Demographic Catastrophe in 16th century Peru: The Death of Huayna Capac led to a War of Succession, and demographic catastrophe, but the proof that he died of smallpox is weak

1
Demographic Catastrophe in 16th century Peru
The Death of Huayna Capac led to a War of
Succession, and demographic catastrophe, but the
proof that he died of smallpox is weak
2
Why Blame Smallpox? chronology

• Demography Collapse, 1520-1620
• 1520 5-10 million
• 1620 600-750, 000
• Chronology Andes and Peru
• 152? Death of Inca Huayna Capac due to
  smallpox?The only evidence for an epidemic is
  the account of HCs death
• 1531 Pizarro began conquest of Peru
• 1533 Pizarro executed Atahualpa (after paying a
  ransom of 6 tons of gold 13 of silver)
• 1535-48 Wars in Peru
• 1558 first confirmed smallpox epidemic in the
  Andes

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Modern Histories

• The more skeptical histories note that evidence
  is scanty and contradictory
• Polo (1913)
• Lastres (1951, 1954, 1957) inclined toward
  smallpox
• Hemming (1970), Assadourian (1987/94), Guerra
  (1999)
• The Virgin Soil School explains away
  contradictions and writes as though a virgin soil
  epidemic engulfed the Andean peoples before 1531
• Dobyns (1963), Crosby (1972), McNeill (1976),
  Diamond (1993), Cook (1998), Alchon (2003)
• The hypothesis that smallpox leapt ahead of
  Spanish conquest the case of Peru
• Assadourians well-documented counter-argument
  (1987/94) is ignored
• Meta-narratives blame smallpox, without
  equivocation
• McNeill (1976) Plagues and Peoples
• Diamond (1997) Guns, Germs and Steel
• Oldstone (1998) Viruses, Plagues and History
• Tucker (2001) Scourge The Once and Future Threat
  of Smallpox

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Earliest chronicles (1533-57)
Table 1. 19 Early Primary Sources Describing the Death of the Inca Huayna Capac and the Origin and Year of the Illness by Author and Year Text was Completed Table 1. 19 Early Primary Sources Describing the Death of the Inca Huayna Capac and the Origin and Year of the Illness by Author and Year Text was Completed Table 1. 19 Early Primary Sources Describing the Death of the Inca Huayna Capac and the Origin and Year of the Illness by Author and Year Text was Completed Table 1. 19 Early Primary Sources Describing the Death of the Inca Huayna Capac and the Origin and Year of the Illness by Author and Year Text was Completed Table 1. 19 Early Primary Sources Describing the Death of the Inca Huayna Capac and the Origin and Year of the Illness by Author and Year Text was Completed
Year Author Death of Inca Huayna Capac Death of Inca Huayna Capac Death of Inca Huayna Capac
Year Author Year Description (with page number)
1533 Francisco de Xerez 1524 115 Atahualpa, attributes death to aquella enfermedad
c.1539 The anonymous soldier(Miguel de Estete or Cristobal de Mena) 138 y Guaynacapa se fué en jornada a Popayán, y de vuelta que volvió murió en Quito.
1543 Pedro Sancho de la Hoz Mummy mentioned, but not cause of death.
1544 Cristóbal Vaca de Castro 22 se estaba muriendo de la pestilencia de las viruelas
1550 Pedro de Cieza de León 1527-28 200 cuentan que vino una gran pestilencia de viruelas tan contajiosa que murieron más de dozientas mill ánimas
1557 Juan de Betanzos(published 1987) 1526-28 201 An illness that took away his reason and understanding and gave him sarna y lepra.
/ / / /

• The historical canon blames smallpox for
• killing Huayna Capac and
• destroying much of the population of Tawantinsuyu
  before Pizarro
• Evidence is based on a few, selected chronicles
  and refers solely to the episode of Huayna Capac
  (Table 1)
• Recent histories (Table 2) do not take into
  account
• a broad range of evidence (or lack thereof)
• linguistic (Tables 3 and 4)
• narrative (lack of descriptions of pockmarked
  survivors)
• archaeological
• nor new epidemiological findings on smallpox
• Low communicability of the disease
• Significance of pockmarked survivors to determine
  presence of the disease
• Finally, there is the mummy
• descriptions, depictions, and, perhaps, de remains

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Discussion of chronicles

• The death of Huayna Capac was central to the
  Christian conquest, because Pizarro took
  advantage of the war of succession between
  Atahualpa and Huascar to defeat the divided
  empire.
• Table 1 summarizes key texts of 19 chronicles
• 3 accounts based on best native testimony do not
  indicate smallpox
• Francisco de Xerez (1533) that illness
• Juan de Betanzos (1557) una sarna y una lepra
• Garcilaso de la Vega (1613) an illness of
  fevers
• Accounts are contradictory
• Of 19 most frequently cited/important chronicles,
  6 state solely smallpox
• 13 others, various causes perlesia,
  pestilencia/lepra incurable, mortales calenturas,
  epidemia de romadizo, sarampion, melancolia,
  bubas
• Cieza de Leon (1550) conditions the smallpox
  story with cuentan que
• Martin de Murua (1590) unos dicende calenturas,
  y otros dicende viruelas
• Garcilaso discounts smallpox aunque otros
  dicen de virguelas y sarampion

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New Evidenceand lack thereof

• Linguistic evidence from early Quechua
  dictionaries (Table 3)
• Santo Domingo (1560)compiled in 1540s, no
  Quechua term for smallpox
• Ricardo (1586) muru oncoy, Quechua term for
  smallpox, also for measles (Ricardo was the
  publisher author Padre Alonso de Barzana)
• Gonzalez Holguin (1608)distinguished smallpox
  (huchuy muru vncuy) from measles (hatun muru
  vncuy) and recorded 3 literal descriptors
• Analysis by historians
• Lastres (1954) lack of smallpox term in Santo
  Domingo dictionary proved the disease did not
  exist in Peru before 1492 (to counter contrary
  thesis by a contemporary)
• Might the lack of a term also signal the absence
  of smallpox before 1557?
• Cook (1998) uses Ricardo dictionary to interpret
  Betanzos sarna y lepra (77 symptoms of
  severe skin rash and inflammations)
• The terms may also refer to any of a number of
  other diseases.

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New Evidenceand lack thereofIndeed there is no
term for smallpox in Santo Tomas vs. later
dictionaries (Table 3abridged)
Table 3. Quechua Terms Related to Illness in Three Early Dictionaries Table 3. Quechua Terms Related to Illness in Three Early Dictionaries Table 3. Quechua Terms Related to Illness in Three Early Dictionaries Table 3. Quechua Terms Related to Illness in Three Early Dictionaries
Spanish Santo Tomas (1560) Ricardo (1586) Gonzalez Holguín (1608)
Berruga (peca de la cara) Moro, ticti Ticti Ticti hacerse verruga - tictiyan
Bubas . Huanti, huantictam onconi Tener Huantictam vnconi huanti vncoytam
Enfermedad de mancha . Muru onccoy
Lepra Caracha Caracha llecte Lluttasca llekte o lluttascca ccaracha
Mal de viruelas o sarampion Muru vncoy
Mancha redondeada Muru Cundir la mancha visuin Mapam mmizmirin mirarccun
Peca de la cara Moro Mirca Mirca
Pegar (enfermedad) . . Vnccoytam rantiycupuni
Pestilencia . Pahuac oncoy P. mal pegajoso ppahuak vncoy o rantiy rantiy, o ranticuk vnccoy
Sarampion . Muru oncoy Hatun muru vncuy
Viruelas . Muru oncoy Huchuy muru vncuy
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New insights from the WHOs global campaign to
eradicate smallpox
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Descriptions and depictions of pockmarked
individuals

• Será hombre hasta cuarenta años, de mediana
  estatura, moreno y con unas pecas de viruelas en
  la caradescription of Inca Titu Cusi
  Yupanquiby Oidor Lic. Don Juan de Matienzo
  (1565)

• Tawantinsuyu, before 1558 no descriptions of
  any pock-marked survivors in the Andes
• Tenochtitlan, 1520 No Spaniard witnessed the
  epidemic, yet decades later they were still
  writing about pockmarked survivors

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Tenochtitlan this illustration depicting
pockmarked individuals from 1520 epidemic is
widely reproduced
Less well known are texts on the epidemic written
decades afterward that continued to remark on
ugly, pockmarked faces

• Motolinía writing in the 1530s noted
• hoy día en algunos que de aquella enfermedad
  escaparon, parece bien la fortaleza de la
  enfermedad, que todo el rostro les quedo lleno de
  hoyos
• López de Gomara completed History of the
  Conquests of Cortes in 1552. He too remarked on
  pockmarked faces
• los que quedaban vivos quedaron de tal suerte
  feos por haberse rascado, que espantaban á los
  otros con los muchos y grandes hoyos que se les
  hicieron en las caras, manos y cuerpo.

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Insights from Global Eradication of Smallpox
pockmarks

• Descriptions of pockmarked survivors is an
  effective means of establishing the presence or
  absence of smallpox
• Used by WHO to authenticate the eradication of
  smallpox in areas with poor record keeping
• Historians have also used such evidence to date
  the occurrence of epidemics (e.g., Fenn, Pox
  Americana)
• Until there is evidence of pockmarked individuals
  in the Andes should we not discount the presence
  of smallpox prior to 1558?

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Insights from Global Eradication of Smallpox
low communicability

• Smallpox was eradicated precisely because of its
  fairly low communicability
• Historians have greatly exaggerated the
  communicability of smallpox
• Scabs readily lose their potency in high heat,
  humidity or sunlight
• As a bioterror weapon least suitable because
  it is not readily transmitted from one person to
  another (Behbehani 1988183)
• Wholly improbable that smallpox leaped ahead of
  Europeans through the Darien or Amazon Basin
• Difficulties of travel by land, sea or streams
• Little evidence of trans-isthmian contact even
  over the millennia
• Native settlements in the region were
  linguistic islands
• According to the WHO, corpses were heavily
  contaminated and posed a serious occupational
  hazard
• Preparation of the mummy of Ramses V (1157 BC)
  interrupted due to the death of his embalmers?
• Huayna Capacs mummy was prepared without notable
  incident
• Atahualpa kept a bit of flesh as a talisman, yet
  suffered no harm
• The mummy was worshipped on the road to Cuzco and
  remained on display for yearsno one ever
  remarked that people died from viewing it

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Tawantinsuyu the best known drawing of Huayna
Capacs mummy does not depict pockmarks (Guaman
Poma)
Why did no Andean cronista remark on what would
have been an agreeable anecdote?

• Eye-witness descriptions of Huayna Capacs mummy,
  but neither mentions pockmarks
• Sancho de la Hoz (1543) referred to the mummy of
  Huayna Capac as being intact, envuelta en
  suntuosas ropas y que le faltaba nada más que la
  punta de la nariz...
• Garcilaso de la Vega (1613) Acuérdome que
  llegué a tocar un dedo de la mano de Huayna
  Capac parecía que era de una estatua de palo,
  según estaba duro y fuerte (vol 1274).

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No pockmarked mummies have been found anywhere in
Peru.As more remains are studied

• Will it be possible to identify Huayna Capac?
• Will there be sufficient tissue to identify
  smallpox?
• Will any mummies be found with pockmarks?
• Will a DNA test be developed to ascertain
  smallpox even where no tissue samples have
  survived?

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1536 Manco Inca revolt1538 The Pizarros
executed Diego de Almagro1541 Almagristas
killed Fco. Pizarro1546 Gonzalo Pizarro
revolted, killing the viceroy1548 Gonzalo
executed Royal rule restored
Wars in Peru
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Reflections Why Blame Smallpox?

• Too many
• Contradictions and contingencies in the
  chronicles
• Silences in the historical record
• No mentions of pockmarked survivors
• No mention of smallpox in the earliest dictionary
• Improbables
• That the disease would leap ahead of the
  Spaniardsthrough one of the most impenetrable
  regions on the planet
• That Huayna Capac would die, but not his
  embalmers or his son Atahualpa who kept some of
  his fathers flesh

• There is a convincing, alternative explanation
  for the destruction of Tawantinsuyu
• decades of war, famine, wanton rapine
  (Assadourian)
• The issue is the demographic catastrophe, not
  Huayna Capac
• Until there is more persuasive evidence (texts or
  remains)
• the smallpox/virgin soil hypothesis should be
  discounted for the Andean regionbefore 1558
  and other regions as wellsuch as Alta California