In one version of their origin myth, the Incas present their ancestors first appearing at Lake Titicaca. There is reason to suspect that the Titicaca origin myth was adopted in imperial times or later to accommodate the sacred status of the lake, just as the patronage of Pachaca-mac acknowledged the pilgrimage systems and origin myth of the central coast (see Salomon and Urioste 1992: 111). Inca informants from the mid-sixteenth century onward recounted origin myths reflecting a self-identification as quechua (temperate intermontane valley: see Chapter 6 in this volume) agriculturalists. In this, the Incas celebrated the emergence of the first pairs of male and female ancestors from a cave located about a day’s walk to the south of Cuzco. Bearing maize and their royal emblems, the ancestors journeyed northward, settling in the best lands of the Cuzco basin. On this mythical journey, they subjugated groups that lived in higher elevations and farmed suni lands (dry-farmed valley-side lands where tubers, quinoa, and tarwi thrive: see Chapter 6 in this volume), as well as people living in the warm lowlands where chile pepper could be grown. In their origin myths, collected in the Colonial Period, the Incas named groups whom they had conquered, as well as those whose rulers were contemporaries of Manco Capac, the founding Inca ruler.
Many aspects of the Inca origin myths are not substantiated archaeologically, such as the migration from another location. Nevertheless, archaeological surveys in the Cuzco region (Figure 40.2) appear to validate the identification of the Incas as valley-bottom maize farmers. The earliest villages in the region were established by the early first millennium BC, generally in locations suitable for extensive polycropping. Around AD 400, the region experienced an almost universal settlement disruption as populations shifted to lower elevations and closer to small streams that could easily be used for irrigation. In the Cuzco basin, the majority of the population would continue to live in undefended settlements close to the valley bottom. Later, Inca state formation involved the annexation of new lands to develop intensive maize agriculture.
In the Late Intermediate Period, from ca. AD 1000-1400 the principal sites of the Ayar-maca, Pinagua, and Mohina groups were dense settlement clusters of at least 20 ha, located 25 km or so from the growing city of Cuzco (Figure 40.3). Several indigenous chroniclers identify the leaders of these groups—Tocay Capac of the Ayarmaca, and the eponymous Pinagua Capac—as Manco Capac’s contemporaries, perhaps because these complex maize farming groups were important rivals during the process of Inca state formation, territorial expansion, and administrative consolidation of the Cuzco region. Archaeologically, the groups identified as having powerful leaders (i. e., leaders who used the title of qhapaq/capac) during the mythical times of the first Inca ruler lived in undefended, nucleated valley-bottom settlements in close proximity to areas where maize could be grown intensively.
World History
