Encyclopedia of the Incas

The first expedition, led by Pascual de Andagoya, only reached 50 miles south
of Panama, to a river known as Virú. According to several historians, this was
the first name given to the territory the Spanish planned to conquer. In the course
of time Virú became Peru.
In fact, the names of Native entities were matters of considerable confusion at
the time. When the Spaniards first heard of the conflict between the brothers and
rival claimants to the throne, Huascar and Atahualpa, they understood that what
they were competing for, identified in the term Cuzco, was recognition as the
leader of the realm, equivalent to a “king” (see Wars, Dynastic). Only later did
Cuzco refer to the capital of the empire.
When did the terms Inca or Ynga become commonplace, and when was the
term Tahuantinsuyu first recorded? The earliest evidence for Inca or ynga occurs
in a 1540 fact-finding mission, or visita, undertaken in Cajamarca.
Tahuantinsuyu as a name for the Inca Empire as a whole, is first mentioned in
Polo Ondegardo’s chronicle of 1571, although references to the four suyus
(which made up Tahuantinsuyu) were noted earlier, by Pedro de Cieza de León,
in 1553, and by Juan de Betanzos, in 1557. The fact that these terms were
employed by indigenous informants should not be taken as an indication that a
sense of unity existed among the myriad ethnic groups then dominated by the
Incas. The early Spanish chronicles are filled with accounts of revolts against the
Incas. It seems that the sense of cohesion implied by terms such as
Tahuantinsuyu only began with an awareness of the dire implications for the
indigenous world of the Spaniards’ presence.
The Taki Onqoy movement of 1564 and the chronicle, El Primer Nueva
Córonica y Buen Gobierno, by the Native chronicler Felipe Guaman Poma de
Ayala, provide us with evidence for the development of cohesion among Andean
peoples vis-à-vis their new Spanish overlords. The Taki Onqoy was a messianic
movement that erupted in the south-central Andes, around present-day
Ayacucho, in which Natives were possessed by the spirits of the huacas, dancing
and singing wildly on mountaintops, away from Spanish eyes. They called for a
return to the care and tending of the indigenous huacas and a complete rejection
of the Spaniards and their Christian religion. Followers of the Taki Onqoy
movement believed that the Incas had been defeated because the Spanish God
was more powerful than their huacas. Nevertheless, the adherents of Taki Onqoy
agitated for a Pachacuti (turning around/upside-down of the earth) that would
overwhelm the Christian God.