WEBVTT 00:02.235 --> 00:06.272 Scattered throughout the deserts of southern Peru 00:06.306 --> 00:11.306 are spectacular remains of ancient civilizations. 00:11.678 --> 00:14.414 From the air you can learn about the Nasca people. 00:14.414 --> 00:17.751 From the cities, about the Spaniards. 00:17.784 --> 00:22.522 On lakeshores, the monument building Incas. 00:22.522 --> 00:26.559 And in between, there are civilizations on the wild side. 00:31.231 --> 00:33.833 Funding for the Desert Speaks was provided by 00:33.867 --> 00:38.038 Desert Program Partners. A group of concerned viewers 00:38.071 --> 00:41.241 making a financial commitment to the education about and 00:41.274 --> 00:44.144 preservation of our desert areas. 00:45.812 --> 00:50.812 ♪ music ♪ 01:16.943 --> 01:19.646 The Incas were best known for construction of magnificent 01:19.646 --> 01:24.317 cities like Cuzco and Machu Picchu. 01:24.350 --> 01:27.587 But their far-flung empire extended to the very limits 01:27.587 --> 01:31.224 of the driest desert in the world. 01:31.224 --> 01:35.495 That's where our journey begins. 01:39.499 --> 01:42.969 My archaeologist friend Axel Nielsen and I won't travel 01:43.002 --> 01:46.239 the 300 miles to the mountain stronghold of Cuzco. 01:46.239 --> 01:48.741 We're more interested in the lesser known region 01:48.775 --> 01:53.613 where the desert meets the sea. 01:53.613 --> 01:56.216 Throughout the region the Incas superimposed their culture 01:56.249 --> 01:58.384 on people and civilizations that had been around for 01:58.418 --> 02:01.087 thousands of years. 02:01.121 --> 02:03.523 They were called the Incas because of their supreme leader 02:03.523 --> 02:06.459 who they thought of as a god. 02:06.493 --> 02:10.130 He was the Inca. 02:10.163 --> 02:12.198 I wouldn't mind having a house here, apart from here. 02:12.232 --> 02:14.234 That's right. 02:14.267 --> 02:16.603 We are in Puerta Inca, a vacation resort in the 02:16.636 --> 02:19.038 southern coast of Peru. 02:19.072 --> 02:22.375 Tradition has it that 500 years ago it used to be also 02:22.408 --> 02:24.911 a resort for the Inca, who'd come here to spend time near 02:24.911 --> 02:28.148 the sea with his court. 02:28.181 --> 02:31.184 Archaeological research has established that one of the 02:31.184 --> 02:34.020 functions of this settlement was to capitalize the Inca 02:34.053 --> 02:38.625 trade along the coast of the empire and from here up across 02:38.658 --> 02:42.028 the Andes all the way to Cuzco, the capital of the empire. 02:42.061 --> 02:45.498 The overland trip, which was done along the Inca road, 02:45.532 --> 02:47.834 would have taken between three and four days 02:47.834 --> 02:49.969 under normal conditions. 02:50.003 --> 02:52.472 My gosh, Axel, look at the cloth. 02:52.472 --> 02:54.240 That's gotta be old Inca cloth. 02:54.274 --> 02:55.742 Yeah, that's right. 02:55.742 --> 02:57.343 It's both cotton and wool. 02:57.377 --> 02:58.344 Oh, my. 02:58.378 --> 02:59.546 Oh, good heavens. 02:59.579 --> 03:00.880 Look inside. 03:00.914 --> 03:01.781 The looters have been here. 03:01.814 --> 03:03.049 Yeah. 03:03.082 --> 03:05.618 Look at the amount of bones. 03:05.652 --> 03:07.453 So with all those bones, does that mean this was 03:07.487 --> 03:08.988 just a funerary chamber? 03:09.022 --> 03:10.056 Yeah. 03:10.089 --> 03:11.991 This is a tomb. 03:12.025 --> 03:14.594 One of the distinctive things of this period is that 03:14.594 --> 03:17.597 some of the tombs resemble houses implying that these are 03:17.597 --> 03:19.732 the houses of the dead. 03:19.766 --> 03:22.435 These are vertebrae from llamas. 03:22.468 --> 03:24.437 So they would have been buried as an offering 03:24.470 --> 03:26.039 along with the. 03:26.072 --> 03:27.807 Yeah. That's fairly common. 03:27.840 --> 03:29.809 .from a dead person. 03:29.842 --> 03:32.278 It's very interesting because this could be some of the 03:32.312 --> 03:34.714 llamas that came in the ancient caravans from Cuzco to get the 03:34.714 --> 03:38.284 goodies from the sea that it would carry back to the Inca. 03:38.318 --> 03:40.653 You can tell this was a collective burial because 03:40.687 --> 03:43.856 several of the bones are repeated. 03:43.890 --> 03:46.326 For instance, you have two tibias here of different, 03:46.359 --> 03:48.061 very different size so you can tell they belonged to 03:48.094 --> 03:49.963 different individuals. 03:49.996 --> 03:52.899 And you have a third and a fourth tibia. 03:52.899 --> 03:54.701 In fact, that one is not even fused so it probably belonged 03:54.734 --> 03:56.936 to a young person. 03:56.970 --> 04:01.674 You also have several fragments of skull and two pelvis here. 04:01.708 --> 04:06.546 One of the things that struck the Spaniards 04:06.546 --> 04:08.982 when they got to Cuzco was that the Inca was 04:09.015 --> 04:12.952 able to have fresh fish for his meals. 04:12.986 --> 04:15.421 And Puerta Inca was probably one of the places 04:15.455 --> 04:18.524 from where he got this fresh fish. 04:18.558 --> 04:21.628 It would have taken about 30 to 35 hours taking relays 04:21.661 --> 04:25.832 from Puerta Inca all the way to Cuzco. 04:25.832 --> 04:27.700 But the Inca was so powerful that he was able 04:27.734 --> 04:32.734 to manage all these powers. 04:32.839 --> 04:37.839 From the point of view of archaeology, one of the beauties 04:39.779 --> 04:43.483 of the desert is that it preserves organic matter in an 04:43.516 --> 04:47.053 excellent way like nowhere else in the world. 04:47.053 --> 04:50.490 This is such that you can still see on the surface of 04:50.523 --> 04:53.059 this settlement bones and textiles and all kinds of 04:53.059 --> 04:55.094 organic remains that would have never preserved 04:55.128 --> 04:58.131 in other environments. 04:58.164 --> 05:01.668 You can tell that this was a place of trade because some 05:01.701 --> 05:04.337 of the textiles that are found in this tomb are cotton, 05:04.337 --> 05:09.337 like these ones, whereas these are made of wool that had 05:09.976 --> 05:13.746 to come from the highlands. 05:13.780 --> 05:15.982 This site has a lot of buildings, 05:15.982 --> 05:18.351 it feeds a lot of people. 05:18.351 --> 05:19.886 Yeah, it's very big. 05:19.886 --> 05:21.621 How many people do you think 05:21.621 --> 05:23.523 might have lived here at the maximum? 05:23.556 --> 05:25.758 Well, it's hard to tell but I would guess between 05:25.792 --> 05:28.928 200 and 300 people perhaps. 05:28.961 --> 05:31.464 They had to bring everything in except the seafood, right? 05:31.464 --> 05:32.999 Exactly. 05:32.999 --> 05:35.034 Well, this was a port of trade. 05:35.068 --> 05:37.737 So probably they would have had a lot of caravans 05:37.737 --> 05:39.539 coming down from the highlands carrying all kinds 05:39.572 --> 05:42.975 of agricultural products. 05:45.011 --> 05:47.146 In expanding their empire, they discovered evidence of 05:47.180 --> 05:49.649 remnants of even older civilizations. 05:49.649 --> 05:51.918 Most notable were the Nasca people who lived 05:51.918 --> 05:55.088 between Cuzco and the coast. 05:55.121 --> 05:57.457 These desert farmers carved out enigmatic figures, 05:57.490 --> 05:59.792 geometrically concise shapes that can only be 05:59.826 --> 06:04.826 appreciated from the air. 06:12.638 --> 06:16.876 The most amazing remains we can find today of the 06:16.876 --> 06:21.447 Nasca people are the giant drawings or geoglyphs which 06:21.481 --> 06:25.251 this really means drawings on the earth that they left on 06:25.284 --> 06:29.756 these huge flats here between the mountains and the sea. 06:29.789 --> 06:34.789 There are two kinds of drawings, geometrical figures 06:36.295 --> 06:39.966 which include trapezoids and triangles or simple lines 06:39.966 --> 06:42.769 that in some cases go for ten kilometers long in a 06:42.802 --> 06:46.439 perfect straight line. 06:46.439 --> 06:48.875 The other kinds of figures they drew were animals, 06:48.908 --> 06:52.311 representations of animals and some plants. 06:52.345 --> 06:54.981 And this is very interesting because the animals 06:54.981 --> 06:59.619 they picked to draw on these surfaces belonged some of them 06:59.652 --> 07:04.123 to the jungle, this is 400 miles on the other side of the Andes, 07:04.157 --> 07:08.060 like the monkey, or the parrot for instance, and some other 07:08.094 --> 07:10.897 animals belonged to the sea, to the seacoast or 07:10.930 --> 07:15.930 marine animals like the pelican, the heron or a fish, a whale. 07:19.338 --> 07:24.338 The Nasca people were real desert people because it 07:27.280 --> 07:31.884 almost never rains in this area. 07:31.918 --> 07:35.488 So how did they get the water to survive to farm their land. 07:35.488 --> 07:37.957 In that sense they depended from the rains 07:37.957 --> 07:40.993 that fall on the Andean mountains. 07:41.027 --> 07:45.698 So, which only fall between November and March. 07:45.731 --> 07:49.469 This means that for them predicting the moving of the 07:49.502 --> 07:52.104 seasons and the moon or the sun was a very important way of 07:52.138 --> 07:57.138 monitoring the development of their production systems. 07:58.044 --> 08:02.381 Throughout the Nasca plains you can see remains of the 08:02.415 --> 08:06.986 settlements of the Nasca people. 08:06.986 --> 08:11.090 They tend to live dispersed and you can understand that when you 08:11.123 --> 08:13.726 see, I mean the little water you have anywhere and therefore 08:13.759 --> 08:17.430 the little farm that you could work in any given place. 08:17.430 --> 08:19.832 So people were dispersed trying to take advantage of 08:19.866 --> 08:23.302 these little pockets of land and water resources. 08:23.336 --> 08:26.939 But they had a great capital which was not a city or town 08:26.973 --> 08:30.676 in the sense we would think about it today. 08:30.710 --> 08:33.679 It was more a ceremonial center where all these dispersed 08:33.713 --> 08:37.116 people will come together at certain times of the year to 08:37.149 --> 08:42.149 celebrate some of their rituals and weather related ceremonies. 08:44.090 --> 08:46.826 Yeah, probably they didn't need them from a practical point 08:46.826 --> 08:49.529 of view but if you think about the way these cultures looked 08:49.562 --> 08:53.032 at the world, perhaps by performing the rituals that 08:53.032 --> 08:57.370 were involved in marking the lines, making the geoglyphs 08:57.403 --> 09:01.340 or even using them as pathways in special ceremonies, perhaps 09:01.374 --> 09:04.911 they thought they were making the sun to move. 09:04.944 --> 09:06.279 Oh, sure, they're manipulative rather than commemorative. 09:06.312 --> 09:07.880 Exactly. 09:07.914 --> 09:12.914 You can think of them as like propitiatory magic. 09:13.219 --> 09:15.821 Some wild theories have been proposed about how these 09:15.855 --> 09:18.457 geoglyphs were drawn because people have been puzzled by 09:18.491 --> 09:21.627 how people could draw on the ground these figures that they 09:21.661 --> 09:23.329 could not see from the ground but only could be seen 09:23.329 --> 09:25.665 from the air. 09:25.698 --> 09:27.833 Some people have thought that they used hot air balloons 09:27.867 --> 09:30.002 for instance. 09:30.036 --> 09:32.204 Can you imagine a cotton textile like flying in the sky. 09:32.238 --> 09:34.440 That's hard to imagine, really. 09:34.473 --> 09:36.375 Other peoples have thought about UFOs sort of directing this 09:36.409 --> 09:39.512 drawing operation. 09:39.512 --> 09:42.114 Probably the explanation is quite simple. 09:42.148 --> 09:44.884 If you have a scale model of the drawing you want to make 09:44.884 --> 09:49.822 and you use a string to measure some of the dimensions of this 09:49.855 --> 09:53.059 scale drawing, then you can multiply the strings as many 09:53.092 --> 09:55.928 times as you want and then use the strings as compasses on the 09:55.962 --> 10:00.166 ground to make points on the ground, etc. 10:00.166 --> 10:03.035 When surveying the geoglyphs, archaeologists have been able 10:03.069 --> 10:07.106 to find the pivot points of these circles marked by rock 10:07.106 --> 10:09.241 herons or rock that stand out of the landscape 10:09.275 --> 10:11.177 because of the color. 10:11.177 --> 10:13.446 So I think there is a good case for this simple 10:13.479 --> 10:16.782 method of drawing the geoglyphs. 10:16.816 --> 10:19.051 When you look at their handiwork, when you look at the 10:19.085 --> 10:21.821 engineering abilities they had to build all these tunnels for 10:21.854 --> 10:24.624 irrigation, when you look at the geoglyphs they were able 10:24.657 --> 10:26.993 to build, then you must conclude that these Nasca people were in 10:27.026 --> 10:31.030 a very high stage of civilization. 10:33.933 --> 10:35.668 There's a great deal of mystery about the Nasca lines 10:35.668 --> 10:36.869 and figures but it's not much of a mystery 10:36.902 --> 10:39.605 as to why they stand out. 10:39.639 --> 10:41.774 This is just a typical dry desert pavement. 10:41.774 --> 10:45.311 It looks black and gray. 10:45.311 --> 10:48.481 But if we remove the rocks, we can see that underneath 10:48.514 --> 10:52.251 it's a light silty color. 10:52.284 --> 10:55.054 The silt has been blown in, perhaps it's volcanic ash, 10:55.054 --> 10:57.690 over the ashes. 10:57.690 --> 11:00.359 If we take an area that looks undisturbed and simply rub it, 11:00.393 --> 11:03.095 all of a sudden it changes color and this color will remain 11:03.129 --> 11:08.129 for eons because nothing will come in to cover it up. 11:21.180 --> 11:23.549 One of the most important problems that ancient Nasca 11:23.582 --> 11:26.185 farmers had to solve in the desert was how to take 11:26.185 --> 11:30.389 advantage of the subterranean water that ran here in the 11:30.423 --> 11:32.658 middle of the pampa, of the plain. 11:32.692 --> 11:34.193 Well, the ground water was real high 11:34.193 --> 11:35.094 but it's not at the surface. 11:35.094 --> 11:36.762 Exactly. 11:36.796 --> 11:39.331 So they couldn't, how to take all this water and use 11:39.365 --> 11:41.500 them to irrigate their fields, it's because all the rivers 11:41.534 --> 11:43.669 that come from the cordillera, filter down. 11:43.703 --> 11:45.604 Oh, so there was nothing at the surface. 11:45.638 --> 11:46.972 They had to tap the groundwater. 11:47.006 --> 11:48.841 Exactly. 11:48.841 --> 11:51.210 And their solution was to dig these tunnels from the 11:51.210 --> 11:54.013 subterranean water all the way down there to the 11:54.013 --> 11:57.616 farmland, which is on edge of this huge alluvial fan, you see? 11:57.650 --> 12:00.686 So. Okay. But water flows downhill. 12:00.720 --> 12:02.488 Exactly. 12:02.488 --> 12:03.422 That's one thing I learned. 12:03.456 --> 12:05.057 Exactly. 12:05.091 --> 12:07.126 So these tunnels go downhill until they surface 12:07.126 --> 12:09.695 on the farmland over there. 12:09.729 --> 12:12.631 So they build these huge shafts just as check points 12:12.665 --> 12:15.201 so they could repair the canal in cases of collapse or 12:15.234 --> 12:18.637 sediment that could clog the tunnel. 12:18.671 --> 12:22.475 Oh, they're ingenious because one person can do this. 12:22.508 --> 12:24.877 You don't have to have any kind of a hoist, there's no, 12:24.877 --> 12:27.113 you don't have to bring a bucket down. 12:27.146 --> 12:31.150 One person could go down here and get access to the canal, 12:31.150 --> 12:33.252 crawl through and clean out any rocks that have fallen. 12:33.252 --> 12:38.252 The water is clear as a bell. 12:39.425 --> 12:42.261 The canals are functioning as they were, what, 1200 years ago? 12:42.261 --> 12:45.598 They built about 60 tunnels because they had to tap at 12:45.631 --> 12:48.934 different levels in these subterranean waters and lead 12:48.968 --> 12:51.937 it to the different levels of the farmland. 12:51.971 --> 12:54.373 In each level they had to have sort of feeder tunnels 12:54.406 --> 12:57.343 go off to the various fields off the main channel. 12:57.343 --> 12:59.645 Exactly, following the topography down until near 12:59.678 --> 13:03.082 Cahuachi, the Nasca capital is where these 13:03.082 --> 13:06.051 subterranean waters surface again. 13:11.190 --> 13:13.793 As we drive higher, it's still desert but much colder. 13:13.826 --> 13:18.826 We begin to look for the camel cousins that need cold, vicuñas. 13:22.101 --> 13:26.205 Yeah, this seems to be a family herd. 13:26.205 --> 13:28.808 You know, they have two kinds of herds; the males 13:28.841 --> 13:31.811 on one side and then family herds with only one male. 13:31.844 --> 13:34.280 It seems to be one of those. 13:34.313 --> 13:37.149 What do you suppose they weigh? 13:37.183 --> 13:40.252 Maybe, maybe the big males maybe a hundred and fifty pounds? 13:40.286 --> 13:44.623 Yeah, just about. 13:44.657 --> 13:47.693 Their wool was so valuable that they were almost extinct 13:47.726 --> 13:50.229 30 years ago. 13:50.229 --> 13:52.865 Now they've come back. 13:52.865 --> 13:54.166 It's a breathtaking experience to see them 13:54.200 --> 13:57.436 actually in the wild. 13:57.469 --> 13:59.805 Yeah, you know, there are so many now that people are 13:59.839 --> 14:03.609 beginning to think about shearing them again like the 14:03.609 --> 14:05.711 Incas used to do in the old times. 14:05.744 --> 14:10.744 Where do the llamas come from? 14:18.090 --> 14:21.393 Are they descended from vicuñas or guanacos? 14:21.427 --> 14:23.529 Well, the llama would be the domestic version of the 14:23.529 --> 14:25.831 guanaco and for most people the alpaca would be the 14:25.865 --> 14:29.835 domesticated vicuña. 14:29.869 --> 14:32.738 These would be the four South American camels and as you well 14:32.771 --> 14:37.610 know they are close relatives to the old world camel. 14:37.643 --> 14:40.679 Which I believe originally came from. North America. 14:40.713 --> 14:42.915 Yeah, from North America. 14:42.915 --> 14:45.618 Yeah, both South American camels and the old world camel 14:45.651 --> 14:47.653 have an ancestor like sixteen million years ago 14:47.653 --> 14:51.490 I think in North America. 14:53.359 --> 14:56.262 You know, when they stand up, you can see, and the way 14:56.295 --> 15:01.166 they walk, and by their silly grin, you can tell they're 15:01.200 --> 15:04.637 related to camels. 15:04.670 --> 15:06.839 Well, the face certainly looks like a camel. 15:06.839 --> 15:09.208 Boy, I'll say. 15:15.014 --> 15:18.951 The first big city we encounter in the highlands is Arequipa. 15:18.951 --> 15:22.054 It was an outlying settlement of the Incas 15:22.054 --> 15:27.054 and became a capital of the southern Spanish empire. 15:27.192 --> 15:30.129 A lot of people from Spanish origin like to live in Arequipa. 15:30.162 --> 15:33.065 It's a very important cultural place in Peru, 15:33.065 --> 15:35.434 ...has several universities. 15:35.434 --> 15:39.538 But if you go in the shops and the outskirts it's 15:39.571 --> 15:42.107 very heavily Indian or indigenous. 15:42.141 --> 15:43.842 It's a strange contrast between the two. 15:43.876 --> 15:45.544 Yeah. 15:45.577 --> 15:47.746 In fact there is a very sharp contrast between the city 15:47.780 --> 15:49.915 and the countryside around it. 15:49.949 --> 15:52.351 I don't want you to get run over here by these ticos. 15:52.351 --> 15:54.687 These ticos, these little taxis, there's thousands of them, 15:54.720 --> 15:58.023 and if we go faster we get smashed. 15:58.057 --> 16:03.057 As a testimony to these early Spanish colonials settled 16:03.095 --> 16:06.265 in this area, we find a lot of old very beautiful colonial 16:06.265 --> 16:09.969 architecture in Arequipa. 16:10.002 --> 16:14.239 And the people here who mostly speak Spanish in this case, 16:14.273 --> 16:18.344 Quechua is spoken mostly in the countryside, the people here 16:18.377 --> 16:22.748 feel very close ties to the Spanish heritage. 16:22.748 --> 16:27.748 According to the laws of the Indies, all the Spanish 16:35.561 --> 16:39.365 foundations in America had to follow a certain pattern that 16:39.398 --> 16:42.701 was sort of designed around a central plaza in front of which 16:42.735 --> 16:46.772 they had to have the church, the city administration, 16:46.772 --> 16:50.009 this is the cabildo, and other public buildings. 16:50.042 --> 16:52.444 And so the rest of the checkerboard layout of the city 16:52.478 --> 16:55.581 would just follow from that. 16:55.581 --> 16:58.784 In those times, the plazas were dry plazas. 16:58.784 --> 17:01.453 They were conceived as meeting places for the people 17:01.487 --> 17:03.555 that lived in the city. 17:03.589 --> 17:06.191 It's only in the late 19th century and early 20th century 17:06.225 --> 17:09.528 that they began to put trees and plants and gardens in plazas 17:09.528 --> 17:12.931 and fill them with benches and monuments. 17:12.965 --> 17:16.735 So they turned from being a place for meeting the society, 17:16.769 --> 17:18.871 assembling the society for important decision, 17:18.904 --> 17:23.904 they became a place of recreation. 17:24.076 --> 17:26.979 Tradition has it that when the armies of the Inca arrived 17:26.979 --> 17:30.349 to the Valley of Arequipa on their way to conquest the coast, 17:30.349 --> 17:33.552 the southern coast of Peru, when they arrived to this place and 17:33.552 --> 17:36.422 they saw how fertile the land was and the amount of water they 17:36.455 --> 17:39.792 had, the general said, "Arequipa," 17:39.825 --> 17:43.228 which means,"yes, stay." 17:43.262 --> 17:45.531 So probably there was an Inca settlement here and 17:45.564 --> 17:49.168 earlier settlements if we look at the archaeological remains 17:49.201 --> 17:52.838 that have been found in the valley. 17:52.838 --> 17:55.007 And in some of the volcanoes that are around the city, 17:55.007 --> 17:58.777 there are some Inca offerings, these copacocha, remains of 17:58.811 --> 18:01.613 these ceremonies that the Inca did from time to time to favor 18:01.647 --> 18:06.251 the gods of the empire. 18:09.588 --> 18:12.091 I'm just a little nervous, always, walking down the streets 18:12.124 --> 18:13.859 of Arequipa cause every couple of years they get 18:13.859 --> 18:16.161 another earthquake. 18:16.195 --> 18:19.298 Yeah, I think the last one was two years ago in June of 2001. 18:19.331 --> 18:22.634 It knocked one of the bell towers off the church. 18:22.668 --> 18:24.136 Oh, that's right. 18:24.136 --> 18:25.704 I heard about that. 18:25.737 --> 18:27.039 I think they reconstructed it already. 18:27.039 --> 18:28.740 Yeah, they did. 18:28.774 --> 18:32.010 Let's not get run over by the ticos here. 18:35.114 --> 18:37.249 I had always associated prickly pears and their 18:37.249 --> 18:40.352 succulent fruits called tunas with Mexico. 18:40.385 --> 18:43.622 But the Incas cultivated them long before the arrival 18:43.622 --> 18:47.459 of the Spaniards. 18:51.130 --> 18:53.532 Many of these fruits come from the Valley of Colca. 18:53.532 --> 18:54.967 They don't look as great as they taste. 18:55.000 --> 18:59.538 Mmm. 18:59.538 --> 19:04.538 Amazingly sweet, full of seeds that you chew. 19:06.812 --> 19:10.616 They are said to be very good for the liver. 19:10.649 --> 19:12.985 And I think my liver at this high altitude needs some help. 19:13.018 --> 19:16.855 So.mmm. 19:19.391 --> 19:21.994 This clothing I'm wearing is cabana. 19:22.027 --> 19:27.027 This is a hummingbird and this is a fish of all colors. 19:28.834 --> 19:32.137 And the looms, weren't they worked by men? 19:32.171 --> 19:33.906 Yes. 19:33.939 --> 19:36.408 Men used to work the looms by hand. 19:36.441 --> 19:39.645 It takes about a week to make something like this. 19:39.678 --> 19:44.149 There didn't used to be any sewing machines 19:44.183 --> 19:46.919 like there are now. 19:46.952 --> 19:51.156 No one wants to make them by hand like before. 19:58.664 --> 20:01.066 Driving east from Arequipa at 8,000 feet elevation, 20:01.099 --> 20:05.604 the only way to go is up. 20:13.245 --> 20:18.245 The color of the flamingo is represented in the flag of Peru. 20:19.251 --> 20:23.388 They're found only at sea level in the brackish water 20:23.422 --> 20:28.193 along the ocean and above 14,000 feet in the altiplano. 20:28.227 --> 20:31.697 They've decided to make book with the vicuñas. 20:31.730 --> 20:35.067 They drink out of these same sort of salt lakes. 20:35.100 --> 20:37.903 The vicuñas need the water, the flamingos need the 20:37.903 --> 20:41.907 tiny micro-organisms that they siphon through their beak 20:41.907 --> 20:46.011 and they making a living eating the water. 20:49.748 --> 20:52.184 The closer to the center of the Inca empire we get, 20:52.184 --> 20:57.055 the more monumental become the remains of Inca architecture. 20:57.089 --> 20:59.591 Especially the structures called chullpas that they 20:59.625 --> 21:03.996 built to hold their dead. 21:04.029 --> 21:06.531 They chose their burial sites very carefully, even if 21:06.565 --> 21:10.569 they had to use other people's cemeteries to make their point. 21:10.569 --> 21:13.138 Well, the Incas, the Inca dynasty claimed that their 21:13.171 --> 21:16.141 ancestors had originally come from Lake Titicaca 21:16.174 --> 21:18.543 mangu capac and mama okio , the original couple 21:18.577 --> 21:22.314 supposedly emerged from Lake Titicaca. 21:22.314 --> 21:24.850 So it would make a lot of sense for them to make 21:24.850 --> 21:26.918 these sort of material statements showing that 21:26.952 --> 21:29.721 their ancestors were here first. 21:29.755 --> 21:34.755 The most impressive group of chullpas in all the altiplano 21:35.794 --> 21:38.730 are the Sillustani ones, near the Omayo Lake, 21:38.764 --> 21:42.734 which are funerary towers, collective mausoleums. 21:42.768 --> 21:45.971 There you could see two different kinds of chullpa space 21:45.971 --> 21:48.407 on the construction technique. 21:48.440 --> 21:51.143 One group is made of just field stone, they are round 21:51.176 --> 21:55.314 and some of them are plastered in white. 21:55.347 --> 21:59.251 The other group have a distinctive Inca masonry 21:59.251 --> 22:03.088 technology with very nice and well-worked fittings 22:03.088 --> 22:05.924 in the rocks. 22:05.957 --> 22:10.957 They were done without the use of metals and with a technology 22:11.163 --> 22:13.899 that no one really understands. 22:13.899 --> 22:17.736 Some people believe they were perhaps plant acids, 22:17.736 --> 22:21.406 some people used extreme heat maybe, some people believe 22:21.440 --> 22:25.644 that they were just simple slowly working down the stone 22:25.644 --> 22:28.313 until the work was done. 22:28.347 --> 22:31.316 Then they were lifted by creating mounds and using 22:31.350 --> 22:35.954 human labor raised up to the top. 22:35.987 --> 22:38.724 These staying here together after 500 years in spite 22:38.757 --> 22:41.727 of numerous earthquakes, the jointing is so perfect that 22:41.760 --> 22:46.498 even a seismic event doesn't cause the stones to fall. 22:46.498 --> 22:48.734 It was probably more looters or one great earthquake that caused 22:48.767 --> 22:53.038 the top part to fall off. 22:55.040 --> 22:57.376 The chullpas were not only used as mausoleums but also as 22:57.409 --> 23:01.546 altars in ancestral related ceremonies. 23:01.580 --> 23:06.318 The Incas built these chullpas to sort of state that 23:06.318 --> 23:09.087 their ancestors were the most important among the 23:09.121 --> 23:12.858 ancestors in all the highlands of the Andes. 23:12.891 --> 23:17.891 For ancient Andean peoples, the cult of the ancestors was a 23:18.430 --> 23:20.999 very important part of their lives. 23:21.032 --> 23:24.336 They worshipped them because they considered them 23:24.336 --> 23:27.806 the owners of all the land and the resources. 23:27.806 --> 23:31.476 They were vital for their survival. 23:31.510 --> 23:34.780 In this sense, every group would sort of legitimize their 23:34.813 --> 23:39.418 right to be in a territory and in a place by claiming to be 23:39.451 --> 23:44.451 descendants of the original ancestor who founded the 23:44.456 --> 23:48.693 community and who was the original owner of that land. 23:48.727 --> 23:52.898 In this same sense, the worship was central for political life 23:52.931 --> 23:57.931 and for the reproduction of territorial rights. 23:58.303 --> 24:02.707 Do you suppose the Incas brought their stone masons with them? 24:02.741 --> 24:05.010 Oh, I'm sure they did. 24:05.010 --> 24:06.711 Because nobody else could replicate this 24:06.745 --> 24:09.481 magnificent stone work. 24:09.481 --> 24:12.684 Well, to do all this just here they had to have had 24:12.717 --> 24:15.620 dozens and dozens of stone masons in addition to what 24:15.654 --> 24:18.623 they had in Cuzco and up north. 24:18.657 --> 24:21.293 Well, yeah, you know, for the Incas stone masonry was 24:21.326 --> 24:24.629 so emblematic of the empire in the same way that you could 24:24.663 --> 24:28.967 think that textiles were for Paracas or ceramics for Nazca. 24:28.967 --> 24:33.967 It was their emblematic craft so they took good care of that. 24:40.111 --> 24:42.581 The technological and social accomplishments of the Incas 24:42.614 --> 24:46.051 were profound and far reaching. 24:46.051 --> 24:49.654 Their imperial domain is best known for having 24:49.688 --> 24:52.424 dominated the highlands. 24:52.424 --> 24:55.760 But the powerful hand of the Incas extended also to 24:55.794 --> 24:58.296 the deserts and the dry seacoast. 25:00.699 --> 25:05.237 The way of life in the isolated canyons of the 25:05.270 --> 25:09.140 high altitudes desert in southern Peru has changed little 25:09.174 --> 25:13.378 for thousands of years. 25:13.411 --> 25:16.781 These verdant valleys fed by glacial runoff were attractive 25:16.815 --> 25:20.285 to the conquering Incas for their productivity and to 25:20.285 --> 25:25.285 tourists today for their avian treasures. 25:25.457 --> 25:28.093 Join us next time on the Desert Speaks 25:30.562 --> 25:32.697 It's a breathtaking experience to see them 25:32.731 --> 25:35.233 actually in the wild. 25:35.267 --> 25:38.169 Yeah, you know, there are so many now that people 25:38.203 --> 25:40.639 are beginning to think about shearing them again 25:40.672 --> 25:44.175 like the Incas used to do in the old times. 25:44.209 --> 25:45.844 Well, they'd have to kill them to shear them, would they not? 25:45.844 --> 25:47.012 No. 25:47.045 --> 25:48.313 No, no, no, no. 25:48.313 --> 25:49.447 How do they capture them? 25:49.481 --> 25:51.283 You have to corral them. 25:51.316 --> 25:54.452 And in the old times they used to have these red strings. 25:54.486 --> 25:57.155 So they would hold this, because the vicuña would never pass, 25:57.188 --> 25:58.490 never duck and pass under a red string. 26:00.392 --> 26:03.361 Funding for the Desert Speaks was provided by 26:03.395 --> 26:07.132 Desert Program Partners. A group of concerned viewers 26:07.132 --> 26:10.435 making a financial commitment to the education about and 26:10.468 --> 26:13.338 preservation of our desert areas.