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Chanka

Warlike herding lords of the Pampas-river headwaters who nearly took Cusco before Pachacuti's army turned them back.

Not an ending: crushed at Yawarpampa in 1438, the Chanka were scattered as mitmaq colonists across Tawantinsuyu and held in bondage for over a century; when the Inca Civil War broke Cusco's grip, Chanka survivors allied with Pizarro's expedition hoping to recover their lands, and did regain freedom and territory under the Viceroyalty, though abuses such as Father Juan Bautista de Albadán's decade of torture (1601-11) at Pampachiri went unpunished. Chanka descendants live on today in Apurímac and Ayacucho, Peru.

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Moments from the Chronicle

• 1438 Pachacuti founds the empire After routing the Chanka invaders, Pachacuti Inca Yupanqui takes the throne, rebuilds Cusco and launches the conquests that transform a valley chiefdom into Tawantinsuyu, the four-quarters empire.
• 1438 The Chanka assault on Cusco The Chanka confederation of Andahuaylas marched on Cusco; the Inca prince Cusi Yupanqui (Pachacuti) routed them outside the city, a victory that legend made the founding moment of the Inca Empire and the end of the Chanka as a great power.

Further reading

• The Conquest of the Incas John Hemming · 1970

  Hemming's standard history of the Inca, including the Chanka war that nearly took Cusco before Pachacuti.

• The World Upside Down: Cross-Cultural Contact and Conflict in Sixteenth-Century Peru Susan E. Ramírez · 1996

  Ramírez on cross-cultural conflict in 16th-century Peru, the post-conquest world the scattered Chanka entered (broad context).

Sources

• Chanka — Wikipedia