Kayambi

The Kayambi are an Andean people of the high valley north of Quito, around Cayambe volcano, whose hilltop forts, or pucaras, stood on the Pambamarca ridge and in the Pisque River basin. They resisted the Inca advance so long that the fighting over Pambamarca is said to have lasted seventeen years.

Under Huayna Capac they joined the northern revolt with the Caranqui, Quitu and Pasto. Tradition places the final slaughter at a lake renamed Yawarkucha, the blood lake. After the Spanish conquest of 1534 their lands were broken into haciendas, whose Kayambi tenants were forced to work, chiefly in wool processing.