Kolla

The Qulla or Kolla are the southernmost of the Aymara-speaking peoples of the Altiplano, whose Colla kingdom arose on the Collao plateau around Lake Titicaca after the decline of Tiwanaku, at least by the late twelfth century, and whose dead were buried in stone chullpa towers such as those at Sillustani.

With the other Aymara lordships they were conquered by the Inca Pachacuti around 1450; the Inca named the southern quarter of Tawantinsuyu Qullasuyu, while Qulla families were resettled as soldier-colonists into the southern Andes, including the high puna around Antofalla.

In 1540 the Qulla first met the Spaniards, resisting for years before their lands were taken, and in 1780 the leader Ñusta Willaq led Qulla warriors in the Andean revolt. Their descendants in northwestern Argentina and western Bolivia speak a southern Quechua dialect, though the Titicaca Qulla probably once spoke Puquina.