Kayambi

The Kayambi, or Cayambis, are an Andean people of the high valley north of Quito, around Cayambe volcano, where the Pisque River basin and Pambamarca ridge held their hilltop forts, or pucaras. They met the Inca advance with prolonged resistance: fighting over Pambamarca is said to have lasted seventeen years before the fortresses fell early in the sixteenth century.

Conquered under Topa Inca Yupanqui around 1470, the Kayambi joined the northern revolt under Huayna Capac alongside the Caranqui, Quitu and Pasto. When it was crushed, tradition places the final slaughter at the lake renamed Yawarkucha, the blood lake. Some communities then submitted and became Inca allies.

Kayambi pottery survived through the colonial period. After the Spanish conquest of 1534 their lands were broken into haciendas, whose Kayambi tenants were forced into labour, chiefly in wool processing.