The endless search for Paititi and the analysis of Andrea Lopez manuscript
What is Paititi really? Can a myth resist five hundred years of history and be more alive today, in the 21st century, than ever?
Paititi, the lost city, hidden in an unknown point of the immense Amazon jungle east of Cusco, is, in reality, the union of several legends.
From a certain point of view, it can be included in the broader myth of South American El Dorado, which I analyzed in my book In Search of El Dorado.
During the time of the Incas, the jungle that runs through the Amarumayo River, current Madre de Dios, was called Antisuyo, and its inhabitants were the Antis (hence the term Andes). It is said that the ruler of the Incas entered the Antisuyo with a powerful army and subdued several tribes of Amazonian indigenous people, who, as tribute, provided coca, gold, bird feathers and medicinal plants.
According to an Inca legend, the Andean God Inkarri founded, long before the arrival of the conquerors, a city equal to Cusco, located in the jungle, ten days east of the Inca capital. The Quechua name Paikikin would mean “equal to,” according to this interpretation.
After the arrival of the conquistadors in 1533, some Inca priests had enormous wealth brought to Paititi, in order to save it from the plundering of the Spanish. So Paititi would have served as the last stronghold after the taking of Vilcabamba and the massacre of Tupac Amaru in 1572; not only to hide great riches, but also to keep centuries-old traditions alive and to preserve ancient mystical traditions and knowledge, both scientific (use of medicinal plants and alchemy), and linguistic (quellca).
According to these beliefs, in the area of the Madre de Dios there would still exist today an underground city, on several levels, in full activity. The king of Paititi, treasurer of the hidden knowledge of an ancient civilization, would be waiting for the right moment to return to the “world of light” and restore the order broken in the past.
It should be mentioned that there is also another version of Paititi, which places this lost city much further east of post-Inca Paititi, describing it as an immense kingdom located around the current border between Bolivia and Brazil, a territory that was dominated for centuries by the Moxos ethnic group, who spoke a language from the Arawak linguistic group.
According to this version, the word Paititi would mean “all white and shiny,” like gold.
The latest archaeological finds in the Bolivian Amazon (plains of Moxos), of walls and long canals, could confirm the true existence of a confederation of tribes that was probably called Paititi, which, however, was clearly Amazonian and not post-Inca.
The first adventurer who entered the jungle of Madre de Dios was Pedro de Candía, one of the conquerors of Peru, lieutenant of Francisco Pizarro. After some of his concubines described a rich city of gold called Ambaya, he decided to undertake the expedition.
He left Paucartambo in 1538, commanding 600 men, heading east for 150 kilometers. However, the expedition did not obtain the expected result, since it was attacked by ferocious natives in a village called Abiseo, from where its members decided to return to Cusco.
The endless search for Paititi continues even in the contemporary era. In the 60s of the 20th century, the Peruvian Carlos Neuenshwander Landa carried out 27 expeditions in search of Paititi, especially in the area where the Manu National Park is now located.
Although he gathered important archaeological material related to the presence of the post-Inca people in the Madre de Dios basin area, he failed to reveal the mystery of the most famous lost city in the world.
In 1970, three adventurers, the American Nichols and the French Debrú and Puel, disappeared in the Manu National Park region trying to locate the lost city of Paititi.
It is likely that some Kuga-Pacoris natives (of the Matsiguenka ethnic group) took their lives because they saw their ancestral territory invaded and felt threatened.
In 1979, the French-Peruvian spouses Herbert and Nicole Cartagena, guided by the Peruvian Goyo Toledo, discovered an Inca settlement, later named Mameria, located on the Mameria River, a tributary of the Nistron, which in turn is a tributary of the Alto Madre de God.
Later studies carried out by the American explorer Gregory Deyermenjian verified that Mameria, although not Paititi, was an important Inca fortress in the Nistron River valley, which served, above all, as a coca collection center to supply the empire.
Gregory Deyermenjian also distinguished himself for numerous other expeditions in the area of the Pantiacolla plateau, a remote territory between the departments of Cusco and Madre de Dios. He discovered, studied and traveled an ancient cobbled Inca road, which leads from the Pantiacolla plateau to the jungle, but until today he has not been able to fully explore it.
In 1997, Norwegian biologist Lars Hafskjold left Sandia heading east. It is possible that he was searching for the Amazonian Paititi or the mythical land of the Mojos, but he never returned. His footprints were lost in the Madidi National Park, in the Bolivian Amazon.
A fundamental date in the search and historical study of Paititi took place in 2001, when the Italian archaeologist Mario Polia discovered, in the Vatican archives, a very important letter belonging to the Peruvian History, a collection of written volumes from 1567. to 1625. The letter, whose date and author are unknown, contains the testimony that the Jesuit Father Andrea López made to the Father General of the Society of Jesus (Claudio Acquaviva, from 1581 to 1615, or Muzio Vitelleschi, from 1615 to 1645), probably in the first years of the 17th century, in which there is talk of a miracle and the conversion of indigenous people carried out in the kingdom of Paititi.
Below is the full text of the document:
Story of a miracle thanks to the mercy of God in the Indies of Peru, or rather in the kingdom of Paytiti next to Peru.
Father Andrea Lopez having arrived in the city of Rome from Our Father General, as procurator of that part, he has related the miracle that the Lord, through his mercy, has shown in those countries, and it is the following. Said Father Andrea Lopez, being rector of the school of the Company of Jesus in the city of Cusco in the said Indians of Peru, says that in that city there were three or four Indians, who had been Christianized and baptized by him, they were indignant at the bad treatment by some soldiers of the garrison, and they have decided to leave their country and go to another kingdom ten days from the aforementioned Peru, which was called Paytiti, and is a thousand Spanish leagues long, which is three thousand miles from Italy, and They were white men like Germans and very warlike and civil in their way of life and government.The King is very powerful, he has a court like that of the Great Turk with great majesty, his kingdom is very rich and adorned with gold, silver and many pearls to such an extent that they use pots and pans made of precious materials in the kitchen like others used. metal or iron. The aforementioned Indians were therefore fugitives from Cusco and arriving at the Kingdom of Paytiti, they were examined at the border by the guard, their bags and luggage were searched and as these Indians were Christians they carried a wooden Crucifix that Father Andrea had given them before. Upon leaving, the guard asked them what the Crucifix was, surprised to see a figure in the shape of a man on a piece of wood, and the Indians answered that it was the figure of the God of the Christians.
At that moment the guard mocked, laughing with less price and letting them pass freely, they arrived at the city where the Court of the King of Paytiti was, and the King being warned of the arrival of the Indians as well as that they were carrying the figure of God that they Christians worshiped, out of curiosity the King called them to his presence and that of his Court, where all the main Lords of the same attended out of curiosity, both to see the figure of the God of the Christians and to hear what the Indians were going to explain to him. to the king.
At the moment that the King had the Crucifix in his hand, he undoubtedly began to laugh and mock along with all his courtiers, and having laughed, mocked the Crucifix for a long time, he returned it to the hands of the Indian, who left with his God of the Christians, and saying these words with the greatest contempt he spat in the face of the Crucifix while the Indian had already received it, then the miracle occurred, the said Crucifix raised the head that he had first bowed, which was how he ordinarily behaved. They were carving the Crucifixes, and he raised his head, giving him a terrible look and moving his eyes from right to left along with his head, and the look was so terrible and terrifying, that the King with his entire Court fell to the ground without giving any sign of life. and they all remained in this state for three hours, except for the Indian who remained standing with the Crucifix in his hand, stunned.
At last the first to come to his senses was the King, and then little by little, all the others one by one, and as if surprised and astonished, the King raised his voice, and said in the manner of Saint Paul: Great, Great is the God of the Christians, and so did all those who were around him, and suddenly the King and all of them fell to the ground worshiping said Crucifix, and in the courtyard of his Palace he immediately had an oratory built in the form of a square chapel, all of gold and adorned with precious gems, where he planted the aforementioned Crucifix on an altar where he in person with the prince, his only son and heir to his kingdom, together with his entire Court went every day to worship said Crucifix, but not once, but several.
After a few days with a very sincere treatment and with curiosity accompanied by dedication, Saint with the aforementioned Indians, demanded and asked about the principles of the Christian law, and promised the Christians to enrich them in their kingdom, if they could give the order of so that he could talk to wise people about the Christian law; and so the King decided with some of his courtiers and his only son to go with the Indians to find the Father of the Company and particularly the aforementioned Father Andrea Lopez, and when they arrived their dedication was so great that after feeling satisfied with the Christian doctrine and from what Father Andrea Lopez preached, he prayed with such constancy that the aforementioned Father wanted to baptize him along with his son and his main Knights, and so the aforementioned Father baptized them all, and being moved by the devotion, the King He developed such a fever that it caused his death, and before that he received all the Sacraments with great faith and great devotion, in such a way that he infected his son and the other six knights who maintained the law of the Christians but not only to introduce it into their Kingdom, but they begged Father Andrea to go with them to implant the faith, promising to build a beautiful College and particularly a Church that would have walls of solid gold, so that with these words, the great devotion and dedication could be understood. that the good King had over his kingdom.
Having agreed with our General, they determined to send the aforementioned Father Andrea on a mission to the Kingdom of Paytiti with some others, who had orders to leave immediately after Easter. They asked for blessing on this mission. The aforementioned Father Andrea Lopez had discovered in the said India of Peru some wild Indians, that is, in the faith, who had not yet been baptized and had not received the Christian law, the aforementioned Father Andrea began to teach them the Christian law. And so he discovered the God that they worshiped, which was a common stone the size of a melon, weighing sixty and on it they burned incense to sacrifice to their God, which was the same stone; Father Andrea asked them how long they had had the God of the stone and they answered that it had been a little more or less a year.
Father Andrea asked them what other God they had before, and they answered that the reason why they had taken the stone as God was because of the miracles that the stone did when healing those diseases that were incurable, because God had given the stone stone virtues against some diseases by miracle. Thus, every time they sacrificed to the stone for God, they took a piece of it to give to the incurably sick and with it they were healed.
By the mercy of God they were persuaded that all this was a deception of the Devil and that it was better to worship that God, from whom the stone received virtue, and they were so well persuaded that the Father baptized them. And today they are good Christians; and Father Andrea has taken out the stone that they worshiped for God and brought it to the Pope, for which his Holiness has been grateful that God has converted those who left the stone and said stone has been valued at four thousand escudos.
I carefully analyzed this ancient document and came to the conclusion that it is original, although some details were expanded by the author to further highlight the conversion effected in the last unconquered territory by the Europeans.
It is true that Father Andrea López (born in Villagarcía, in Castile, in 1544), became part of the Society of Jesus in 1565.
From reading the document it is deduced that the Church of Rome knew the location of Paititi in the XVII century. According to the manuscript, it is possible that Father Andrea López provided his superiors with the corresponding geographical data, after receiving the order to evangelize the entire kingdom.
However, no one ever found the order of evangelization and Mario Polia himself maintained, in an article of his published in the Italian magazine Archeo, that perhaps the Society of Jesus never revealed the exact location of Paititi so as not to trigger a race in search of the gold, which would have seriously harmed the security of the indigenous people.
According to several researchers, the Paititi described in the manuscript of Father Andrea López could be the territory recognized as the Amazonian Paititi, located perhaps on the border between present-day Bolivia and Brazil, and the indigenous people who inhabited it could have been the Mojos. Also the exaggerated data on the extension of this domain (one thousand Spanish leagues, equal to 5000 kilometers), could indicate the enormous Amazonian territories.
However, this version does not fully agree with two points of the manuscript: the ten days' distance from Peru, since to reach the town of Los Mojos it probably took several months of travel (but it could have been ten days of navigation). by the rivers), and the square and solid gold architecture that is described, since it is more reminiscent of peoples of Andean or post-Inca origin than of Amazonian peoples such as the Arawak-Mojos.
Where was Paititi located? This question, therefore, remains valid. I write it was because, in my opinion, it could have been looted by mercenaries long before the news of the miracle and the conversion reached Rome, in the early years of the 17th century.
Carlos Neuenschwander Landa and Gregory Deyermenjian, the most notable among all those who searched for Paititi, focused mostly on the area of Alto Madre de Dios, which would correspond more or less to the phrase “located ten days' journey from Cusco in direction of the rising sun.” I am referring to the intangible zone of the Manu National Park, the area of the Nistron River, the Palotoa River and the Negro River, the region called Callanga and the Pantiacolla plateau, up to the sources of the Timpia River.
On my recent trip to the Pantiacolla pyramidsI was able to see firsthand how extremely difficult it is to exhaustively explore that area, not only because of the imminent attacks of the fearsome Kuga-Pacoris, but above all because of the climate, which is so humid and torrid in the jungle, and so cold in the plateau; in addition to the intrinsic difficulties of the Peruvian jungle.
Surely, there will be other expeditions in the future, but the important thing is, in my opinion, the approach that must be taken towards Paititi, which must consist of maximum respect for the native populations (sometimes uncontacted, such as the Kuga-Pacoris) and, even more important, in the inner serenity with which to face such a complicated journey. Whoever thinks about going to find gold, in order to get rich and become famous quickly, is on the wrong path.
On the contrary, whoever starts motivated by true disinterested curiosity, love for historical research and passion for the hidden secrets of ancient cultures, will be rewarded and will be able to reveal a mystery that, for now, remains unsolved.
YURI LEVERATTO
