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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



TO BATTLE ON A GOLDEN STRETCHER 



The governors of the districts through 

 which they passed were not able to resist 

 them; so the king assembled the larger 

 part of his army near La Raya Pass, be- 

 tween the basin ofT^ake Titicaca and the 

 Urubamba Valley, and awaited the ap- 

 proach of the enemy. As soon as Pacha- 

 cuti VI received word that they were 

 near, he went out to battle and was car- 

 ried about on a golden stretcher. Un- 

 fortunately he was killed by an arrow 

 and his army was destroyed. 



Montesinos quotes his authorities as 

 stating that there were only 500 of the 

 old army left. Leaving behind them 

 many sick, they retired to the mountains, 

 going to Tampu-tocco, which ivas a 

 healthy place, ivhere they hid the body 

 of their king in a cave. The different 

 provinces of the kingdom, upon learning 

 of the death of Pachacuti VI, rose in re- 

 bellion and the people of Tampu-tocco 

 had many disputes in respect to electing 

 a new king. 



At this time, says Montesinos, the 

 power of the Peruvian monarchy was de- 

 stroyed and did not return to its former 

 state for over 500 years. All record of 

 it is lost. In each of the provinces the 

 people chose their own king. Those 

 loyal to the old monarchy were very few 

 in number and could not successfully op- 

 pose the rest of the people. They made 

 their capital at Tampu-tocco and elected 

 a king, Titi Truaman Ouicho. On ac- 

 count of the general anarchy over all the 

 kingdom, no one could live in Cuzco, and 

 little by little men began to come to 

 Tampu-tocco to live under the protection 

 of the king, where they would be safe 

 from the general chaos and disorder. 



cuzco DESERTED 



Clearly, Tampu-tocco must have been 

 a place well separated and set off by na- 

 :ture from the rest of the country, or it 

 would not have been so easy for this dis- 

 »organized remnant to have taken refuge 

 there and set up their own king, with 

 •only 500 soldiers to support him. Machu 

 Picchu is such a place. Paccari-tampu 

 is not. 



Cuzco was practically deserted. Ap- 

 jparently it had been sacked by the in- 



vaders, and the only people remaining 

 there were the ministers of the temple. 



The remnants of the megalithic folk 

 enjoyed living in Tampu-tocco, says 

 Montesinos, because there is the very 

 famous cave where the Incas, as the his- 

 torians say, first originated, and where, 

 they firmly assert, there never have ex- 

 isted such things as earthquakes, plagues, 

 or tremblings ; and because if fortune 

 should turn against their new young king 

 and he shouW be killed, they could bury 

 him and hide him in this cave as in a very 

 sacred place. Fortune was kind, how- 

 ever; they had chosen an excellent place 

 of refuge, and their king grew up to be 

 known as the king of Tampu-tocco. But 

 to him and his successors nothing worth 

 recording happened for many centuries 

 until the reestablishment of the kingdom 

 in Cuzco. 



It is well to remember at this point that 

 there is no cave, large or small, at Pac- 

 cari-tampu, which has for years been be- 

 lieved to be the site of Tampu-tocco, 

 while at Machu Picchu there are several 

 large caves, one of them lined with very 

 beautiful masonry. 



After about 500 years, during which 

 time several of the kings had wished to 

 reestablish themselves in Cuzco, but had 

 been obliged to give up the plan for one 

 reason or another, a king called Tupac 

 Cauri Pachacuti VII began to regain the 

 power of the old kings and reconquer 

 some of the cities and provinces. He at- 

 tempted to abolish idolatry and the other 

 heathenish practices which had become 

 established and wide-spread since the 

 overthrow of the old kingdom. He sent 

 messengers to various parts of the for- 

 mer kingdom, asking the people to cease 

 worshipping idols and animals and stop 

 practicing evil customs, but his ambassa- 

 dors were killed and very little reform 

 took place. 



WRITING IS FORBIDDEN 



Montesinos informs us that the king 

 consulted his soothsayers in regard to the 

 causes of this failure in his attempts at 

 reformation, and was told that one cause 

 of the plague had been the use of letters. 

 Thereupon the king ordered that under 

 penalty of death nobody should use any 

 kind of letters with which they had been 



