Cara

The Caranqui, also called Cara, were the people of the northern Ecuadorian sierra, holding the valleys of Imbabura around Caranqui, Cayambe and Otavalo. Tradition traced them to a sea landing on the Bay of Caráquez; by the tenth century they had moved up the Esmeraldas River into the Andes, speaking a Barbacoan tongue and raising the stepped mounds called tolas, seen at Cochasquí from about 900.

Skilled traders between the Pasto, the Quitu and the Yumbo, they saw wars and marriage alliances with the Quitu ripen into a league against the Incas. Túpac Yupanqui broke the league; a later revolt under Huayna Capac ended at Yahuarcocha, the blood lake, where the Caranqui and Cayambi were slaughtered.

Spaniards overran the region in 1534; epidemic disease and intermarriage dissolved the tribe into the colonial mestizo population, though its language lived on in place names.