The Last Days of the Incas

by KIM MACQUARRIE

  The ruined city where Bingham stood now was indeed on a very “high mountain,” commanded a view of “a great part of the province of Vilcapampa,” and contained an “extensive level space,” with the remains of large, once majestic buildings. Although the doorways of the ruins at Rosaspata were not made of marble—indeed there was no marble whatsoever to be found in the entire province—they were made of finely grained white granite. In addition, because of the roughness of the surrounding walls, the doorways’ perfectly cut proportions and finishing clearly stood out. What’s more, a village called Puquiura lay nearby—exactly as had been described in the chronicles. All that was needed now to prove that Rosaspata was the site of ancient Vitcos was to find a spring of water nearby, overlain by a giant “white rock” shrine that the chroniclers had called Chuquipalpa. If he could find the Incas’ ancient shrine, then that would mean that Rosaspata was indeed Vitcos—the city where Manco Inca’s son Titu Cusi had been captured by the Spaniards and where Manco himself later had been murdered by seven Spanish renegades.

  Two distinct versions exist as to what happened next. According to Bingham’s account, on the following day, August 9, he and the lieutenant governor, Mogrovejo, followed a local guide who led them to a nearby stream. They then followed the stream through thick woods until they came to a clearing where, in its midst, rose a great white rock, completely covered in Inca-style carvings. Bingham excitedly approached the massive rock, which stood about twenty feet high and was some sixty feet in length and thirty feet in breadth. Sure enough, alongside one end of the rock he found a pool of spring water, while flanking it on two sides he found the stone ruins of what certainly could have been an Inca temple of the sun.

  Bingham still had with him the carefully copied passages of Father Calancha’s account of the Inca shrine at Chuquipalpa:

  Near Vitcos, in a village called Chuquipalpa, was a temple of the Sun, and within it a white rock above a spring of water where the Devil appeared…. [And] who gave answers from a white rock … and on various occasions he revealed himself. The stone was above a spring of water and they worshipped the water as a divine thing.

  Questioning his local guide, Bingham was told that the area was called Chuquipalta—an almost identical match with Calancha’s Chuquipalpa.

  It was late on the afternoon of August 9, 1911, when I first saw this remarkable shrine. … With the contemporary accounts in our hands and the physical evidence before our eyes we could now be fairly sure that we had located one of Manco’s capitals and the residence known to the Spaniards, visited by the [Spanish] missionaries and ambassadors as well as by the [Spanish] refugees who had sought safety here from the followers of Pizarro and had unfortunately put Manco to death. While it [Rosaspata] was too near Puquiura to be his “principal capital,” Vilcapampa, it certainly was Vitcos.

  Only sixteen days after discovering Machu Picchu, Bingham had now confirmed what he no doubt considered a far more important discovery—he had finally located the lost Inca city of Vitcos.

  In the second version of the story, however, it was Bingham’s friend Harry Foote who actually discovered the Chuquipalta shrine. According to Foote’s journal, the day before Bingham’s trip to the shrine Foote had gone off looking for butterflies while Bingham had spent the day investigating the ruins at Rosaspata. Foote later wrote the following entry in his journal about his activities that day:

  I went out collecting and Hi[ram] went to ruins [of Rosaspata] which he [had] located the day before. I spotted a lot of new ones up in a high pastured valley between the mountains. A spring starts at the ruins. There is a fine rock in the ruins which is cut somewhat like the Rodadero in Cuzco on one side and curiously cut on the other side.* Very level terraces and heavy stone work separating them beyond. A number of seats cut in the large rock and in others—one in a rock which juts into a room. There were but few species of butterflies and I got all but one or two.

  According to Bingham’s personal friend and neighbor, then, Foote had inadvertently discovered the Inca shrine of Chuquipalta a day before Bingham claimed that he had discovered it. Foote no doubt had told Bingham about his discovery, which had surely prompted Bingham to head directly there the next day. In his published accounts, however, Bingham carefully edited Foote out of the story, simplifying the narrative and then rewriting the sequence of events so that he could portray himself as the first scientist to discover the Incas’ ancient shrine. Although there is no doubt, of course, that Bingham was the first scientist in over three hundred years to simultaneously locate and correctly identify the sites of both Vitcos and the shrine of Chuquipalta, Harry Foote was nevertheless the first scientist to locate the Chuquipalta shrine itself. Because Bingham wrote the only popular account of their expedition, however, Foote never received any credit for his part in the discovery.

  In any case, no one can contest the fact that, in just over two weeks of hunting for ancient Inca ruins in Peru, Hiram Bingham and his team had already made a series of spectacular discoveries, finding first the ruins of Machu Picchu, then Vitcos, and the shrine of Chuquipalta. Despite his impressive trio of discoveries, however, Bingham was still eager to locate Manco’s lost city of Vilcabamba. And, since the chronicles stated that Vilcabamba was only two days’ march away from Vitcos, Bingham knew that the ancient city must be close. The question, however, was in what direction? And by what trail? Once again, Bingham used his strategy of pumping information from local informants and offering monetary rewards to anyone who would agree to show him the location of nearby ruins. A week earlier, while still in the lower Urubamba River Valley, Bingham and Foote had stayed with the owner of a hacienda in Santa Ana.

  When Don Pedro Duque of Santa Ana was helping us to identify places mentioned in Calancha and Ocampo, the reference to “Vilcabamba Viejo” or Old Vilcapampa, was supposed by two of his informants to point to a place called Conservidayoc. Don Pedro told us that in 1902 López Torres, who had traveled much in the montaña looking for rubber trees, reported the discovery there of the ruins of an Inca city.

  Elsewhere, Bingham wrote,

  They all agreed that “if only Señor López Torres were alive he could have been of great service” to us, as “he had prospected for mines and rubber in those parts more than anyone else, and had once seen some Inca ruins in the forest!”

  Thus, several days after discovering Vitcos, Bingham and his team headed further up the valley to the village of San Francisco de la Victoria de Vilcabamba, also known as Vilcabamba the New. After the Spaniards had sacked and plundered Manco’s Vilcabamba, Bingham had learned, they had moved the remaining native population to a new location, higher up in the Andes and closer to Cuzco. Discovering silver mines nearby, they named the town Vilcabamba the New, in contrast to Manco’s burned and sacked capital, which they now referred to as Vilcabamba the Old. Eventually, as the location of Manco’s abandoned capital was gradually forgotten and the city became overgrown with jungle, all that remained was the town of Vilcabamba the New. Three centuries later, Hiram Bingham found that the latter now consisted of a collection of high-gabled, thatched-roofed houses, an old ruined church, a school, and a small post office where Bingham was able to post some mail. Bingham wasted no time in enlisting the aid of the local governor, Señor Condoré, in order to grill the local inhabitants for more information.

  On the day following our arrival at the town of Vilcabamba [the New], the Gobernador, Condoré, taking counsel with his chief assistant, had summoned the wisest Indians living in the vicinity, including a very picturesque old fellow whose name, Quispi Cusi, was strongly reminiscent of the days of Titu Cusi. It was explained to him that this was a very solemn occasion and that an official inquiry was in progress. He took off his hat—but not his knitted cap—and endeavored to the best of his ability to answer our questions about the surrounding country. It was he who said that the Inca Tupac Amaru once lived at Rosaspata. He had never heard of Vitcos or Vilcapampa Viejo, but he admitted that there were ruins in the monta�
�a [jungle] near the village of Conservidayoc. Other Indians were questioned by Condoré. Several had heard of the ruins of Conservidayoc, but, apparently, none of them, nor anyone in the village had actually seen the ruins or visited their immediate vicinity…. One of our informants said the Inca city was called Espíritu Pampa, or the “Pampa of Ghosts.” … Although no one at Vilcabamba [the New] had seen the ruins, they said that at [the village of] Pampaconas, there were Indians who had actually been to Conservidayoc. Accordingly we decided to go there immediately.

  The next day, Bingham, Foote, Sergeant Carrasco, a muleteer, two local officials, and nine pack animals loaded with food, equipment, and camping supplies left the old Spanish mining town, located at 11,750 feet, and headed off toward the village of Pampaconas. Bingham hoped that he might find there someone who knew more about where to find Vilcabamba Viejo, Old Vilcabamba, the final refuge of the last four Inca emperors: Manco Inca, Sayri Tupac, Titu Cusi, and Tupac Amaru. After crossing over the 12,500-foot Colpacasa Pass, Bingham and his party began heading down into the adjacent valley. Soon, the trail became a slippery, muddy mess that zigzagged down the slopes. Just before nightfall, they arrived at Pampaconas, which consisted of a scattering of huts set upon a grassy hillside at an elevation of ten thousand feet.

  We were conducted to the dwelling of a stocky, well-built Indian named Guzmán, the most reliable man in the village, who had been selected to be the head of the party of carriers that was to accompany us to Conservidayoc…. We carried on a most interesting conversation…. He had been to Conservidayoc and had himself actually seen Inca ruins at Espíritu Pampa. At last the mythical “Pampa of Ghosts” began to take on, in our minds, an aspect of reality.

  Through sheer persistence and the relentless grilling of informants, Bingham now found himself employing a local guide who claimed to know where the rumored Inca ruins were located, some two to four days ahead. Could these be the ruins of Manco’s capital of Vilcabamba? Or would this turn out to be another wild-goose chase? Bingham was determined to find out. Three days later, amid thick, warm jungle at some 4,900 feet in elevation, Bingham, Foote, and the rest of the team arrived at the house of a local planter named Saavedra, who had cleared parts of the surrounding jungle in order to grow bananas, sugarcane, coffee, sweet potatoes, tobacco, peanuts, and manioc.

  It is difficult to describe our feelings as we accepted Saavedra’s invitation to make ourselves at home, and sat down to an abundant meal of boiled chicken, rice, and sweet cassava (manioc.) Saavedra gave us to understand that we were not only most welcome to anything he had, but that he would do everything to enable us to see the ruins, which were, it seemed, at Espíritu Pampa, some distance farther down the valley, to be reached only by a hard trail passable for barefooted savages, but scarcely available for us unless we chose to go a good part of the distance on hands and knees.

  The next day, Bingham was guided to the tiny village called Espíritu Pampa, consisting of nothing more than a number of huts of a local ethnic group called the Campas—natives who wore long cotton cloaks down to their ankles, had long black hair, and hunted in the forest with bows and arrows. The Incas, Bingham knew, had allied themselves with Antis Indians in the Amazon jungle. Perhaps the Campas were their descendants. In any case, the Campas now guided Bingham’s party through dense rain forest until suddenly they halted. There, almost indistinguishable from the surrounding foliage, rose the unmistakable form of a roughly hewn stone wall.

  Half an hour’s scramble through the jungle brought us to a … natural terrace on the banks of a little tributary of the Pampaconas [River]. They called it Eromboni [Pampa]. Here we found several artificial terraces and the rough foundations of a long, rectangular building 192 feet by 24 feet…. Near by was a typical Inca fountain with three stone spouts…. Hidden behind a curtain of hanging vines and thickets so dense we could not see more than a few feet in any direction, the savages showed us the ruins of a group of Inca stone houses whose walls were still standing in fine condition. ̴ The walls were of rough stone laid in adobe. Like some of the Inca buildings at Ollantaytambo, the lintels of the doors were made of three or four narrow uncut ashlars…. Below it was a partly enclosed fountain or bathhouse, with a stone spout and a stone-lined basin. The shapes of the houses, their general arrangement, the niches, stone roof-pegs and lintels, all pointed to Inca builders. In the buildings we picked up several fragments of Inca pottery.

  Although the buildings appeared to have been constructed by the Incas, their architectural style was nevertheless rough. Most of the walls were made of uncut stones laid in mud and had none of the fine, classic Inca stonework such as Bingham had seen at Machu Picchu or in Cuzco. Giant strangler figs towered above while thick vines coiled and twirled down from the canopy to the ground. The swollen roots of strangler figs had even pierced some of the ruined walls. Spider monkey calls drifted in, causing the Campa natives to occasionally pause and listen, then to point up at the canopy, speaking excitedly to one another in a language that, to Bingham, sounded “like a succession of low grunts, breathings, and gutturals.”

  As the Campas cleared the vegetation and revealed more stone walls, the metal of their machetes occasionally twanging against the stones, Bingham couldn’t help but wonder whether this roughly hewn, difficult-to-find cluster of buildings could actually be the Vilcabamba the Old described in the chronicles. Having begun his expedition in the frigid highlands and now finding himself in a greenhouse-like environment where he was constantly swatting at flies, bees, and mosquitoes, Bingham had his doubts. He found it difficult, in fact, to believe that

  the [Inca] priests and Virgins of the Sun … who fled from cold Cuzco with Manco … would have cared to live in the hot valley of Espíritu Pampa. The difference in climate is as great as that between Scotland and Egypt. They [the Incas] would not have found in Espíritu Pampa the food which they liked. Furthermore, they could have found the seclusion and safety which they craved just as well in several other parts of the province, particularly at Machu Picchu, together with a cool, bracing climate and food stuffs more nearly resembling those to which they were accustomed. Finally, Calancha says “Vilcabamba the Old” was the “largest city” in the province, a term far more applicable to Machu Picchu … than to Espíritu Pampa.

  Indeed, after two days of clearing the area, Bingham and his team had found only a few dozen buildings; the jungle, however, was so thick that it was difficult to know unequivocally if these were the only structures around. Still, it was hard for Bingham to imagine—even if there were more buildings—that such rough ruins could have ever constituted a major Inca capital or could have housed a succession of Inca emperors. Besides, an additional feature that didn’t correspond to the chronicles’ descriptions of Vilcabamba was that it had taken Bingham and his team five days to travel from Puquiura to Espíritu Pampa, whereas Calancha had stated that the journey from Puquiura to Vilcabamba had taken either “two long days” or three regular ones.

  On the other hand, Bingham had found roughly made Spanish roofing tiles on the ground near some of the ruins.

  With one exception everything about the fragments of pottery and the architecture of the houses was unquestionably Inca. This exception was the presence of a dozen or fifteen roughly made Spanish roofing tiles of varying sizes. On account of the small number of them … it seemed to me possible that these had been made experimentally by recent Peruvians or possibly early Spanish missionaries, who might have come to this place centuries ago. The Indians could offer no explanation of the mystery. Apparently none of the houses ever had tile roofs, as the number of fragments was not enough to cover more than a few square feet, and nearly all were outside the buildings.

  Before their contact with the Spaniards, the Incas had constructed their buildings with typical, high-gabled, thatched roofs; they did not use clay tiles, an idea that was only later imported from Spain. Once the Spaniards had occupied Cuzco and other Inca cities, however, the Spaniards had gradually replaced the Incas�
� traditional thatched roofs with roofing tiles, which they preferred for keeping out the rain. “Perhaps an Inca who had seen the new red tiled roofs of Cuzco had tried to reproduce them here in the jungle, but without success,” Bingham wrote, not believing their presence to be especially significant.

  Using interpreters to question the local Campa natives, Bingham repeatedly asked them what name they used to refer to this site. The Campas responded with two names: the first was in Spanish and meant “Plain of Ghosts” while the second was in Quechua, meaning “Sacred Plain.” Bingham jotted both down. “Espíritu Pampa or Vilcabamba is the name of the whole place,” he wrote in his notebook. Despite the Campas’ use of the Inca name Vilcabamba, however, Bingham remained unsure as to the actual identity of the ruins he had found; they would simply have to await further study.

  After spending two days at Espíritu Pampa, Bingham began running low on food. He and his team, therefore, soon began the long, slow trek back up into the highlands and eventually back to the United States. Although Bingham would lead two more expeditions to Peru—in 1912, and in 1914–1915—and during those expeditions would discover more ruins associated with Machu Picchu, he would never again duplicate the amazing series of important discoveries he made during the short, intensely fertile, four-week period between July and August of 1911. In April 1913, National Geographic magazine would devote an entire issue to Bingham’s discovery of Machu Picchu, thus officially introducing Bingham’s lost city to the outside world. The spectacular, photogenic ruins, often smothered in clouds, would soon become South America’s most famous landmark and a worldwide icon; their discovery would also make Hiram Bingham famous. Yet although the ruins of Machu Picchu were visually spectacular, Bingham nevertheless struggled to find an explanation for them. As a historian, Bingham was surprised that he was unable to find either Machu Picchu or Huayna Picchu described in the Spanish chronicles.