The Kuelap fortress, heritage of the Chachapoyas
The Chachapoyas were a people of Peru who lived in the Marañón River basin, in the current departments of Amazonas, Cajamarca, San Martín and in the west of the department of Loreto. Their domain extended from the lowland jungle on the banks of the Marañón, to mountains 3,500 meters high above sea level.
The original name with which the Chachapoyas defined themselves is unknown, but it is thought that the Incas called them sacha puya, or people of the clouds, in Quechua.
The first writer who gave news and descriptions of the kingdom of the Chachapoyas was Pedro Cieza de León, who, in his Chronicles of Peru (1553), wrote:
The Chachapoyas are the whitest and most beautiful of all the natives I have seen in the Indies; Their women are so beautiful that they are often reserved for the princes of the Incas and are taken to the temple of the Sun... the women and their husbands dress in woolen clothes and wear a unique hat called llauto, which they use as a symbol to be recognized. anywhere.
The Spanish writer added, referring to the greatness of the kingdom of the Chachapoyas:
We can easily call it a kingdom because it is fifty leagues long and twenty leagues wide, excluding the territory of Muyupampa, which is another thirty leagues long. (The Castilian league corresponded to approximately 5 km).
From the latest archaeological studies at the sites of Kuelap and Gran Pajaten, it was concluded that the Chachapoyas did not come from the Amazon, but, on the contrary, had probably gone there to expand their domain and be able to occupy other lands. to be used for agriculture, in order to satisfy the needs of a constantly growing population.
The question remains as to why Cieza de León described the Chachapoyas as the whitest in all of Peru. Was he referring only to the fact that they had slightly lighter skin than the Incas or, on the contrary, did he also want to allude to other physical characteristics such as the shape of the face, the color of the eyes and hair?
By analyzing several anthropomorphic sarcophagi found in La Petaca, in Leymebamba, which are reminiscent of the Wari culture, some researchers proposed that the Chachapoyas descended from people belonging to the Tiwanaku-Wari culture, which developed near the current city of Ayacucho around 800 AD when the Wari culture suddenly ceased to exist around the year 1000 AD, the descendants of the Wari would have abandoned the area, later settling in different areas of Peru.
The archaeologist Federico Kauffman Doig, on the other hand, maintained that the Chachapoyas people were originally from the middle course of the Marañón, where they had been established for many millennia. After having studied the cave paintings at the sites of Yamón, Chiñuña and El Palto, located in the Yamón district, in the province of Utcubamba, he came to the conclusion that these artistic expressions, up to six millennia old, were Chachapoya proto-culture. Indeed, in the area of the Kuelap fortress and in the vicinity of other archaeological sites such as Gran Pajaten, some archaeological evidence was found that can date back to the Luya, Chillao, Paclla and Chilchos cultures, which constitute the cultural substratum on the which later developed the Chachapoya culture itself.
Architecturally, the Chachapoyas were very advanced. The most important archaeological sites are the Kuelap fortress and the citadels of Gran Pajaten, Gran Vilaya and Gran Saposoa. The last three were studied and presented to the world by the American explorer Gene Savoy (1927-2009).
The most imposing and characteristic monumental construction of the Chachapoya culture is, in any case, the Kuelap fortress, which stands about 3000 meters above sea level, on the left bank of the Uctubamba River, southwest of the town of Tingo, in the department of Chachapoyas. Once you reach Tingo, at approximately 2000 meters above sea level, you travel 8 kilometers along a path until you reach, after about 1000 meters of ascent, Kuélap, the fortified citadel of the Chachapoyas, located in a cold and rainy place.
No archaeologist dares to say when the Kuelap fortress was built and no one knows when it was abandoned. According to some researchers who place the classic era of the Chachapoya culture around the 7th century AD, the fortress could have been erected around the 8th century AD, but this is just a guess. All this testifies that, once again, the well-known carbon 14 method is of no use when it comes to dating a stone construction.
Although the fortress was probably looted in the early years of the 19th century and was nevertheless known to the area's peasants, it was first described in 1843 by Judge Crisóstomo Nieto, who was surely astonished upon entering. in a place abandoned by man several centuries ago.
For Federico Kauffman Doig, the citadel, approximately 600 meters long, 110 meters wide and with walls up to 19 meters high, was an inhabited center that served as a warehouse and place for the exchange of agricultural products (corn, quinoa, quiwicha, cassava, maca, etc.) in addition to being a ceremonial center where propitiatory rites for the fertility of the land were probably carried out.
Inside the Kuelap fortress there are about 420 buildings, almost all circular (only 5 are rectangular). The wall was built using thousands of large stones (some weighing 3 tons). Several human remains were deposited inside it and it is thought that it was a second burial. These ceremonies were probably carried out to pay tribute to warriors killed in battle. The ancient people of Peru used to bury the remains of their parents very close to the houses, precisely because they wanted the soul of the deceased to serve as a sentinel and protection against persistent external attacks.
Only through three narrow entrances was it possible to access the fortress: two on the eastern façade and one on the side facing west. They are long corridors of approximately 60 meters that narrow as you reach the citadel, allowing only one person to enter at a time, in order to repel possible sieges from hostile towns. Inside the fortress there are two areas: lower town and upper town, the second located on a higher level than the first and surrounded in turn by a wall approximately 10 meters high.
One of the most attractive buildings in the so-called lower town is the Tintero, a conical structure with a diameter of 15 meters and a height of 5.5 meters. Near the Tintero, remains of ashes, roasted corn, remains of bones from camelids, rodents and deer were found. It can be thought that it was used for ceremonies or, perhaps, for sacrifices. For some scholars, however, it could be a structure suitable to mark the summer solstice, therefore fulfilling astronomical and sowing-related functions.
The other important constructions are the defensive tower (also called Watchtower or sentinel), located inside the area called Pueblo Alto, approximately 7 meters high, and the Castle, 27 meters long and 9 meters wide. This last structure was probably a public building or a ceremonial center.
It is thought that only the elite of the Chachapoyas lived in the citadel, or the rulers, shamans or warriors. The majority of the population lived, however, outside the fortress in wooden or dry mud huts that did not withstand the passage of time.
The residential structures inside the citadel were circular. Its diameter, even having an average of 9 meters, could reach 12. The average height of the houses was around 4 meters.
On the walls of the houses, decorations were found that evoke the symbols of the snake, the bird and the feline, and that are therefore reminiscent of Chavín de Huántar.
The houses were devoid of windows, probably to combat the cold, but they had ingenious drainage and ventilation systems.
What was the total number of inhabitants of Kuelap? Perhaps 3,000 people, which when added to the approximate 7,000 who could live outside the walls, gives a total population of about 10,000 individuals.
What language was spoken in Kuelap? If the theory of proto-Wari origin is accepted, one could think that proto-Aymara or proto-Quechua was spoken in Kuelap. If, on the other hand, Federico Kauffman Doig's theory on the origin of the Chachapoyas is supported, based on pre-existing peoples, one could think that the ancient inhabitants of Kuelap spoke Amazonian languages, but for now it cannot be deduced which ones they were. If the remains of organic material found in the skeletons discovered in Kuelap could be analyzed with techniques that are not yet universally known, perhaps an attempt could be made to provide a genetic explanation of the origin of the Chachapoyas.
The kingdom of the Chachapoyas was conquered by the Inca emperor Tupac Inca Yupanqui in the second half of the 15th century.
YURI LEVERATTO
