CHOQUEQUIRAO TO MACHU PICCHU AT THE SPEED OF LIGHT: Visual Signaling Among the Incas

A newly discovered network of inter-visible signaling stations suggests a line-of-sight system of communication using smoke and fire throughout the Inca Empire in the Andes of South America

This publication follows up on the single known reference in the Spanish Chronicles of the Inca Empire describing their system of visual signaling with smoke by day and fire by night. The author's many years of explorations in the Zona de Vilcabamba between the important Inca centers at Machu Picchu and Choquequirao disclose a chain of intervisible sites seemingly perfect as stations in a system connecting the two visually.

Detailed analysis of this single link strongly suggests an empire-wide network connecting everyplace to everywhere and opens the door to further explorations in search of similar station chains throughout the Andes.

This paper also appears in "Ñawpa Pacha," the journal of the Institute of Andean Studies, Berkeley, CA, Vol. 30, No. 1, June 2010. Visit their website at instituteofandeanstudies.org.

Documentary Evidence:

Reference to the Inca chasqui message runner system is found in various sources, but only Garcilaso de la Vega goes on to describe an apparently collateral system utilizing visual signaling. His description of each, and their apparent inter-relationship is here excerpted from Chapter VII of Book Six of the First Part of his Royal Commentaries:

Chasqui llamaban a los correos que había puestos por los caminos para llevar con brevedad los mandates del rey y traer las nuevas y avisos que por sus reinos y provincias, lejo o cerca, hubiese de importancia. Para lo qual tenian a cada cuarto de legua cuatro o seis indios mozoz y ligeros, los cuales estaban en dos chozas para repararse de las inclemencias del cielo. … poní siempre las chozas en alto y también las poní de manera que se viesen unas o otras. Estaaban a un cuarto de legua, proque decían que aquello era lo ue un indio podia corer con ligereza y aliento sin cansarse (1991:342[1609]).

Tenían otra manera de dar aviso por estos correos y era haciendo ahumadas de dia de uno en otro y llamaradas de noche, para lo cual tenían siempre los chasquis apercibido el fuego y los hachos y velaban perpetuamente de noche y de dia, por su rueda, para estar apercibidos para cualquier suceso que se ofreciese. Esta manera de aviso por los fuegos era solamente cuando habia algún levantamiento y rebellió de reino o provincia grande y hasíase para que el Inca lo supiese dentro de dos o tres horas cuando mucho (aunque fuese de 500 o 600 leguas de la corte) y mandase apercibir lo necesario para cuando llegase la nueva cierta de cuál provincia o reío era levantamiento (1991:343[1609]).

Or, as translated from the Spanish:

Chasqui was the name given to the runners placed along the roads for the purpose of carrying the king's orders rapidly and bringing news and reports of importance from his domains and provinces, far and near. For this purpose, they had four or six young and athletic Indians stationed at each quarter of a league (about 1.3 kilometers) in two huts built to shelter them from inclement weather. … the huts were always built at high points, and in such positions that each was within sight of the next … The distance was … how far an Indian could run at speed and in breath, and without being tired (1966:328[1609]).

31 pages

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