Puruhá

The Puruhá were a cluster of highland chiefdoms in central Ecuador, across Chimborazo, Bolívar and Tungurahua. Their valleys supported farming villages and guinea-pig husbandry; the Elenpata ceramic phase, flourishing from about 800, was their classical age. Each curaca ruled his people, but in emergencies chiefs met under a senior king.

Their rituals centred on the lightning god Catequil, the serpent Pini and Chimborazo, served by jambiri shamans. The Incas conquered them under Huayna Capac, and tradition makes Paccha Duchicela of the ruling lineage his wife and the possible mother of Atahualpa.

Epidemic disease cut the population after the Spanish takeover of the 1530s. The Puruhá language, grouped with Cañari in the unclassified Cañar-Puruhá family, had nearly vanished by the early 1700s as Kichwa spread through missions and estates.