Chachapoyas Kingdom

Sometime in 1480, the Inca Tupac Yupanqui, the tenth Inca to rule and extend the Inca Empire, crossed the Maranon River for the first time. He came with an army of 60,000 men to make war against the Chachas and to conquer the Seven Great Cities of their kingdom in northeastern Peru. In his account of the conquest, Inca Tupac described the temples he saw there built up against the cliffs:

I shall never forget their round houses built in tiers, their fortresses well situated against the rock and sometimes commanded by a tower... the monuments built on high cliffs which appear inaccessible. These are tombs where they enclose the mummified bodies of their chiefs and priests. Their dead have no company but the wind and the condor....

    In the times before the conquest, the people of Chachapoyas had been highly evolved. They had advanced the arts of music and of dance. They built a respected culture with a great religious priesthood, and the language they spoke was not Quechua, the language spoken by Incas, but some other, unknown, language. Their vast agricultural works, their monuments, cities, and ceremonial centers all indicate high civilization.   
    Chachas, whom the Incas called their "cousins," were known to be fierce warriors. They were tall and fair-skinned, with light hair and blue eyes. After the conquest, the Chacha women were sought by the Incas, and later the Spaniards, for their beauty. The Chacha men, masterful stone masons, were resettled by the Inca in faraway regions to build cities and administrative centers for his Empire.
    Explorer Gene Savoy, in his forty years of research, has documented a picture of this mysterious people far more complete than any presented before. He has, in fact, seen descendants of the Chachas in the eastern jungles, where they still live and where they may have had their origin....