Page:The Incas of Peru.djvu/210

174 all watered by tributaries of the Apurimac. The first lies between the Apurimac and the Pachachaca rivers, the second between the Pachachaca and the Pampas, and the third includes the maritime cordillera between those meridians. They may be called, after their chief ayllus or tribes, the Quichua, Chanca, and Lucana regions.

The Quichuas occupied the beautiful valley of Apancay, and some valleys in the mountains as far as the fortress of Curamba, beyond the Pachachaca. Their position is partly defined in the account of Tupac's first campaign, when he occupied the Quichua strongholds of Tuyara, Cayara, and Curampa. The Quichuas were very closely allied to the Inca people in race, and their language was the same. Indeed, the first Spanish grammarian of the general language of the Incas called it Quichua, probably from having studied it in their country. Mossi gives a definition of the word from the passive participle of quehuini (I twist), which is quehuisca (twisted) and ichu (grass), that is quehuisca-ychu (twisted grass), by syncope quichua. It came to mean a temperate region, neither too hot nor too cold.