February 15, Tomebamba Of Indigenas and Incas 
Ecuador is an Indian nation -- like Guatemala should be, like Mexico tries to be, like some might hope all America again becomes. Only the word here is "indigenas", not "indios" or "indigenistas," as I may have erroneously noted before. To be sure, the money is named after a Hispanic general, Antonio Jose de Sucre, and it is predominantly Ecuadorian presidents whose faces adorn the bills. Of the country's 12 million population, only a quarter are primarily of native stock; more than half are mestizo, or mixed. But in some places, as here in the capital of Azuay Province, even the mixed population exhibits such a strong indigenous character that it's hard not to think of these "chollas" as Indian, fulfilling an economic and social role as much as a cultural one. It is as much the feeling of the place: despite their minority status, the history of Ecuador is as much a chronicle of its indigenous people as its intruders.
Though the indigenous population shares the language group Quichua -- a close relative of the Quechua of the Incas, still found in Peru -- regional dialects often makes Spanish the lingua franca of the country, even at traditional markets. Regional distinctions between tribal or social groups seem to be frowned upon; anthropologist Linda D'Amico in Otavalo said the indigenas were called by their village, as Pujil Quichua; a social activist at Infocom Ecuanex refused to draw any distinctions whatsoever. Even Victor von Hagen, writing some 50 years ago in "Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands," refers to the old tribal names only in a footnote.
South from Chanchan, after our epic descent of El Nariz del Diablo (I still can't bring myself to say "the Devil's Nose"), we rose through the clouds back into the high inter-Andean valley. At times a whiteout prevented safe visibility; at times the clouds broke to reveal the sheer "swooning" landscape von Hagen warned us about. We were still in Chimborazo Province when we ascended to the familiar thin air above 9,000 feet, and the small farms of potatoes, onions, and grains were spectacular in the damp season of our visit. I could well imagine leaping off the bus, willing my laptop and DC50 to the MIT grad I met on the train, and disappearing into these highlands for a euphonious period -- say, Six Years in Chimborazo, or some such title. Finally we entered the land of the Canari, the province known as Azuay. The traditional Canari hat is not the dark felt of the Otaveleno (and the Puruhas of Chimborazo), but a narrow-brimmed white woolen hat, sometimes trimmed with a thin hatband. The Canari do not have a very good reputation among other Ecuadorians; they are said, perhaps unfairly, to be nasty, mean, vicious, and untrustworthy. But these characteristics may have their positive side, too: the Canari fought off the drive of the Incas to dominate the entire northern Andes for almost a decade following the invasion of the Inca Tupac-Yupanqui, frustrating his military might and preventing his advances. Once the Canari fell, however, the Inca was merciless, and nearly every male in the region who had survived the protracted war was executed. If Tomebamba, or Tumipampa as the Incas called it (The Plain of the Knife -- they must have met with stiff resistance in taking over the Canari capital) became the capital, it needed outposts to defend itself from the still-restless natives. One such outpost was at Ingapircu, a name which only means "Inca walls", located just off the road from Chanchan to Cuenca. Though the site is far less dramatic than Machu Picchu -- which alone may account for the far greater popularity of Peru over Ecuador as a tourist destination, and unfairly so -- the fluid structure of tightly placed, almost woven, stone blocks on the gentle hill dominates the landscape with dignity. Llamas graze between the stone walls; children play among the ruins as if they were a private fantasyland. The elliptic building is situated to catch the solar rays on the solstices and equinox, another calendrical feat, which some believe owed as much to the Canari site the Incas built upon as the intelligence of the Incas themselves. The Inca Tupac-Yupanqui took as his bride a Canari princess; his son Huanya-Capac was born in Tomebamba, in Cuenca. When Huanya-Capac himself decided to divide his kingdom between his own two sons, he deeded the northern half to the offspring of a Quitu bride -- Atahualpa -- and the other, Peruvian part to his son of more traditional Inca lineage, Huascar. In the time honored tradition of divided kingdoms, the two brothers fell to fighting, and when the civil war was over it in 1524 was the Quitu Inca, Atahualpa, who stood victorious. Thus Ecuador may have become the more powerful home of the Incas,
and Peru faded into regional obscurity, had not the bearded strangers
sent by Francisco Pizarro landed near Esmeraldas, on the Pacific coast
of northern Ecuador, less than a year later.
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History has as much to tell us about the
distinction between these various ethnic groups as any, for the 14th
and 15th century saw such a frenzy of warfare that simply naming the
opponents helps draw the distinction. For instance, in the region now
known as Otavalo the Caras were the predominant tribe; it was the sun-worshipping
Caras who drew the path of the sun, Inti Nan, in the landscape of the
equator. To the south were found the numerous Puruhas around Chimborazo;
in the 14th century the two ruling families of the Puruha and Cara intermarried
to create the kingdom of Quitu, situated where the present-day capital
now stands. Their major enemies were to the south -- the Canari, centered
around present-day Cuenca. There are other groupings in Ecuador's other
regions, especially in the Oriente and the Esmeraldas region of the
coast; but here in the highlands, the Caras, Puruha and Canari are known
because it was they who fought back -- first against the Inca, then
the Spanish, on their marches of conquest.
The drive of the Inca for domination
was based on their recognition of the value of the fertile valley between
the volcanoes, still Ecuador's heartland. Once past Azuay, their advance
was somewhat easier, and in the auspicious year of 1492 the Kingdom
of Quitu itself fell. (North of Quitu, the Caras continued to fight,
but they too met the same end as the Canari in 1509.) The result was
the spread of Quechua across the land, improved irrigation methods and
new crops (the sweet potato and coca among them) and even the husbanding
of the llama, a beast of burden not domesticated in Ecuador until then.
The Inca set up a northern capital called Tomebamba on the fertile banks
of a swift-flowing river -- where the Canari had their old capital,
and where the Spanish destroyed them both to build Cuenca.
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