Túpac Inca Yupanqui

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Túpac Inca Yupanqui (a.k.a. Topa Inca) Quechua: 'Tupaq Inka Yupanki' (literally “noble Inca accountant”) was the tenth Sapa Inca (1471-93 CE) of the Inca Empire, and fifth of the Hanan dynasty. His father was Pachacuti, and his son was Huayna Capac.

[edit] Description

His father appointed him to head the Inca army in 1463. He extended the realm northward along the Andes through modern Ecuador, and developed a special fondness for the city of Quito, which he rebuilt with architects from Cuzco. During this time his father Pachacuti reorganized the kingdom of Cuzco into the Tahuantinsuyu, the "four provinces".

He became Inca in his turn upon his father's death in 1471, ruling until his own death in 1493. He conquered Chimor, which occupied the northern coast of what is now Peru, the largest remaining rival to the Incas.

[edit] The Pacific expedition theory

In the a Pacific expedition theory, Tupac Inca Yupanqui is also credited with leading a roughly 10-month-long voyage of exploration into the Pacific around 1480, although many have regarded this as a fabrication. The voyage is mentioned in the History of the Incas by Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa in 1572. ^[1] Reportedly visiting islands he called Nina chumpi ("Fire Island") and Hahua chumpi (or Avachumpi, "Outer Island"), which are sometimes identified with the Galápagos Islands and occasionally with Polynesia. Pedro Sarmiento described the expedition as follows:

…there arrived at Tumbez some merchants who had come by sea from the west, navigating in balsas with sails. They gave information of the land whence they came, which consisted of some islands called Avachumbi and Ninachumbi, where there were many people and much gold. Tupac Inca was a man of lofty and ambitious ideas, and was not satisfied with the regions he had already conquered. So he determined to challenge a happy fortune, and see if it would favour him by sea. …

The Inca, having this certainty, determined to go there. He caused an immense number of balsas to be constructed, in which he embarked more than 20,000 chosen men. …

Tupac Inca navigated and sailed on until he discovered the islands of Avachumbi and Ninachumbi, and returned, bringing back with him black people, gold, a chair of brass, and a skin and jaw bone of a horse. These trophies were preserved in the fortress of Cuzco until the Spaniards came. The duration of this expedition undertaken by Tupac Inca was nine months, others say a year, and, as he was so long absent, every one believed he was dead.

It has been suggested that one of the islands was Easter Island where oral traditions have been claimed to record a group of long-eared hanau eepe coming to the island from an unknown land.^[2] The natives were obviously not unaccustomed with sea-going ships when Jakob Roggeveen arrived there (despite not being able to build them themselves as by then the island had been devoid of sufficient quantities of larger trees for some time), and there are indications - South American microorganisms in the lake sediment of Rano Raraku appearing at a compatible date, the nga'atu/totora bulrush otherwise known from Lake Titicaca of which still-living plants were used by the Incans for thatching ship superstructures, and possibly the Incan-style masonry of Ahu Vinapu) - suggesting that at least one stray ship from the exploring fleet may have indeed happened upon Easter Island. Intriguingly, Easter Island genealogies mentions a Tupa Ariki ("Prince/King Tupa") who has been (controversially) conjectured to have ruled around 1485 for a short time and then left by ship.

There exists an oral tradition on Mangareva in the Tuamotus, telling of an incident during the reign of the brothers Tavere and Taroi (which are, however, presumed to have ruled at a considerably earlier date, though this is not based on exact data) where an important chief named Tupa with skin redder than the Mangarevans' arrived with many ships from the East. The Incan legends, on the other hand, speak of "black people" and artifacts being brought back from Nina and Hahua chumpi. The artifacts, unfortunately, seem to have been lost after the Spanish conquest. While there are some discrepancies between the legends and known fact, these can be the result of oral transmission over several generations. From what is known about the shipbuilding and seafaring skills of the peoples involved, such a voyage would have been at least technically possible.

[edit] References

Preceded by Pachacuti

Sapa Inca 1471-93

Succeeded by Huayna Capac

In early years of Inca dominion, the armies were gathered only once the harvests were safely stored away, and the soldiers were accompanied on their campaigns by their wives, called rabonas by the Spaniards, whose duties were to look after and feed their men, as well as cure their battle wounds.

Later on, with territorial expansion, it became impossible to maintain these traditional practices, and regular armies were conscripted by the "warrior mita" system. This system enabled the collection of troops to conquer remote regions like Charcas, Chile and Ecuador, implying for the soldiers years of absence, and sometimes permanent absence from their hometowns. Organized his armies by squadrons, according to origin and type of weapons used, putting them under the orders of captains of the same racial stock. There were soldiers armed with macanas (spiked clubs), Hondas (slings), porras (clubs), estólicas and others. Musical instruments included drums, seashell trumpets and flutes. The soldiers were dressed according to the fashions of their hometowns, and wore feathered headdresses with copper, silver or gold bands, according to their ranks in the army. In some cases, they wore warpaint. Before the attack, they shouted and sang rude songs to disconcert the enemy. The chroniclers tell that the shouting was so intense that "the birds would fall to the ground terrified".One of the young Tupac Yupanqui's first conquests was in Chincha, where a short time before, general Capac Yupanqui had carried out a first raid, obtaining recognition of Cusco sovereignty over the area. He had also obtained certain advantages, such as the construction of an aclla huasi with its crew of mamaconas who sewed clothes and provided drinks for the troops and worship as part of the reciprocity arrangement, as well as the construction of a house called Hatun Cancha, as a seat of Inca administration. Tupac Yupanqui's reign signaled the confirmation of a reciprocity treaty with the Chinchanos and the Inca demanded more land for the state. The local curacas preferred accepting the reciprocity terms to risking a war, which they would probably lose, and would upset their commercial barter. This method explains the rapid expansion of the Inca Empire, since the mere presence of Cusco troops was often enough for the annexation of the major ethnic groups to Tahuantinsuyo. However, although the system favored the rapid growth of the Inca state, it was also a determining factor of its fragility, since the appearance of Pizarro's hosts was often enough to dissolve the fragile links of reciprocity between ethnical authorities and the Inca sovereigns.