The
Cusco Valley and the
Incas
are synonymous in most people's
minds, but the area was populated
well before they arrived on the
scene and they simply built their
empire on the toil and ingenuity of
generations of previous cultures.
The
Killki culture, for
instance, whose members learned to
work the hard diorite and andesite
stones that abound here and,
although primarily agriculturists,
built stone structures, dominated
the scene around 700-800 AD. Some of
these structures still survive,
while others were incorporated into
later Inca constructions - the sun
temple of Koricancha, for example,
seems to have been built on the
foundations a Killki sun temple.
Early Inca pots, too, are
stylistically close to Killki-produced
items, while classical Inca pots
demonstrate strong similarities to
ceramics produced around 1000 AD by
the
Lucre culture, whose main
site was at Choquepugio, 35km from
modern Cusco. The Lucre also used
significant amounts of diorite stone
in their constructions and, like the
Incas later, utilized such boulders
in multi-angular, earthquake-proof
formations. Later Inca pottery shows
a strong
Wari influence.
According to Inca legend,
however, Cusco was founded by Manco
Capac and his sister Mama Occlo
around 1200 AD. Over the next two
hundred years the valley was home to
the Inca tribe, one of many
localized warlike groups then
dominating the Peruvian sierra.
A series of chiefs led the tribe
after Manco Capac, the eighth one
being Viracocha Inca , but it
wasn't until Viracocha's son Pachacuti
assumed power in 1438 that Cusco
became the centre of an expanding
empire. As Pachacuti pushed the
frontier of Inca territory outwards,
so he also master-minded the design
of imperial Cusco, canalizing the
Saphi and the Tullumayo, two rivers
that ran down the valley, and
building the centre of the city
between them. Cusco's city plan was
conceived in the form of a puma, a
sacred animal: Sacsayhuaman ,
an important ritual centre that
doubled up as a fortified area for
the town's people to retreat to when
threatened, is the jagged,
tooth-packed head; Pumacchupan
, the sacred cat's tail, lies at the
point where the city's two main
rivers merge; while between these
two sites lies Koricancha ,
the Temple of the Sun, reproductive
centre of the Inca universe, the
loins of this sacred beast. The
heart of the puma, was Huacapata
, a ceremonial square approximating
in both size and position to the
modern Plaza de Armas. Four main
roads radiated from the square, one
to each corner of the empire.
Pachacuti's palace was built on one
corner of Huacapata, while his
grandson, Huayna Capac, situated his
palace in the opposite corner, next
to the cloisters of the Temple of
the Sun Virgins. The overall
achievement was remarkable, a
planned city without rival at the
centre of a huge empire, and in
building their capital the Incas
endowed Cusco with some of its
finest structures. All important
buildings were constructed from hard
volcanic rock and streets ran
straight and narrow, with stone
channels to drain off the heavy
rains.
By the time the Spanish arrived,
Cusco was a thriving capital. Nobles
and conquered chieftains lived
within the body of the puma,
servants and artisans on the
outskirts, while subjects from all
over the empire made regular
official pilgrimages. Of all the
Inca rulers only Atahualpa, the
last, never actually resided in
Cusco, and even he was en route to
there when the conquistadores
captured him at Cajamarca. In his
place, Francisco Pizarro
eventually reached the native
capital on November 15, 1533. The
Spaniards were astonished: the
city's beauty surpassed anything
they had seen before in the New
World, the stonework was better than
any in Spain and precious metals
were used in a sacred context
throughout the city, though most of
all in Koricancha. As usual, they
lost no time in plundering its
fantastic wealth.
The Spanish city, divided up
among 88 of Pizarro's men who chose
to remain as settlers, was
officially founded by Pizarro on
March 23, 1534. Manco Inca
was set up as a puppet ruler,
governing from a new palace on the
hill just below Sacsayhuaman. Within
a year, power struggles between the
colonists - two of whom were
Pizarro's sons - had reached the
point of open violence, though
serious trouble was averted when
their main rival, Almagro, departed
to head an expedition to Chile. With
him out of the way, Juan and Gonzalo
Pizarro were free to abuse the Inca
and his subjects, which eventually
provoked Manco to open resistance.
In 1536 he fled to Yucay, in the
Sacred Valley, to gather forces for
the Great Rebellion.
Within days the two hundred
Spanish defenders, with only eighty
horses, were surrounded in Cusco by
over one hundred thousand rebel Inca
warriors. On May 6, Manco's men
attacked, setting fires among the
dry thatched roofs and laying siege
to the city for the following week.
Finally, the Spaniards, still
besieged in Huacapata, led a
desperate attempt on horseback to
break out, riding up to
counterattack the Inca base in
Sacsayhuaman, during which battle
Juan Pizarro was fatally wounded.
Incredibly, after a few days of
desperate fighting, the Spanish
defeated the native stronghold,
putting some 1500 warriors to the
sword as they took it - one of the
most important battles in the
conquest of Peru, for if the Incas
had won, they would have regained
control of all Peru except Lima.
Cusco never again came under such
serious threat from its indigenous
population, but its battles were far
from over. By the end of the rains
the following year, the small
Spanish stronghold was still
awaiting reinforcements: Pizarro's
men were on their way up from the
coast, while Almagro, returning from
Chile, was at Urcos, only 35km to
the south. Unsure of his loyalties
and the cause of the Inca
insurrection, Almagro tried to
befriend Manco but the emperor chose
to retreat into a remote mountain
refuge at Vilcabamba - now
known as Espiritu Pampa ,
deep in the jungle northeast of
Cusco. Almagro immediately seized
Cusco for himself and defeated a
Pizarrist force arriving from Lima.
For a few months the city became the
centre of the Almagrist rebels until
Francisco Pizarro himself arrived on
the scene, defeated the rebel force
on the edge of town and had Almagro
garrotted in the main plaza. The
rebel Incas, meanwhile, held out in
Vilcabamba until 1572, when the
Spanish colonial viceroy, Toledo,
captured Tupac Aymaru - one of
Manco's sons who had succeeded as
emperor - and beheaded him in the
Plaza de Armas.
From then on the city was left in
relative peace, ravaged only by the
great earthquake of 1650. After this
dramatic tremor, remarkably
illustrated on a huge canvas in the
cathedral, Bishop Mollinedo
was largely responsible for the
reconstruction of the city, and his
influence is also closely associated
with Cusco's most creative years of
art. The Cusqueña school ,
which emerged from his patronage,
flourished for the next two hundred
years, and much of its finer work,
produced by native Quechua and mestizo
artists such as Diego Quispe Tito,
Juan Espinosa de los Monteros,
Fabian Ruiz and Antonio Sinchi Roca,
is exhibited in museums and churches
around the city.
Today Cusco possesses an identity
above and beyond the legacy left in
the andesite stones carved by the
Incas. Like its renowned art, Cusco
is dark, yet vibrant with colour.
It's a politically active, left-of-centre
city where street demonstrations
organized by teachers, lecturers,
miners or some other beleagured
profession are commonplace. The
leading light of Cusco's left,
ex-mayor Daniel Estrada ,
left the city in 1996 to become a
member of Congress in Lima, taking
with him much of Cusco's political
vigour. However, with the help of
local architect, Guido Gallegos
, he left behind a visual legacy for
the city, in its elegant Inca-like
modern fountains and statues, such
as the Condor and Pachacutec
monuments and the new plaza in San
Blas, mostly built in the early
1990s under his auspices.
With the arrival of the new
millennium, Cusco has become
something of a magnet for mystics
expecting it to be re-vindicated as
"the navel of the world",
the umbilical centre of Pachamama,
Mother Earth, hence the mystic tours
that are now available and the
rituals that have been taking place
at many of the ancient ceremonial
centres in and around Cusco over the
last few years. The community spirit
remains strong, if diverse, and
street demonstrations protesting
against council policies are a
regular occurrence.
