Corrigendum: It is Huayna, not Machu Picchu, say historians

It is the very symbol of the Inca Empire. But Machu Picchu, the lost citadel of the Incas sitting high in the Andean jungle, may not have been called that at all by its founders. In fact, its name would have been just ‘Picchu’ or ‘Huayna Picchu’, according to a recently-published study.

The Ancient Inca Town Named Huayna Picchu written by Donato Amado Gonzales and Brian S Bauer, was initially published in Ñawpa Pacha: Journal of the Institute of Andean Studies in August last year. It has now been republished after several typographical errors were discovered in the original manuscript.

The authors of the study looked at three sources of data to reach this astounding conclusion:

• The field notes of Hiram Bingham, the American who ‘discovered’ Machu Picchu in 1911 and brought it to the world’s notice
• The accounts by visitors to the region after the Spanish Conquest and before Bingham’s discovery
• Documents from the sixteenth century and the eighteenth century, the colonial period

The study noted the geography of the area now known as Machu Picchu:

The archaeological remains of Machu Picchu are located high above the Urubamba River on a narrow saddle between two mountain peaks. The larger peak, called Machu Picchu, stands to the south, while the smaller peak, Huayna Picchu, is located to the north. In the words of Hiram Bingham, “On the narrow ridge between these two peaks are the ruins of an Inca city whose name has been lost in the shadows of the past.”

The lost citadel

Spanish invaders led by Francisco Pizarro had defeated the Sapa Inca, or paramount ruler of the Inca Empire, Atahualpa in 1532 on the plain of Cajamarca and later executed him.

In 1537, Manco Inca Yupanqui, a half-brother of Atahualpa, fled to a remote area where Machu Picchu is now located and established a rump Inca state. The rugged terrain meant that the Spaniards would not be able to reach him.

Manco and his successors carried out a rebellion against the Spaniards till 1572, when the last ruler, Tupac Amaru, was captured and executed.

The rump Inca state consisted of cities such as Vilcabamba, Vitcos and Machu Picchu.

In 1912, when Bingham returned to the site he had earlier ‘discovered’, Ignacio Ferro — the son of the local landowner, Mariano Ignacio Ferro told him that the ruined city was in fact considered to be Huayna Picchu, the researchers wrote.

They also noted the reason why Bingham decided to call the site ‘Machu Picchu’:

It appears from his field notes that Bingham decided to call the ruins Machu Picchu based on information provided by his guide, Melchor Arteaga, a tenant farmer who lived on the valley floor.

The researchers also point out that seven years before Bingham arrived in Peru, Carlos B Cisneros’ Atlas de Peru recorded “the town of Huayna Picchu”, in the heights above the Urubamba River, as one of the most important archaeological sites in the Urubamba region.

Before he left the city of Cusco (the ancient Incan capital) to explore the ruins in 1911, Bingham was told by Adolfo Quevedo, the subprefect of the town, that there were ruins called Huayna Picchu down the Urubamba River, the researchers noted.

They scoured colonial records dated to 1539, 1550, 1552, 1560 to find that that “a large area below Ollantaytambo was called Picchu”. They also found a document dating to 1568 specifically mentioning the town of Picchu.

But perhaps the most clinching evidence is from 1588, a decade after the Spanish had conquered the rump Inca state.

The authors quoted a section from the Documentos Silque, that recorded Francisco de Toledo, the Viceroy of Peru sending 51 Peruvian Indian serfs from Cusco into the Vilcabamba region to aid Martin Hurtado de Arbieto.

Arbieto was the leader of the Spanish forces who invaded the region and captured Tupac Amaru, the last Sapa Inca. The document recorded:

… and it came to our notice that the native Indians of this province were very intent on going to and resettling the place they call Vayna Piccho which is very far away from this city, more than ten leagues away on the very edge and limit of this district.

The Documentos Silque contain another clinching evidence that the ruins were called Huayna Picchu. The reference is from 1714:

… and from there to another apacheta named Guaira Casa and from there to the ancient Inca town named Guayna picho and from there dropping down to the great river of Vilcamayo …

The authors concluded: “Also, while negative evidence is never as fulfilling, it is intriguing that we know of no reference to an Inca city called Machu Picchu before news of Bingham’s visit exploded across the world in 1912.”

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