following the urging of a great leader, they returned in a tremendous migration to Cuzco, just north of the heart of the first empire, and began a second march to power.
There is one date-stone which would seem to mark the second rise of The Incan Sun Empire to somewhere between the circum third century B.C. of Montesinos and the eleventh century A.D. of the Incan child. That is that the Great Reformer, in his customary white toga-like costume, healing the sick and preaching against war and human sacrifice, was abroad in the land under the name of Viracocha and established his christian-like worship of a Supreme and all-powerful deity, before the rise of The Incas proper. Thus a five to eight hundred A.D. date would be more probable for the advent of The Second Sun Empire, while the great emperors of Montesinos must be pushed back into the past beyond the times of anarchy and chaos and southern exile or northern wanderings which their legends so charmingly recount.
Partly contemporaneous with the span of the Incas and partly subsequent to them, probably even as the Mayan Span is related to the Aztec, is the Moon-Empire of Chan-Chan. From archaeological evidence, it seems to be divided into three parts. There is Chimu 1 with its Spider design, its vigorous and realistic art of portrait pottery, and its fairy-like beauty of white stucco and painted and frescoed walls which the old city must have presented.[1]
Then came conquest from which the queen city of Chan-Chan never entirely recovered. The influence was now probably that of Tiahuanaco or highland. Science has not as yet decided which pre-Inca civilization conquered Chan-Chan. One influence suggests that the conqueror was not Tiahuanaco or any other highland power, but rather a power from the direction of the Caribbean. That is the sudden appearance of much black ware. That this also may have been due to trade is possible as Chan-Chan was undoubtedly a great trading power. Yet the sudden conquest of both the First Sun Empire and of Chan-Chan by the Easterners is hinted in The Popul Vuh, for it says that the Two Chiefs plotted against the wealth of the old Fire Empire, and left their "Land of Maize" in the Great Highlands for the magnificent capital of Xibalba, only to be defeated and burned in the Sacred Fire. According to northern legendary fragments, The Spider gave refuge to the orphaned children of the dead chief. Was this the offense for which she was burned?
After an anarchy or chaos of some time, Chan-Chan seems to have partly recovered and continued as Chimu II. The conquerors had been amalgamated or educated but the old vigor and inspiration for realism which made Chan-Chan of Chimu I so unique in Amerind art was gone forever. This culture (Chimu I) was apparently foreign in its origin and its foothold was only temporary as cultures go, though it may have lasted for two or more milleniums. Like the culture to the north of it, Kroeber says that the Early Chimu: "heaves into our view as essentially developed, as self-sufficient and rich, and as lacking in known antecedents, as the Nazca style."[2]
Tello, without doubt, the father of Peruvian archaeology, derives most of the culture traits of even Early Chimu from what he calls the Archaic Highland. He sees the symbol of The Tiger, sometimes with curling ends like snakes heads (or Spider?) as basic to all culture of the southern continent. In this he is probably right. As Kroeber remarks: "with fuller data, the part of The Highland will grow rather than shrink. For this fundamental view and its substantiation at many points credit is primarily due to Tello."[3]
Thus The Spider, when studied singly and by itself, or in connection with the north, where its trading powers left behind much influence, seems to be an important culture. Yet when placed against its own background of older Tiger and Snake, and probably also older First Sun Empire, it shrinks in importance. Of one thing we seem to be rather positive. There is apparently no evidence of an archaeological nature which would allow us to postulate a defeat of the Sun Empire by The Moon.
Whence came then, this memory of the defeat of The Sun by The Moon? Was the State of Chan-Chan, powerful though its influence may once have been, the famous conqueror? Or were the people of Chan-Chan the "children of The Moon" in the same manner as the Incas were called "Children of the Sun" meaning that their ancestors and not they, were the mighty ones? And whence came The Tiger in the motifs of even Early Chimu? Had The Tiger ruled the land before the advent of The Spider's coming? And The Incas, who conquered Chimu II; who remembered an earlier Empire of The Sun; and whose history, according to their legends, seems to so curiously parallel the allegorical history of The Popul Vuh,[4] who were they? The nations of the northern continent, who claim to have seen "The First Sun Arise" are the widespread and powerful Nahuas. Do they hold the missing key?
REFERENCES
Tello, J. C. Origen y desarrollo de las civilisaciones prehislorlcas Andinas. Reimpreso do las Atlas XVII Cengreso de Americanistas de 1939. Lima, Peru. 1942.
Coast and Highland in Prehistoric Peru (Article) by A. L. Kroeber in American Anthropologist October 1927.
1A quippu is a series of colored and knotted strings, each knot of which stands for a word or sentence. Relics of these, degenerated, because no longer recognized as such, are to be found wound into the braided hair of many tribes. Since even the Karibs of Columbus' day were quippu-reckoners, it appears to have, been an eastern culture-
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- ↑ See Articles on Empire of The Moon and The Spider Totem.
- ↑ The Nazca culture is of Mexican affinities according to Kroeber. According to him, not only the truncated pyramids, but also the three-legged vessels of the Nazcas suggest a Mexican source. Other authorities have noted a similarity in design between this locality and Oaxaca, while the similarity of Viracocha and Wixicocha as names for The Great Reformer is also significant.
- ↑ Tello is a full-blooded Quichua Indian, who absorbed the legends of his people during his Indian childhood. He says that his earliest memory is the tiny Indian village with its curious half-pagan festivals, and the ancient songs which his mother sang as she sat weaving lama wool into blankets whose patterns reached into the depths of the past. Today he is the world's greatest authority upon his people and their early neighbors, the author of many books and the head of the Lima Museum.
- ↑ According to the Popul Vuh, the first rulers who were burned in the Sacred Fire of Xibalba were the aggressors in that war. Their posthumous and orphaned twin sons by a Xibalban princess then returned to their grandmother where they were raised but were ill-treated by their elder half-brothers of the monkey-totem. They then spent most of their youth in the northern woodland shooting birds with their blow-pipe (Algonkins?) and returning to their home defeated the elder brothers and took over their music and culture before setting out to revenge the death of their father and overthrow their mother's people.
