Huarco

The Huarco were the people of a coastal kingdom of the Canete valley south of Lima, contemporary with the Chimu Empire to the north. Their strongholds included the sea-facing fortress of Cerro Azul and Ungara, and their confederation held out against the Incas for four or five years during the Huarco-Inca war of the 1450s.

Chroniclers record that the widowed Huarco lady curaca lost her valley through cunning: the Inca queen Mama Ocllo proposed a ritual fishing festival for the sea goddess Mama Cocha, and while the forts were emptied for the ceremony at sea, Inca troops slipped in and seized the chiefdom.

The victors built the stone fortress of Cerro Azul, with stairways down to the water, which chronicler Pedro Cieza de Leon ranked alongside Sacsahuaman, and Tupac Yupanqui laid out the Incahuasi administrative centre on the four-part plan of Cuzco; Huarco entered the empire as a Chinchaysuyu province.