Tinto Flavour #32 - 18th of July 2025 - Inca

[RandyDeSantis]

The Cara and Kitu peoples did exist and there's linguistic and limited archaeological evidence for their existence. It is likely that they also were part of the Barbacoan language family.

However, you're right, most of the "documented history" surrounding them was in fact forged by Juan de Velasco, he exaggerated and even outright invented many stories about a supposed "Kingdom of Quito" ruled by these peoples. Most importantly, Velasco projected European feudal ideas on his "embellished" descriptions of the Cara and Kitu people, partially due to ignorance, but mostly as a narrative weapon to justify the colonization and "right of rule through conquest" of a supposed "kingdom" of Quito, as if it were a European kingdom, and give some semblance of legitimacy to the conquest of the region.

Something similar happened with the Muisca and might be the reason why the Inca are referred to as an empire, a completely foreign and anachronic term for the Inca. It was more prestigious for the Spanish monarchs to claim they conquered an overseas "empire" than just claiming that they conquered some random foreign people. The tales of "great empires" overseas gave prestige to the Spanish, justified their conquests and created a narrative that promoted migration from Spain to the colonies.

There is no any kind of evidence both from Conquista period and modern archeological and historical research for the existence of the suposed Cara and Quitu groups aside Juan de Velasco's book. No mention in early Spanish conquest documents, no royal Shiry house mentioned in early Spanish documents or chronicles aside "Historia del Reino de Quito" and also even Juan de Velasco said that both Cara and Quitu groups spoke Quechua centuries before Incan conquest even when according with Spanish records the area supposedly inhabitated by the Cara was actually part of the Manteño/Pache and Esmeraldeño/Atacame/Tacame territories also there is not evidence of Barbacoan groups in the region of Guayaquil aside Tsachilas/Colorados (of course Tsachilas/Colorados only inhabited the area of the modern day province of Santo Domingo and northern Los Ríos) while the area suposedly inhabited by Quitu people was actually inhabited by Caranqui and Cayambi groups according with Spanish legal documents and chronicles

I'm not saying that the Inca, the Muisca or the Kitu weren't very, very complex societies, on the contrary, they accomplished incredible things and continue to be very interesting peoples. However, applying foreign "titles" and "ranks" on to them is ethnocentric, ignorant and offensive, considering they had their own political and social structures that had nothing to do with European feudal and colonial societies. This ethnocentric narratives, such as the one written by Juan de Velasco, were powerful weapons of colonisation employed by conquistadors and colonists to legitimize their conquest and gain manpower and monetary support back from Spain to complete the colonization.

The only evidence about the supposed evidence of Quitu people are basically pyramids who according with archeological and historical research belong to Cayambi and Caranqui groups which of course are mentioned in Spanish and Indigenous chronicles so no Quitu people mentioned here

To summarize, the Kitu and the Cara peoples most likely did exist, but the "Kingdom of Quito", with a king and a court based on European models, as described by Juan de Velasco, and supposedly belonging to them, was just a literary creation made by him after the conquest of modern-day Ecuador.

To summarize, the Cara and Quitu groups never existed as there is no evidence both from colonial era documents and modern day scientific research aside from Juan de Velasco's book

 

[juanfegonzalezce]

There is no any kind of evidence both from Conquista period and modern archeological and historical research for the existence of the suposed Cara and Quitu groups aside Juan de Velasco's book. No mention in early Spanish conquest documents, no royal Shiry house mentioned in early Spanish documents or chronicles aside "Historia del Reino de Quito" and also even Juan de Velasco said that both Cara and Quitu groups spoke Quechua centuries before Incan conquest even when according with Spanish records the area supposedly inhabitated by the Cara was actually part of the Manteño/Pache and Esmeraldeño/Atacame/Tacame territories also there is not evidence of Barbacoan groups in the region of Guayaquil aside Tsachilas/Colorados (of course Tsachilas/Colorados only inhabited the area of the modern day province of Santo Domingo and northern Los Ríos) while the area suposedly inhabited by Quitu people was actually inhabited by Caranqui and Cayambi groups according with Spanish legal documents and chronicles

The only evidence about the supposed evidence of Quitu people are basically pyramids who according with archeological and historical research belong to Cayambi and Caranqui groups which of course are mentioned in Spanish and Indigenous chronicles so no Quitu people mentioned here

To summarize, the Cara and Quitu groups never existed as there is no evidence both from colonial era documents and modern day scientific research aside from Juan de Velasco's book

I think we are mixing apples and oranges here and talking about different things. One thing is the "Kingdom of Quito" as a political entity described by Juan de Velasco, and which you accurately point out to have never existed, and another thing is the Cara/Caranqui and Kitu archeological cultures/ethnic groups, which did exist and have documented archaeological places, words lists and modern-day descendants.

The Cara, or Caranqui, they are basically the same people, there's just alternate names to refer to them, are probably part of the Barbacoan language family and lived, and more than 10,000 of them still live, in the modern-day province of Imbabura, not on the coastal regions around Manta or Guayaquil, as you mentioned. There's also many archaeological sites associated to them from pre-Inca times. Their language is the southernmost member of the Barbacoan language family and the existence of their language is widely documented by linguists and anthropologists.

The Kitu are completely extinct today, but they existed around the modern-day city of Quito. They spoke the Panzaleo language, which is currently classified as a language isolate, but might have been related to the Nasa Yuwe language of southern Colombia, according to some linguists and anthropologists. There are many archaeological sites related to them, such as the Rumipamba Archeological Park north of Quito, as well as the funerary site of La Florida. They are mostly know as an archaeological culture with some sporadic words being preserved that have allowed linguists and anthropologists to study their language.

The "KIngdom of Quito" as a political entity is the thing that never existed, there was never a unified "kingdom" centred on the city of Quito as described by Juan de Velasco. The Caranqui/Cara and Panzaleo/Kitu peoples organised themselves into chiefdoms and autonomous villages, far different from Velasco's fictional account.

 

[RandyDeSantis]

I think we are mixing apples and oranges here and talking about different things. One thing is the "Kingdom of Quito" as a political entity described by Juan de Velasco, and which you accurately point out to have never existed, and another thing is the Cara/Caranqui and Kitu archeological cultures/ethnic groups, which did exist and have documented archaeological places, words lists and modern-day descendants.

No, you are actually spreading a revisionist version of Juan de Velasco's pseudohistory. The book "Historia del Reino de Quito" clearly affirms that both Cara and Quitu groups where of Quechua origin as they speak Quechua literally 5 centuries before Incan arrival to Ecuadorian Highlands and even the word Quitu is a Quechua word

and another thing is the Cara/Caranqui and Kitu archeological cultures/ethnic groups, which did exist and have documented archaeological places, words lists and modern-day descendants.

The existence of Cayambi and Caranqui toponyms and archeological remains does not support the existence of Cara and Quitu also the region literally suffered a massive depopulation from Incan conquest first and later from diseases bringed by Spaniards also the region inhabited by the fictitious Quitu people was repopulated by Pasto and Quechua mitimaes both during Incan and Spanish times and the supposed descendants of Quitu people are actually descendants of Incan and Spanish era mitimaes who where brainwashed by the Ecuadorian government to adopt a fake identity and even the Ecuadorian geographer Manuel Villavicencio in his book "Geografía de la República del Ecuador" written in 1858 clearly states that the Amerindian populations around the city of Quito where called "Peruanos" (Peruvians) despite Villavicencio considers them part of the fictitious Quitu ethnicity so even in that time people already knew that Cayambi people (and not the fictitious and inexistent Quitu people) didn't existed anymore and they where replaced by mitimaes of Quechua origin mostly

The Cara, or Caranqui, they are basically the same people, there's just alternate names to refer to them, are probably part of the Barbacoan language family and lived, and more than 10,000 of them still live, in the modern-day province of Imbabura, not on the coastal regions around Manta or Guayaquil, as you mentioned. There's also many archaeological sites associated to them from pre-Inca times. Their language is the southernmost member of the Barbacoan language family and the existence of their language is widely documented by linguists and anthropologists.

The Caranqui ethnicity existed but the Cara people where actually a Juan de Velasco's invention and also the area of the modern day province of Imbabura was also heavily settled by Aymara, Pasto, Quechua and even Coastal Peruvian groups who where bringed by Incans and Spaniards because of the massive population decline suffered by Caranqui people due Incan conquest and Spanish diseases so the Caranqui people as an ethnicity do not exist anymore despite some very few people have last names of Caranqui origin the most part are actually descendants of Aymara, Pasto, Quechua and Coastal Peruvian mitimaes brainwashed by the Ecuadorian goverment to accept a false ethnicity only due anti-Peruvianism also Juan de Velasco claimed that the fictitious Cara ethnicity settled modern day northern Manabi province but archeological and historical evidence has already debunked de Velasco's claims about the fictitious Cara people settlement of northern Manabi

The Kitu are completely extinct today, but they existed around the modern-day city of Quito. They spoke the Panzaleo language, which is currently classified as a language isolate, but might have been related to the Nasa Yuwe language of southern Colombia, according to some linguists and anthropologists. There are many archaeological sites related to them, such as the Rumipamba Archeological Park north of Quito, as well as the funerary site of La Florida. They are mostly know as an archaeological culture with some sporadic words being preserved that have allowed linguists and anthropologists to study their language.

The Quitu people are not extinct because they never existed but the Cayambi yes and Cayambi people spoke a Barbacoan language closer to modern day Tsachila/Colorado language and the remains belong to Cayambi people not to Quitu and again Quitu is a word of Quechua origin and that is already stated both by the Peruvian linguist Rodolfo Cerron-Palomino and the Spanish era priest and linguist Diego Gonzalez Holguin

The "KIngdom of Quito" as a political entity is the thing that never existed, there was never a unified "kingdom" centred on the city of Quito as described by Juan de Velasco. The Caranqui/Cara and Panzaleo/Kitu peoples organised themselves into chiefdoms and autonomous villages, far different from Velasco's fictional account.

Excatly, the kingdom of Quito never existed and the supposed Cara and Quitu ethnicities never existed too and again Caranqui and Cayambi =/= Cara and Quitu and also the term Panzaleo is an alternative name for Cayambi used by the Ecuadorian archeologist Jacinto Jijon y Caamaño and actually I'm waiting for Spanish era sources directly mentioning Cara and Quitu ethnicities

 

[nyetflix2]

@juanfegonzalezce
@RandyDeSantis

Here are some excerpts from the Handbook of South American Indians, Vol. 2 (admittedly dated, from the 1940s):

On the Cara/Caranqui (Cayambe was one of their settlements):

Of course, "the Barbacoa group of the Chibchan family" is nonsense. However, this overzealousness in favor of macrofamilies does not disqualify what else the book has to say.

More importantly, notice the discussion of Velasco's account and its untrustworthiness.

On the Panzaleo/Quito:

a

Explaining its sources on Ecuador - notice the primary reliance on 16th-century Spanish sources, and the explicit affirmation that Velasco's account is untrustworthy:

At this point, with respect, I think we are no longer arguing about much of consequence. I would not oppose renaming Cara and Quito cultures to Caranqui and Panzaleo, but, although I can't say for sure it was originally the correct terminology, they certainly seem to have become equivalent terms in the academic literature.

 

[RandyDeSantis]

Here are some excerpts from the Handbook of South American Indians, Vol. 2 (admittedly dated, from the 1940s):

On the Cara/Caranqui (Cayambe was one of their settlements):

Of course, "the Barbacoa group of the Chibchan family" is nonsense. However, this overzealousness in favor of macrofamilies does not disqualify what else the book has to say.

More importantly, notice the discussion of Velasco's account and its untrustworthiness.

Well as I replied before the Cara group is a Juan de Velasco invention but Caranqui (also called Carangue) do really existed. No early Spanish conquest era documents mention Cara people in any context but they mention Caranqui/Carangue people

On the Panzaleo/Quito:

a

Explaining its sources on Ecuador - notice the primary reliance on 16th-century Spanish sources, and the explicit affirmation that Velasco's account is untrustworthy:

At this point, with respect, I think we are no longer arguing about much of consequence. I would not oppose renaming Cara and Quito cultures to Caranqui and Panzaleo, but, although I can't say for sure it was originally the correct terminology, they certainly seem to have become equivalent terms in the academic literature.

The Quitu people again is a Juan de Velasco's forgery and even according to him they speaked Quechua also I mentioned before that the word Quito has a Quechua origin and Panzaleo is an archeological term (not an ethnonym) used by the Ecuadorian archeologist Jacinto Jijon y Caamaño to refeer to the now extinct Cayambi people whose territory also included the modern day area of Quito and also early Spanish conquest era documents do not mention Quitu people in any context but they mention Cayambi people

PD: @juanfegonzalezce and @GastonEstBonne instead downvoting my comment you should show Spanish era goverment documents showing direct mentions to the already debunked and inexistent Cara and Quitu peoples. I'm waiting