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“When his captains”: Pizarro 1969:198–99, 228 (vampire-bat wool).

Wayna Qhapaq’s death, succession battle: Cieza de León 1959:78–87; 1998:187–93; Pachacuti Yamqui Salcamayhua 1879:309–24; Sarmiento de Gamboa 2000:144–60; Cabello Balboa 1920:113–21, 128–72; Anello Oliva 1998:87–92. A clear summary is D’Altroy 2002:76–83; see also, Rostworowski de Diez Canseco 2001:110–25. Betanzos’s narrative, though useful, is understandably biased; his wife was Atawallpa’s sister (Betanzos 1996:183–234). Pedro Pizarro’s version of events interestingly highlights the internal politics of Qosqo (Pizarro 1969:198–206). Garcilaso de la Vega says that Wayna Qhapaq’s death followed omens and prophecies of the collapse of the empire, which seems unlikely. If true, though, it may account for a certain fatalism toward the Spanish among the Inka elite (Gheerbrant ed. 1962:284–89). He also suggests that the war occurred after Wayna Qhapaq split up Tawantinsuyu in a Lear-like fashion, giving Atawallpa a rump kingdom to the north. Most ethnographers and historians disagree. Garcilaso’s description of the war itself as consisting in essence of a single big engagement outside Qosqo is at variance with other accounts.

Washkar’s marriage and his mother’s marriage: Pachacuti Yamqui Salcamayhua 1879:308; Cabello Balboa 1920:120–21 (“begging,” 121).

Cieza de León casualty estimates: Cieza de León 1959:84 (16,000), 87 (35,000).

Skull cup: “I saw the head with the skin, the dried flesh, and its hair, and it had the teeth closed, and between them was a silver straw, and attached to the top of the head was a gold cup [with a hole in the bottom that entered the skull], from which he drank when memories of [Atawallpa’s] war against his brother came to mind; he put chicha in the cup, from which it came out through the mouth, and he drank through the straw” (Mena 1930:250–53). The cup is also mentioned in Cieza de León 1959:84.

Pizarro and Atawallpa at Cajamarca: I draw mainly on Hemming 2004:30–85. See also, Sancho 1917:9–19; Mena 1930:231–81; Pizarro 1969:171–221 (“made water,” 179–80); Ruiz de Arce 1933:363 (“mounds”), cited in Hemming 2004:42.

Spaniards and gold: Restall 2003:22–23 (“nonperishable,” 23), 34–37, 65–67.

“What could,” “No amount”: Hemming 2004:115, 158. See also the vigorously argued Guilmartin 1991.

Marveling at failure to develop steel: “It is worthy of remark, that…the Peruvians, in their progress towards civilization, should never have detected the use of iron, which lay around them in abundance” (Prescott 2000:810).

Andean metallurgy: Burger and Gordon 1998; Lechtman 1996b (“hardness,” 35; “plasticity,” 37); 1993 (“eminent scholar,” 253); 1984.

Different contexts of technology: Interviews, Lechtman (“people solved”), Conklin, Leonard Morse-Fortier (force of sling projectiles); Ihde 2000.

Inka ships: Cieza de León 1998: 75–76; Heyerdahl 1996; Hemming 2004:25; Prescott 2000:854–55; interview, Vranich (replica boat created for documentary). See the account of the new ship at http://www.reedboat.org.

“without endangering themselves”: Sancho 1917:62.

Importance and fineness of textiles in Tawantinsuyu: Murra 1964 (stripping soldiers, 718); Lechtman 1993:254–59 (five hundred threads per inch, 257). “The [cotton] clothes they made were so fine that we [Spaniards] thought they were made of silk, worked with figures of beaten gold, beautifully made” (Mena 1930:225).

Cloth armor: Lechtman 1993:256; Murra 1964:718 (stripping of soldiers); Rowe 1946:274–75; Montell 1929:Fig. 21.

“with such force”: Enríquez de Guzmán 1862:99.

Inka rebellion with flaming missiles: Hemming 2004:193–94; Prescott 2000:1021–23.

Inka armies and horses: Hemming 2004 (“Even when,” 111–12; “dreaded,” 158).

Inka roads and horses: Letter, Pizarro, H., to Oidores of Santo Domingo, 23 Nov. 1533, quoted in Hemming 2004:31 (“so bad”); Prescott 2000:954. On one steep road “all made of steps of very small stones,” Pedro Sancho wrote, Pizarro’s “horses toiled so much that, when they had