Hatun Wamp'u (Hay-ton Wamp-u)

Purpose / Function

A collection of 12 large diamond shaped rock formations. They raise as free-standing mountains from the black sand along the Hayaqiago.

Design

White Crown

The very top of the formations are covered in snow-white droppings several feet deep.

Bow Shell

The rest of the formation are often thought to resemble the bow-shape of conch shells.

Entries

By Stairs

In the times when Hayaqiago is above sea level and dry, climbing the crumbling stairs is the most practical means to ascend the summit.

By Boat

During the 50 year periods when the sea drowns Hayaqiago, the mountains become islands, and it becomes easier to travel and harvest the fertilizer.

Sensory & Appearance

Smell

Salt blows in from the beach breeze and ammonia from the guano hovers around the crown.

Denizens

Seabirds

Great conservative care is placed on the suitability of the crown as a nesting site. Harsh penalties, up to and including death, are placed on anyone who mines the guano or hunts the birds inside the nesting season. The fear is that disturbances such as these during the higher bird population would scare elsewhere and devastate the settlements on Hayaqiago.

Valuables

Bird Guano

Digested fish from bird waste makes for excellent fertilizer.

Atop the white crown, guano piles to three times the height of a man. Miners are able to deliever huge quantities for local communities to trade for wool, potatoes or quinoa and to fertilze their own fields.
The guano is so valuable in vitalizing many afar-fields, that far away Ca-Chisneu enforces strict extraction control over the nearby settlements who mine it.

Hazards & Traps

Hollowness

Internally, there exist incredible cavernous halls, long vertical shafts and shorter horizontal paths inside the bow shell.

Special Properties

Inducing Faintness

A smell more potent that llama or human manure wafts from the Hatun Wamp'us' heights to the bluffs and mountain roads descending to the river shores and beaches. Those unaccustomed may have the feeling of needing to wretch with the taste of spoilt milk manifesting in the back of the throat.

Alterations

Makeshift Staircase

They are the birds' own cities. Three or five drums rise from the crown pockmarked with decaying outlooks that make for excellent nest sites.

It takes a lot of strength to power through the winds and for 200 years several communities did just that. Laying claim to Hatuns of their own by proving to their neigbours they could scale the heights regularly and staking a committed claim.

Tourism

Guano Miners

Local communities scattered across Hayaqiago send occasional excursions to collect the fertilizer.

Worshippers

Pilgrims make yearly trips to the top of certain Hatun Wamp'u purely for the belief of wak'as. Priests brave the winds and the smells make offering and sacrifices.

Alternative Names

Bird Islands

Type

Geographic Feature

Related Professions

• Breath Holder

Related Ethnicities

• Coastal People
• Innoit

Ruling/Owning Rank

Sapa

Owning Organization

First Quadrant

Related Traditions

• Deep Science
• Inti Raymi