Inca Imperialism in North- West Argentina, and Qiaco Buricdmornu
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Inca Imperialism in North- West Argentina, and Qiaco BuricdMornu - Danish Scientific Investigations in Argentina under the Auspices of the Fundacion Williams By NIEI.S FOCK [n 1958 my wife and I undertook an ethnographical and archaeological expedition lo North Argentina under the auspices of the Argentinian Fundacion Williams. The main purpose was an ethnographical investigation of the Mataco Indians near the central Pilcomayo, but for nearly a month we made an archaeological reconnaissance of the western section of the Argentinian Chaco, immediately south of the Rio Bermejo. When rain made it impossible to continue with these excava- tions we ended the expedition by excavating in the Valle de Lerma, near the town of Salta. Although the archaeological investigations thus extended over a belt of about 400 kilometres running from west to east, it is not unreasonable to consider together the results achieved. From the point of view of the history of culture they belong decidedly together in many ways (cf. map, fig. g). The Valle de Lerma was the frontier region between the high culture of the Andean people and the hordes of the Chaco; archaeology shows that the partially east-orientated Candelaria people were overlaid by Indians of the highlands, and historical sources give us an account of the revenge taken by the Lule, a Chaco people, in the years around the Spanish invasion. Incidentally, the south-west border of the Mataco Indians lay only about 100 kilometres distant from Lerma, so that the strong—though indirect—influence they and the other Chaco tribes obtained from the mountains, particularly from the Inca culture, is easily ex- plained. This influence, on which Nordenskiold (igig) has reported, comprises such important features as agriculture, the products, implements and methods of which are thoroughly Andean, and pottery, which is characterized by aryballo- like water pitchers and the presence of flat bottoms and lugs. This cultural in- fluence was effected, inter alia, through the Valle de Lerma. In regard to burial forms also there are still unsolved problems that link Lerma and the Chaco together. Thus traces are to be found in the Valle de Lerma of direct urn burial of adults in the Candelaria fashion and direct urn burial of small children in the Diaguita style, which causes Lerma to belong to the small, '^explicable enclave of direct urn burial in north-west Argentina. As a result of 68 FOLK 3> 1961 our finds in the Chaco, the urn burial area has been considerably increased. The fact that archaeological evidence of urn burial is found everywhere in the western Chaco, but that this burial custom is never referred to by the earlier Spanish chroniclers, suggests that a change-over to ordinary interment took place in the late pre-Columbian era. It also seems reasonable to attribute responsibility for this influence to the Andes Indians, in casu the Inca. But let us proceed to the Valle de Lerma. Finca San Manuel near Pucara de Lerma lies 25 kilometres south-west of the town of Salta in north-west Argentina. It belongs to the fertile valley of Lerma, a triangular plain with an area of about 400 square kilometres, bordered by Campo Quijano, the town of Salta and the confluence of the rivers Arias and Lerma (25° southern latitude, 65western longitude). The Lerma valley has an altitude of 1500-2000 metres, and is surrounded by mountains which to the west rise to 5000-6000 metres. Despite its apparently isolated situation the population of this valley has been subject to outside influence. The Candelaria culture, the centre of which lies about 150 kilometres to the south-west (Ryden 1936), has left behind clear traces in the form of large, coarse funeral urns at many places in the Lerma valley (Boman 1908, p. 256 El Carmen, p. 258 Carbajal, La Canada and Salta). I myself discovered a burial place of the Candelaria type near Finca de Pucara, 5 kilometres south of Finca San Manuel and near Finca La Estela, 2% kilometres east of San Manuel. Similarly there are in Lerma signs of influence from the Diaguita culture, the centre of which lay in the Calchaqui valley, about 100 kilometres to the south- west. Thus Boman (1916 p. 527) found near Tinti, about 10 kilometres from San Manuel, a child's burial urn of the Diaguita (Santa Maria) type, undecorated, with red paste and grey slip. Boman (1908 p. 294) and the author (see below) found similar Diaguita burial vessels near San Manuel. Finally, there is evidence in the Valle de Lerma of the Inca coming from the north-west in the form of a find of aryballos (Boman 1908 p. 295) and typical Inca figurines (Rosen 1924 p. 190). These latter traces are the more understandable when it is remembered that an Inca road via Morohuasi reaches to Incahuasi in Quebrada del Toro, only 30 kilometres north-north-west of San Manuel (Boman 1908 p. 347), and that Incas presumably used as a signal post the top of the 6100 metre Chani mountain, which lies only 90 kilometres north-northwest of San Manuel (Rosen 1919 p. 175). Cf. stippled line and cross north-west of Salta in map, fig. 9. Nothing is known of the influence of these three cultures on each other beyond the fact that the Inca first gained contact with this area under Topa Inca, who reigned from 1471-93, and at a relatively late period of his reign. We must assume that the first Incas reached north-west Argentina about 1480-go (see Rowe 1946 p. 208). l ock Inca Imperialism in North-West Argentina 69 Fig. 1.—San Manuel, Valle de Lerma. Part of the mound system viewed obliquely towards the north-west. The mountains in the background rise to over 6000 m. The south-eastern end of the Inca road is 30 kms. from this site. Fot. Fock. Though Ambrosetti (1906) in Pampa Grande found Diaguita ceramics super- imposed on Candelaria ceramics, there is apparently no real supporting evidence for assuming a greater general antiquity of the Candelaria culture, as for instance Bennett (1948 p. 98) and others do. The lack of Inca features in the Candelaria culture is rather due to spatial than to temporal separation. In the Salta region, at any rate, there is—as will be shown below—no reason for doubting Candelaria's contemporaneity with the local Diaguita and Inca cultures. The similarities be- tween Diaguita and Candelaria, incidentally, are highly indicative of particular influences from a common source. The next evidence about Lerma is of an historical nature, deriving from the first Spanish conquistadores in 1536 and from the foundation of the city of Lerma in 1581. On account of changing geographical names these statements often con- flict. I shall confine myself to referring to Canals Frau (1943 p. 207-248) and calling attention to certain important evidence. When Almagro travelled through the southern part of the Inca kingdom, the hrst European to do so, he found the Lerma valley (called Provincia de Chicoana) depopulated and laid waste as a result of the warlike inroads of the Chaco Indians coming from the east. The fertile valley still showed the ruins of old buildings (Oviedo and Valdes, 1855 IV p. 263-4). 7° FOLK 3, '961 One of the reasons why Hernando de Lerma selected Salta's site in 1588 was because he had been told that the Lerma valley was fertile and suited to cultiva- tion. The royal road of Peru ran from there and there were irrigation canals and terraces constructed in the Inca period (Levillier 1931, III p. 270). The last source to be mentioned is P. Lozano (1874 IN", p. 8), who, concerning the Inca domination of the ancient 'I'ucuman province to which Lerma belonged, refers to an old tradition that Inca rule began near Lerma. The Inca are said to have despatched to this valley a force originally stationed in the Chicoana valley near Cuzco. They therefore called the place Chicoana in remembrance of their home district. It should be added in explanation that the locality of Chicoana in the Valle de Lerma today lies 20 kilometres south of San Manuel, and that the Peruvian locality Valle de Chicoana lies halfway between Cuzco and Titicaca in the Aymara-speaking province of Cana (Brehm 1885 p. 428). Lozano's description corresponds closely to the well-known mitima institution whereby a loyal group of people from the central Andes was moved and exchanged with a politically unreliable frontier population. Apart from the historical and archaeological evidence about the Valle de Lerma here mentioned, there is only one thing to refer to, though it is the most famous: the mysterious mound complexes of Campo del Pucara. Boman (1908 p. 279 et seq) first investigated them in 1901, and since then the one interpretation has succeeded the other without any satisfactory solution having been found. It was in investigating Boman's mound group C, lying on the present Finca San Manuel, that the Danish expedition in 1958 found the trace of a pre-historic village near by that may be able to lift the veil from Campo del Pucara. Finca San Manuel lies 7 kilometres due east of Campo Quijano and the mound complex begins 50 metres south of the main building. This system of mounds consists of dead straight rows of artificial earth mounds, each about 2% metres in diameter and 2% metres distant from each other. The complex follows the points of the compass, so that there are 16 rows in a north-south direction and 32 in an east-west. The 512 mounds, some of which in the most southerly row have been partially obliterated, constitute an exact rectangle 80 x 160 metres, encircled by a trench about 1 metre broad with a barely traceable rampart outside.