Latin American Folktales Read Online Free PDF Page A

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    In 1502 a Maya trading canoe was contacted in the Bay of Honduras during the fourth voyage of Columbus, the same year Montezuma ascended the throne of Mexico. In 1518 the expedition of Juan de Grijalva touched the mainland at Cuetlaxtlan, an outpost of the Aztec empire, and reports of strangers on the coast were carried to the court of Montezuma. Hernán Cortés and his army put ashore in 1519 and began making their way inland, reaching the capital on the morning of November 8, when the famous meeting between Cortés and Montezuma finally took place. Several months later the Spaniards were driven out; they returned and laid siege to the city, conquering it in May of 1521. Afterward, Cortés was rewarded by the Spanish Crown and made Marquis of the Valley of Oaxaca. In native accounts Cortés is spoken of as the “marquis” or sometimes the “captain.”
    As background, it should be mentioned that the Aztecs—that is, the sixteenth-century Nahua—did not consider themselves an ancient people. According to their own traditions, they were latecomers to the Valley of Mexico, replacing the Toltecs, who had ruled from the old capital called Tula, fifty miles to the north. The last or near-to-last king of Tula, the hero-god Quetzalcoatl, was said to have gone away to the eastern coast, where he disappeared over the sea, promising one day to return. Possibly the Spaniards, now appearing on the eastern shore with firearms and various marvelous accoutrements, were returning Toltecs. Thus Montezuma, taking no chances, addressed Cortés as though he were Quetzalcoatl, coming back to reclaim his kingdom—an event made all the more probable in that Quetzalcoatl was supposed to return in a year 1 Reed according to the Aztec calendar, and 1519 was indeed 1 Reed.
    In Peru the events unfolded on a slightly later schedule. In 1514 an epidemic of European origin, possibly typhus, arrived in the Caribbean and began making its way from Panama down the coast toward Inca territory. Huayna Capac, the eleventh Inca (king), died in 1526, and his son Huascar was installed as twelfth Inca in the capital city, Cuzco, in the southern highlands. Atahualpa, another of Huayna Capac’s sons, was deputy ruler in the important regional capital of Quito, a thousand miles to the north. By the time the conqueror Francisco Pizarro and his men reached the highlands, Atahualpa had seized control of the empire and had arranged the murder of Huascar. In 1533 Atahualpa himself was executed by Pizarro’s army at Cajamarca, approximately halfway between Quito and Cuzco, near the old religious center of Huamachuco. With no Inca at the helm the empire fell swiftly under Spanish control.
    Like the Aztecs of Mexico, the Incas were upstarts in the long history of civilization in Peru. They are first noticed in native annals as a small tribe of the early 1200s in the vicinity of Lake Titicaca, where they claimed to have emerged from the underworld through cave openings. From there they made their way to the site of their future capital, Cuzco. Over the generations they added territory until by the 1500s they controlled a vast empire, which they called Tahuantinsuyu, “land of the four quarters,” stretching from Ecuador through Peru and deep into Chile. The names and deeds of their kings were carefully kept by native chroniclers, and even as late as the twentieth century it was the duty of every schoolchild in Peru to memorize at least the bare list. The superior achievement was to rattle it off in a single breath:
    Manco Capac (probably legendary)
    Sinchi Roca (ruled about A.D. 1250)
    Lloque Yupanqui
    Mayta Capac
    Capac Yupanqui
    Inca Roca
    Yahuar Huacac
    Viracocha Inca
    Pachacuti (ruled 1438–71)
    Topa Inca Yupanqui
    Huayna Capac (died 1526)
    Huascar (died 1532)
    Atahualpa (died 1533)
    The eighth king, Viracocha Inca, is not to be confused with the god Viracocha, also called Coniraya or Coniraya Viracocha, often mentioned in Peruvian narratives.