Collasuyu — The Southern Region of the Inca Empire
Collasuyu (Quechua for “the region of the Colla,” the Aymara-speaking peoples of the Lake Titicaca basin) was the southwestern quadrant of Tawantinsuyu and the largest of the four suyus by area. It extended from the southern Peruvian highlands across the Bolivian altiplano and the Andean portions of modern Chile and northwest Argentina, encompassing a vast and ecologically varied territory of high-altitude grasslands, snow-capped mountain ranges, deep inter-Andean valleys, and arid piedmont. The region was incorporated into the Inca Empire largely under the reign of Pachacuti and Topa Inca in the second half of the fifteenth century, and it was the principal source of llamas, alpacas, silver, and highland tubers that sustained the Inca economy.
Geographical Extent
Collasuyu extended from the latitude of Cusco south to the Maule River in central Chile, a distance of roughly 3,600 kilometers along the trunk road of the empire. The northern boundary between Collasuyu and the central highland provinces of Cuntisuyu and the eastern lowlands of Antisuyu is not recorded with precision in the early colonial sources, but most scholars place it along the watershed of the Apurímac or the Vilcanota rivers. Within Collasuyu, the principal geographical units were the southern Peruvian highlands (including the basin of Lake Titicaca and the surrounding puna grasslands), the Bolivian altiplano, the eastern Andean slopes of Bolivia, the Andean portions of modern Chile, and the Andean portions of northwest Argentina.
The climate of Collasuyu is dominated by the altiplano, where elevations exceed 3,800 meters and frost, snow, and drought are recurring hazards. Rainfall is low in the altiplano (200 to 500 millimeters per year) but increases substantially on the eastern slopes. The principal crops in the highland areas were potatoes, quinoa, cañiwa, oca, and ulluku, all of them cold-tolerant tubers and grains domesticated in the high Andes. The valleys below 3,500 meters supported maize agriculture, particularly in the warm inter-Andean valleys of Bolivia and the central Chilean valleys.
Historical Formation
The incorporation of Collasuyu into the Inca Empire was a process that began in the late fifteenth century. The Aymara polities of the Lake Titicaca basin — the Colla, Lupaca, Pacaje, Caranga, and Canchi, among others — had resisted the earlier expansion of the Cusco state. The decisive military campaigns that brought Collasuyu into the empire were conducted by the ninth Sapa Inca, Pachacuti, and his son Topa Inca in the 1460s and 1470s, culminating in the conquest of the Colla and Lupaca polities and the imposition of Inca administrative structures on the altiplano. The chroniclers describe a series of brutal campaigns and the deportation of large numbers of Aymara-speaking peoples to other parts of the empire.
After the conquest, the Inca established a dense network of roads, tambos, and administrative centers in Collasuyu. The trunk road of the region, often called the Camino del Collasuyu, ran from Cusco south through Andahuaylillas, Urcos, and the Colla realms around Lake Titicaca, then continued south through the altiplano and into the Tucumán region and central Chile. The Spanish chronicler Pedro Cieza de León, who traveled parts of this road in the 1550s, described it as one of the great roads of the empire, “so well constructed that it could be traveled without difficulty from Cusco to the Maule River, a distance of more than 800 leagues.”
Provinces and Administrative Centers
The principal provinces of Collasuyu, as reconstructed from the colonial sources, included Canchis and Canas (in the upper Vilcanota valley), Colla and Lupaca (the two principal Aymara polities on the altiplano around Lake Titicaca), Pacajes and Caranga (in the central altiplano), and Tucma (Tucumán), Diaguita, and Maule at the southern frontier. The principal administrative centers of Collasuyu included Vilcashuamán, a major Inca provincial capital in the modern Peruvian department of Ayacucho that contained a great Inca temple and a complex of administrative buildings; Andahuaylillas, a town in the southern Peruvian highlands famous for its colonial-era church built on Inca foundations; and the Lake Titicaca basin itself, which contained the sanctuary of the Island of the Sun, considered the principal religious site of the Aymara world and an important center of Inca religion.
Economy and Tribute
The economy of Collasuyu was based on pastoralism, highland agriculture, and mining. The altiplano was the principal region of the empire for llama and alpaca herding, and the imperial state extracted large quantities of llamas — used as pack animals on the Qhapaq Ñan — as well as alpaca wool, which was used in the production of fine textiles. The highland agricultural provinces contributed potatoes, quinoa, and other tubers in large quantities to the state granaries. Mining was concentrated in the silver mines of Porco (in modern Bolivia), which supplied much of the silver used by the imperial state in the central Andes. The Spanish chronicler Martín de Murúa recorded that the mines of Porco were exploited by the Aymara population under a system of mit’a labor, and that the imperial state maintained a fortified installation there to control the production of silver.
Cultural and Religious Significance
The Aymara peoples of Collasuyu brought to the Inca Empire a set of cultural, linguistic, and religious practices that were central to the formation of the imperial state. The Aymara languages were widely spoken in the highlands of modern Peru and Bolivia, and the imperial state used Aymara-speaking officials to administer the altiplano provinces. A small number of early colonial sources, generally considered unreliable by modern scholars, also place the legendary founder Manco Cápac in the Aymara-speaking world; this attribution is not supported by mainstream ethnohistorical research. The legends of the Lake Titicaca basin, particularly the origin myth of the creator deity Viracocha, were central to Inca religion, and the Island of the Sun in Lake Titicaca was a major sanctuary that received offerings from the imperial state.
Historical Significance
Collasuyu was, by area, the largest of the four suyus and the one that contributed most to the demographic and economic strength of the empire. The wealth of Collasuyu sustained the imperial state through the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, and the Spanish conquest of the 1530s, particularly the capture of the southern frontier by Diego de Almagro in 1535–1537, ended the political integrity of Collasuyu. The Spanish colonial administration reorganized the region into the audiencias of Charcas, Chile, and Tucumán, but the indigenous population retained much of its language, religion, and social structure into the colonial period and beyond.