by Georges Fery
In mid-fifteenth century, the Chachapoyas were incorporated into the Inca “Realm of the Four Parts” (the Tahuantinsuyu in Quechua), under the “son of the Sun” the great Sapa-Inca in Cuzco, Pachacuti Inca Yupanqui (1418-1471). Pachacuti organized the kingdom into four regions or suyu: northwest, northeast, southwest and southeast, with Cuzco at the center. His son Topa Inca Yupanqui (1441-1493) would eventually extend the Tahuantinsuyu along the Pacific Coast to today’s western Ecuador, south central Bolivia, northwest Argentina, and most of Chile to the south. But before that, in the mid-fifteenth century the Sapa Inca conquered the powerful Chimú Empire on Peru’s north coast; his army then turned inland toward the Andes. The northeast (antisuyu) territory extended deep into the eastern slopes of the mountain range which was covered by a dense tropical forest. Garcilaso de la Vega (1539-1616) wrote that the Inca invasion of the Chachapoya territory started in the mid-1450s. The invaders went through repeated hard-fought battles in the challenging topography, but the Chachapoyas fought hard and were never defeated. The account does not include Kuélap which may have been bypassed by the Inca armies. Historical sources relate that by the 1460s, after months of relentless battles and deadlocks, the Chachapoyas had no option but to concede to a bitter peace agreement. In accordance with the empire’s rules of occupation, Cuzco sent civil servants and army officers to oversee the territory’s towns and villages.
Furthermore, under the Inca’s rules of occupation, up to fifty per cent of the younger population was moved as mitmaq’ colonists to distant parts of the empire (Espinoza, 1967), while high ranking Chachapoya women were married to Inca administrators. The mummies of those Inca officials are found in mausoleums with their bundles placed side-by-side with those of Chachapoyas. As Crandal (2012) writes, Chachapoya ontology, akin to other Andean people, was predicated on a collective relationship to ancestors who played an active role in reproducing social life.
A smaller yet prominent Chachapoya site with unique particulars is the ancient city of Gran Pajatén, in the Andean cloud forest. Most sites are found between the Marañón and Huallaga rivers in the Rio Abiseo National Park. Gran Pajatén was discovered by Eduardo Peña Meza (1886-1968), but it was known before to people in surrounding villages and stands 9,350 feet on a five-acre hilltop above the Montecristo River, an affluent of the Abiseo River. Based primarily on architectural evidence, the settlement is unequivocally Chachapoya. The remains of over twenty-six circular stone structures, some with two levels, are built atop terraces with stairways. Initially several of them may have stood some fifty feet high with their high cone shaped roof supported by wood beams and covered with natural fibers (Bonavia, 1969, Davis, 1996).
Gran Pajatén (photo at top) is unique not only for its exceptional architecture, but for the number of symbolic and decorative motifs seen on its structures built in Inca times. Like Kuélap, besides being a religious locus, it was a granary depot and distribution center to answer recurring food scarcities. Unlike Kuélap, however, the site was most significant for its religious influence, attested by structures decorated with stone slates mosaic motifs, among which are human shapes and birds held in place with mortar. By and large, the recurrent patterns of most motifs are salient thematic elements that also bear similarities with Inca and Wari cultures. The walls of the second level of Circular Structure-1 are the most elaborate and best-preserved. The building technique shows finely cut limestone slates jutting out of the walls to create geometric motifs. The exceptions to the use of slates in human motifs are the heads, which were sculpted in the round from sandstone, and embedded in the slate design at the appropriate place through a spike jutting out from the head’s back. Kaufmann Doig notes that the schematic and geometric human figures are essentially those of a female that, as a mythical being, held various symbolic attributes.
The figures are repeatedly shown in a circular frieze that encircles Structure.1 and Structure.2, and singly on other buildings (1986). The main recuring stylized human motif is that of the powerful Pachamama. The earth-mother figure, which is shown in a seating position with legs bent at the knees and thighs spread out, indicates that she is giving birth to both humans and nature’s worlds. The Pachamamas are found on both structures and are similar but for their stylized headgear. The first headgear (left) is shown as a starlike crown, and may refer to bird feathers, probably those of the macaw from the Amazon. The second headgear (right) is understood to be the wings of a bird of prey, probably that of the hawk, not the condor. The hawk, a foremost actor in the magico-religious beliefs and ceremonies of the cultures of the Andes tropical forest, is also found in other ancient societies. As Kauffmann Doig points out, the Pachamama “is the foremost fertility goddess who presided over planting and harvesting and is found in other cultures of ancient Peru” (2017). The Pachamama is the patron deity of most ayllus or localized social groups, self-defined as ancestor-focused kindred.
For it was then believed that, among Pachamama’s abilities, was her ever-present creative powers that sustained life on this earth” (1992). Ceramics analysis shows that Gran Pajatén was occupied as early as 200BC, while stone and ceramics link the structures to early Inca occupation. So far there is no record of human remains, mummified or otherwise. The ancient city, like Kuélap, was a granary depot guarded by a strong force and backed up, it was believed, by powerful ancestors and the deities of another world. As Anselmo Lozano Calderón writes “The ancestral past of Andean and Amazonian cultures was replete with the esthetic and symbolic depiction of their existence, akin to the rhythms of nature, and grounded historically in their faith, their land and magic of the divine” (in Kauffmann Doig, 2017).
A day’s walk from Gran Pajatén, at 8,900 feet in the cloud forest, is the site of Los Pinchudos. It is another Chachapoya burial complex located in the Rio Abiseo National Park, in one of Peru’s northern Andean cloud forests. The site was named for seven mausoleums, two of them badly damaged. Los Pinchudos is notable for the carved wood figures displaying a prominent anatomy. They hang from the outside of the mausoleum’s walls below the stone awnings that protected them from the rain. The name “Los Pinchudos” is from local slang that stands for “the ones with penis.” Sculpted from hard wood, the twenty-inch tall Pinchudos dangle from a wood shaft, integral to the statue, that anchored it into the wall of the burial chamber. No mummies were found, but a few bones and pieces of wool from bundles indicated that the ancestors’ bundles were removed by the Europeans during the 16th or 17th century. The geometric symbolism used in the parietal ornaments is like the ones seen at Gran Pajatén and Gantumarca on the left bank of the Marañón river which, for their architecture, bear a close filiation with those of Los Pinchudos. Over five hundred years ago the five mausoleums were covered with painted clay whose residues were found on the back of one of the figures. We do not know if the Pinchudos mausoleums were each painted red, yellow-ochre, or white (Kauffmann 1980; Morales et al. 2002). The symbolic significance of colors was important associated with corresponding rituals, but those are unknown. Unlike purunmatshus made for one person, mausoleums harbored several mummified individuals each tightly wrapped in a bundle.
Mummies and burials are rooted in people’s cultural and spiritual faith in a finite geographical environment. As for most cultures, those roots are primarily defined by language, traditions, and a common belief, which secure their “right of blood” to the soil where they were born and where their ancestors are buried, as opposed to the “right of land” claimed by invaders. In ancient Peru, mummification, or preservation of family members, rested on the belief that their death would be like their past life. They had no expectations about a paradise or a hell, a concept associated with Christianity that arrived with the Spaniards in 1532. Mummification was an ancient practice in Peru, witness the 420 mummy bundles from the Paracas Necropolis, 300-200BC (Tello, 1949). The process of mummification varied through time and place and followed strict imperatives beyond rituals, which were dependent on those of the local environment. In the case of Paracas, the area was, and still is, a dry desert with little humidity coming from the Pacific Ocean.
For the Chachapoyas and other cultures of northwestern Peru, however, the humidity factor was important in the process applied to preserving human remains. Trained people were probably members of shamanic fraternities of either gender, that may have been attached to the priesthood, and were dedicated to the task. The process required dehydration of the body in a cold, dry and well-ventilated location where the removal of the viscera and cleaning of the abdominal cavity took place. Organs in the thorax were not removed, nor were the eyes and brain. Organic substances such as ginger, other roots, and coca leaves were mixed in a light corn paste, which was then used to thoroughly clean and embalm the body. Cotton plugs, and a variety of plant leaves were introduced into the nose cavities as well as in the mouth, to preserve the appearance of the departed. The process was so skillful that the eyes’ sclera was preserved. The body was then placed in a tightly flexed seating position with legs and arms tied up against the body the hands placed over the face. Each finger was wrapped before the body was tightly bundled up in fine llama wool fabrics. Between the wrappings were placed votive figurines or small items cherished by the departed. The bundle was then placed in a cold, dry and well-ventilated location for several weeks or months before being transferred permanently to its last resting place.
Mausoleums such as those seen at Revash, are called “house of the departed” in Quechua (Runasimi), and do not show Inca influence in their architecture. These funerary structures referred to as pukulio or tshullpas are known throughout Peru spanning from the Wari (500-1000) to the Chimú (900-1450). The Chachapoya mausoleums were built in an existing open corridor in the rock face that was enlarged and extended. The walls of the small structures are made of shaped stones set with mortar with a symbolic “roof.”
The roofs over the structures were of the gable or lean-to type but were not necessary since the tshullpas were already protected by the rocky overhang. According to local folklore, the roofs were made for ancestors to “feel at home.” Built close together, the mausoleums look like a little village, their walls covered with mud of a tan color.
Not so inaccessible as the purunmatshus, over time the tshullpas were visited by people that damaged the mummies’ bundles in search of valuables. Unlike at Karajia, however, the mausoleums are collective with remains of select individuals of the same or extended family, for as in other parts of the Americas, not all progenitors qualified as ancestors. Revash’s distinctive features are symbolic figures painted red on the structures and on the rock face above the mausoleums, such as human shapes, local camelids (llama), and geometric motifs.
In most cultures of the Americas, red pigment is associated with blood, the stream of life. Cinnabar, a red pigment oxide powder, was used in burials, for it was believed to protect the departed soul’s “divine substance” and ward off malevolent forces while it traveled through the underworld. Other architectural particulars are cruciform shapes. Today, in ancient and traditional cultures in the Americas, the equilateral cross openings in structures or painted on ceramics, depict the four changing cardinal directions of the spiritual universe associated with their respective twenty deities and colors, such as red, yellow, black, and white for the Mayas. The equilateral Inca chakama cross holds the same symbolic significance. Each of the twenty right angles of the cross carries its own deity, while the steps between each arm of the cross are representative of andenes or terraces built in steep mountain slopes. Of note is that only funerary bundles of ascendant lineage members worthy of being venerated, were placed in mausoleums or in a purunmatshu. Many mausoleums dot the Chachapoya landscape such as Tingorbamba-Pueblo de los Muertos, La Petaca-Diablo Huasi, Laguna de los Condores and Huabayacu among many.
One wonders why human remains have been so important to all cultures. Veneration of ancestors is found in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic (PPN-A,12,800-8,500BP), and much farther back in time. We have seen this concern at Kuélap, Los Pinchudos, and Revash among other sites in the Chachapoya landscape. As Paul Cornerton points out, repetitive rituals act as a mechanism to create communal memory (1989), and one should add identity. Constant to most ancient and traditional cultures today, is the belief in the permanence of life beyond life, hence the prominence given to forefathers believed to help in relieving the pains of life’s here and now.
The shape of funerary bundles recalls plant seeds about to sprout from their shells and was commonly associated with the rhythm of the seasons and the belief in an eternal return. As McAnany reminds us “the cult to ancestors was integral to the cosmologies and traditions of most cultures in the Andean region and is well documented in those of Mesoamerica” (1995).
The phases of places and divinities follow the same fate as that of people, appearing and disappearing on the scene of life. The sixth Sapa-Inca of the Hanan dynasty, Huayna Capac (1464-1524), had two sons, Atahualpa (1502-1533) born in Ecuador and Huascar born in Cuzco (1503-1532). Huayna Capac unwisely divided the empire between his two heirs. The northwest and the northeast were assigned to Atahualpa, while the southwest and the southeast, with Cuzco at the center of the realm, were allocated to Huascar. The decision proved deadly to the Inca empire. As expected, the brothers were soon at war with each other. The Chachapoyas in the northeast were drawn into the crossfire, and factions arose with some leaning toward Huascar while others sided with Atahualpa. A major battle took place in the upper Andes that took the lives of over six thousand Chachapoya warriors. This tragedy so angered the population against Atahualpa, that it rose from rage to a full-fledged revolt. This massacre turned the Chachapoya population against the victorious Atahualpa who exacted vengeance by killing their leaders and ordered all adolescents of both sexes deported to other parts of the empire (Keith Muscutt, 1998). Kuélap may have been bypassed by the Inca army because it might not have been militarily relevant at the time. Of note, however, is that more than 2,500 stones for slings were stashed in the Atalaya square tower, indicating that the citadel’s defenders were ready to fight off invaders. Large clumps of burnt roofing thatch, however, indicate that residents either burned the structures when the site was abandoned for unknown reasons, or that Kuélap came to a violent end. Whatever the outcome, for the next five centuries, remains of the ancestors buried in its walls were the citadel’s sole occupants.
This is Part 2 of a 2 Part series. Read Part 1 here.
References – Further Reading:
Federico Kauffmann Doig, 2017 – La Cultura Chachapoyas
Keith Muscutt, 1998 – Warriors of the Clouds
Federico Kauffmann Doig, 2009 – Construcciones de Kuélap y Pajatén
James M. Crandall, 2012 – Chachapoya Eschatology: Spaces of Death in the Northern Andes
Warren B. Church, Adriana Von Hagen, 2007 – Chachapoyas: Cultural Development at an Andean Cloud Forest Crossroads
Federico Kauffmann Doig, 1988 – Ultratumba entre los Antiguos Peruanos
Robert Bradley, 2005 – The Architecture of Kuelap
Garcilaso de la Vega, 1986 – La Florida del Inca (1605)
About the author:
Creative non-fiction writer, researcher and photographer, Georges Fery addresses topics, from history, culture, and beliefs to daily living of ancient and today’s communities of the Americas. His articles are published online at travelthruhistory.com, ancient-origins.net and popular-archaeology.com, in the quarterly magazine Ancient American (ancientamerican.com), as well as in the U.K. at mexicolore.co.uk. The author is a fellow of the Institute of Maya Studies instituteofmayastudies.org Miami, FL and The Royal Geographical Society, London, U.K. rgs.org. As well as member in good standing of the Maya Exploration Center, Austin, TX mayaexploration.org, the Archaeological Institute of America, Boston, MA archaeological.org, the National Museum of the American Indian, Washington, DC. americanindian.si.edu, and the NFAA – Non-Fiction Authors Association nonfictionauthrosassociation.com.
Contact: Georges Fery – 5200 Keller Springs Road, Apt. 1511, Dallas, Texas 75248. T. (786) 501 9692 – gfery.43@gmail.com and www.georgefery.com
Photo credits:
- Gran Pajatén: @monperou.com
- Gran Pajatén, Pachamama: @Pedro Rojas Ponce in K.Doig, 2017
- Praying to the Pachamama: @travelandhealing.com
- Los Pinchudos: @pueblosoriginarios.com
- Mummies, Leymebamba Museum: @HenzPlenge-IIRSA.Norte
- Revash Mausoleums: @perutravel.com
- Purunmatchus, Looking Back: @andina.com.pe
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