Re: Amerindian navigators

[yuku@mail.trends.ca (Yuri Kuchinsky)]

Domingo Martinez-Castilla (agdndmc@showme.missouri.edu) wrote:

	...

: 3. Chincha traders.  The original reference to the 6000 traders is:
: 
: Rostworowski de Diez Canseco, María: 1970: "Mercaderes del valle de Chincha en
: la época prehispánica: Un documento y unos comentarios" Revista
: Española de Antropología Americana, vol. 5, pp. 135-178
: 
: She discusses briefly the issue, again, in her _Historia del
: Tahuantinsuyu_, IEP, Lima 1988.  The main trade object was the
: "mullu" shell (mainly Spondylus), trade that goes way before Inca times. In 
: any case, she states that the trade was made with the Huancavilcas of today'
: Ecuador.  The Chincha traders took mainly copper. They would go as far
: as Mantas and Puerto Viejo, in Ecuador, where they would get the shells.
: It seems that the trade to areas North of Ecuador was in the hands of
: the "mindalá" traders of that area.  I do not have information on trade 
: with the Pacific coast of today's Colombia and further north.

Thanks for these references, Domingo. Somewhere I have read that the Lord
of Chincha was the second most important ruler in the Inca Empire, and
that the Inca Emperor accorded him many signs of respect. This would
indicate that Chincha traders made an important contribution to Inca
economy. 

As far as the question you ask about where did the balsa logs needed for
making sailing rafts come from, have it ever occurred to you that the
Native Americans actually may have _planted them_ in the area for the
purpose of harvesting the logs? What do you think, these are some kinds of
hardwood trees that need to grow for hundreds of years to reach maturity? 
Balsa tree is extremely fast growing, just like the corktree. And of
course we all know about the great sophistication of Native American
farmers in this area... Yes? The "big problem" that you see there may not
be a problem at all... So draw your own conclusions.

Regards,

Yuri.

Yuri Kuchinsky in Toronto -=O=- Specializing in factitious 
editing of other people's posts since 1997 -=O=- my webpage 
is at http://www.io.org/~yuku

Oh, what tangled webs we weave when first we practice to believe