Chinchay Suyu
division comprising the northwest region of the Inca Empire.
Chinchay Suyu or Chinchasuyu (Spanish: Chinchaysuyo) was the northwestern provincial region of the Tawantin Suyu, or Inca Empire. The most populous suyu (or Quarter, the largest division of the Inca Empire), Chinchasuyu encompassed the former lands of the Chimú Empire and much of the northern Andes. At its largest extent, the suyu extended through much of modern Ecuador and just into modern Colombia. Along with Antisuyu, it was part of the Hanan Suyukuna or "Upper Quarters" of the empire.
The name is due to the Chincha culture, which was a trader kingdom in what is now the Ica Region. Chinchay in Quechua stands for the tigrillo, animal present, although not physically, in some cultures of this region due to the Amazonian influence during the Early Horizon and Early Intermediate, such as the Chavín culture or the commercial exchange between the Huarpa -civilization located in modern-day Ayacucho that had trading routes to the Amazonas- and Nazca cultures.
Before the Inca Civil War began, Atahualpa, the son of the deceased Inca Emperor Huayna Capac, inherited and ruled the majority of Chinchasuyu from his capital city in Quito, supported by Huayna Capac's veteran Inca generals and soldiers. The 12th Inca, Huayna Capac, knowing that he was about to die, gave orders to place his heart and organs in an Urn and have it buried in Quito, the city he loved. Moreover, Huayna Capac gave instructions that his mummified body should be transported to Cuzco for burial beside the mummified bodies of his royal ancestors. The Inca Emperor Huascar who was the eldest son of Huayna Capac, ruled the rest of the Inca Empire from Cuzco, and was displeased that Atahualpa was crown King in Quito.
The public source identifies “Chinchay Suyu” as division comprising the northwest region of the Inca Empire. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Chinchay, Suyu and division.
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This entry incorporates text from “Chinchay Suyu” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.