various authors
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An unusual but often repeated claim in fringe literature is that the Inca used a special plant to soften the stones they used to build their megalithic monuments, shaping the rocks as though they were clay. David Childress makes the claim in Technology of the Gods (2000) and it appears in the Disinformation Guide to Ancient Aliens (2013). The story took a long and circuitous path from a genuine colonial-era piece of folklore about a plant used by the hak'achu woodpecker that could dissolve iron to a plant used by the Inca for construction. The texts below are some of the primary sources for the developing claim. Translations from the Spanish are my own. Oreste Plath, in his 1976 book El Lenguaje de los Pájaros Chilenos, claimed that botanists were studying a plant he called "kechuca," which turned rocks to gelatin. The modern claim, I learned, launched into fringe literature in 1983 when Father Jorge Lira, a scholar of Andean folklore, appeared in a Spanish TV documentary and claimed the Inca used a plant to mold rocks and build their monuments and alleged that he had found the plant, which he called the jotcha bush (no plant so named appears in any standard source and may be a mangling of Plath's "kechuca"), and successfully used it to turn a stone to clay, a feat never replicated. Steve Froemming concluded that the original Peruvian story is probably a derivative of a folktale the Spanish brought to the Americas since nearly the same story about woodpeckers appears in Classical sources (e.g. Aelian, On Animals 1.45) and in European folklore (e.g. Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie, vol. III), where the bird's secret plant could not be touched by iron.
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Antonio de la Calancha, Coronica moralizada (Barcelona, 1638), 61.
Another rare herb is grown, commonly called the herb of the pito, because a bird by that name uses it as medicine when it needs to purge itself. It is a small herb, and when ground and applied, it dissolves iron or even steel.
The boldest criminals use it to break out of prison and escape confinement. In Potosí, in the Charcas, and in those regions and territories, thieves and prisoners make much use of it. If the herb is not very fine, it cracks the iron where the powder is applied; but if it is extremely fine or fresh, it dissolves it completely. For what is strongest in the world, God undoes with the humblest thing from the field.
It also grows in this kingdom like ginger, and in the province of Macas, in the Andes mountains, and in the lands of the Jíbaros and Quijos near the city of Loja and districts of the Audiencia of Quito.
The boldest criminals use it to break out of prison and escape confinement. In Potosí, in the Charcas, and in those regions and territories, thieves and prisoners make much use of it. If the herb is not very fine, it cracks the iron where the powder is applied; but if it is extremely fine or fresh, it dissolves it completely. For what is strongest in the world, God undoes with the humblest thing from the field.
It also grows in this kingdom like ginger, and in the province of Macas, in the Andes mountains, and in the lands of the Jíbaros and Quijos near the city of Loja and districts of the Audiencia of Quito.
R. P. Diego de Rosales, Historia General del Reyno de Chile (Valparaiso: Imprenta del Mercurio, 1877 [1674]), 236, 320.
The herb called Pito is one of the rarest known in the world and possesses great power to dissolve bladder stones. This herb is small and clings to the ground, and a little bird takes its name from it — a bird which the Indians call Pito because it uses this herb in a marvelous way. The Spaniards call this bird the woodpecker, and this species of bird is found throughout this region.
It has a rare property: when ground into powder, it breaks and dissolves iron and steel, as has been proven in the prisons, where some criminals have escaped using it. There have even been cases where people closed off the bird’s nest — which it makes in trees with its beak — by covering it with a sheet of iron, and the bird used this herb to remove the iron lock and plate. Undoubtedly, this herb gives the bird such strength in its beak that it becomes so strong it can bore into and shape the hardest wood — which is why it is called the carpenter bird.
And if this herb gives the bird such strength and has the power to dissolve iron, how could it not dissolve stones in the bladder? Father Master Friar Antonio de la Calancha discusses this herb in his Chronicle.
[…]
The woodpeckers, famous for the Pito herb: some are black with a large crest on their heads and about the size of a quail; others are as large as a rooster, also black, with a red, thick, and wide crest, behind which rises a plume of two or three silvery feathers, each a bit more than a span long. In the language of the Indians, they are called Rere.
There are other woodpeckers called Pito, about the size of a thrush: they are marked in black, white, and a reddish-brown color, and it is from these that the herb took the name yerba del Pitu, because they use it more than the other birds. They have such strong beaks that they break and bore into any tree, both to extract and eat the worms that live inside, and to build their nests, creating a hollow cavity where they lodge with their entire family.
They have become famous for the herb which they instinctively discovered — a herb that breaks down and crumbles iron, something that has been tested many times, and through which its properties have become known with remarkable cleverness. Because when people want to test the power of the Pito herb, they observe the moment when the bird's chicks are in the nest and the parents go out to find them food. Then, they seal the nest entrance with a sheet of iron. When the woodpecker returns and finds the nest closed, hears its chicks chirping inside, and cannot get in, it immediately goes off to find the herb called Pitu, and rubbing it against the iron plate, it breaks and destroys it as if it were paper. This is one of the rarest properties known in herbs, and the instinct of this bird is marvelous.
It has a rare property: when ground into powder, it breaks and dissolves iron and steel, as has been proven in the prisons, where some criminals have escaped using it. There have even been cases where people closed off the bird’s nest — which it makes in trees with its beak — by covering it with a sheet of iron, and the bird used this herb to remove the iron lock and plate. Undoubtedly, this herb gives the bird such strength in its beak that it becomes so strong it can bore into and shape the hardest wood — which is why it is called the carpenter bird.
And if this herb gives the bird such strength and has the power to dissolve iron, how could it not dissolve stones in the bladder? Father Master Friar Antonio de la Calancha discusses this herb in his Chronicle.
[…]
The woodpeckers, famous for the Pito herb: some are black with a large crest on their heads and about the size of a quail; others are as large as a rooster, also black, with a red, thick, and wide crest, behind which rises a plume of two or three silvery feathers, each a bit more than a span long. In the language of the Indians, they are called Rere.
There are other woodpeckers called Pito, about the size of a thrush: they are marked in black, white, and a reddish-brown color, and it is from these that the herb took the name yerba del Pitu, because they use it more than the other birds. They have such strong beaks that they break and bore into any tree, both to extract and eat the worms that live inside, and to build their nests, creating a hollow cavity where they lodge with their entire family.
They have become famous for the herb which they instinctively discovered — a herb that breaks down and crumbles iron, something that has been tested many times, and through which its properties have become known with remarkable cleverness. Because when people want to test the power of the Pito herb, they observe the moment when the bird's chicks are in the nest and the parents go out to find them food. Then, they seal the nest entrance with a sheet of iron. When the woodpecker returns and finds the nest closed, hears its chicks chirping inside, and cannot get in, it immediately goes off to find the herb called Pitu, and rubbing it against the iron plate, it breaks and destroys it as if it were paper. This is one of the rarest properties known in herbs, and the instinct of this bird is marvelous.
Hiram Bingham, “Cuzco and Sacsahuaman,” Records of the Past, Sept.-Oct. 1909, p. 240.
The modern Peruvians are very fond of speculating as to the method which the Incas employed to make their stones fit so perfectly. One of the favorite stories is that the Incas knew of a plant whose juices rendered the surface of a block so soft that the marvellous fitting was accomplished by rubbing the stones together for a few moments with this magical plant juice!
Percy Fawcett, Exploration Fawcett (London: The Companion Book Club, 1954), 105-106, 317.
“They make the holes themselves.” The words were spoken by a man who had spent a quarter of a century in the forests. […] “A woodpecker’s beak penetrates solid wood, doesn’t it?... No, I don’t think the bird can get through solid rock. I believe, as everyone who has watched them believes, that those birds know of a leaf with juice that can soften up rock till it’s like wet clay.”
I put this down as a tall tale–and then, after I had heard similar accounts from others all over the country, as a popular tradition.
[…]
The Incas inherited fortresses and cities built by a previous race and restored from a state of ruin without much difficulty. Where they themselves built with stone–in the regions where stone was the most convenient material, for in the coastal belt they generally used adobe–they adopted the same incredible mortarless joints that are characteristic of the older megalithic edifices, but made no attempts to use the huge stone masses favoured by their predecessors. I have heard it said that they fitted their stones together by means of a liquid that softened the surfaces to be joined to the consistency of clay.
I put this down as a tall tale–and then, after I had heard similar accounts from others all over the country, as a popular tradition.
[…]
The Incas inherited fortresses and cities built by a previous race and restored from a state of ruin without much difficulty. Where they themselves built with stone–in the regions where stone was the most convenient material, for in the coastal belt they generally used adobe–they adopted the same incredible mortarless joints that are characteristic of the older megalithic edifices, but made no attempts to use the huge stone masses favoured by their predecessors. I have heard it said that they fitted their stones together by means of a liquid that softened the surfaces to be joined to the consistency of clay.
