Encyclopedia of the Incas

In his account, Nueva Córonica, the indigenous chronicler Guaman Poma
represents Andean peoples and Spaniards as occupying opposite moieties, or
halves. To enhance the internal unity of each group in their separate realms,
Guaman Poma imagined a space for each divided in four parts by a
configuration of five elements—that is, with one element located at the center
and the other four arrayed around it—in a pattern that reproduced the unity of
Tahuantinsuyu, with the Inca ruler and Cuzco as the center/mediator among the
four suyus of the empire. By the early Colonial period, this image of ideal order
had been disrupted in Guaman Poma’s view because Andean peoples and
Spaniards, who should have remained in their separate worlds, had intermingled,
producing a Pachacuti, a cosmic cataclysm that had turned the world upside
down.
For Guaman Poma and many of his fellow Andeans, the nostalgic image of the
Sapa Inca, the sovereign of Tahuantinsuyu, served as a unifying principle.
Guaman Poma, however, knew that Atahualpa, one of Huayna Capac’s potential
successors, had been captured, ransomed and (in popular belief) beheaded at
Cajamarca. Atahualpa was replaced by the King of Spain, whom Guaman Poma
regarded as the Monarch of the World who held the power of the world in his
hands.
The image that emerged of the last Inca was the figure known as Inkarrí
(derived from Spanish, “Inca Rey,” or Inca king). This mythical figure was based
on Atahualpa who, it was believed, was beheaded and his body hidden in a cave.
When he regrew his head and body, Inkarrí would reemerge and the Inca Empire
would be reestablished. Some scholars have viewed Guaman Poma’s chronicle
as the first manifestation of nostalgia for the Inca and the restoration of
Tahuantinsuyu, sentiments that have over the centuries fostered a succession of
messianic movements beginning in the sixteenth century and continuing, at least
in Peru, down to the present time.
The mestizo chronicler Garcilaso de la Vega became a staunch defender of
Native Andeans and especially of the Incas. He described Inca rule as a kind of
Christian utopia that had prepared the terrain for facilitating the introduction of
Catholicism. Garcilaso’s Royal Commentaries of the Incas enjoyed widespread
readership after it was first published, in 1609. Through their reading of
Garcilaso and other chroniclers, Europeans became transfixed by the image of
the Incas, not only for their gold and silver but also for such achievements as
their road system and the spectacular architecture of Cuzco and the megalithic
“fortress” of Sacsahuaman. These views, however, were tempered by the