Note 1 — Chapter XII · The Fortress of Uiticos and the House of the Sun

Thanks to Ocampo's description of the fortress which Tupac Amaru was occupying in 1572 there is no doubt that this was the palace of the last Inca. Was it also the capital of his brothers, Titu Cusi and Sayri Tupac, and his father, Manco? It is astonishing how few details we have by which the Uiticos of Manco may be identified. His contemporaries are strangely silent. When he left Cuzco and sought refuge “in the remote fastnesses of the Andes,” there was a Spanish soldier, Cieza de Leon, in the armies of Pizarro who had a genius for seeing and hearing interesting things and writing them down, and who tried to interview as many members of the royal family as he could;—Manco had thirteen brothers. Ciezo de Leon says he was much disappointed not to be able to talk with Manco himself and his sons, but they had “retired into the provinces of Uiticos, which are in the most retired part of those regions, beyond the great Cordillera of the Andes.”1 The Spanish refugees who died as the result of the murder of Manco may not have known how to write. Anyhow, so far as we can learn they left no accounts from which any one could identify his residence. Page 246