Unravelling the Enigma of the ‘Particular Language’ of the Incas

30 Pages·2012·4.494 MB·

by  Rodolfo Cerrón-Palomino

CERRON-PALOMINO, R. M. (2012). Unravelling the Enigma of the ‘Particular Language’ of the
Incas”. En HEGGARTY, Paul y David Beresford-Jones (eds): Archaeology and Language in the
Andes. A Cross-Disciplinary Exploration of Prehistory. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp.
265-294.
11
Unravelling the Enigma of the 'Particular
Language' of the Incas
RODOLFO CERRON-PALOMINO
Yes de saber que los Incas turieron otra lengua particular que hahlaua[n} entre
ellos, que no la entendian los demas Yndios, ni /es era licito apre[n jderla, coma
lenguage diuino.
(And it must be known that the Incas had another particular language spoken
among them, which language was not understood by the rest of the Indians,
neither were they allowed to learn it, as it was a divine tongue.)
Inca Garcilaso ([1609] 2002: VII, L 166)
Introduction
THIS CHAPTER FOCUSES ON THE SO-CALLED 'particular language' referred to by
Garcilaso as spoken only among the Inca nobility, in contrast to the 'general
language', namely Quechua. With justified scepticism, historiographers have
cast considerable doubt on references to this supposed private and exclusive
speech, which has been widely viewed as just another element of Garcilaso 's
fantasized portrayal of the Inca realm in his Comentarios. Yet his is not the
sole source alluding to the existence of this obscure language. And while
closer inspection of the mostly lexical linguistic material he provides has so
far failed to dispel the doubts surrounding it, in what follows I shall offer new
pointers that do permit us to maintain that it did indeed exist. Its identity and
linguistic affiliation, intensely debated in recent years, will then be subjected
to particular scrutiny.
Information on the 'Particular Language'
As observed above, Garcilaso is not alone in his mention of the secret lan-
guage of the Incas. This in itself should undermine the doubts insinuated as
to its existence. Such, at least, was the opinion of J.J. von Tschudi ([1891]
1918: I, 64), on coming upon a passage in Rodrigo Cantos de Andrada's
Proceedings of 1111! Bri1ish Acudem_r. 173. 265 294. t: The British Academy 2012.
266 Rodolfo Cerr6n-Palomino
Relaci(m on the Villa Rica de Oropesa and the Huancavelica mines, in which
he too, quite independently, makes reference to this secret language. Indeed,
in almost the same terms as Garcilaso would later use to evoke it, he states:
There is much variety in tongues among the natives; but in its entire extent the
caciques and principales of the repartimientos were required to know the general
language they call Quechua, so that they could know and understand the mes-
sages sent to them by the Inca, and so that, upon visiting his court, they could
understand without an interpreter; and among the Inga and his lineage and
orejones they ｾｰｯｫ･＠ another language, ll'hich no cacique nor other person of the
realm H"as allo\\'ed to learn a single 1rord of
(Cantos de Andrada [1586] 1965: 307; emphasis added)
This constitutes our earliest account of the particular language, penned long
before Garcilaso's. From it one may safely deduce, then, that the existence of
the language was recalled not only by descendants of the imperial nobility
like Garcilaso himself, but also among the peoples of the former empire.
Nor did notice of the language escape the attention of the Mercedarian
friar Martin de Murua, whose account of the special education received by
the Inca nobility relates that the first of their four masters 'began by teaching
the language of the Inga, 1rhich 1ras the particular one .1poken by him, different
from Quichua and Aymara, 11"1ich are the t1ro general tongues of this realm'
(Murua [1613] 1987: II, XII, 377; emphasis added). As with Cantos de
Andrada, everything points to this source being independent of Garcilaso's.1
While the same cannot strictly be said of the further report by the historian
Bernabe Cobo, for he was of course familiar with Garcilaso's work, he none-
theless verified the claim against the testimony of Alonso Topa Atau, grand-
son of Huaina Capac. Cobo writes, 'besides the language of Cuzco, which is
the general language introduced by the Incas in their empire and was spoken
by all their subjects, they kne11· another, 1rhich they used solely 1rhen they 1rere
dealing 1rith and conversing with those of their mm lineage' (Cobo [l 653] 1956:
XII, III, 64; emphasis added). Furthermore, the author adds credence to his
report by affirming that Alonso Topa A tau, a descendant of the Inca nobility,
'still recalled ... some words of it'. Regrettably, he refrained from inquiring
about them, robbing us of invaluable data on the language, and leaving us just
the meagre examples provided by Garcilaso. Cobo goes on to report that Don
Alonso Topa certified to him that the language was 'the same as is spoken
among the Indians of the Tampu valley', that is, the modern Ollantaytambo.
Finally, like Garcilaso, Cobo too informs us that 'with the changes in this
realm wrought by the new rule of the Spaniards, the descendants of the Incas
have forgotten about it' (Cobo [1653] 1956: XII, III, 64).
1 Not so the references to the particular language by the chronicler Anello Oliva, which derive
from his having read the corresponding passages in Garcilaso's work, as may be deduced from the
citations he makes (Oliva [1631] 1998: L 1, 34). Note that. throughout the chapter. the roman
numerals in citations refer first to the book number and second to the chapter number.
THE "PARTICULAR LANGUAGE' OF THE INCAS 267
Lexical Corpus
Lexical material ascribed to the particular language by Garcilaso consists of
thirteen epithets or lineage names, four toponyms, and one common noun.
Following the established linguistic convention of enclosing the precise spell-
ings reported inside < > signs, the names in the first category are: <Ayar> (I,
XVlll, 17), <Manco> (I, XXIV, 22v), <Roca> (II, XVI, 42), <Mayta> (II, I,
56v), <Chima>, <Rauraua>, <Hahuanina>, <Vsca>, <Vicaquirau>,
<Aylli>, <C:oc<;o>, <lnca>,2 and the generic <panaca> (IX, XL, 263v). The
toponyms are <Cozco> (I, XVIII, 17; II, XI, 37), <Collcampata> (VII, Vlll,
173), <Chaquillchaca> (VII, VIII, l 73v), and <Carmenca> (VII, VIII, 174).
Finally, the common noun, in this case the name of a species of bird, is <core-
quenque> (VI, XXVIII, I 54v). In total there are eighteen names, all of them
foreign to the 'general language', in this case Quechua. Of these, fourteen are
explicitly attributed to the 'particular language' and the remaining four
(namely <Roca>, <Mayta>, <Chaquillchaca>, and <Carmenca>), while not
explicitly ascribed to it, do appear to form part of this corpus, given how
intimately they are related to Inca history. In these cases, Garcilaso interprets
them as 'proper names' whose meanings, like all of the other words but one,
are unknown to him. The exception is <Cozco>, whose supposed meaning as
·navel (of the world)' is unwarranted, but is referred to twice (see Cerron-
Palomino 2008: 11-10, where the meaning Garcilaso supplies is shown to be
entirely unfounded).
In a previous preliminary survey (Cerron-Palomino 1998: §2) I have
pointed out that of the seventeen terms examined, eight (namely, <Ayar>,
<panaca>, <Hahuanina>, <Aylli>, <V sea>, <C:oc<;o>, <Collcampata>,
and <Chaquillchaca>) could in fact be ascribed to Quechua, four to Aymara
(<Cozco>, <Manco>, <Chima>, and <Rauraua>), and one (<Roca>) pos-
sibly to Puquina, leaving the affiliation of the remainder ( <Carmenca>,
<Vicaquirau>, <Mayta>, and <corequenque>) unresolved. Here I shall
maintain those earlier suggestions (some of them subject to future revisions),
but refrain from re-examining the list in detail, in order to focus on the as yet
unidentified remainder, and introduce the further term <lii.aca>.
Before inquiring into their etymologies, three important aspects of the
material as a whole demand attention (with the exception of <Roca>, which
will be dealt with below).
' This is actually a mistake for <inaca>. since otherwise Garcilaso simply assumes that the word
<inca>, to designate the ruler of Cuzco. is Quechua. although my own view is that it is most
likely of Puquina origin. So when referring, for instance, to Manco Capac-previously known as
Manco Inca, we are told-Garcilaso states: The name Inca, when used for the prince, means
lord, or King. or Emperor, and in the rest means lord, and to interpret it in its full significance,
means man of royal blood" ([1609] 2002: I, XXIV, 22v). Furthermore, Sarmiento de Gamboa's
chronicle registers the term as <inaca> (Sarmiento (1572] 1965: (47]. 253).
268 Rodo(fo Cerr6n-Palomino
Some of the roots of these words may be shared with Quechua and/or
Aymara.
2 Some of the words seem to have passed through the 'filter' of Quechua
or Aymara, that is, they have reached us only in a 'Quechuanized' or
'Aymaranized' form.
3 Most interestingly, many may in fact be Quechua or Aymara reformu-
lations of older roots alien to either, and thus ascribable to a third
language.
Having made these first general observations, I shall now proceed to analyse
the names individually.
The toponym <Carmenca>, one of the Inca 'neighbourhoods' of the
imperial city of Cuzco, can now be confirmed as an entirely Quechua designa-
tion. Its internal structure had already been identified as a root <carmi>,
whose meaning was unknown to me at the time, plus the obsolete -nqa. form
of the nominalizing suffix, later simplified to modern -na. The root has finally
been identified as the Quechua word qharmi (Cerr6n-Palomino 2008: II: 3,
§1.2.2), meaning an 'extension' or 'addition'. The toponym, then, may have
meant 'extension (place)', or 'added (place)'. In any case, there seems little
doubt that it was the archaic nature of the suffix that misled Garcilaso here.
For the obviously compound word structure of the <Vicaquirau> lineage,
Markham ([1871] 1923: 54-6) offered the partial reading of <quirau> as
'children's cradle', based on Gorn;alez Holguin's dictionary entry ([l 608] 1952:
I, 310: <qquirau>), but left unexplained the remainder, i.e. <vica>. This,
however, was actually a misreading of original <vii;a>, as per the correct ver-
sion provided by the Jesuit priest Acosta,' among others. Present also in
names such as that of the mythical ethnic group of the <Allcauii;a>, this
component appears to be of Aymara rather than Quechua origin, and as such
would mean 'prophet' or 'seer', as reported by the Indian chronicler Pachacuti
Yamqui Salcamayhua.4 Identifying the second element <quirau> as k'irair
'cradle' on the basis of Quechua is thus erroneous: we are actually dealing
with the Aymara root <quira>, i.e. khira, which as a noun refers to the 'joists
laid across roof-beams' (Bertonio [1612] 1984: II, 198). In this composite
word, however, <quira> appears in its equivalent verb form ('to lay joists in a
·1 He relates that, in effect. 'Ingaroca ... founded a family or ayllo that they know as Vi.;aquirao'
(Acosta [l 590] 1998: VI. XX. 200). In passing, those who attempted to etymologize the meaning
of <vi<;a> based on the cacographic version of it. namely <vica>. as it appears in other sources.
were totally misled.
• His chronicle reads. ·ualla ui.;as. y conti ui.;as. <cana ui.;as> were divining people' (Pachacuti
[1613] 1993: fol. 17). Note that the additional information between the < > signs was added by
two of the three scribes employed to write the text. as were the notes in the margin alongside the
mention of 'the ui.;as' on fol. 13. stating that 'ui<;a means like prophets be they false or true'.
THE "PARTICULAR LANGUAGE' OF THE INCAS 269
roof'), but nominalized by means of the locative suffix -1ri, hence khira-1ri,
ultimately Quechuanized as khirmr (for treatment of this -11· suffix in topo-
nyms, see Cerr6n-Palomino 2008: II, 3, §2.2). The name may be rendered as
'(the) priests' redoubt' or 'bastion'. Incidentally, it follows that the meaning
·cradle of gold' ascribed to the archaeological site of <Choquequirao> is a
similarly mistaken association, and that the term <qqirau> registered by
Gon<;alez Holguin is very likely an Aymaranism within Quechua, extended
metaphorically also to mean 'cradle'. Semantically more plausible, then,
would be a translation along the lines of "stockade' or 'bastion of gold'.
The anthroponym <Mayta> might be argued to contain the root *maya-
·ask, implore, request', shared by Quechua and Aymara, followed by the
Aymara participial suffix -ta, to refer to a thing or person "required' or
·implored'. Yet in all Aymara dialects now known, at least, this suffix is not
among those that truncate the preceding vowel, so the expected result in this
case would be more akin to *maya-ta. That said, it is conceivable that the
original (Cuzco Aymara?) variety from which the expression was taken may
not have been governed by the rules of normative colonial Aymara, not to
mention modern varieties. So on this interpretation, the meaning of the full
name of the lineage, recorded as <Vsca Mayta>, would be 'the (lineage) of
Mayta the Small'-provided one accepts the etymology of <uska> as the
Aymaranization of the Quechua root *uchuk 'small' (for the rules involved in
this Aymaranization process, see Cerr6n-Palomino 1998: note 5). Alternatively,
<vsca> may be a native Quechua word based on the verb <vsca-> 'beg'
(Gon<;alez Holguin [1608] 1952: I, 358), and thus close in meaning to *maya-
·implore'. In other words, it may well be that the designation <Vsca Mayta>
is a tautological expression, with <vsca> as the equivalent of <mayta>, a
reduplication to strengthen the original meaning of <Mayta> as it became
ever more opaque.
As for <Iii.aca>, which in Garcilaso's Comentarios appears wrongly cop-
ied as <Inca> (see note 2), there seems little doubt as to its eminently Aymara
origin: Bertonio, in his invaluable reference dictionary of the normative colo-
nial form of the language, registers <Iii.aca> as equivalent to Quechua <palla>
·woman from the noble caste of the Ingas' (Bertonio [1612] 1984: II, 175).
Finally, in <corequenque> (Phalcoboenus megalopterus), the sacred bird
whose plumage adorned the Inca's brow, and known in Aymara as allqamari,
we have another composite word whose components are not immediately evi-
dent. My initial examination isolated the initial element <core>, identified
with Quechua quri (gold), but the enigmatic <quenque> remained. I have
since been able to identify it with the sacred bird whose name survived, in the
form quingue - quinga, within the oral tradition of the ancient Huamachucos
(cf. the name of the local sanctuary <Quingachugo>. which can be glossed as
"Land of quingues'), such that the whole word might now be rendered as
270 Rodolfo Cerr6n-Palomino
'gold(en) bird' (i.e. highly treasured). That the word <quenque>, reconstruc-
tible as *qinqi, vanished from Quechua is not unduly surprising in the light of
the similar fate of the word <cozco> 'owl', of Aymara origin, which only
survived and ultimately came to fame as the name of the Inca capital (Cerr6n-
Palomino 2008: II, 7).
A Third Language?
Closer inspection of Garcilaso's lexical corpus has allowed me to postulate,
then, that with the exception of <Roca>, most if not all the names he attributes
to the so-called 'particular language' may after all be construed as either
Quechua or Aymara in origin. Does this mean that we should-in the absence
of any linguistic material as conclusive evidence-therefore reject the existence
of any such language whose use was strictly limited to private dealings of the
Inca court? Not at all, for notwithstanding the lack of hard linguistic evidence,
the reports of its existence preserved within the Inca oral tradition and trans-
mitted by independent sources must doubtless contain some grain of historical
truth. In fact, although the words in question may, as we have seen, be tenta-
tively related to Quechua and Aymara, it is equally true that several of
them-belonging exclusively to the lexicon of the cultural universe of the Inca
Empire, and alien to the Quechua and Aymara of the time-bear many signs
suggestive of their stemming from a third language, which may well be the 'par-
ticular' one we have been trying to pin down. It comes as no surprise, then, that
some of the terms studied, like many others for which etymologies have been
proposed (Cerr6n-Palomino 2008), should appear to be the results of remodel-
ling at various stages through their history. If originally of such a third lan-
guage, their exact original structures and meanings would have been irrevocably
forgotten as speakers switched to the new one. Increasingly opaque, they would
have been reinterpreted in terms of the new language into which they were
incorporated-first Aymara and then Quechua-by simple association in form
and meaning with existing, familiar words in either language.
Debate on the 'particular language' of the Incas had come to something
of a dead-end before it was revived in the I 990s, thanks to the publication of
the first full edition of the early chronicle by Juan Diez de Betanzos, some
four and a half centuries after it was first written (Betanzos [1551] 1987).
Hitherto known solely for its first eighteen chapters, the pages of the first of
the 'new' ones, namely chapter nineteen, yielded a chant accredited to
Pachacutiy Inca Yupanqui, which the chronicler took down from his Quechua
informants. The value of this text, which commemorates the Inca's conquest
of the ethnic group of the Soras, is that it appears to be not in Quechua, as
might have been expected, but in some different tongue. This fact escaped
Betanzos himself, who does indeed label it as Quechua, casting doubt on his
THE 'PARTICULAR LANGUAGE' OF THE INCAS 271
much-vaunted proficiency in the language, as he implies (Betanzos [1551]
2004: 'Dedicatoria').
As the text became known, the question arose as to whether we now at last
had before us proof of the 'particular language' of the Incas, sparking an
intense debate among those who ventured interpretations of the chant as to
which language it was written in. The first to call attention to it was the Polish
historian Jan Szeminski ( 1990, 1997: 92-3, 195-7), who, after offering his own
interpretation, felt that he had found the long sought-after text that would
finally establish that the secret language of the Incas was indeed neither
Quechua nor Aymara, but Puquina. In response, the Peruvian linguist Alfredo
Torero (1993) immediately rejected Szeminski's thesis-in order, as he put it,
'to save non-linguist scholars from being led astray by [its] erroneous conclu-
sions'-holding instead that the text recorded by Betanzos proved on the con-
trary that the secret language was merely a variant of Aymara, albeit with
traits that diverged from the standard variety. At this point I attempted to
intervene in the controversy, offering another interpretation of the disputed
text (Cerr6n-Palomino 1998, 1999) to argue that while the underlying gram-
mar was indeed Aymara, crucially it also revealed clues hinting at a typically
Puquina construction, which in turn would prove that the Incas' secret
language was none other than that tongue. Both earlier commentators
also returned to the issue: Szeminski (l 998) abandoned his pro-Puquina
hypothesis, overwhelmed by the objections of Torero (2002: ch. 3, §3.6.8),
who in turn responded to my own proposal.
Given how brief the actual text of the chant is, discussion on the secret
language of the Incas has focused on Aymara or Puquina as possible candi-
dates, with Quechua ruled out altogether. I shall not reopen the debate on this
occasion; suffice it to say that my position remains unaltered in favour of
Puquina as the original 'secret language'. Rather, my aim in what follows is to
elaborate upon certain ideas in my earlier publications, to strengthen hypoth-
eses, and to contribute new data both from onomastics and from Andean
history and archaeology.
The Third Language
Although acknowledged by viceregal authority5 as one of the three 'general
languages' of Peru, Puquina did not truly enjoy that status in practice, for it
' See Viceroy Toledo's decree. signed in Arequipa and dated 10 September 1575, which reads,
· ... I grace the said Gonzalo Holguin by naming him and providing for him to be general
interpreter and translator of the said languages Quichua, Puquina and Aimara. which are the
ones generally spoken by the Indians of these Kingdoms and Provinces of Peru .. .' (Toledo
(1569-74] l 986: II. 97-100). Note. of course. that 'the said Gonzalo Holguin' is not the well-known
Quechua specialist Diego Goni;alez Holguin, who only arrived in Peru in 1581.
272 Rodolfo Cerron-Palomino
was by then already bound for complete dissolution, as its speaker popula-
tions continued apace along a long-term trajectory by which they progres-
sively switched to Aymara and/or Quechua. This explains, at least in part, why
in the case of Puquina we lack the manuals and vocabularies that have sur-
vived for other major tongues (and even a language of lesser standing such as
Mochica), and can count only on the scarce evangelizing materials compiled
and published by the H uamanga creole Jeronimo de Ore. 6 Even as Blas Valera
was reporting (as cited by Garcilaso) that once Tahuantinsuyo had fallen
those peoples not yet fully Quechuanized-among them, the Puquina-had
reverted back to their 'own languages' and rejected 'that of Cozco' (VII, III,
l 67v), in reality Puquina was already in retreat, first in the face of Aymara
and then of Quechua; and this even in its homeland, the Altiplano region
with Lake Titicaca at its heart.7 It would survive only in peripheral areas,8
until finally becoming extinct in the second half of the nineteenth century.9
Our meagre documentation on Puquina, coupled with the dearth of his-
torical data on the peoples who spoke it, makes for one of the great unwritten
and frustrating chapters of Andean linguistics. What scarce data we do have
6 His Puquina material consists of a total of twenty-six texts of varying lengths (from baptismal
formulae to questions to prepare for communion), included within his monumental work Rit\'{//e
sel' Manuale Perranl'm. .. published in Naples in 1607. Part of Ore's material was supplied to
him by the famous Jesuit polyglot Alonso de Barzana. who is credited with the authorship of a
grammar and lexicon of Puquina ( 1590), of which no copies have ever been found (De la Viiiaza
[1892] 1977: 45).
' In the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. the approximate distribution of Puquina.
as mapped by Torero (l 987: 343-5) on the basis of colonial documentation. encompassed the
environs of the lake and extended also into the valleys of the western cordillera (southwards of
Arequipa at least as far as Arica). and the foothills of the eastern cordillera immediately to the
east of Lake Titicaca. with a further pocket in the south-eastern cordilleras of the Altiplano
between Sucre and Potosi, in the ancient territories of the Yamparaes (Barragan 1994: ch. 1, §2).
On the lakeshore itself. only two settlements remained Puquina-speaking by this date: Capachica
and Coata (Bouysse-Cassagne 1987: II. ｾｉｉＮ＠ 112).
' According to documents uncovered by Durston (2007: ch. 4, 124) the 1591 Synod of the
bishopric of Cuzco, which at the time encompassed Huamanga and Arequipa, resolved on the
use of Puquina (alongside Aymara and Quechua) for the purposes of evangclization within its
jurisdiction. Furthermore. in 1638, the synod presided over by Archbishop Pedro de Villagomez
ordered an official translation into Puquina of the catechism and confessionary of the Third
Lima Council, with the task assigned to Alvaro Mogrovejo, parish priest of Carumas. and to
Miguel de Arana. likewise priest of Ilabaya. recognized as the foremost experts in the language. To
the best of our knowledge, however, it appears that these tasks were never undertaken.
9 The last known reference to Puquina as a language still spoken appears to be the mention by
Clemente Almonte ( 1813 ), priest of Andahua (Condesuyos, Arequipa), according to a document
published by Millones ( 197 l ). On this issue, it can hardly be stressed enough that it is high time
that we cease confusing Puquina with Urn, as can still be seen in non-specialized texts (see, for
instance. under <Puchina> in Aranibar 1991. but also Hiltunen 1999: ch. IV. §2.2, 257). For we
are speaking here of two languages entirely unrelated to each other (albeit in long-term contact
in the Titicaca Basin). as already observed by Jose Toribio Polo (l 901 ). See also Galdos' (2000)
timely update on this issue.
THE 'PARTICULAR LANGUAGE' OF THE INCAS 273
derive from the analysis and interpretation of Ore's material, the basis for
inferring some fragments of its grammar (Torero 2002: ch. 5, §§5.2.3-5.2.5;
Adelaar with Muysken 2004: ch. 3, §3.5) and for extracting a limited vocabu-
lary list (De la Grasserie 1894: 13-21; Torero 1987: ＳＶＴＭＷＰＩｾ｢ｯｴｨ＠ tasks con-
strained by all the provisos that necessarily attend any such linguistic
analysis.
Yet for all its obvious limitations, Ore's text remains invaluable as a source
for investigating, if not quite confirming beyond doubt, the grammatical
structures and lexicon that might be attributed to Puquina. It harbours a total
vocabulary of some 260 words, from which one then has to subtract the inev-
itable Quechua and Aymara loanwords. As one might well imagine, it is in the
nature of such a small corpus that its value as a source of data or corrobora-
tion on any given point of linguistic interest ends up reduced to a matter of
pure chance. For lack of any more extensive and more direct dataset on the
language, then, particularly a more comprehensive vocabulary, we are left
with nothing but onomastics as a possible further avenue by which to uncover
more of the language: whether by examining extant colonial documentation;
by conducting fieldwork in formerly Puquina-speaking territories, following
the example set by Adelaar in the Moquegua region (1987); or, last but not
least, by consulting the lexical material of the Callahuaya language spoken by
the itinerant herbalists of Charazani, descendants of the former Puquina
speakers of the region.10
Collas and Puquinas: Speakers of the Language
As a rule of thumb, whenever the chronicles do provide information on the
Puquinas, this turns out to be very vague, if not contradictory, and locates
them in lands contiguous or identical to those occupied by the Collas. Witness,
for instance, the following excerpt in which Garcilaso narrates the conquests
of Inca Roca: 'The Yndios of the Puchina and Canchi nations, that lay in
those lands [Collasuyu], very simple in their natural condition, and very prone
to believing any tale, ... easily obeyed the Inca, submitting to his rule' (II,
XVI, 42v). Beyond the idyllic vision of this conquest offered here by Garcilaso,
10 By comparing this Callahuaya material with the vocabulary extracted from Ore, Torero
suggests that the two languages share some 45 per cent of their basic lexicon, leading him to posit
that 'lexically, Callahuaya may be classified together with Puquina within the same linguistic
group' (Torero 1987: 364). Not that this means that Callahuaya can be considered a surviving
branch of Puquina, for its grammar is basically Quechua, as demonstrated by Stark (1972) and
Muysken ( 1997). Nor, as is equally clear. can Callahuaya be taken as the 'secret language of the
Incas', as proposed by Oblitas Poblete (1968) and suggested by Girault's (1989) misleading title.
274 Rodolfo Cerr6n-Palomino
for our purposes the key point is that the 'nations' alluded to were peoples
akin to the Collas.11 In Guaman Poma's chronicle likewise, the Puquinas are
identified even more inseparably with the Collas: for him they are the <poquina
colla> (Guaman Poma [1615] 1966: 11, 85, 69, 169, 271, 901), referring to
them as a particular group among the Collas. Furthermore, and a point hith-
erto quite overlooked in the Andean historiographical tradition, it turns out
that the <poques>, to whom both Garcilaso and Guaman Poma refer, are
also none other than the Puquinas. That this is beyond doubt emerges from
the following passage, in which the latter chronicler warns us that The
Poquina Collas were also a caste of Yngas, who on account of their sloth
failed to attend the distribution of ears by the Ynga and are thus known as
poquis millma rinri[,] they have ears of white wool because they did not reach
the Tanbotoco' (85, emphasis added). Garcilaso too records part of the same
tradition, although he takes it to allude to a separate 'nation', overlooking
that they were in fact the same people. Thus, he relates how Manco Capac
'ordered that a small tuft of white wool be brought to him, which from one
and the other part of the ear may protrude like the tip of the thumb, and these
were the nation known as Poques' {I, XXIII, 21 ). To the best of my knowl-
edge, no scholar has yet related this name to <puquina>, presumably because
the superficial difference in form has stood in the way of any lexico-semantic
association between the two terms (but cf. Szeminski 1997: 366). The ety-
mology of the name, however, has already been put forward, with the root
*puqi proposed as the common underlying component (Cerr6n-Palomino
1997: §5.2.4).12 Let me hereby reassert that hypothesis, one that I hold to be
soundly based. If one now takes both terms together, it follows that references
to this ethnic group suddenly become less infrequent, and their presence in
the tale of the origins and formation of the Inca state rather more notable
than has been supposed hitherto. The 'almost phantasmal aspect' of the
Puquina people through history, to borrow Torero's (1987: 343) phrase, thus
11 Both toponymy and onomastics offer hints that, contrary to existing assumptions (Torero
1987: 346; Glave 1992: ch. 1) , the Canas and Canchis also seem to have been Collas. initially
Puquina-speaking but who switched to Aymara at an early date. If so, Puquina's northern
boundary may have lain in the upper Vilcanota drainage. One might even then speculate that the
chronicler Pachacuti Yamqui Salcamayhua. given his ancestry among the Canas and Canchis,
might thus be identified as the Puquina historian claimed by Torero.
'2 I shall not reproduce here the arguments put forward on that occasion, though it is worth
recalling that the proposed etymology is based not only on the documentary evidence (that the
term was recorded as <poque(s)> with <e> betrays the preceding stop consonant as uvular /q/,
not velar /k/), but also on the form in which the word has survived amongst Uro speakers. namely
<pohena> among the Uros of the Bay of Puno, according to Lehmann ( 1937). Furthermore, the
remaining <-s> in <poque-s> and <-na> in <poqui-na> - <puqui-na> are interpreted as
Quechua and Aymara suffixes respectively, the first of which would later be lost from southern
dialects of Quechua (Cerr6n-Palomino 2008: II, 4, §I.I).