The Chachapoyas, a white-skinned tribe known as the “cloud people” or “Warriors of the Clouds” by the Incas because of the cloud forests they inhabited in northern Peru, ruled the area from around 800 AD to around 1475, when they were conquered by the Incas. But their strong resistance to the Incas, who built an empire ranging from northern Ecuador to southern Chile from the 1400s until the Spanish conquest of the 1530s, earned them a reputation as great warriors.

The meaning of the word Chachapoyas may have been derived from sacha-p-collas, the equivalent of "colla people who live in the woods" (based on the language spoken by the Aymara of the Andes). Some believe the word is a variant of the Quechua construction sacha puya, or people of the clouds. The Chachapoyas, also called the Sachapuyos, meaning mountain mist in Quechua.

Virtually all record of the tribe was lost when the Incas were themselves overrun by the Spanish conquistadors who landed in 1512. They have, however, left behind a spectacular citadel, called Kuelap, 10,000ft up in the Andes.

Some researchers believe that the Chachapoyas may have come from Europe. Little is known about them except that they were one of the more advanced ancient civilisations in the area. Much of what we do know about the Chachapoyas culture is based on archaeological evidence from ruins, pottery, tombs and other artifacts.

Writings by the major chronicler of the time the Spanish poet and soldier Garcilaso de la Vega (1539 - 1616) known also as “El Inca” Garcilaso de la Vega, or simply “El Inca”, were based on fragmentary second-hand accounts.

The conquest of the Chachapoyas by the Incas took place, according to El Inca, during the government of the tenth Sapa Inca (1471-93 CE) of the Inca Empire, son of Pachacuti Inca Yupanqui (Quechua Pachakutiq, literally “world-turner” 1438-71 CE) of the Kingdom of Cuzco, in the second half of the 15th century.

He recounts that the warlike actions began in the slope of Pias. If this is true, it was to the south-west of the Gran Pajáten (an archeological site located in the Andean cloud forests of Peru), whence it is deduced that the area of Pias was already considered as a Chachapoyas territory.

The chronicler Pedro Cieza de León (1520 - 1554) offers some picturesque notes about the Chachapoyas in his book “Chronica del Perú”:

“They are the whitest and most handsome of all the people that I have seen in Indies, and their wives were so beautiful that because of their gentleness, many of them deserved to be the Incas’ wives and to also be taken to the Inti Qancha (Temple of the Sun). The women and their husbands always dressed in woolen clothes and in their heads they wear their llautos, which are a sign they wear to be known everywhere.”

From the same source we know about the resistance that the Chachapoyas put up against the Inca’s penetration in the times of Quechua Tupaq Inka Yupanki (noble Inca accountant - 1471-93 CE).
During the sovereign Quechua Wayna Qhapaq’s (splendid youth, 1493 - 1527) government, the Chachapoyas rebelled:

“They had killed the Inca’s governors and captains ... and ... soldiers ... and many others were imprisoned, they had the intention to make them their slaves.”

As an answer, Quechua Wayna Qhapaq, who was in the Ecuadorian cañaris land and while he was gathering his troops, sent messengers to negotiate peace. But again, the Chachapoyas “punished the messengers ... and threatened them with death”.

Then Quechua Wayna Qhapaq ordered to attack them. He crossed the Marañon river (about 100 miles to the north-east of Lima, Peru) over a bridge of wooden rafts that he ordered to be built probably in the surroundings of Balsas.

From here, the Inca’s troops went to Cajamarquilla (Bolivar), with the intention of destroying this town that was “one of the principal towns” of the ‘Chachapoyas. From Cajamarquilla, an embassy consisting of women came out to meet them. In front of them there was a former concubine of Quechua Tupaq Inka Yupanki, (noble Inca accountant, 1471-93). They were asking for mercy and forgiveness, which the Inca granted them. In memory of this event of peace consecration, the place where the negotiation had taken place was declared sacred and closed so from now on “… neither men nor animals, nor even birds, if it was possible, would put their feet in it.”

To assure the pacification of the Chachapoyas, the Incas installed garrisons in the region. They also arranged the transfer of groups of villagers under the system of mitma (form the Quechua word mitma refers to the policy of deliberate resettlements executed by the Incas.)

This involved transplanting whole groups of people of Inca background as colonists into new lands inhabited by newly conquered peoples. The aim was to distribute loyal Inca subjects throughout their empire to limit the threat of localized rebellions:

“… it gave them grounds to work and places for houses not much far from a hill that is next to the city (Cuzco) called Carmenga.”

Resources:

Carla Hunt of InkaNatura Travel
Adriana von Hagen. An Overview of Chachapoya Archaeology and History.
Peter Lerche’s Chachapoyas: Guía de Viajero (Spanish only).
Museo Leymebamba.
John Hemming. Conquest of the Incas. Harcourt, 1970.
Keith Muscutt. Warriors of the Clouds. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, 1998.
Gene Savoy. Antisuyo: The Search for the Lost Cities of the Andes. Simon & Schuster, 1970.

Tag: The Chachapoyas