History of the Chachapoyas Culture and its Origin

Through this interesting article you can discover everything about the Culture Chachapoyas, your religion and more. Don't stop reading it! and you will also know some of the most important details of its ancient civilization as well as the ruins of its buildings.

CHACHAPOYA CULTURE

Chachapoyas culture

The Chachapoyas culture, being made up of a group of autonomous communities, settled in the forests of the northern Peruvian Andes. A region characterized by almost permanent rains, cloudiness, thick vegetation and swamps.

In this way, it expanded its territory between 800 and 1570 AD. C. about 300 kilometers above the current departments of Amazonas and San Martín.

Historical summary of the Chachapoyas culture

The Chachapoyas were descendants of other Andean immigrant peoples, who changed their culture by merging Amazonian customs and traditions. This culture flourished practically isolated, flourishing in the classical period, however, in the 15th century they were annexed to Tahuantinsuyo.

As a result, the so-called cloud warriors, despite opposition to Inca rule, were quickly conquered. However, the constant uprising of the Chachapoyas forced the Incas to separate them into different parts of the territory.

Around 1532, with the arrival of the colony, the Chachapoyas supported the Spanish in their conquests, but this ended up reducing the small population that existed, until it disappeared.

CHACHAPOYA CULTURE

Aspects of the Chachapoyas culture

The Chachapoyas civilization was made up of minimal leaderships that were located on the heights of the Utcubamba River. All these towns, which had the same practices, were of an individualistic politics and were governed by a priestly class, led by a curaca. Only reasons for the integration of these provinces were military and religious.

Regarding economic activity, agriculture was favored, since the soils of the region were very fertile. Potato, olluco, oca, bitter potato and quinoa crops have also developed hunting, gathering and raising livestock.

The beliefs of the Chachapoyas culture

Due to the little existence of evidence to determine who the main gods of the Chachapoyas culture were, it is believed that they worshiped the serpent, the condor and the jaguar. What is really confirmed is that in their beliefs there was a cult of the dead.

The funerary ritual of the Chachapoyas culture consisted of wrapping the remains of the deceased in cloth. Burial took place in isolated places or mountain precipices, in two types of cemeteries:

Sarcophagi: Chachapoyas sarcophagus culture beliefs
Made up of sugar cane and clay, they were only deposited inside the remains of a person, which are usually large. Outstanding places such as Karajía, Ayachaqui, Léngate, Pueblo de los Muertos, Chipiruc and Ucaso.

CHACHAPOYA CULTURE

Mausoleums or mass graves: cultural beliefs chachapoyas mausoleums, were tombs in the form of houses, built with chicola stones and mud, painted exterior walls with gabled roofs.

This model is located in Revash, Sholón, Laguna de los Cóndores, Los Pinchudos, Pueblo de los Muertos, Guanlic, La Petaca-Diablohuasi.

The architecture of the Chachapoyas culture

If there is something that distinguishes the Chachapoyas culture, it is its architecture, determined by buildings made of stones, friezes and decorated with ornaments of geometric shapes or iconographic designs of snakes on rocks repeatedly.

Houses were generally circular, supported by a basement with stairs or ramps leading to the entrance. Some outstanding architectural complexes of the Chachapoyas culture were:

Kuelap.

Chachapoyas Culture Architecture Kuelap. A protected city with high walls of more than 600 meters, located at the top of the Amazonian Andes on the edge of a precipice.

With only three entrances, it had a sophisticated system of pathways and drainage of rainwater through canals running through the complex. It houses around 500 buildings, many of them circular, the most important being:

Torreón , a 7-meter-high structure that served as a defense against possible attacks from neighboring towns.

CHACHAPOYA CULTURE

Inkwell, shaped like an inverted cone and a little over 5 meters high, was an astronomical observatory.

Castle It was the home of a ruler of the Chachapoyas culture, with a rectangular structure made up of three platforms.

Great Pajaten; Located in the jungle of San Martín, the impressive fortress featured friezes with symbolic motifs of anthropomorphic figures with open arms and legs or birds with outstretched wings. About twenty structures were built on the site, three of which had a diameter of 15 meters.

Manifestations of the Chachapoyas culture

Among the main artistic expressions of the Chachapoyas culture are:

Ceramics

Aesthetically it was a simple ceramic art with utilitarian functions and made of clay. To do this, they used the rolling pin technique, that is, they kneaded long cylinders of clay with their fingers.

The main forms were oval-bodied vessels, flat-bottomed pots with handles, and globular vessels. Decorated with painted geometric patterns or straight or curved linear incisions.

Sculpture

Events of the Chachapoyas ceramic culture, they made sarcophagi for the late nobility, they also made wooden figures such as the Pinchudos, images that they used as architectural ornaments that had large phalluses associated with fertility. They also carved anthropomorphic shapes in stones and created decorative friezes.

Textile

With an essentially funerary function, they were excellent weavers, especially in cotton, being the most used belts.

Leaving obvious architectural and funerary works, the Chachapoyas culture may have been a superior civilization of ancient Peru, however, its destiny has been erased by historical events.

A Little More About The Chachapoyas Culture

Let's talk a little about one of Los Chachapoyas, especially the place called; KuelapCuelap.

Kuelap

It is an important pre-Inca archaeological site located in the northeast of the Andes of Peru, in the province of Luya, it was built by the Chachapoyas culture.

It forms a large stone architectural ensemble characterized by its monumental condition, with a large artificial platform, oriented from south to north, set on the limestone ridge at the top of Cerro Barreta (at 3000 m above sea level). The platform stretches almost 600 meters and has a perimeter wall that reaches 19 meters high in places.

It is estimated that its construction should have started around the XNUMXth century, coinciding with the flowering period of the Chachapoyas culture, and its occupation should have reached its peak in the middle of the XNUMXth century.

Its colossal walls and intricate interior architecture testify to its function as a well-organized population group, including administrative, religious, ceremonial and permanent residence spaces.

Location and access

The Kuelap archaeological complex is located in the department of Amazonas, province of Luya. It is accessed from the Leimebamba district road, leaving the asphalt road at Nuevo Tingo.

Near the banks of the Utcubamba River, where the path continues along an uphill causeway, until it reaches a plain near the monument, where there is a path that leads directly to the Citadel.

Access is also possible through a steep path that starts from the town of El Tingo, near the coast of Utcubamba, with a distance of 8,9 kilometers and a drop of 1.200 meters. From March 2, 2017, the complex will be accessible using the cable cars.

Discovery

This significant exponent of the architecture of the Chachapoyas remained practically ignored until 1843. The reason lies in the inaccessibility of the area, which is forested and subject to permanent rains.

However, on January 31 of the aforementioned year, during an activity in the area, Juan Crisóstomo Nieto, judge of Chachapoyas, was able to admire its greatness guided by locals who already knew the archaeological site. This fact can be considered as the "discovery" of Kuelap.

Later, that place received the attention of certain scholars and curious about antiquities. Among them, the Frenchman Louis Langlois, who analyzed it in the 1930s, and Adolf Bandelier, who described it earlier, stand out.

However, it was the Peruvian archaeologist and historian Federico Kauffmann Doig who spent most of his time studying and researching the Chachapoyas site and culture.

Description

Main access: The main entrance testifies to its use for high-ranking figures, not only because of its shape and architectural details, but also because of the placement of many stone blocks in its construction adorned with various religious symbols, including faces and animals, mythical, serpents, and symbols. with deep religious content.

In this access, the testimonies of the growth process of the site have been maintained, in particular large fill layers that successively allowed the extension of the access, both in height and in interior growth.

Great temple:  it is one of the most important sacred centers of the monument. This building, in the shape of an inverted truncated cone, measures 13.5m in diameter at its top, in which ample evidence has been recorded of various offerings in complex rituals that included the placement of human bones inside the container. interior, which has been well converted into a large charnel house.

Around the building, several human burials and offerings have been discovered from the north coast, such as the Sierra de Ayacucho to the south and Cajamarca to the north.

Round platform: located immediately on the southern wall of the site, it had a function closely related to the Templo Mayor. The character responsible for operating the temple should have resided on this platform.

The end of the Kuelap story is linked to a large-scale massacre that occurred exclusively within the limits of this platform, which did not include women, but was carried out by a well-organized local group, in the context of a conflict for power.

This fact was followed by a great fire that marks the last days of occupation of the site. Such a sad event must have happened around 1570, when the Indian court system was established by the Spanish colonial power. In the center of this platform was an ossuary similar to the one recorded in the upper and central part of the Templo Mayor.

The High Town;  it is located in the north and west of the site and has a wall that demarcates it and separates it from the rest of the settlement.

It has three well-defined sectors, which can be accessed from two places, one giving access to the North and Central sectors and the other allowing access only to the South sector, which is essentially residential.

The Inca tomb in the town of Alto Sur: Inside a special structure, an Inca tomb, of an adolescent figure, has been discovered with high-quality offerings, including fine pottery, badly destroyed wooden objects, and a metal nose ring.

It is possible that it was a Capacocha-type offering, an Inca custom in the centers of greatest religious importance in the empire.

Central area of ​​Pueblo Alto; this sector had to fulfill a public function during the last moments of occupation. For this reason, only how many with three structures of square and rectangular shapes, from the Inca period, which overlap with older circular structures.

At the southern end of this area is a much destroyed quadrangular structure, which contained many primary and secondary human burials. This building must have a pitched or gabled roof. Below are traces of older buildings.

Function

As for the function for which this archaeological site was built, a satisfactory answer is also lacking. The monument is popularly described as a "fortress", due to its location and the strength and height of its walls.

Some archaeologists tried to show that this site, more than a fortress, could have been a fortress intended to serve as a refuge for the population in an emergency. They attributed to it, probably by analogy, the same role that districts played in medieval Europe.

The high walls that cover the platform and the narrow access to the citadel in its last part suggest, in fact, that the Kuelap monument could have been built to serve as a defensive redoubt, or that it would have at least been a site protected from intruders. But this possibility does not necessarily negate other, perhaps more important, interpretations.

Here are some links of interest:


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