If we are to attempt to understand the depiction of llamas or camelids on the Mala stones, we have to know more about how llamas and humans worked together. Fortunately, whilst many of the scenes on the stones may be forever undecipherable, men and llamas work together still every day in the Andes.
I ask a friend who was born in Juliaca, close to the the Alpaca heartlands, and had spent much of her life working with remote communities in the Andes, if people still used llamas as pack animals.
“ Absolutely,” she replied, “because there is no other way to get their products to the market.”
Three llamas, without a handler, on the south end of the Rock of the Llamas. The last llama is partially below ground level, so there could be more llamas and a handler hidden under the gravel.
“So how are they organised?”
“The llama trains consists of 12 llamas. The llamas choose their own leader, and that animal will go at the front. The shepherd follows behind, because the llamas will choose the best path.”
I explained the rock engraving I had seen with three or four llamas, or a man leading a llama with a rope.
Six llamas with a man with a tumi type object,, although absurdly out of scale, on the southernmost rock, the Rock of the Tumis.
“Those are not pack llamas, that is people rearing llamas, not carrying loads,” she said with finality.
In 2004 in a remote mountain site on the Eastern side of the Andes, bordering on the Amazon, archaeologists uncovered a settlement 1500 metres above the river Apurimac and 3100 metres above sea level.
The environment here is so-called Amazonian Quechua or Amazonian Andes, high in the mountains but easterly enough to have heavy rainfall and sweaty temperatures that support Amazonian trees, flowers, birds and mammals.
The upper half of the terraces, showing the fourteen llamas including two young. The upper two llamas of the lower troupe are also visible below. The human figure is at that back, allowing the lead llama to find the best route, as is usual practice for these caravans.
On an elevated spur of a mountain range directly above the Apurimac, an area had been levelled to build a group of ritual buildings, not unlike Machu Picchu. The site is remote. Backpackers reach it by trekking for ten to twelve hours, making it a four or five day round trip. The ruins are on a high saddle of steep hillside, over 3000 metres, below an artificially flattened hilltop of Sancha Pata.
Choquechirao was most probably a public ceremonial centre, with plazas, store rooms, waterchannels, areas dedicated to the sun and other deities, agricultural terraces and housing for administrators and artisans. But the archaeologists clearing a series of agricultural terraces, andenes, discovered something entirely new in Inca construction.
Four of the llamas in the lower caravan, with a stairway leading up the centre of the terraces. It could be the imprecision of modelling in slabs of white stone, but ut is easy to feel that these llamas have individual characters.
The retaining dry stone walls here are mostly made from a dark schist, quarried from rocky outcrops on the nearby hillsides. They also found mixed in with them stones of a lighter sandstone of quartz and carbonate, calcium quartzite, also found locally. And as they cleared these steep terraces a series of llamas were revealed walking up the mountain.
The llamas were simply created in the dry stone walls with blocks of white stone carefully positioned – two legs in profile, a flat back, a neck and a head. In addition they had ears and hooves, and some appeared to be carrying loads, or have a head-dress. Despite the simplicity of the design, the llamas appear as individuals. The position of the hooves gives an impression of movement, and the angle of the ears and the shape of the head offers some character.
An adult llama and its young companion from the upper llama caravan. Some of the llamas on higher terraces are partially visible.
The llamas are mostly represented one per terrace but there are also a group of three and a group of four, and two pairs of animals, each clearly showing an adult with a youngster closely following. The llamas are marching uphill and east, towards the central plaza of the Choquequirao settlement. Standing on the steep terraces it is difficult to see the whole picture – and a picture is what it is – but from mountain slopes close by to the North, you can see two packs of animals, marching in paralllel up the hillside. One pack consists of ten animals, another above it has fourteen, two of them young, and standing below, driving them from behind is a very simple drawn stick-figure man on the walls of the lowest terrace.
It appears that the original settlement was built by the Inca during the rule of Inca Pachacutec from 1438 to 1471 , and then remodelled by Inca Tupac Yupanqui from 1471 to 1493. The terraces of the llama trains appear to have been created with that second phase of development.
For the dominant Inca state, llamas were doubly important. The state system of the Inca involved central planning of the products of the empire, and storage and re-distribution throughout the 2000 km long extent from Ecuador to Chile.
All this manufacturing, storage, and re-distribution was the logistical equivalent of running a chain of supermarkets, and in place of a fleet of lorries the Incas had their own dedicated llama trains and herders, walking the spine of the Andes, along the coastal roads, and up and down the valley tracks that linked them.
Llamas are still widely used in the Cotahuasi canyon in the Arequipa region of Southern Peru, to transport goods. In 2007 researchers joined a llama caravan for 14 days in order to gain insight into historic trade and communications in the Andes, with a particular interest in the obsidian trade in the Wari and Tihuanuco periods.
Nicholas Tripcevich joined a journey with 24 llamas to buy salt from an ancient quarry a day´s journey south, carry it home, and then take it 90 kilometres north to exchange for food to bring back.
This is a trip which people in the community had typically undertaken once a year, though the introduction of road transport to some areas was making the profitability uncertain. The whole trip took two weeks, and involved visiting relatives and renewing family contacts as well as trading goods.
The team used a team of 13 llamas and another of 15 llamas. The caravan travelled 15 to 20 km a day, walking for four or five hours. They carried 25 – 40 kg loads. The llamas do not eat at night, so each day they had to reach a grazing area in the afternoon. Corrals were nearly always available before and after steep sections, when loads needed to be re-fastened.
The relationship between man and llama is more like that with a dog, than with domesticated animals such as sheep. The llamas have individual names, and personalities. Some llamas are chosen to lead the group downhill, and others uphill. Some work best in the middle of the caravan, and others at the front or the rear. The men leading the caravan know these characteristics, these leadership skills,
At a ceremony before the journey began, the handlers talk to the llamas, calling them by name. They feed them chicha beer, and explain carefully, particularly to the leading llamas, the details of the route that would be taken.
One panel at Cochineros may show a caravan of twelve llamas, very hard to distinguish, but more commonly the stones depict three or four stick-drawn llamas, sometimes with a human figure, or four legged full drawn camelids running freely.
If the llamas seen together with human figures are not caravan trails, perhaps they represent llamas for sacrifice. Ceremonies of sacrifice and divination using llamas are described in detail by sources from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
The llama is sacrificed during the festivals of the huacas. They bring out an animal garlanded in flowers, tie him to a great stone, and make it go around five or six times. Then they cut open his left side, take out the heart, and eat it raw by the mouthful. They sprinkle the huaca with the blood and divide the meat amongst the priests. In some places they raise young llamas especially for the huacas.
From Extirpacion de los idolatrios, Pablos Joseph de Arriaga
The Incas established a place to pasture the llamas for sacrifice to Paria Caca, and to Pacha Camac, at Sucya Villca, in the territories of the Huarochiri Manuscript. They also paid, or supplied, thirty priests to attend to Paria Caca, according to the Manuscript. Sucya Villca, which was a lake, is on the hills above St Bartolome (modern Matucana) According to Rostworowski.
“The llamas of Pachacamac sent from the Checa people stayed at Sucya Villca.” The Manuscript tells us.
In one of the closing chapters of the Huarochiri Manuscript, the 30 men who served PariaCaca according to cycles of the full and waning moon sought an augury.
“They sacrificed one of his llamas, a llama named Yauri Huanaca. When…they examined the heart and entrails of the llama, a fellow called Quita Pariasca the Mountain Man spoke up and said “Alas brothers, the world is not good! In coming times our father Paria Caca will be abandoned.”
“No” the others replied, ” you are talking nonsense!”
“Its a good sign!”
“What do you know!”
One of them called out “Hey Quita Pariasca… in these llama innards our father Paria Caca is foretelling something wonderful!” But he had not even approached the llama to inspect the augury. He was watching from afar.
The mountain man rebuked them. “It is Paria Caca himself who says it, brothers.”
They talked in great anger, deriding him with spiteful words.
“What does that smelly mountain man know!”
“Our father Paria Caca has subjects to the limits of the land of Chinchay Suyo. Could such a power ever fall desolate?”
But just a few days after the day when he said these things, they heard someone say “Viracocha [Spaniards] have appeared in Caja Marca.”