Floor mats being carried to the bridge of Queshuachaca, (see Bridges) during the
annual rebuilding of the bridge. In Inca times, people such as the chacacamayoc,
or bridge master, served the empire by providing their labor and expertise. Adriana
von Hagen.Further Reading
D’Altroy, Terence N. “Remaking the Social Landscape: Colonization in the Inka Empire.” In The
Archaeology of Colonial Encounters, edited by Gil Stein, 263–95. Albuquerque, NM: SAR Press, 2005.
Julien, Catherine J. “How Inca Decimal Administration Worked.” Ethnohistory 35, no. 3: 257–79, 1988.
Murra, John V. The Economic Organization of the Inka State. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press, 1980 [1956].
■TERENCE N. D’ALTROYLEGACY, INCA
In the wake of the Spanish explorer Vasco Núñez de Balboa’s sighting of the
Pacific Ocean, in 1513, rumors soon began to swirl among the Spaniards of a
wealthy kingdom located south of the Gulf of Darien. Balboa organized an
expedition in search of the fabled land. Unfortunately, his plans floundered
because of rivalries with other Spaniards, particularly his father-in-law, Pedro de
Arias Dávila, known as Pedrarias, who had him beheaded. Pedrarias
subsequently organized two expeditions; Francisco Pizarro, the future conqueror
of Peru, participated in one of them. Serious Native resistance would ultimately
foil both these attempts at locating the fabled rich kingdom in the south.