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The Quichua language has no sound of V. The early Spanish writers, however, wrote the capital letter U exactly like a capital V. In official documents and letters Uiticos became Viticos. The official readers, who had never heard the word pronounced, naturally used the V sound instead of the U sound. Both V and P easily become B. So Uiticos became Biticos and Uilcapampa became Vilcabamba.
A Spanish document of 1598 says the first town of "San Francisco de la Victoria de Vilcabamba" was in the "valley of Viticos." The town's long name became shortened to Vilcabamba. Then the river which flowed past was called the Vilcabamba, and is so marked on Raimondi's map. Uiticos had long since passed from the memory of man.
This is the "Viticos" of Cieza de Leon, a contemporary of Manco, who says that it was to the province of Viticos that Manco determined to retire when he rebelled against Pizarro, and that "having reached Viticos with a great quantity of treasure collected from various parts, together with his women and retinue, the king, Manco Inca, established himself in the strongest place he could find, whence he sallied forth many times and in many directions and disturbed those parts which were quiet, to do what harm he could to the Spaniards, whom he considered as cruel enemies."
Nearly all the cartographers of the eighteenth century who give "Viticos" supposed it to be the name of a tribe, e.g., "Los Viticos" or "Les Viticos." Part of the Nuremberg Map of 1599, Showing Pincos and the Andes Mountains
The largest official map of Peru, the work of that remarkable explorer, Raimondi, who spent his life crossing and recrossing Peru, does not contain the word Uiticos nor any of its numerous spellings, Viticos, Vitcos, Pitcos, or Biticos. Incidentally, it may seem strange that Uiticos could ever be written "Biticos."
In 1625 "Viticos" is marked on de Laet's map of Peru as a mountainous province northeast of Lima and three hundred and fifty miles northwest of Vilcabamba! This error was copied by some later cartographers, including Mercator, until about 1740, when "Viticos" disappeared from all maps of Peru. The map makers had learned that there was no such place in that vicinity.
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