Among Spanish historians, the most important is Pedro de Cieza de León. Born in 1520, Cieza was a soldier of fortune in his youth. He called himself "the first chronicler of the Indies" and was the first historian to write a global history of the Andean world, as well as the most notable account (in four book-length parts — one of which was only discovered and published in our time) of the Spanish conquest and the civil wars that followed. The following is excerpted from the most recently published of his four-part chronicle entitled "The Discovery and Conquest of Peru."

"There were five Indian men on board and two boys with three women, who became prisoners on the ship. Using signs [the Spaniards] asked them where they were from and what land lay ahead; and with the same signs they responded that they were natives of Tumbes, which was the truth. They showed them spun wool and raw wool that came from sheep, which they described through gesturing, and they said there were so many of them that they covered the fields. They often named Wayna Capac and Cuzco, where there was much gold and silver. They said so much about this and other things that the Christians who were on the ship thought they mocked them because the Indians always lie about many things they relate. But these [Indians] told the truth about everything.

Bartolomé Ruiz, the pilot, treated them well, pleased to be bringing such people of good reason and who wore clothes so that Pizarro could question them."

Geneaology of the Inca Kings

The word Inca strictly applies to the ruler, not the people. Inca literally means "model" or archetype. The Inca was believed to be the son of the sun, and the people worshipped him. According to legend, the Incas were on their twelfth Inca when Pizarro landed at Tumbes.