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"Noble David Cook's "People of the Volcano" is a masterpiece of history writing. The story is set in one of the most rugged and dramatic landscapes in the Andes--the Colca Valley, in the southern highlands of Peru, near the city of Arequipa. From his close reading of the Spanish chronicles and administrative documents, Cook fashions a virtual ethnography--the closest approximation we are likely ever to have of a "thick description"--of everyday life in the Colca Valley during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This was the period when the inhabitants of this remote valley were incorporated into the Inca empire, the last great state of the pre-Columbian Andean world, and then, following the Spanish conquest, when they became the unwilling and troublesome provincial subjects of the first global empire of the modern world, that of the Hapsburg kings of Spain. Cook's account of the imposition of the sixteenth-century Toledan reforms in the Colca Valley will stand for many years to come as the most informative and readable account of this critical, transformative process in colonial Andean history."--Gary Urton, Dumbarton Oaks Professor of Pre-Columbian Studies, Harvard University

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PEOPLE OF THE VOLCANO

DUKE UNIVERSITY PRESS

Contents

Illustrations and Tables............................................................ixPreface.............................................................................xiONE. Beneath the Soaring Condor.....................................................3TWO. Return of the Viracocha........................................................29THREE. Crisis of the New Order......................................................51FOUR. Constructing an "Andean Utopia"...............................................79FIVE. "Repblica de los Indios": Social and Political Structure.....................105SIX. Tribute and the Domestic Economy...............................................131SEVEN. Extractive Economy...........................................................155EIGHT. Indoctrination and Resistance................................................181NINE. Crisis in the "Repblica de los Espaoles"....................................215Epilogue: Andean Counterpoint.......................................................243Notes...............................................................................261Bibliography........................................................................285Index...............................................................................311

Chapter One

They have come from a huaca or ancient shrine that is situated within the confines of the neighboring province of Vellilli, which is a snowcapped peak in the shape of a volcano, set out from the other peaks of the area, and which they call Collaguata. They say that from this mountain or from within it many people departed, and they descended to this province and its valley, and that they have settled in this riverbed. They conquered those who were the natives, ousted them by force, and then remained.... Because the volcano from which they have come is called Collaguata, they are called the Collaguas. -Testimony of valley residents, 20 January 1586, from Juan de Ulloa Mogolln, "Relacin de la provincia de los Collaguas."

The first Europeans to view the Colca Valley in the 1530s surely marveled at its natural beauty. Either descending from the desolate high-elevation grasslands or climbing from the desert Pacific strip, one is impressed by the massive patchwork of irrigated terraces blanketing the river's slopes. The dense multicolored crops testify to the fecundity of the volcanic soil, and stand in stark contrast to the frigid glaciated peaks towering above the valley and the canyon's rocky riverbed below. High in the crystal sky a solitary condor soars, spreading its wings, catching the rays of the brilliant sun. Fields, hamlets, and cottages with wisps of smoke wafting upward complete the picture.

The source of water and life for the Colca Valley's people is the moisture absorbed by the air as it flows over the Pacific Ocean. The prevailing southwesterly winds push humid sea air upward against the barrier of the Andean cordillera. As the elevation increases the temperature plummets, and humidity is squeezed from the atmosphere to create rain or, in the lofty mountains, sleet and snow. During the wet season, from late November to March, heavy afternoon showers regularly drench the valley, while on the puna violent thunderstorms assault pastoralists and occasional travelers. The force of the elements, especially thunder and lightning, which the Quechua called Llapta, was feared and propitiated by Andeans long after foreigners introduced Christianity.

In the dry season the snowcapped peaks above the puna bestow life-giving water. The sun, venerated as a spiritual force, has ample power midday to melt snow and ice at the edge of stone and rock, creating trickles, then rivulets. And groundwater emerges from springs, which are also venerated. From melting snow at the edges of the region's volcanic cones and the Patacapuquio, or hundred springs of water found toward nearby Lampa, the Colca River is born. After meandering in the puna behind the peaks of Chachani and Misti the river cuts a valley through the highland mass and flows westerly, falling from 3,300 to 2,700 meters before cascading downward, creating a precipitous gorge, deeper than North America's Grand Canyon. Near the end of the profound canyon the Colca joins a river originating in Condesuyos, creating the Majes, before emptying at Caman into the Pacific. It is not just the Colca that provides life-giving water. Upper irrigation channels bring water from other glaciated peaks. Water for Achoma is taken from both melting ice near the base of Hualca Hualca from where it is channeled into the upper Sepina, and from nearby springs. On the south side of the Colca, water is channeled from the summits of Huarancante, Ampato, and Sabancaya; while on the north side, Quehuisha, Mismi, and Huillcaya are the main sources. The longest of the irrigation canals reaches thirty kilometers!

It is in the middle valley, stretching east to west for fifty kilometers, that the bulk of the population is concentrated. The volcanic soil provides a rich foundation for a variety of crops. As early as 2400 BC, inhabitants terraced accessible valley slopes, creating andenes, and they constructed irrigation channels to provide water from mountain streams and springs during the long dry season. At higher valley elevations, they grew the grain quinua (quinoa) and tubers, especially potatoes and olluco; while prized maize was cultivated in intermediate elevations, and squash, beans, gourds, aj (chili peppers), fruits, and nuts were produced at lower levels. Autochthonous farmers planted dozens of varieties of grains and vegetables, a diversity lost by contemporary agriculturalists. On the puna vast flocks of llamas and alpacas grazed. They provided wool, meat, and other products; the larger of the camelids transported goods. On the high flat plateaus native straw, called ichu, was cut for thatching cottage roofs. Game and fowl as well as fish were abundant.

The Colca Valley's idyllic rural setting has its darker side. Earthquakes pose a constant threat. Two-story stone residences often collapsed and killed during earthquakes. Infants and the elderly were especially vulnerable. Landslides buried or swept away entire villages. Furthermore, the quaking earth often devastated agricultural terraces and irrigation channels. More dangerous were volcanic eruptions. Although such events were rare they caused massive destruction, as on 19 February 1600, when Huaynaputina, in nearby Ubinas province, exploded. A dense cloud of volcanic ash drifted northward, sweeping beyond Cuzco into the Amazon basin. Valley crops were covered and destroyed; the only compensation following such tragedies is soil enrichment. A more gradual tectonic upward shift over several generations likely disrupted the natural flow of water, ruining irrigation systems. Floods do major damage during periods of excessive rainfall; mudslides are as destructive as earthquakes, erasing irrigation channels, even hamlets. And there is the gradual impact of longer-term climatic variations.

In Inca times the territory was the home of two ethnic groups: the Collaguas lived in the upper valley, the Cabanas the lower. Smaller ethnicities shared the valley. The...