The North Countries – Part VI

Continued from the previous post regarding the north countries of the Nephites, and the entire western coastal desert strip along with the settlements that anciently existed there.
    As stated previously, this desert in the southwest is littered with round river rock-lined funnels called puquios, that provide a circular walkway down into the aquifer and subterranean river that flows beneath the desert from the mountain area to the sea.
    These subterranean aqueducts were built near the present city of Nazca, with a series of acequias or canals that brought to the surface water from the underground water source and channeled it to the areas where it was needed. Any excess was stored in surface kochas or reservoirs, which served as wells and as distribution points for directing the water into the canals. To help keep the water flowing, chimneys were excavated above the canals in the shape of corkscrewing funnels. These funnels admitted wind into the canals, and the difference in atmospheric pressure along the canal length forced the water through the system and eventually to the desired destination (recent satellite imagery also revealed additional previously unknown puquios in the Nasca drainage basin).

Paracas or Nazca aqueducts that dotted the surface were sophisticated hydraulic systems that allowed the ancient cultures to retrieve water from underground aquifers, with the water drawn to the surface by the funnel-shaped holes turned the area into a flourishing landscape able to support agriculture

These surface reservoirs would have provided water for Coriantumr’s army as they moved through this highly arid desert of rocky land and a scarcity of fertile soil, broken by cacti and twisted Schinus molle trees (Peruvian pink pepper), whose large evergreen canopy provided some shade in the hot sun along the yunga (warm, sterile valleys) before reaching the coast where the salty sea breeze and chilly winds would have revived his forces. There, he turned northward in his design for an eventual surprise attack on the city of Zarahemla.
    According to research scientist Rosa Lasaponara, of the Institute of Methodologies for Environmental Analysis in Italy, who has worked on this puquios system, claims that it was much more developed anciently than it appears today.
    The early Paracas, who first settled here were, in turn, followed by the Nazca, who settled in the arid, sub-tropical deserts of the Ica, Nazca and surrounding valleys. They were a people who produced an array of crafts and technologies such as ceramics, textiles, and geoglyphs—specifically the Nazca Lines, with their principle sites being Cahuachi at 1200 feet elevation, and directly across the Pampa de San José on the flanks of the Ingenio River tributary, the sister city of Ventilla, one of the largest urban sites at 200 hectares and hundreds of habitation terraces containing the remains of densely connected houses, some large enclosures an a few artificial mounds with open bounded khanchas in between.
    In addition, archaeologist and ethnologist (ethnohistory is a branch of anthropology that analyzes cultures, especially in regard to their historical development and their differences), William Duncan Strong, President of the American Ethnological Society, and Loubat Professor at Columbia, was one of the only archaeologists that took a broad approach to the site, contextualizing it within Nazca society and south coast prehistory. He set out to find stratigraphic evidence that would resolve the gap between Paracas and Nazca styles in the region. He also did settlement pattern studies in order to find out the kinds of activities that went on at Cahuachi—a 370-acre complex of impressive construction about 18 miles from the current town of Nazca. Strong’s findings led him to believe that the Paracas built the early cities attributed to the Nazca, and we may conclude that there was considerable evidence to link these two cultures into one overall people.
    In any event, the Nazca were concentrated in the Rio Grande de Nasca drainage, an area classified below 2000 feet as a “pre-montaine desert formation.” Here the area’s rivers originate high in the Andes and the water flows of the coastal valleys is entirely dependent on rainfall in the highlands, which incorporates nine separate tributaries covering an area over 6600 square miles and includes the rivers of Ingenio, Palpa, Aja, Tierras Blancas and Taruga, which extend high into the Andes where they collect the summer rains and water from melting glaciers to provide sustenance in the valleys below.
    According to archaeologist Donald A. Proulx, University of Massachusetts in “The Nasca Culture: An Introduction,” the vast majority of domestic sites were small villages or hamlets measuring under 4 ½ acres in size, and located well inland usually flanking the tributary rivers and not along the coast, leaving the coastal desert corridor unoccupied—something that the defector Coriantumr would have well understood, having been born and growing up in Zarahemla, as he led his army through the area toward the city.
    The largest of the Nazca settlements was the massive pyramid complex known as Cahuachi, which was located 250 miles south of Lima and several miles inland from the coast.

Top: The Cahuachi truncated pyramid complex of Cahuachi about six miles south of Nazca. There are 36 to 40 separate pyramids in this isolated area, and it is claimed they were abandoned at the close of the fourth century AD

Along this southwestern coast runs the Nazca river which flows underground for about nine miles to the east and resurfaces like a spring on the doorstep of Cahuachi. In fact, according to Anthropologist Helaine Silverman, who specializes in “Peru/Central Andes Studies,” and author of Ancient Nasca Settlement and Society, and Handbook of South American Aarchaeology I and II, in discussing the Nazca region: “The heartland of Nazca culture river system encompasses some 6,680 square miles, with its upper reaches in Ayaucho and Huancavelica, its lower portions in Ica, and is exceptional because it is formed of many affluents [tributaries] with only one outlet to the sea, the Grande River itself” (Helaine Silverman, Cahuachi in the Ancient Nazca World, Universit of Iowa Press, Iowa City, 1933).
    In addition, the Nazca culture built more than 40 subterranean aqueducts more than 1500 years ago in teh 5th Century AD or earlier (Katharina Schreiber and Josue Lancho Rojas, Irrigation and Society in the Peruvian Desert, Lexington Books, Lanham, Maryland, 1999, p6), and have never been fully mapped and none have been excavated (M. Barnes, “Dating of Nazca Aqueducts,” Nature, Vol.359, No.111, 10 September 1992). These aqueducts, or  puquois, ensured the supply of water to the city of Nazca and the surrounding fields, allowing the cultivation of crops in an arid region. Nearly all are still operating and even relied upon to bring fresh water into the arid desert (Judith Proulx  and Donald A. Rickenback, Nasca Puquios and Aqueducts, University of Massachusetts, originally published as Nasca: Geheimnisvolle Zeichen im Alten Peru, ed Judith Rickenbach, Museum Rietberg Zürich, Zürich, 1999, pp89-96).

When the defector Coriantumr with his Lamanite army reached the coastal area past the Nazca settlements, he turned north toward Zarahemla

Once through this area, Coriantumr would have then turned northward along the coast through the hyper-arid, northern-most extent of the Atacama Desert, which runs along a low altitude, narrow strip between the Pacific littoral and the foothills of the Andes. Crossing the Ingenio River, one of six major rivers and several minor tributaries that come together in the Río Grande de Nasca drainage. The Ingenio reaches its confluence with the Grande River near Chiquerillo at 735 feet elevation, after running nearly 56 miles from its headwaters in the highlands at over 13,120 feet. Together with the other rivers of the drainage, the Santa Cruz, Grande, Nasca, Palpa, and Vizcas, of the Ingenio’s valley reach the sea where there is no delta of rich alluvial deposits like most Peruvian rivers.

The foothills along the eastern edge of the desert coastal strip in the area of Nazca north to Ica. It is a desolate area with few settlements and open desert land

Coriantumr moving north along this narrow coastal strip would have hugged the foothills, keeping well out of sight of anyone in the area, though he would have been many miles from an occupied settlement. However, the closer he came to the coastal city of Zarahemla, the more chance for discovery and he did “march forth at the head of his numerous host, and came upon the inhabitants of the city, and their march was with such exceedingly great speed that there was no time for the Nephites to gather together their armies” (Helaman 1:19). Now, Coriantumr well understood the defenses of Zarahemla and the surrounding area, and knew that with “so much contention and so much difficulty in the government, that they had not kept sufficient guards in the land of Zarahemla; for they had supposed that the Lamanites durst not come into the heart of their lands to attack that great city Zarahemla” (Helaman 1:18), which is exactly why Coriantumr made his approach directly to Zarahemla and not the cities in the east first, such as in the lands of Moroni and Lehi, but came across the Land of Nephi to the west coast, and then straight up to Zarahemla.
    Thus, when he reached the city, he was able to easily fight his way into it and conquer the capital because of his surprise approach from the south and not form the east, which had always been the Lamanite route into the Land of Zarahemla in the past. From there, as we stated earlier, Coriantumr went northward, toward the “north countries,” taking the central route or road through the highlands toward Bountiful. Wanting to cut his way through the unprotected Nephite lands, destroying his enemy as he went, Coriantumr chose to travel up “he center of the land, therefore he did march forth, giving them no time to assemble themselves together save it were in small bodies; and in this manner they did fall upon them and cut them down to the earth” (Helaman 1:24).
    However, his march “through the most capital parts of the land, slaying the people with a great slaughter, both men, women, and children, taking possession of many cities and of many strongholds” (Helaman 1:27) slowed his progress, and allowed Moronihah to send “Lehi with an army round about to head them before they should come to the land of Bountiful” (Helaman 1:28), and Moronihah brought his army up behind Coriantumr’s forces (Helaman 1;30), and the Nephites caught the Lamanties between their two strong forces, killing Coriantumr, and eventually recapturing the city of Zarahemla (Helaman 1:33).