Note 85 — INTRODUCTION.

A grammar of the Yunca language was written by Fernando de Carrera, and published at Lima in 1644; and forty words were collected by Mr. Spruce last year from the mouth of an old woman at Piura. But nearly all the Indians now speak Spanish, and the ancient language is, as nearly as possible, extinct. Quichua appears never to have been generally spoken on the coast. Yet the Ynca conquerors gave names to some of the principal places, such as Caxamarquilla, Rimac, Pachacamac, Nanasca, etc. In the case of Pachacamac, the reasons of the Ynca for sanctioning the reverential worship of the natives at that great temple, is given by Cieza de Leon at page 252. Originally an idol with a fish’s head, or, according to others, a figure of a she-fox, was worshipped there. The Yncas put aside this idol, called the temple and its deity Pachacamac (literally “Creator of the world”), and, from motives of policy, encouraged pilgrimages to this grandly situated fane, overlooking the ocean. It seems, however, to have lost much of its importance after the Ynca conquest, for when Hernando Pizarro first arrived at it, a considerable portion of the adjoining city was in ruins. Caxamarquilla, the name of another great ruined city near Lima, is a corrupt word, half Quichua half Spanish, meaning “a little ice-house,” from the circumstance that the snow from the Cordilleras, for the use of wealthy citizens at Lima, was deposited there as a resting place on the road. None of these names are those originally used by the Yunca Indians who erected the buildings. Another Quichua word is Chuqui-mancu, a name given by the Yncas to the chief of the Rimac valley, whom they conquered. Chuqui is a lance, and mancuni to hew wood. This latter word may be the derivation of the first part of the name of Manco Ccapac, though it is stated by Garcilasso to have no meaning in Quichua.