Lupaca kingdom | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| c. 1150–c. 1600 | |||||||||
 | |||||||||
| Capital | Cutimbo (1150-1463), Chucuito (1463-1600) | ||||||||
| Common languages | Aymara | ||||||||
| Government | Diarchy | ||||||||
| Historical era | Late Intermediate | ||||||||
• Established | c. 1150 | ||||||||
• Conquered by theInca Empire underPachacuti | c. 1463 | ||||||||
• Revolt crushed byTopa Inca Yupanqui | c. 1473 | ||||||||
• Disestablished | c. 1600 | ||||||||
| |||||||||
TheLupaca,Lupaka, orLupaqa people were one of the divisions of the ancestralAymaras. The Lupaca lived for many centuries nearLake Titicaca inPeru and their lands possibly extended intoBolivia. The Lupacas and other Aymara peoplesformed powerful kingdoms after the collapse of theTiwanaku Empire in the 11th century. In the mid 15th century they were conquered by theInca Empire and in the 1530s came under the control of theSpanish Empire.
The residence of the pre-Inca kings of Lupaca was probably what is today the archaeological site of Cutimbo. The capital of the Inca province wasChucuito, presently a village of the same name where the archaeological site ofInca Uyu is located.
The Lupaca occupied seven urban centers, all of them present day cities and villages in thePuno region of Peru: Chucuito,Acora,Ilave,Juli,Pomata,Yunguyo andZepita.[2] The Lupaca were incorporated into the growing Inca Empire by the emperorPachacuti (reigned 1438-1471). During the reign ofTopa Inca Yupanqui (1471-1493), the Inca crushed a revolt by the Lupaca and their northern neighbors, theColla.[3]
In the 16th century, the Incas conducted a census of the Chucuito province and recorded it on aQuipu that was interpreted for the Spanish. The total number of households in Chucuito was 20,080 of which 15,778 were Aymara. 4.129 wereUru, and 173 weremitma. This implies a population of about 100,000 people in total.[4]
The Lupaca had little contact with the Spanish until 1538, when the Lupaca and Colla went to war. The Colla appealed for help from the Spanish inCuzco andHernando Pizarro led an army southward and defeated the Lupaca at the southern tip of Lake Titicaca where theDesaguadero River flows from the lake. The battle went poorly for the Spanish for a time and Pizarro nearly drowned trying to cross the river, but was rescued byPaullu Inca, the Inca emperor installed by the Spanish.[5]
Despite the defeat, Lupaca continued to be rich and powerful. A Spaniard, Garci Diez de San Miguel, visited and wrote of the Lupaca in 1567. There were at the time 16Dominican priests and a few Spanish merchants and officials in the Lupaca kingdom, but the people of Lupaca had not yet been subjected to theencomienda by which Spaniards were granted large estates and control over indigenous peoples.[6]
Like the Incas and many other Andean peoples, the Lupaca were divided into two moieties each with its leader. The "Alassa" or upper moiety was headed by Qari and the lower moiety, the "Massaa" was headed by Kusi. Each of them directly controlled many of the people and much of the land in the kingdom, but other wealthy Lupaca also incited the envy of the Spanish chronicler. The Lupaca seemed "extraordinarily wealthy."[7]
The Lupaca lived on theAltiplano, a high cold plateau dotted with mountains. Lake Titicaca is at an altitude of 3,812 metres (12,507 ft); freezes occur every month of the year.[8] Only about two percent of land in the Andean highlands is arable. A few crops --potatoes,oca,olluco, andquinoa—can be grown in favored locations with techniques such as terracing,raised beds, andWaru Waru to moderate the cold temperatures. The wealth of the Lupaca was their herds ofllamas andalpacas which grazed the barren uplands up to the snowline at about 4,800 metres (15,700 ft).[9]
AnthropologistJohn V. Murra used the Lupaca as his exemplar of what he called the "vertical archipelago". The Lupaca and other high-altitude Andean people countered the limited potential for agriculture in their homeland by establishing colonies at lower and warmer elevations both westward toward thePacific Ocean in theChiribaya cultural area and eastward toward theAmazon River basin. The western colonies, located about 200 kilometres (120 miles) distant, were located in irrigated desert valleys in theMoquegua Region and provided agricultural products such asmaize,cotton, andchili peppers to the Lupaca living on the Altiplano. The eastern colonies providedcoca and a variety of tropical forest products. Communication with these outlying colonies was maintained via llama caravans. Sovereignty over non-contiguous areas appears to have been a characteristic of Andean kingdoms. The long distance control of the colonies by the Lupaca implies a safe environment for transport and travel.[10]
Details of Murra's theory have been challenged, especially Murra's view that the vertical archipelago was a long-standing characteristic of highland peoples. Anthropologist Mary Van Buren suggests that the vertical archipelago as described by Murra operated only during the late Inca and early Spanish eras and further speculates that the establishment of colonies at lower elevations by the Lupaca and other highland peoples was motivated more by production of luxury goods rather than being a critical source of food for the entire highland population.[11]
The Lupaca kingdom disappeared from Spanish records around the end of the 16th century and its people became submerged in the generalized Aymara population. The Spanish had increasingly asserted control over the Lupacas and other highland kingdoms, eroded the authority and influence of their traditional leaders, forced Aymaras to work in the silver mines ofPotosí, to resettle in "reductions", and appropriated much of the former Lupaca land, especially the lowland agricultural areas of the vertical archipelago. Adding to these factors were recurrent epidemics of Old World diseases which took a heavy demographic toll of the Andean indigenous people.[12]
