Hoyara to the
neighborhood of the mines, Ocampo, then one of the chief settlers,
went to Cuzco as agent of the interested parties, to take the matter
up with the viceroy. Ocampo's story is in part as follows:
"The change of site appeared convenient for the service of God our
Lord and of his Majesty, and for the increase of his royal fifths,
as well as beneficial to the inhabitants of the said city. Having
examined the capitulations and reasons, the said Don Luis de Velasco
[the viceroy] granted the licence to move the city to where it is
now founded, ordering that it should have the title and name of the
city of San Francisco of the Victory of Uilcapampa, which was its
first name. By this change of site I, the said Baltasar de Ocampo,
performed a great service to God our Lord and his Majesty. Through my
care, industry and solicitude, a very good church was built, with its
principal chapel and great doors." We found the walls to be heavy,
massive, and well buttressed, the doors to be unusually large and
the whole to show considerable "industry and solicitude."
The site was called "Onccoy, where the Spaniards who first discovered
this land found the flocks and herds." Modern Vilcabamba is on grassy
slopes, well suited for flocks and herds. On the steeper slopes
potatoes are still raised, although the valley itself is given up
to-day almost entirely to pasture lands. We saw horses, cattle, and
sheep in abundance where the Incas must have pastured their llamas
and alpacas. In the rocky cliffs near by are remains of the mines
begun in Ocampo's day. There is little doubt that this was Onccoy,
although that name is now no longer used here.
We met at the gobernador's an old Indian who admitted that an Inca had
once lived on Rosaspata Hill. Of all the scores of persons whom we
interviewed through the courtesy of the intelligent planters of the
region or through the customary assistance of government officials,
this Indian was the only one to make such an admission. Even he denied
having heard of "Uiticos" or any of its variations. If we were indeed
in the country of Manco and his sons, why should no one be familiar
with that name?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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