Thursday, December 19, 2019, Machu Picchu Days #3&4 Background, Peru

Inca/Machu Picchu Background

(Days 3 & 4 background- see below)

In the beginning, the word Inca, which means king or emperor, was the term applied only to the chief of that remarkable group of people whose courage and genius for organization had enabled them to conquer most of Peru, Ecuador, and Bolivia, as well as the northern parts of Chile and Argentina.  Then came the Spanish conquistadors in the 16^th century who applied the term to the ruling class, members of the Inca’s family and the nobles and priests who governed the Inca Empire.  Soon, however, they were all killed off and by the end of the century scarcely one was to be found anywhere.  Today we use the term Inca to cover the race who, in the course of several thousand years, built up a great civilization in the highlands of Peru and Bolivia.  The builders of Machu Picchu were the descendants of generations of skilled artisans, but those who directed the workmen were the Incas whose capital for centuries was Cuzco.

Strictly speaking, the first Inca was a war-like chieftain of the Quichua tribe of Indians who ruled over Cuzco about 1200 AD, and was worshiped as a demigod, the son of the Sun.  It was perhaps only a hundred years before the arrival of Pizarro and the conquistadors that the ninth Inca, properly so called, extended the empire as far north as Ecuador and as far south as Argentina.  As a matter of fact, the Inca Empire had just about passed its prime when the Spaniards landed.  Had they arrived in the days of the great Inca Pachacutec (around 1450 AD) they may have been repulsed and history would have been much different.  As it happened, the Spaniards arrived when the empire was weakened by a long civil war.  When the Inca conquered a territory, they didn’t kill all the residents but rather incorporated them into their society.  They didn’t initially make them their slaves but did force them to learn their language so they could communicate.  They offered them two options. Since they were a conquered people, they could join them and work for them as a way to pay their taxes, or become slaves.

As there were no written records, the history of the past has relied upon the memory or the imagination of the persons who were interviewed by the first Spanish chroniclers, so we cannot be certain of dates or events.  It appears likely that the development of such arts and sciences as agriculture, metallurgy, ceramics, weaving and engineering took place chiefly in the centuries which preceded the first Inca.  Yet it has become convenient to use the term Inca to apply to the civilization and the people whom the Spaniards found in Peru, just as we use the term Aztec to apply to the civilization of Mexico, and the term Maya to apply to the civilization found in Yucatan and Guatemala.  Actually, there were many Peruvian tribes that had been independent nations long enough, before they were conquered by the Incas, to develop remarkable artistic ability in ceramics and textiles.

One of the most interesting places in the world is Cuzco, the ancient capital of the Empire of the Incas.   In the days of the Spanish conquest of Peru, it was the largest city in America.  On a hill behind it is a very old fortress, for centuries a place of refuge.  The northern wall of that fortress is perhaps the most extraordinary structure built by man in the western hemisphere.  In fact, as an achievement of engineering, it stands without parallel in American antiquity.  The smaller blocks in the wall weigh 10 or 20 tons.  The larger blocks are estimated to weigh 200 tons.  A few of the largest weigh 300 tons!  And yet they are fitted accurately together.  There are no clamps.  There was no cement used in constructing the wall.  The giant polygonal blocks cling so tightly together that it is impossible to insert the point of a knife between them.  They were brought from quarries more than a mile away where they were fashioned by people using stone tools.  They were moved over an inclined plane by levers.  They had no iron or steel but they had bronze crowbars of great strength.  They had no derricks or pulleys or wheels but they had thousands of patient workers.  The determination and the perseverance of the builders stagger the imagination.

If you study the architecture, you will see that it is marked by good proportions and symmetrical arrangements, as well as by massiveness and solidity.  Some of their temples and palaces were built of carefully selected pillars of white granite.  The lower tiers of a wall are made of larger blocks than the upper.  This gives it a look of massive security.  The upper courses, gradually decreasing in size, lend grace and dignity to the structure.  Since instruments of precision were lacking, everything had to be done by the trained eye of the artistic architect.  The result is softer and much more pleasing than the mathematically correct walls built today.  Their structures have walls that slope slightly inward, being of the so-called Egyptian style. This aids in the case of an earthquake that is strong enough to topple the wall by directing where the rocks will land.  All their walls were constructed without mortar.  If they used mortar, an earthquake would crack it.  Without it, the stones usually just moved around and fell back into their same place.

The Incas showed great skill in domesticating animals.  A little rodent called a cuy is found in the Andes.  It is extremely timid and difficult to catch.  We call it a guinea pig, although it never came from Guinea and is not a pig.  Discovering that it was very palatable when roasted over an open fire or boiled in a stew, the Incas domesticated it and developed a dozen different varieties.  They are so tame that they can be trusted to run about on the floor of a dwelling, making no effort to escape, and are readily available to be caught, killed, cooked and served as a delicious morsel whenever company appears unexpectedly.  Before they are eaten, they assist in housekeeping tasks by eating any food scraps that are on the floor.  There are much smaller ones found in great numbers in the fields.

Another example of the Incas’ skill in breeding animals is their success with the native American camel, known as the guanaco.  Vast herds used to be found in Patagonia, which has a climate very similar to Peru.  These little camels measure no more than three feet to the top of the head.  Guanaco hunting used to be regarded as the finest sport in South America.  They are exceedingly shy and require a lot of patience to get within gunshot of them.  The ability to catch such timid, fast animals was undoubtedly due to the use of the bolas, a remarkable weapon consisting of two balls or stones connected with a strong cord.  They threw the bolas so as to entangle the legs of birds and animals to capture them without harming them.  This was important in order to domesticate and breed these animals.

They bred two distinct varieties of these camels, the llama and the alpaca, for two distinct purposes.  Although guanacos are all of one color, the llamas and alpacas are of many different colors.  The llama is streamlined and well adapted to act as a beast of burden even though it is neither large enough nor strong enough to carry more than a hundred pounds.  It has legs fairly free from wool, and its hair is course and will stand the chafing caused by loads they carry.  The alpaca, on the other hand, is conspicuously woolly.  Its hair is fine and soft and makes luxurious woolen garments.

Their ability to train hundreds of thousands of llamas which could carry useful loads enabled the mountain people to carry out engineering and agricultural works far more extensive than could have been accomplished had they been obliged to depend entirely on human labor.

The art of agriculture was of supreme interest to the Incas and they carried it to a remarkable extreme.  They not only developed many different plants for food and medicinal purposes, but they understood thoroughly the cultivation of the soil, the art of proper drainage, and correct methods of irrigation and soil conservation by means of terraces constructed at great expense.  The Incas learned the importance of fertilizers to keep the soil rich and fruitful.  After discovering the value of guano found on the bird-islands that lie off the coast of Peru, they set aside several islands for the production of it.  No one was allowed to visit the islands during breeding season.  Although hundreds of thousands of fish-eating birds inhabit the islands, the Incas punished by death anyone killing a single guano-producing bird.

Long banks of terraces are interrupted at regular intervals by passageways that serve the double purpose of roads and drainage channels.  The roads provided access to the terraces and the drainage channels permitted surface water from the upper slopes to flow freely down the slopes without washing away any of the precious soil which had been brought to the terraces in baskets carried on men’s backs.  It staggers the imagination to realize how many millions of hours of labor were required to construct these great agricultural terraces.

The Incas found a small plant growing in the high Andes with a tuberous root about the size of a small pea.  It proved to be edible and from it, in the course of the centuries, they finally developed a dozen varieties of what we call the white potato, suitable for cultivation from sea level to 14,000 feet.  The skill and ingenuity of the Inca agriculturists were shown not only in the breeding and raising of many kinds of potato, but also in the many varieties of maize or Indian corn suitable for cultivation at varying elevations, which they developed.  It is unclear if the corn was developed from an Andean plant which has long since disappeared or if it was brought from Guatemala, where there is a wild plant remotely resembling it.  Regardless of its origin, the Incas developed it into a useful crop.  Corn was buried with high level Incas, so scientists can study its development through the years. 

In addition to developing useful food crops, the Incas discovered many useful medicinal crops.  Quinine for one was discovered as a treatment for malaria.  They also discovered that chewing coca leaves allowed one to perform work they could not do otherwise, but only those engaged in strenuous activity such as message delivering were allowed to chew them. 

In the making of roads, bridges, aqueducts, and irrigation ditches, the Incas showed a remarkable knowledge of engineering.  At the time of the Spanish Conquest, the Inca’s paved roads ran for thousands of miles through the Central Andes all the way to present day Argentina and Chile, back and forth over the mountains.  Since they had no wheeled vehicles, it was not necessary for the surface of their roads to be leveled.  Where the road had to be taken over a steep hillside, stone stairways were constructed.  Where the road had to pass a small precipice, tunnels large enough to permit the passage of a loaded beast of burden were cut out of the solid rock.  Altogether, more than 25,000 miles of roads were constructed throughout their kingdom, rivaling what Rome did in the several hundreds of years they were in power. 

Over these roads, trained runners, operating in relays, carried messages with extraordinary dispatch from the capital of the empire to distant magistrates.  Post houses were provided at convenient intervals so that before a runner’s strength was exhausted, his message could be picked up and carried forward with the least possible delay.  These runners were permitted to chew coca leaves but they needed to rest eventually.

The Incas had never acquired the art of writing, but they had developed an elaborate system of knotted cords called quipus.  These were made of wool of the alpaca and dyed in various colors, the significance of which was known only to the magistrates.  The cords were knotted in such a way as to represent the decimal system and were fastened at close intervals along the principal strand of the quipu.  Thus, an important message relating to the progress of crops, the amount of taxes collected, or the advance of the enemy could be speedily sent by the trained runners along the post roads. 

Caravans of llamas carrying supplies could proceed safely over the most mountainous country.  Rest houses, as well as storehouses, were built wherever it was likely that those who traveled on the Inca’s business (and there were no other travelers) would need suitable accommodation and supplies.  The storehouses were large enough to provide for companies of soldiers as well as llama drivers.

The roads were carried across rivers on suspension bridges made by braiding together countless strands of liana, the rope-like vines found frequently in the Amazon basin.  Using cables of remarkable thickness, the Inca were able to construct bridges 200 or 300 feet in length whenever necessary.  These bridges, I am sure, were not very pleasant to cross with the swaying in the wind but they were strong and effective.  They could be destroyed easily but the death penalty awaited anyone found guilty of such an act.  Had they not been so highly regarded, or had the Incas had the foresight to destroy them when Pizarro and his conquistadors started to enter the Central Andes, the conquest of Peru would have been extremely difficult, if not well-nigh impossible.

No less striking than the remarkable system of highways were the irrigation ditches, which ran for many miles in the Central Andes.  The height of the mountains, often rising over 20,000 feet, forces the moisture-laden winds coming from the east across the humid basin of the Amazon to deposit their burden in heavy rains on the eastern slopes of the great Andean chain.  Little rain falls on the western slopes.  One of the greatest deserts in the world is the 2000-mile strip extending from central Chile to Equator, as previously explained.

In order to produce crops on the western slopes, there needs to be irrigation.  Rivers, fed by melting snow high in the Andes, were deflected into irrigation ditches which followed the contours of the valleys for many miles.  Without modern instruments, Inca engineers must have had good eyes and a fine sense of grading to allow water to flow gently for many miles.  In addition to irrigation for crops, every Inca city had an aqueduct to provide water for the inhabitants. 

The Incas excelled in metallurgy.  As you all know, I am not a metallurgist and don’t fully understand the details of the ingredients of what went into the various metals, but they did not have the capability of making steel.  Bronze (a mixture of copper and tin) was what they had and bronze changes, depending upon just how much tin is added and when in the process it is added.  The higher amount of tin present, the better casting that can be done.  So, if you are making a delicate ornamental piece, a high percentage of tin would be used.  When making a decorative knife, for instance, the blade would have one percentage of tin while the handle would have a different amount so a delicate figure could be made into the handle.  Large knives were found to have been cold-hammered repeatedly and reheated several times using stone tools.  They had bronze axes, chisels, and crow-bars which were quite strong. They also perfected the art of making objects out of gold and silver, which required much less work since both are softer metals.  Gold was thought of as the sweat of the sun and silver was thought of as the tears of the moon.

Weaving also was highly developed by the Incas.  I had mentioned that they domesticated and bred the alpacas to produce fine, soft wool for weaving but there was another animal that needed no breeding to give them what they needed.  The smallest of the American camels, called the vicuna, produced a cloth close to the texture of fine silk.  These animals were not domesticated and were rounded up in huge annual drives.  This wool was reserved for the rulers and the nobles.  Today, they are rare and protected in the wild.  Textiles have been preserved in graves because of the dry climate and equal that produced in China or ancient Egypt. 

The finest textiles were made in the convents connected with the Temples of the Sun by the Chosen Women, sometimes called Virgins of the Sun.  These women were trained in this difficult art and their products were as fine and soft as the finest silk.  Practically every man was married at least once.  Polygamy was common among the upper classes and was regarded as a desirable state for those who could afford it.  The Inca rulers, the nobles, and distinguished military leaders were awarded concubines.  They were usually taken from one of the national boarding schools or convents, where attractive young girls or Chosen Women, selected annually from all over the empire, were trained. 

These chosen women, whose lives were consecrated to the service of the Sun, his representatives, the Incas, and his priests, lived in sanctuaries which were scattered throughout the Inca Empire.  It was deemed a great honor to a newly conquered province for the Inca to establish one such sanctuary within its borders.

According to the Spanish conquerors, the most important convent was at Cuzco, adjoining the Temple of the Sun.  Other women were forbidden to enter that holy place.  Men were not allowed in the royal boarding schools.  The most beautiful and best born maidens in each province appear to have been selected when eight or nine years old.  They were supervised by older women who had lived for years in the convent.  The girls learned not only to weave skillfully the clothing worn by the nobles, but were taught the preparation of special foods and beverages used in ceremonials.  The girls were kept in the convents until they were sixteen years of age when they were divided into three classes based on their degree of beauty.  The most beautiful became concubines of the Inca emperor himself.  Some were selected to be sacrificed in honor of the sun or to be interned for life in one of the convents where they would act as instructors of the Chosen Girls.  A third group would be given by the emperor as wives to nobles or military captains whom he wanted to favor.

Machu Picchu Days 3 & 4 background.

Another 4:00 am wake-up call and we were off to the main goal of our trip.  After a two-hour bus ride, we arrived at the train station for the ride to the “lost city” of Machu Picchu.  We rode on a comfortable train with assigned seats and were served food and drink.  It was a “vista” train in that it had a glass roof, allowing viewing up and out.  The train follows a rapidly flowing river that surrounds Machu Picchu and was its first line of defense.  It is nearly impossible to cross this river any time of the year because of its rapid flow of water.  The Spanish never came close to finding this place.

Machu Picchu was “discovered” by Hiram Bingham on July 24, 1911.  He was a history professor at Yale University with no training in archaeology.  He had married into money so he was able to follow his passion of exploring.  Bingham is said to be the real-life Indiana Jones.  He was not looking for this city, but another one rumored to exist in the area.  He was given information by some locals that there were some ruins here so he began his search.  He was blown away by his find.  There were some locals living in the site who had planted crops on some of the terraces, but most of the site was covered by trees and vines.  He presented his findings at a conference later that year and was given permission to excavate the site in 1912.  He hired locals to help clear the area and made a careful survey. 

From the train station, we took another bus up to the Machu Picchu entrance on a road built in the 1970s to allow easier access to the site.  This was the most switchback road I had ever seen with hairpin turns every few hundred feet as we ascended the mountain.  It is almost impossible to describe how impressive Machu Picchu is when you first see it.  It was probably used by the emperor as a retreat to get away from all his responsibilities in Cusco.  It was heavily guarded and difficult to reach and took about 40 years to build.  We saw storage buildings, residences, temples and many, many terraces built on the side of the mountain.  In order to build the city on a relatively flat plane, they first had to build terraces one at a time into bedrock far below on the mountain.  In addition to supporting the city, these terraces allowed the Incas to grow enough food to feed themselves.  They had a master plan that included dealing with water.  In the rainy season, water would have eroded their constructions if they hadn’t planned correctly.  They channeled water off the terraces in the rainy season, and in the dry season, a stream from the hillside provided irrigation for their crops.  From most of the places in the city, the river can be seen far below.  Because Machu Picchu is past the continental divide, all that water eventually flows into the Atlantic. 

We were separated into five groups, each with an assigned guide.  You cannot visit Machu Picchu without a guide and your visit must be scheduled far in advance.  This limits the number of people at any one time.  There is talk of restricting visitation even more because of the damage done by people to the site just by being there.  Some restoration work was done in the 1970s but that is not allowed anymore.  Only maintenance work is allowed.  There are some buildings full of stones stacked up because they don’t know exactly where they were originally. 

One of the groups was for those who didn’t feel they could make it up to the highest elevation, but Betty and I opted for the Full Monty and started walking up a trail made in the 1970s to allow access to the top.  We got a good view of the entire site and were filled in by our guide as to just what we were seeing.  We saw a ceremonial rock by the guard house that was used in making sacrifices to their gods and it was carved in the shape of the mountain behind it.  The mountain was called Machu Picchu and Bingham named the city after it.  Nobody knows what the Incas called it.

We worked our way down steps past the stone quarry where they got the material to build their structures and saw the Temple of the Sun.  It has a window through which the sun shines directly on the altar when it rises on their first day of winter, June 22.  People are allowed to enter early that day because it is very popular.  We noted many architectural features which are easier seen in pictures so I’ll describe them there.  The city was not finished when the Inca left.  There was a major temple still under construction and some large stones that had been cut were not moved.   

So far, the weather had been changeable but not bad.  It was mostly cloudy and cool but at times the sun broke through the clouds and it became quite warm.  Near the end of our tour, however, the clouds became rapidly thicker and it began to rain, lightly at first, but soon it was quite hard.  I had experienced my foot slipping on some steps when they were dry and they became much slicker when wet.  We soon discovered that our jackets were NOT waterproof but we had two back-up plans.  As we left the ship, we were given emergency parkas just in case…and we had also brought our own, bought before we left.  These were one-time use items made in China and the ones we got from the ship were so thin that they were pretty much shredded by the time we got them on.  The ones we bought ourselves were much better, but by the time we got them on, we were soaked.  Luckily, we were near the end of the tour.  I took some last shots of water running through the Inca’s drainage system and some llamas that keep the grass short on the terraces. 

We had a delicious buffet lunch at a restaurant near the entrance to the park.  It felt great to sit down and be dry.  The bus trip to the train was more harrowing going down on slick roads than going up.  We had the same seats on the train going back and were entertained by the train staff with a fashion show, followed by a sales pitch.  Next was a long drive into Cusco for a few hours’ sleep before we were awakened at 4:00 am again, this time to get on the bus to the airport.

The flight back to Lima was uneventful and so was the flight to Guayaquil, Ecuador.  If political graffiti is any measure of political stability, Ecuador is more stable than Peru and MUCH more stable than Chile.  The Peruvian president dissolved congress and forced an election in January.  There were political writings on walls but all they ever said was something like “vote for so and so” there was no talk about the other candidate’s heritage.    

I don’t think anyone was happy to learn that the trip to the ship would take three and a half hours because we were all pretty tired by that time.  All our luggage arrived intact which was a good thing.  We immediately noticed that this country was much more tropical.  The high humidity and the tropical plants were a quick give-away.  We passed miles and miles of fruit trees as we drove along.  Ecuador produces about one third of the world’s bananas and it is the world’s largest producer of mangos.  There are about 500 different types of mangos but Ecuador is best known for exporting four varieties, which are:  Kent; Haden; Keitt; and Tommy Atkins.   

Near the end of the trip, we stopped at Montecristi, a town known for making Panama hats to see a demonstration.  In 1904 when the Panama Canal was under construction, President Teddy Roosevelt visited the work site.  Panamanian officials ordered thousands of hats from this town in Ecuador to be given to all the attendees at a ceremony.  Teddy wore his back home.  When asked by reporters where he got the hat, he said “it is a Panama hat” and the name stuck.  We were each given a Panama hat as a gift from the tour company.  These hats are made using a local reed and lots of labor.  Eventually, we made it back to the ship and were greeted by the officers and many of the crew, given champagne, and welcomed back aboard.