american-holocaust

BEFORE COLUMBUSThere were no locks or keys and nothing in the palaces was hidden: asJohn Hemming puts it, "the Incas were too confident of the security oftheir empire and the honesty of its citizens to hide their dead rulers' possessions."70All the Inca palaces were different-made of various types of marble,rare woods, and precious metal-but each had at least one common characteristic:enormous halls and ballrooms capable of holding up to 4000people for banquets and dances when the weather prevented such festivitiesfrom being held outdoors. One such hall, which "served on rainy daysas a plaza for [Inca] festivals and dances ... was so large," wrote Garcilasode Ia Vega, "that sixty horsemen could very easily play caiias insideit." More exquisite even than the palaces, however, was the famed templeof the sun, Coricancha. A magnificent masonry structure with preciselycurved and angled walls, Coricancha's majesty was crowned with an eightinch-wideband of solid gold that encircled the entire building below theroof line. Along with all the other treasure that it held, at the temple'scenter was a ceremonial font and a massive altar of gold, surrounded bygold and silver images of the moon, of stars, of thunder-and the greatPunchao, a massive golden sun, expertly crafted and encrusted with preciousjewels. Of all this, though, it was the garden within its walls thatmost amazed the chroniclers who wrote about Coricancha: a simple gardenof maize-but an artificial garden-with the stem and leaves of eachperfect plant delicately fashioned in silver, while each crowning ear of cornwas carved in gold. 71Cuzco's population in pre-Columbian times probably was somewherebetween 150,000 and 200,000; beyond the city itself, many more people,living and working on vast maize plantations, filled the surrounding valleys.Although some Mesoamerican cities, such as Tenochtidan, were larger,few cities in Europe at the time even approached the size of Cuzco. Norwould any of them have been able to compete with Cuzco in terms of thetreasures it contained or the care with which it was laid out. For we nowknow that Cuzco was built following a detailed clay-model master plan,and that-as can be seen from the air-the outline of its perimeter wasdesigned to form the shape of a puma with the famed temple-fortress ofSacsahuaman at its head.7 2 .But if Cuzco was unique within Peru for the lavishness of its appointments,it was far from alone in the large number of its inhabitants. Othercities in other Andean locales were also huge; some are famous today,others are not. Among this latter group was the provincial city of Jauja.Here is a short description of it by Miguel de Estete, one of the earliestSpaniards to set eyes on it:The town of Jauja is very large and lies in a beautiful valley. A great riverpasses near it, and its climate is most temperate. The land is fertile. Jauja is