Chan Chan

CHAN CHAN, a ruined and deserted pre-Inca city on the coast of Peru, situated some 30o m. north of Lima and approxi mately 2 m. north of Trujillo, in the department of La Libertad. It was once the capital of a populous, powerful and relatively ad vanced civilization variously known as the Chimu, Yunga or Mochica, whose influence extended from the department of Lambeyeque southward to Ancon, not far from Lima.

The city itself covers a considerable area, and from a careful survey and estimate must have had a population of at least 250, 000 at the height of its glory. It consists of a group of separate walled cities, each surrounded by massive walls from 3o to 4o ft. high, from 8 to 12 ft. in thickness at the base and from I to 3 ft. at the top; the walls, as well as the houses, so-called palaces, temples and other structures are constructed of adobe bricks, plastered over in most cases with a smooth coat of adobe. No stone and apparently little or no wood entered into the buildings.

Owing to a dry and comparatively rainless climate with no great extremes of temperature the ruins, which under other conditions would surely have disappeared, are in a remarkable state of preservation.

The Chimu.

Whence the population came no one can say. We do know, however, from skeletal remains that are found in great abundance in the burying-grounds about and in the ruins, that they were totally unlike any of the other pre-Columbian peoples of South America, the characteristic that distinguished them being that they were a broad-skulled or brachycephalic race while the Quichuas and Aymaras, Andean tribes who formed the Inca con federation, were respectively a mesaticephalic (or normal) and a dolichocephalic (or long-skulled) people. In this peculiarity the Chimu were more closely allied to the Mayas of the Yucatan peninsula, Southern Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras than any other people of the Western Hemisphere. This lends colour to the theory that they were an off-shoot of the Mayas that broke away from the original stock in remote times and made their way to the coast of Peru where they established and built up the civilization of which we are here treating.

When they settled on these shores is equally hazy. Certain it is that if they drifted here by sea they must have come in com paratively small numbers. On the other hand, if they migrated by land—which seems less probable—they must, at the rate primitive people and people without any fixed objective migrate, have been centuries in building up the civilization of which we find remains to-day, so that it is quite probable that their advent on the coast of Peru may have been about the time of the beginning of the Christian era.

We know their fate somewhat more definitely from legends and accounts related by the Incas upon the arrival of the Spaniards. From these we learn that for a century, more or less, a bitter war was waged between the Inca confederation or Andean tribes and the coastal peoples, the Chimu in the north and the Nazca in the south. Many and fierce are the struggles recorded and the Incas eventually defeated the coastal tribes at their great fortress of Paramonga, near Supe, not far from Huacho on the Peruvian coast north of Lima. This fortress remains to this day and is in a remarkable state of preservation. Having been defeated at Paramonga the Chimu retired behind the walls of their capital, Chan Chan, and were here starved into submission by the besieg ing Incas. Whether the Chimu were wholly exterminated by their enemies or whether, as was the Inca custom with conquered tribes, they were broken up and distributed in small numbers throughout the empire, we do not know. Certain it is, however, that when the Spaniards came there were no evident remains of the Chimu save their ruined and deserted cities, remains of their irrigation systems and other like traces. This extermination of the coastal peoples has been reckoned to have taken place some 130 or 140 years before the coming of the Spaniards, which would put it in the neighbourhood of the year A.D. 1400.

Remains.

From a study of the ruins we know that Chan Chan was the seat of a great empire whose extent was the entire coast from Lambeyeque on the north to about Ancon on the south. We also know that these were a people who lived mainly by agri cultural pursuits. In the vicinity of Chan Chan itself, in the valley of the Chicama, Moche, Viru and other Andean streams, there are evidences of truly remarkable systems of irrigation and certain signs that agriculture was carried on to a considerably greater extent in those ancient times than it is to-day. Fishing also formed an important part of their life and conventionalized figures of fishes and maritime birds form the principal motifs in their mural and other decorations.

That they were highly developed in the arts is likewise patent. They knew the art of mining, smelting and working such metals as gold, silver and copper, though none of the other metals have been found in the ruins. Metal utensils, ornaments and other objects are still found in and about Chan Chan, as are also the remains of an ancient smelter, with considerable quantities of slag. The Chimu were also expert potters ; examples of their work are to be found in many museums. Strange to note, there are three known strata of pottery, that in the lowest being of the finest quality, while the top stratum is the poorest, indicating that the art degenerated. From their pottery much of their life and habits may be reconstructed. Wood, as has been noted, appears to play very little part in their arts. This is probably because of the in digenous trees, the willow was too soft and perishable for practical use and the algarroba too hard to be worked. Hence wood was used but little, if at all, except in the making of idols, musical instruments and small objects.

Save for a few small settlements, notably at Huanchaco and at Moche, in the vicinity of Trujillo, where the inhabitants show traces of brachycephalism, the ruined cities, irrigation works, fortresses and the like, as well as all traces of these peoples, have disappeared. (0. Ho.)