Pachacamac

Lisa the ex-history teacher reporting here. As Kate mentioned earlier, we decided to head outside of Lima today and went on a tour of Pachacamac. We went with a tour group of about 8 other people that was lead by a wonderful tour guide Juan Carlos from Lima Vision. Pachacamac is an Incan and pre-Incan temple site. Pachacamac was the creator god of 3 or 4 pre-Incan civilizations and the site existed for 1000 years prior toarrival of the Incas .

The first place we saw was the place where offerings were made before being allowed to ascend to the temple of Pachacamac. We went up the road a bit and found out the reason the original settlement was situated there; in the midst of the desert, there was a green fertile area which allowed people to inhabit such an area. From that site the Pacific was in clear view and close proximity. The next stop was to the first and second temples. The first basically looked like a mound of sand, somewhat amorpheously shaped. (The temples in the area were not pyramids, but rather had flat roofs. It was on these roofs that the sacrifices were made.) That was the oldest temple. In later years, still before the Incas arrived, a newer temple was built that clearly had much more definition. Finally, a bit further up the road, we arrived at the most majestic Incan temple, built atop a hill with clear views out to the ocean, to the east, and the north and south.

While at the Incan temple, we learned all the juicy details of the workings of the temple. The Incas had sacrifices, but they were not of animals. Young virgins, identified at birth, were raised to be sacrificial ¨lambs¨. This was a very priviledged position to be in and they were raised in very high standards. The final place we visited on the site was a recreation of the ¨house¨the virgins lived with with all women servants at their beck and call (no men allowed for obvious reasons.) The actual sacrifices were not regular events but only occured in times of disasters (earthquake, volcanic eruption, el Niño), when the Incas thought they needed to give something to the gods to restore order The sacrifices themselves were done in two ways which I will not detail here, but although one was considered more humane than the other, both sounded fairly horrible to me. Once the sacrifice was complete, their bodies were thrown into a burial pit below the sacrifical slab. To date, 11 bodies have been found at the site.

Another interesting tidbit about the place concerns Hernando Pizarro, ¨honorable¨ brother of of the more infamous Francisco. While Francisco was up north doing his deeds, he sent his brother down to investigate the temple of the god Pachacamac. We saw where Hernando walked up to make his initial offerings in order to be let into the temple in general. His offerings were accepted however he was not allowed access into the temple to set eyes on Pachacamac. He was not a happy camper about this and tried to figure out how to gain access to the palace of the god. (If the god was an actual person, his plan was to ¨kidnap¨him ala the taking of Atahualpa in Cusco. If the god was a statue made of gold, you can imagine what his plan would have been.) Anyway, he finally used forced to enter the temple and was quite disappointed to find Pachacama to be a 230 cm high, carved wooden totem with a diameter of about 12 cm. As a show of his disappointment, he proceeded to burn the original god as well as almost all copies made of it. There are only two of the copies left today and they are both in a museum in Lima.

As for the god itself, it had a dual nature. On one side it was a happy god, a god of fertility. On the other, it was a more fierce sort, complete with a jaguar to beware of. All of this is shown pictorally on the totem.

While there was a lot more, this is the gist of the story. It was truly fascinating and our guide was incredible knowledgeable, articulate (in English y en Español), and personable. As soon as we are able to get to either a computer where we can upload the pictures or a place where we can make a photo disc, we will start boring you with our pictures.

Time for bed-- hasta manaña.