Founding
capital city of Ayacucho, Peru
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Ayacucho (Spanish pronunciation: [aʝaˈkutʃo] ⓘ, Quechua: Ayak'uchu, derived from the words aya ("death" or "soul") and k'uchu ("corner")), founded in 1540 as San Juan de la Frontera de Huamanga and known simply as Huamanga (Quechua: Wamanga) until 1825, is the capital city of Ayacucho Region and of Huamanga Province, Ayacucho Region, Peru.
Its original name, which continues to be the alternative name of the city, dates back to the Incan and Viceregal periods of its history, until its official change by Simón Bolívar in 1825 through a decree to commemorate the battle of Ayacucho during the Peruvian War of Independence. Bolívar issued the decree on February 15, 1825, changing the name from "Huamanga" to "Ayacucho", after the battle that decisively established the total independence of the nascent Peruvian Republic.
Ayacucho is famous for its 33 churches, which represent one for each year of Jesus' life. Ayacucho has large religious celebrations, especially during the Holy Week of Easter. These celebrations include horse races featuring Peruvian Caballos de Paso and the traditional running of the bulls, known locally as the jalatoro or pascuatoro. The jalatoro is similar to the Spanish encierro, except that the bulls are led by horses of the Morochucos.
The traditional name of the locality, dating back to pre-Hispanic times, was Huamanga (written as Guamanga in the earliest documents). As a Spanish city, it was founded on April 25, 1540, under the name San Juan de la Frontera de Huamanga ("Saint John of the Frontier of Huamanga"). The title San Juan honored Saint John the Evangelist, while Frontera ("Frontier") referred to its role as a military frontier and Spanish stronghold against the attacks of Manco Inca.
During the civil wars among the Spanish conquerors, the city's name was changed to San Juan de la Victoria de Huamanga ("Saint John of the Victory of Huamanga") following the victory of the royalist armies over the rebel forces of Diego de Almagro the Younger at the Battle of Chupas on September 16, 1542. It was later renamed Ayacucho in honor of the place where the famous battle of independence had taken place.
The etymology of the name Huamanga is somewhat obscure from the perspective of contemporary Quechua. Today, specialists generally agree that the ending -nga corresponds to the concrete nominalizing suffix -nqa found in General Quechua, also recognizable in place names such as Paramonga or alternatively written as -nca, as in the Quechua-derived word pachamanca. In all Southern Quechua varieties, this suffix later evolved into -na. However, identifying the nominalized verbal root remains a matter of debate.
Linguist Rodolfo Cerrón-Palomino has proposed that the root derives from the Colonial Quechua verb wama- (written guama-), meaning "to inaugurate" or "to come into the light." Accordingly, he interprets the original meaning of the toponym as "place to be inaugurated" or "pacarina," that is, "the place where one emerges into the light."
Among the popular folk etymologies is a story that Inca Viracocha rested at this place during one of his campaigns and personally fed a hawk that landed on his shoulders. According to the legend, the Inca said waman ka (often translated as "Here, hawk!"), although the phrase is grammatically incorrect in Quechua. Another popular explanation derives the name through haplology from the hypothetical compound waman qaqa, meaning "hawk rock" or "rock of the hawks" in Quechua.
The original name Huamanga was officially changed to Ayacucho by decree of Liberator Simón Bolívar on February 15, 1825. The change honored the victory of the patriot army in the Battle of Ayacucho. Thus, the name of the battlefield was transferred to the nearby city.
The etymology of Ayacucho remains transparent to any contemporary Quechua speaker. It derives from aya ("dead person," "corpse") and kuchu ("corner"), literally meaning "corner of the dead" or "corner of the corpses." As a place name, it had already been common throughout the Andean region during the colonial period. During the republican era, it was widely used to name places, even leading to the renaming of the city of La Paz as "La Paz de Ayacucho." The association between the name and those who died in the 1824 battle is therefore only a later folk etymology.
The demonym for someone from Huamanga is huamanguino, formerly spelled guamanguino, as seen, for example, in the illustrations of Guaman Poma and on the coat of arms of the National University of San Cristóbal of Huamanga.
Likewise, unlike the cities named Ayacucho in Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Venezuela (whose inhabitants are called ayacuchenses), natives of the Peruvian city of Ayacucho are known as ayacuchanos.
The chronicler Pedro Cieza de León, in his work Crónica del Perú, wrote that Huamanga was home to many wild pigeons, which attracted numerous peregrine falcons (Falco peregrinus), birds that particularly enjoy feeding on medium-sized birds such as ducks, hens, and chickens.
Traditionally, the affectionate nickname (hipocorístico) for the people of Ayacucho or Huamanga is wallpa suwa, meaning "chicken thief."
”...[...] Dicen, que cuando se fundó Huamanga en el siglo XVI, se asentaron muchísimos españoles de las distintas clases y estirpes en la ciudad. Además de gente de abolengo, había también otros aventureros y gente sin escrúpulos reclutados de la península. Con el tiempo estos alcanzaron riqueza y posición social y algunos llegaron a formar parte de la aristocracia local. Se había transformado en personas supuestamente honorables. [...] Pero hay un dicho: «gallina que come huevo aunque le quemen el pico». Pues a esta casta de hombres, nada podía quitarle la manía de disfrutar de lo ajeno. [...] Entre ellos, un tal Negro Ruiz, decía que gallina robada sabía más sabrosa y él mismo se encargada de hurtos. Este verenable wallpa sua murió ahogado al caer en su propia letrina persiguiendo a una atlética gallina de los Toledo. Bueno, y como el mal ejemplo cunde, el robo de gallinas se puso en boga por toda la colonia y después de ella. [...] Desde ese entonces, todo huamanguino lleva de apellido la imborrable etiqueta de «roba gallina»..
"...They say that when Huamanga was founded in the sixteenth century, a great many Spaniards of different social classes and lineages settled in the city. Alongside noble families were adventurers and unscrupulous individuals recruited from the Iberian Peninsula. Over time, many of them acquired wealth and social standing, and some even became part of the local aristocracy. They had supposedly become respectable people.
But there is a saying: 'A hen that has learned to eat eggs will keep doing so even if its beak is burned.' Nothing could cure this group of men of their habit of coveting what belonged to others.
Among them was a man known as Negro Ruiz, who claimed that a stolen chicken tasted better, and he personally carried out such thefts. This famous wallpa suwa ('chicken thief') drowned after falling into his own latrine while chasing one of the Toledo family's particularly athletic hens.
As bad examples tend to spread, chicken stealing became fashionable throughout the colony and continued even afterward. Since then, every Huamanguino has carried the indelible label of 'chicken thief.'"
Vestiges of human settlements more than 15,000 years old have been found at the site of Pikimachay, about 25 km north of Ayacucho. From 500 to 900, the region was occupied by the Wari culture, which became known as the first expansionist empire based in the Andes before the Inca Empire.
The Ayacucho region was inhabited by varying indigenous cultures for thousands of years. During the Early Intermediate period (200 BC – 600 AD) the Nazca culture settled in the south-west, and the Warpa culture arose in the center of the Ayacucho region, the Wari Empire emerged as Huarpa cultures interacted with the nearby Nasca Culture at a time of intense interregional exchanges and widespread disruption to existing cultural traditions. During the Middle Horizon period (600 – 1000 AD), at its zenith the Wari state reigned over most of the highlands and coast of Peru, centered near the present-day city of Ayacucho (Huamanga), the Wari became the largest dominant culture in the Andes region before the Inca came into existence. The Wari civilization collapsed by about 1000 AD, and the capital city of Wari was abandoned.
With the end of the Wari culture, the Late Intermediate period (1000 AD – 1476 AD) is said to begin, while some post-Wari cultures continued to further develop during this era, particularly cultures from coastal Peru, the Late Intermediate era is marked by population decline and substantial cultural regression over extensive areas of the Peruvian highlands, the Ayacucho region became one of the most affected areas, urban planning ceased to be, people abandoned virtually all cities, if not all, and dispersed into rural hamlets. New tribal cultures — well differentiated from the old Wari — arose in the Ayacucho region, over time these became a series of relatively powerful warlike chiefdoms that controlled region, according to colonial chroniclers these tribes were united into a confederacy by the time Inca began to expand, referred in the Spanish accounts as the "Chanca confederacy", an alliance formed by the Chanca, Parinacocha, Vilca, Sora, and Rucana (Lucana) cultures, among other ayllu clans. After a series of fierce battles the Inca managed to defeat and conquer the Chanka confederacy and integrated the area into the Inca Empire, the Inca founded Vilcashuaman within Vilcas' culture territory, one of the most populous cities known to have existed in the Inca Empire, capital of the Inca province (wamani) of Vilcas. Huamanga was another of the administrative centers in the region, founded at a place called Pocra.
The Spanish colonial founding of Huamanga was led by conqueror Francisco Pizarro on April 25, 1540, who named it San Juan de la Frontera de Huamanga. Due to the constant Incan rebellion led by Manco Inca Yupanqui against the Spanish in the zone, Pizarro was quick to populate the settlement with a small number of Spaniards brought from Lima and Cusco. On May 17, 1544, by Royal decree, Ayacucho was titled La Muy Noble y Leal Ciudad de Huamanga (the most noble and loyal city of Huamanga), the highest designation in the Spanish hierarchy of naming cities. The city's main University was founded on July 3, 1677, as San Cristóbal of Huamanga University. Ayacucho was significant in the colonial era for being an administrative center, a stopping-off point between Lima and Cuzco, and the residence of mercury miner from Huancavelica, as well as local land owners.
In 1820, General Juan Antonio Álvarez de Arenales, under the instructions of Don José de San Martín, arrived in the city during the so-called Intermediate Campaign, which sought to attack Lima through the Andes while San Martín did so through the coast. Thus, Arenales declared independence in Huamanga on November 1, 1820.
The Battle of Ayacucho was the last armed clash between the Spanish Army (formed mostly by Peruvian mestizos and indigenous peoples) and independentists during the Peruvian War of Independence, and the independents' victory ensured independence. Taking place on 9 December 1924, the battle developed in the nearby pampas of La Quinua on December 9, 1824. Independentist forces were led by Antonio José de Sucre, Simón Bolívar's lieutenant. Viceroy José de la Serna e Hinojosa was wounded, and after the battle second commander-in-chief José de Canterac signed the final capitulation of the Royalist army. The independent victory sealed the independence of Peru and South America. La Paz, now the seat of government of Bolivia, was similarly renamed La Paz de Ayacucho following this battle.
On February 15, 1825, Simón Bolívar changed the city's name to Ayacucho, renaming it after the historical Battle of Ayacucho. Upon seeing so many casualties on the battlefield, citizens called the area Ayakuchu, aya meaning "dead" and kuchu meaning "corner" in Ayacucho Quechua.
Although the city gained a new name and some fame, the economy declined following independence. There were attempts to revive the city's fortunes, with a planned railway link to Peru's network, but the line was terminated in Huancavelica. A highway was subsequently constructed in 1968. The city's economy is based on agriculture and light manufacturing, including textiles, pottery, leather goods, and filigree ware. It is a regional tourism destination, known for its 33 churches built in the colonial period, and for the nearby battlefield of La Quinua, where the Ayacucho battle was fought in 1824. The University of San Cristóbal was reopened in 1959. The city's population began to increase, but violent political unrest destabilized the region forced migration of many.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Ayacucho”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.