Page:The Incas of Peru.djvu/71

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TAMPU-TOCCO DYNASTY
45

won a victory over invaders. The other personal names which are not in the Pirua list all have meanings in Quichua, except two or three which are corrupt. Their meanings are light, fire, gold, sacred, a chief, a boy, a beam, a head-dress, left-handed, blood, tobacco, a falcon, a dove, and a foot. There is a name, Marasco, which is suggestive, for Maras was the name of one of the tribes mentioned as following the children of the sun in the Paccari-tampu myth, which will be the subject of the next essay.

The end of the early civilisation is stated to have been caused by a great invasion from the south, when the reigning king was defeated and killed in a battle near Pucara, in the Collao. The whole country broke up into a number of petty tribes, and barbarism returned, with a vicious state of society and intestine feuds. This story may well represent an historical fact. A remnant of the Amautas, with their followers, took refuge in a district called Tampu-tocco,[1] near the great river Apurimac. Here the tradition of the Deity was preserved, and some remnants of the old civilisation. Elsewhere the religion became degraded—each chief adopting some natural object as his ancestor, and worshipping it instead of the old Deity. The more civilised kings of Tampu-tocco declared themselves to be children of the sun.

  1. Tampu, a tavern; and tocco, a window. It was in the province of Paruro, department of Cuzco, but the exact locality is uncertain.