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Gregory Deyermenjian, Director, New England Chapter of The Explorers
Club . The Eyebrow of the Jungle
Since 1984 my Peruvian, highland campesino, and Machiguenga Indian
companions and I have been exploring unknown areas of mountain and jungle
in southeast Peru, in our quest to determine the existence, form, and location
of Paititi.
With the word Paititi one may refer to many things. The late
Cusqueño anthropologist Oscar Núñez del Prado collected
the tale of the culture-hero, Inkarí, who retired to the selva of
Pantiacolla, after having founded both the extant "Inkan" village of Q´ero,
and their capital city of Cusco, to live out his days at his oasis of
Paititi.
 To the
Incas, the land of Paititi was associated with the hacha hacha, the exotic
yet terrible jungle, perhaps as far away as the Río Tambopata and
the plains of the Mojos in Bolivia. The mysterious jungles of Cosñipata,
to the northeast of Cusco, were the target of great military campaigns by
the Inca Pachakuti Yupanki, and his son Topa Yupanki, and Incan roads were
built heading north along the ridge of the Paucartambo range overlooking
the selva to the east, and from Pisac to Paucartambo and then over the puna,
the highland tundra, and down into the lowlands of Pilcopata. This was the
Antisuyo, the forested eastern quarter of the Incan world, the concept of
which was just as important to the Incan psyche as its jungle products were
to Incan sumptiousness.
Fig.1: Inca Chaca, which means “Incan Bridge,”
a portion of the Incan trail that traverses the crests and ridges of the
Cordillera de Paucartambo (photo: G. Deyermenjian).
To Spanish Conquistadores such as Gómez de Tordoya and Juan
Alvarez Maldonado, Paititi was that rich land beyond the Río Madre
de Dios, which lured most of those they led to their deaths, as it did, later,
to men of the Republican period such as Colonels Faustino Maldonado, who
drowned in the rapids of Bolivia´s Río Beni in 1861, and Baltasar
la Torre--the Prefect of Cusco, no less--who was skewered by dozens of Sirineri
Indians´ arrows on "The Island of Death" in the upper Madre de Dios
in 1873.
To followers of the great 18th Century insurrectionists Juan Santos
Atahualpa and Tupac Amaru the Second, Paititi was the mysterious realm to
the east of the Andes over which these leaders ruled and into which they
would retire to escape death. And to Peruvian and gringo adventurers--as
well as to the many Inca aficionados who see Pizarro's entry into Cusco in
1533 as that of a feared and despised conquering force, Paititi means another
Machu Picchu, waiting to be found in some hidden corner of mountain or jungle:
a ruined refuge city to which the Incans fled in the wake of the Spanish
invasion, and a site which contained, most importantly, that which was most
conspicuously lacking at Machu Picchu--gold and treasure.
As Cusco's contemporary historian Victor Angles Vargas has emphasized
in his 1992 El Paititi No Existe, the Incas of Cusco in 1533 did not view
Pizarro's entourage as one to be feared as enslavers, but, rather, as liberators
who had just killed the Cusco faction's most feared enemy, the Inca Atahualpa,
leader of the Incas of what is now Ecuador, who had just vanquished the
Cusqueño armies in a civil war of extreme cruelty. The Incas would
thus have had no reason to flee en masse from Cusco, and, as well, it would
not have been in their mindset to hide gold and treasure, which for them
had a spiritual and ritual and artistic--but not a financial--
significance.
Thus, the historian posits, there is not a lost site yet to be found,
there is no Paititi. But our own investigations into the question of Paititi
have led us out into the actual mist-enshrouded lands beyond the eastern
ridges of the Andes, into the remote and nearly inaccessible selva alta,
the high altitude jungle. There, we have ourselves in fact seen a multitude
of antique remains of a past Incan presence that has been largely undocumented
and ignored by the mapmakers and historians. And so, our quest has been to
uncover and map these lost sites within the jungle, and so to document the
furthest reach of the Incas into the lowlands to the northeast of Cusco.
And, in doing so, we are as well seeking Paititi...
The
quest for this Paititi, for the furthest presence of the Incas into the selva
beyond the ranges, began for me after having visited, in 1981, the site of
Vilcabamba, the redoubt of Manco Inca--who did finally rebel against the
Spaniards after enduring nearly three years of their increasingly harsh rule--at
Espíritu Pampa in the forested plains of La Convención province
to the northwest of Machu Picchu. It was then that I began to hear about
a site which lay hidden somewhere off to the east, where the Andes and the
Amazonian rain forests meet in a riot of hills, ravines, and isolated
peaks, all covered in jungle and crisscrossed by unnavigable boulder-strewn
rivers and streams. And in 1984 I began traveling there, to the north and
northeast of Cusco, first in the company of Cusqueño hunters who had
made forays well past their holdings in Paucartambo, and then with the
Quechua- speaking highland campesinos of Challabamba and Calca that I had
met through them.
Fig.2: Author’s map of exploration region in
Peru (Gregory Deyermenjian).
Some years we´d travel up from Calca, then down to Amparaes,
then cross the ranges to the northeast to attain the ridge of the Cordillera
de Paucartambo . And other years we'd go by way of Paucartambo and Challabamba,
climbing from there directly onto the ridge. North we would go, following
our mules and packhorses along the remnants of that road of stone built by
the expansionist Incas of the 15th Century. We would pass Incan sites such
as that of "Collatambo," shadowed by the peak called "Huascar," then leaving
behind us the last lonely campesino hut. At an altitude of 12,500 feet we'd
examine the petroglyph site called Demarcación." Soon thereafter,
at a spot known as San Martín, the puna dipped into a flea-infested
bog, the edge of which would afford a portal into the jungles. We´d
leave the animals, and over the eastern edge of the Andes we would go, descending
for over three hours through the cloud forest, and then punch through the
layer of cloud that enveloped eastern slopes and the entire western Amazon
basin we were entering. We´d finally reach the bottom, where a little
stream ran through a narrow valley of the selva alta.
There were no trails, and so we would follow the course of the
fast-flowing, boulder strewn rivers, until we came, days later, to an area
known as Mameria. Here, scattered over a broad expanse of rugged hills, lived
a small population of Machiguenga, one of the ethnic groups referred to by
the Incas as "Antis." The women still wore the long cushma and nose ring,
and both sexes the cotton shoulder bag, most likely stemming from long-ago
contact with the Incas. Traveling with the Machis, we found the selva alta,
here at an altitude of 4,000 feet, to be honeycombed with the remains of
ancient Incan habitation in the form of stone walls, terraces, kilns, and
ceramic and metal objects of tumbaga (an alloy of copper and gold), all in
a "rustic" but nonetheless "Imperial Incan" style. (Subsequent carbon-14
analysis of the burnt wood of an apparently contemporaneous hearth gave a
probable mid-1400's C.E. date.) And we found the Machiguenga here to regularly
climb tall coca trees to collect the leaves for chewing, further evidence
of the influence of a past Incan presence.
In later years, after crossing the Río Sarahuatu and following
the Mameria downstream, we found the surrounding hills to be topped with
stone platforms, and we uncovered a large stone structure of two levels.
To the southeast we crossed the Río Niatene with its nearby ruinas
of walls of tightly-fitted stone, and continued on to reach the peak of the
isolated tropical peak, "Apu Catinti," said to have been one of the three
sacred Apus, "Spirit Mountains," to the east of the highlands. From our perch
atop the massif we could see the "Peak of Seven Points," which overlooked
an area inhabited by Kuga Kapori, a tribal group of "rebel Machiguenga" who
spoke a slightly different dialect than our hosts, and who not infrequently
had raided the Machiguenga of Mameria. And we explored to the northwest as
well,
ascending to the headwaters of the Mameria, and from there to the high, windy
grassland of the Plateau of Toporake which marks the northern extreme of
the Paucartambo range. Here Incan trails from the southwest appeared to converge
near a series of l ow-walled rectangular barracks-like structures (fig.3), from which
one lone trail continued on toward the high plain and cloud forest of the
Meseta de Pantiacolla to the north. We returned from Toporake by heading
directly west, and in a dizzy and endless descent toward the valley of the
Río Chunchusmayo, we passed the ruins of "Miraflores," which,
although within the province of Calca, were covered with a jungle vegetation
that reminded us of Mameria.
Fig.3: “Rustic” Incan ruins, structures with niches in the
walls, that had long ago been three sided "Masma" style, in the
selva alta of Mameria (photo: G. Deyermenjian).
The 1990´s began with political problems that precluded our passing
through the highlands, and so we journeyed, in ´91, to the lower altitude
jungles of Manu, going by vehicle past the pre-Incan burial tower chullpas
of Ninamarca, and then from Paucartambo up through puna, then own through
cloud forest, to the lowlands of Pilcopata and Atalaya. We took a motorized
canoe down the Alto Madre de Dios, then up the Palatoa, as far as the water
allowed. There was a native community of Machiguenga, from which we continued
on foot, until reaching the rock face covered with the enigmatic "Petroglyphs
of Pusharo".
By 1993, however, we were able to resume our explorations to the
north. We returned to Toporake and beyond, following that barely perceptible
Incan trail until it disappeared into dense cloud forest within the unknown
Plateau of Pantiacolla. We realized at that moment that the distance from
Cusco to this point in the Pantiacolla was so vast and time-consuming, that
only with a helicopter to whisk us here would my alloted three to three and
a half weeks in the field be enough time to allow us a chance to follow this
trail much further.
Beginning
in 1994, we allied ourselves with Peru's foremost living explorer, Dr. Carlos
Neuenschwander (fig.4), who had been conducting his own investigation into Paititi
and the significance of the Pantiacolla plateau since the 1950's. We were
unable to raise funds sufficient for a helicopter, however, and so in 1994
and ´95 we found ourselves instead following branches of the main trail
that traverses the Paucartambo mountains, down to the jungles of Callanga,
southeast of Mameria, where we investigated potential sites spotted from
the air by Dr. Neuenschwander y ears before; we found the very rough and decayed
remains of an ancient Incan, as well as an apparently pre-Incan, habitation;
and we made a first ascent of another legendary tropical peak, known as Llaqtapata (meaning, in Quechua, "the town above"). On our way back through
the remote and dusty highlands of the Cordillera de Lares/Lacco that overlooks
the Río Paucartambo/Mapacho, we passed through impressive and finely
constructed Incan sites such as Tambocancha and Uncayoc, which must have
at one time guarded these routes between selva and sierra.
Fig.4: Gregory Deyermenjian and Dr. Carlos Nuenschwander,
Peru’s foremost living explorer, at the doctor’s home in
Arequipa.
In 1996, still without helicopter, we again ensconced ourselves
within the steamy lower jungles of Manu, in an area just to the south of
Pusharo, to reach and make the first definitive examination of the "Pyramids
of Paratoari," eight apparently evenly spaced and unnaturally symetrical
hillocks which had caused a flurry of speculation as to their origin and
relation to Paititi since having been spotted on a NASA satellite photograph
twenty years before.
Finally, by 1999, we were in a position to take a helicopter from
Cusco, destination north, to the Plateau of Pantiacolla, thanks to our additional
alliance with German film maker Heinz von Matthey. We left the helicopter
at the furthest point we had reached along that Incan trail that we had seen
leave Toporake in 1989, and that we had followed as far as we could in 1993.
We passed a relatively elaborate Incan retaining wall above the trail, then
descended to the headwaters of the Río Timpía. Over the course
of the next week we saw that the rough and totally overgrown trail continued
ever downward, through the increasingly broken and precipitous territory
of the valley of the Timpía. It was easier to follow the river itself,
with its raging waters and huge slippery boulders and logs, than to try to
directly follow the totally overgrown and uprooted remnant of a trail clinging
to the valley wall a few hundred meters above. But our progress was extremely
slow, nevertheless, because of a seemingly endless series of pongos, dangerous
gorges where the canyon´s rock walls dropped directly down to the deep
and roiling waters of the narrowed river, necessitating our laboriously climbing
up and around using alpinista style ropes. At the end of our endurance, we
documented the rough retaining walls that appeared whenever we ascended the
valley wall and cut away the vegetation, and then began our escape from the
perpetually dark and wet and uninhabitable dungeon, beneath overhanging
vegetation, that was the course of the upper Timpía.
After having climbed now upriver, up and out of the cloud forest,
to emerge back at the high alturas where we had begun, we soon ran into some
wandering vaqueros, cowboys, who had driven the cattle in their care up to
these lonely grasslands for unlimited grazing. From them we learned of an
enchanted lake shaped like a figure "8", astride ancient ruins, in a perpetually
rainy and cold area to the northwest. It was said that Pachamama, the earth
mother, showed her displeasure at anyone entering the area by assailing
interlopers with meteorological difficulties. The tale reminded us of a similar
story told us by a Machiguenga Indian, called "Angel," when we reached the
peak of Apu Catinti thirteen years before. He had said that while escaping
slavery at the hands of settlers who had moved into the Machiguenga territory
along a tributary of the Río Yavero, he and his Machi brethren had
first passed by such a lake, where they saw remains of the Inca and where
they almost died of cold and starvation, on their long migration to Mameria.
So, we set off for the northwest. We soon found ourselves likewise suffering
greatly from cold, with our boots, which were still wet from the ceaseless
wading through the Timpía the week before, now taking us through snow
and hail. But, before long, thanks to the preternatural sense of direction
of my long-term expedition partner, Paulino Mamani, as well as my GPS (Global
positioning System) and an aerial photography generated map which showed
such an unnamed lake in the area we approached, we found it. And here--at
the lake we named "Laguna de Angel," --were a series of low Incan platforms
and retaining walls, which, along with the remnants of Incan trail and retaining
wall closer to the Timpía, constitute the furthest Incan remains yet
found directly north of the Incan capital of Cusco.
What is next in this continuing quest to identify Paititi? This year,
during the dry season (June through September, 2000), will
be the next expedition. We do not anticipate having a helicopter this time,
and so we will not return to the Timpía. We will, however, be reentering
the jungles of Manu, to investigate an area that could be at least as interesting
and potentially important. There is an unnamed mountain range that overlooks
the Río Yungaria, a tributary of the Callanga, in the tangled jungles
between the zone of Mameria to the north and that of Callanga to the south.
I saw the beginnings of this isolated tropical range in 1994, when, from
the confluence of the RíoYungaria and the Río Callanga, where
Paulino and I were searching for some gigantic terraces that Dr. Neuenschwander
had spotted years before from the air, I marveled at how precipitously the
territory behind the Yungaria soared upward and away from the river, beyond
sight. Then in 1995, from a high perch on the eastern edge of the Andes,
as we were ascending from the valley of the headwaters of the Callanga to
the highlands to the west, I caught a glimpse of the mighty peaks of this
strange massif, which seemed to reach to a height quite uncommon for tropical
mountains out beyond the Andes: while the entire range was enveloped in what
appeared to be a thick mantle of green vegetation, the actual peaks were
shrouded in what appeared to be perpetual cloud around the summits. Adjacent
areas, as described in local legend as well as in a current book by another
long-time Paititi seeker, Padre Juan Carlos Polentini, are said to harbor
extensive ancient stone ruins that could be identified as the legendary Paititi.
We aim to reach our mountain range, to climb and traverse its length, and
to explore and to determine what actually--there and in adjacent areas where
we may need to establish friendly relations with nomadic Machiguenga or Kuga
Kapori--is to be found and documented through photograph and
film.
Thus will we be brought ever closer to an answer to the question
of the existence, form, and location of the much sought-after stone city
in the jungle, the fabled Paititi...
Further details on Inca ruin discoveries in the 1999
Paititi/Pantiacolla Expedition.
References:
del Prado, Oscar Núñez Deyermenjian, Gregory 1999. "Discovery of Inca Ruins at the Headwaters of the Rio Timpia." Athena Review Polentin, Padre Juan Carlos
Vargas, Victor Angles 1992. El Paititi No Existe ("Paititi Does Not Exist"). Cuzco
This article appears in Vol.2, No.3 of Athena
Review.
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