Quizquiz

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This article is about the South American general. For the video game, see QuizQuiz (computer game).

Quizquiz (or Quisquis, meaning "Little Bird") was, along with Chalicuchima, one of Atahualpa's two leading generals. In April 1532, along with his companion, Quizquiz defeated and captured Huascar and promptly killed his family. Quizquiz later commanded Atahualpa's troops in the Battles of Vilcaconga (1533) and Maraycalla (1534), ultimately being bested by the Spanish forces in both accounts.

After the ensuing battles, Quizquiz fled further into the safety of the Andean mountains but his forces soon demanded that he accept the Spanish demands, and, it being planting season, that they be able to return to their families. Quizquiz refused, and his war-weary troops eventually killed him (1534).

Quizquiz was one of Atahualpa's leading generals both in the civil war against Huascar and the war against Atahualpa. Juan de Betanzos reports in his "Narrative of the Incas" that during the civil war Quizquiz led troops of 60,000 and later 100,000 men against Huascar's troops. Quizquiz was responsible for the significant defeat and capture of Huascar, where Huascar planned to use a decoy advance guard that was to be later joined by the body of the army, however this decoy was destroyed before the rest of the army could join it. The fact that Quizquiz and not Atahualpa was in charge of the army has led some historians to see a late disintegration of the Incan Empire, where Athualpa was not sufficiently confident to leave control of administration in the hands of someone else. Quizquiz was in Cusco at the time of the Spaniards arrival. Contrary to the belief of many Natives, especially in Mexico, Quizquiz recognised that the Spanish were not Gods due to the fact that they didn't speak the Incan language and asked too many questions about the location of gold. Quizquiz was like his King Atahualpa, eventually defeated. However his reluctance to surrendur to the Spanish, eventually resulted in his death in 1534 at the hands of his own war weary men.