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Pisco / Feature Articles

In keeping with the latest discussions over the rights to the name of Pisco, here is an interesting article outlining some of the arguments given for Peru’s claim to the name. In this first part we’ll look at the name. In subsequent articles we’ll look at the Valley, the Port and finally the liquor.

Pisco is a typical alcoholic beverage of Peru. It gets its name from a Quechua word that was used to name a valley, a port, a city, a container and finally the national drink of Peru.

Pisco, in Quechua, means "bird". Fray Domingo of Santo Tomás tells in his Lexicón that this word is translated "generally páxaro (bird) ", and Diego González Holguín in his Vocabulario, indicates that “páxaro or all birds" is used. And continuing, indicating that “piscophapic” is birder or bird hunter, “piscollullac” for the lure to catch birds and “piscopquixan” for the cage for captive birds.
When the Incas came down from the Andean highlands to subjugate the coast, they did so following the Condor’s path through Ticrapo or Huaytará, and thus they came to name the valley before them “Cuntur” or Condor. The Condor, therefore, was the giant "páxaro" (bird) that lent its name to the Incas in the naming of the valley. The name lasted many years, but due to linguistic reasons which identified the Condor with the great Andean "páxaro", the local Yungas Indians, who were very Quechuanized, changed it to "Pisco", and extending the vocabulary to include many land and marine birds of the region (one of these being the Condor which on occasion descends from its Andean highland habitat to the costal region of Ica). This is how the Valley of the Condor became the Valle of the Giant Bird or the Valley of the lesser Birds, due to the word’s double meaning. There were human settlements in the valley over 2,000 years ago called “piskos”. The Pisko people were known for their excellent ceramics and their descendants became potters during the Inca Empire. From the time of these settlements, there have been containers which were used to keep or store drinks, even alcoholic drinks, which were also called "piskos".

These modifications to the name were relatively modern as they came about in the middle of the XVIth century. This was why Pedro Cieza de León omitted the name of Pisco, yet seventy years later it figured in the writings of the Carmelite, Antonio Vásquez de Espinosa, who spoke of "from this famous Pisco Valley" and its "village" next to the sea. However, the name of the Valley of the Condor still applied, but only for the part of the valley located between lands of Cazalla and Humay. Later the entire region took the name of the ancient settlement of Pisko.

Despite what is said, the 1584 edition of the first Renaissance scientific cartographic atlas, Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, written by Abraham Ortelius, included the map Peruviae Auriferae Regionis Typus wherein the name place Pisco is indicated. This map was developed by Diego Méndez, a secular priest and thinker of Vice Royal Peru. The appearance of this port city in said map indicates that its name was already widely recognized.
In the next installment, we’ll look at the history of the Valley itself.