page_129 < previous page page_129 next page > Page 129 excepting the Pacajes territory southeast of the lake and possibly the Lupaqa polity.5 The Inca administration of the region is described in some detail in the Visita Hecha a la Provincia de Chucuito por Garci Diez de San Miguel, written in 1557. Chucuito was the capital of the Lupaqa chiefdom and was situated a few miles south of Puno on the shore of Lake Titicaca. According to this document, as cited by Murra, the area occupied by Aymara-speaking groups was then much greater than today, and its inhabitants could be counted at least in the hundreds of thousands; the Lupaqa alone numbered more than twenty thousand households (or about one hundred thousand souls). Garci Diez writes of the dual control of the Lupaqas by two rulers, Cari and Cusi, named by Cieza and other chroniclers in describing the Inca conquest. Certain sources denounce these Lupaqa kings. as mere rebels who frequently rose against their Inca masters, whereas others portray them as loyal subjects who helped to govern the whole region.6 Though Chucuito became the main provincial capital, Hatunqolla also developed as an important Inca center. As Catherine Julien writes, the Inca town would have been laid out on a typical grid plan, with shrines that corresponded to those of Cuzco. This pattern involved a town center with many Inca buildings, including not only a temple of the state religion but also a multitude of storehouses, as well as a convent of women chosen by the Inca government.7 Hyslop carried out a surface reconnaissance of Chucuito and four other Lupaqa centers of population. Evidence from surface ceramics would suggest that these communities were probably founded at about the time of the Inca occupation; the development of such urban centers would have furthered the Inca aim of pressing the Collas to abandon villages situated at or near the mountaintops and to concentrate in the plains below, a process described by Cieza. The chronicler, in writing of Collao, confirms that in pre-Inca times the inhabitants lived in fortified settlements on the high peaks, from which they would emerge to make war on each other, inflicting heavy casualties and seizing many captives for sacrifice. Few traces of Inca settlement have been found outside the cultivated zones of the plain, and any vestiges of occupation of other parts of the Lupaqa region date from pre-Inca times.8 Copacabana retained its aura of sanctity; Amalia Castelli compares its significance as a shrine to that of Pachacamac and cites Calancha as relating that Tupac Inca introduced care- Â < previous page page_129 next page > If you like this book, buy it!