The Acllacona: The Inca Chosen Women in History and Archaeology
A Thesis Submitted to the Committee on Graduate Studies in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in the Faculty of Arts and Science
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The Acllacona: The Inca Chosen Women in History and Archaeology
This thesis documents for the first time the acllacona or chosen women of the Inca
Empire in both historical and archaeological sources, revealing that these women participated in a variety of activities including religious ceremonies such as sacrifices, agriculture, and as wives and concubines of the Inca and other elites in addition to the houses of perpetual virgins who conducted the weaving and brewing of corn beer, chicha, traditionally prescribed to them.
The second part of the thesis examines the role of the Roman Catholic Church, in shaping the characteristics of the acllacona in the Spanish colonial documents. It also reviews modern interpretations which focus upon the economic importance of these women in supplying fine cloth for the Empire. Finally I propose that the practice of spinning and weaving was as important as the finished product of textile manufacturing and that both possessed ritual significance.
Keywords: Inca, weaving, women, aclla, weaving, archaeology, colonial, Spain
ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to acknowledge the support of my supervisor, Dr. John Topic and members of my committee, Dr. Roger Lohmann and Dr. Jocelyn Williams, and external examiner, Dr. Theresa Topic. In addition I'd like to thank Grace Katterman of the
California Institute of Peruvian Studies for her textile course based in Arequipa, August
2006, as well as my Trent University cohort and other friends of whom there are too many to name. Finally I am grateful to my parents for their ongoing support in this endeavour.
iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page
Abstract ii Acknowledgements iii Table of Contents iv List of Photographic Plates vi List of Tables vii
1 Introduction 1 Background 1 Textile production 2 Spinning and weaving: basic tools 6 Examples of form and function 8 On chicha 10 Conclusion 12
2 Literary Evidence 14 Introduction 14 Historiography 14 Defining the terms 18 Origin of the institution 28 The Cuzco acllahuasi 29 How they were chosen 32 Class and ethnicity 35 Numbers 37 Other occupants of the acllahuasi 38 On punishment 42 As weavers, beer brewers and agriculturalists 46 As wives, concubines and gifts 48 As participants in the religion particularly in Cuzco 51 As sacrifices 57 The arrival of the Spanish 59 Conclusion 65
3 Archaeological Evidence 67 Introduction 67 Attributes of Imperial Inca Architecture 69 Spanish Descriptions of Inca Imperial Architecture 73 Material Remains 76 Archaeological Evidence for Houses of Chosen Women 80 Skeletal Remains and Burial Assemblages 100 Conclusion 109
IV Analysis 111 Introduction 111 The Spanish and the Influence of the Roman Catholic Church 111 Modern Views of Chosen Women 118 Another perspective on the chosen women 126 Conclusion 132
Conclusion 134 Introduction 134 Archaeological Information 134 Modern Models 136 Convents and acllahuasi—the chosen women as nuns 137 Weaving as an act of magic 138 Future Research 13 9
Primary Sources 140 Secondary Sources 144
v LIST OF FIGURES
Plate Description Page
I Spindles and spindle whorls 7
II Acllacona spinning in the courtyard of the Cuzco acllahuasi 30
III Punishment of the adulterers at 'Copper Rock' 45
IV Compound of the mamaconas 88
V Harthe-Terte's Acllahuasi 90
VI Tambo Colorado—overlooking the 'palace' and large plaza 100 towards the Pisco River
VII The locutorio or visiting parlour at the Convento Santa 116 Catalina, Arequipa, Peru.
VI LIST OF TABLES
Table Description Page
I Quechua Terms related to Chosen Women 21
II Division of the Acllacona inside the Acllahuasi 25
III Locations of Acllahuasi 83
IV Characteristics of Acllacona and Qompikamayoc 123
VII Chapter 1
Introduction
The goal of this thesis is to gather and analyze the known information concerning the acllacona, the chosen women of the Inca Empire.
Ironically, the Inca are disadvantaged by the large corpus of written material as it has impeded archaeological research; until recently it was common to rely upon the
Spanish for information on the Inca, despite the biases inherent in their work. The purpose of my thesis, then, is to examine both the written documents and the archaeology concerning the acllacona, identifying problematic assumptions and areas for new research.
The first chapter provides general information on the Inca Empire and the broader information that will place the specific documentary and archaeological data into context.
The second chapter is a compilation of the Spanish sources that record information about the chosen women, the acllacona. The third chapter collects together information from the archaeological record. Finally the fourth chapter examines how modern scholars have understood the role of the chosen women, followed by a concluding chapter, chapter five.
Background
The Inca Empire was the largest pre-Columbian state in the Americas, stretching from modern Colombia in the north to central Chile in the south. It covered thousands of kilometres linked by extensive primary and secondary highways designed for foot traffic and llama caravans, encompassing a potential total human population of 6-30 million
(Rowe 1963: 184; Dobyns 1966: 415). It was a short-lived state, rising quickly before its destruction in roughly a century (AD 1430-1534). Nevertheless, the Inca left an impressive architectural legacy, distinguished by extremely fine stone masonry. Equally impressive are the Spanish documents which record the end of the Empire, the extent of its territory, history and mythologies, and a few details of the complexity of socio political relationships between classes and ethnic groups.
The chosen women were part of this complex web of relationships as members of a state-supported institution. In brief, they played a vital role in producing products which were used to build and maintain essential alliances with Cuzco and provincial elites and perhaps even with members of the military, the forces by which the emperors constructed their empire. The chosen women also became products themselves, women raised to become gifts to important personages, who would also bring the skills learned in the cloistered houses to their spouses' households. The goal of this chapter is to discuss the chosen women and their two most frequently mentioned roles as producers of textiles and brewers of chicha or corn beer.
Textile Production
Spinning, weaving and the manufacture of cloth predates pottery in the material history of the Andes and these crafts are depicted as ubiquitous skills; this is true especially for women whose cultural symbol, the spindle whorl, marks their presence at a site. Based on the Spanish records, the standard image of an Inca woman was as "never idle...spinning endlessly as she stood, sat or even walked" (Murra 1956: 115). On a broader societal scale, Murra writes that "no political, military, social, or religious event was complete without textiles being offered or granted; burned, sacrificed, or exchanged"
2 (Murra 1956: 115). While he refers specifically to the Inca period, textiles are abundant at earlier times and places, both as preserved specimens and as depicted in other forms of art such as pottery. Weaving was part of an essential skill set for common and elite women.
Clothing was a marker of wealth and royal status, as well as of ethnic identity.
Legendarily, spinning and weaving were woven into the Inca origin story; the first female member of the dynasty, the Coy a or queen, taught women "feminine occupations" which included "spinning and weaving cotton and wool, and making clothes for themselves and their husbands and children" (Garcilaso de la Vega 1966 [1609]: 45, 54,
67). These ancestral Incas had also emerged at Paccaric-Tampu with the males fully dressed "in long blankets and a kind of shirt, without collar or sleeves, of the finest wool of many different colors, which they call tucapu, which in our language means 'king's robes'" while the women were equally as richly clothed (Cieza de Leon 1959 [1553]: 31).
In another creation myth, following a deluge which the Spanish equated with the biblical
Noah's flood, the creator Tiaguanaco formed people from clay and painted each with the clothing of their nation. They were then sent below the earth to emerge across the Andes from caves, hills, springs, lakes, tree trunks, and other places which then became the huacas or sacred sites of the respective peoples (Cobo 1990 [1653]:13).
A massive quantity of cloth was required to supply the needs of the Inca Empire.
Each member of the military, which numbered in the hundreds of thousands, and each worker involved in state construction or mining projects, received a piece of clothing as payment, as did each tax-paying adult male (mitayo). Thus female members of tax paying households, estimated at about a million, supplied the state with a blanket and a
3 tunic made of awasqa , a skill women also employed in making clothing for their own family; in this way, too, women were indirectly taxed as part of their husband's obligations. Each household was required to provide a single blanket and one shirt per person; additional items may have been owed the local lord or {curacalkuraka (Murra
1962: 716).
Common households however were unable to supply the finely woven tapestries required by the Inca and other nobility so the state also instituted two categories of specialists. The first were the acllacona, the subject of this thesis, and the second, cumbicamayoc, described as male weavers, who, supported by the state, worked exclusively in the production of cloth.
Why would the Inca recruit so many weavers both to weave as part of the labour tax and as specialists? Junius Bird (1968: 15) estimated that to spin the yarn and weave a single modern warp-patterned wool poncho made of two separate sections sewn together would take a total of 508.75 to 523.91+ hours usually over the course of six months but no less than three. This work was done in conjunction with everyday tasks such as caring for family and livestock. Work in the form of taxation could supply the needs of the
Empire in terms of simple fabrics, but these common women likely lacked the training in the techniques of more complex types of weaves. The two groups, taxpayers and specialists were also weaving for two different sources: the first simple cloth woven according to a set standard in bulk that was often returned to the people as payment for state labour and the latter for the clothing of the nobles to be worn and given to honoured guests.
1 Coarse cloth 4 The Spanish chroniclers generally divided the types of cloth woven into two general categories. The first, 'awasqa2,' is coarse3 and is used by the common people.
The second, cumbi, was compared in fineness and sheen to silk (Acosta 2002 [1590]: 244,
354). The material used to make items for the Inca came from his flocks of camelids while each household was granted wool for the needs of the family. Acosta (2002 [1590]:
355) notes that all men and women knew how to spin and weave and that it was considered an essential skill though there were masters to produce the finer stuff. Cobo
(1653) defines five types of cloth: 1. abasca: coarse, rough and the natural color of the wool; 2. chusi: very rough and coarse suitable for blankets; 3. cumbi: the finest and most precious of cloth and includes the wool of vicuna, pelts ofvizcacha4 and bat; 4. cumbi with coloured feathers; and 5. cumbi with chaquiras, which are small pieces of gold, silver, shell and ceramic sewn onto the surface of the cloth (Alberti Manzanares 1985:
560).
Both cotton and wool were available, though other plant materials such as cabuya and maguey were used to make coarse textiles, ropes, braids, and nets. Rarer fibres include the short hairs of the vizcacha (Lagidum peruanum), a Peruvian rodent, which was incorporated into blankets. Atahualpa also famously wore a cloak of bat fur, the pelts collected from Puerto Viejo and Tumbes in Ecuador (Pizarro 1969 [1571]: 224).
Four camelid species, two domestic and two wild, inhabit the Andes. Rare even in Inca times, the vicuna {Vicugna vicugna) was captured and the fine fibre sheared from its belly before being released. Its domestic counterpart, the alpaca (Vicugnapacos)
2 Also spelled hauasca, abasca or avasca. 3 This type was slightly coarser than cumbi but not as coarse as modern sackcloth or burlap. 4 Rodent native to the Andes 5 produces long soft hair in a variety of natural colours, which can also be readily dyed, that was ideal for clothing and blankets. The second pair of camelids produced much coarser hair. The wild guanaco {Lama guanicoe) was also captured and sheared like its smaller relative and the fibre made into clothing for the commoners by the chosen women according to Cieza de Leon (Murra 1956: 117). Only the chosen women had access to fibre from wild camelids as these animals were considered to be owned by the Inca elite.
The domesticated llama's {Lama glama) fibre is also coarse due to a preponderance of guard hairs and thus often used to make rough work mantles and rope; llama were often used as pack animals and for meat5.
The native species of cotton is Gossypium barbadense and is adapted to the marginal conditions of the coast and thrives naturally with little human help; it also produces different colors including "white, tan, light brown, dark brown and a greyish mauve color" (Schuster 1995; Rowe 1984: 18).
The people of the Andes used fibre in their original colours and demonstrated a mastery of a variety of dyes, though generally the camelid fibres took dyes more readily than plant fibres and were likely to remain colourfast. The Pre-Inca Chimu used various dyes such as indigo for blue, tannins for dark brown, a dye containing an iron mordant which turned the cotton black and an unknown dye (either the relbunium plant or cochineal) for pink (Rowe 1984: 19); toxic ychima {llimpi) a by-product of mercury mining was also used for red. The juice of the tree xagua was used to dye cotton black
(Murra 1956: 119-120). Young girls were described as collecting flora such aspawau quewencha flowers and others for dyeing (Guaman Poma 2006 [1615/16]: 66).
5 Anne Rowe suggests that the quality of fibre varies across the body of the animal and some may be suitable for clothing (John Topic personal communication). 6 Spinning and weaving: basic tools
The tools used in the Andes to spin the wool of camelids and the native cotton are simple and continue to be used. The spindle6 consists of a straight shaft and a conical or spherical whorl attached to the far end. These differ in size, weight and material; to spin
Plate I: Spindles and spindle whorls (Photo by author 2006) particularly fine yarn the whorl is removed to make a particularly light spindle. The drop spindle is common in the Highlands, and can be used while walking, though they also can be twirled in one hand, with fibre being drawn off of a distaff. On the coast where cotton predominates, the material's shorter fibres require a supported spindle, the end resting in
6 In Quechua puska from the verb puskay, "to spin." (Goodell 1968: 5) 7 a shallow bowl. In either case a larger and heavier spindle is used to ply two threads together. Goodell (1968) reported that she had collected a number of examples from people of all ages and genders, though spinning was presumed to be women's work; however, the jobs of plying and winding the yarn into small tight balls was often relegated to men.
Murra (1956: 118) describes two types of looms. The first type, a backstrap loom, was used to weave the rough cloth of the majority of the population and each household would be expected to own such a loom. One end of the loom would be attached to the wall and a second loop at the opposite end of the loom was positioned around the back of the weaver. By adjusting her position, the weaver could control the tension on the thread.
The second type was used to weave the fine cumpi ; it was "a larger, upright, backstrap loom made of four sticks, "like a frame," which "they leaned against a wall" (Murra
1956: 118). A third type is found south of Cuzco, where weavers used a fixed tension, horizontal loom (John Topic personal communication).
Examples of form and function
In a period where a peasant would have used a single set of clothing until worn out, the Inca and his queen practiced conspicuous consumption. The Inca king was said never to wear a set of clothing more than once, changing four times daily with all sets preserved to be kept with his mummy after death. The queen also would wear 3 to 4 different dresses in a day (Murra 1956: 122).
7 k'anti in Quechua (Goodell 1968: 5) 8 Also spelled cumbi 8 The surviving examples oicumpi are all men's tunics and feature a variation on a grid design which would have aided in accounting for the amount of work put into the production of a garment and as a method of ensuring standardization. Costin (1998b: 125) writes that "Anne Rowe (1976) and John Rowe (1979) have documented a high degree of standardization in the format, metric attributes, manufacturing techniques, and formal design layout" among the simplest manifestation, that of the black and white checkerboard design.
In other examples, tocapu, "abstract, geometric and occasionally figurative designs," are used to fill in the blocks of the grid pattern. John Rowe's study of tocapu and other designs in the illustrations of Guaman Poma (1615/1616) have revealed possible meanings for them in terms of ranks. For example, checkerboards appear on the tunics of "ranking warriors and distinguished military personal while the addition of a zigzag at the bottom edge indicates an Inca noble or Inca of privilege in contrast to a commoner or provincial noble." roca/?w-decorated tunics are worn by Inca nobles and bureaucrats, with the former the only ones depicted wearing tunics fully covered in the motifs (Costin 1998b: 128). Women, too, including acllacona, are shown wearing dresses and mantles decorated with tocapu, but it is uncertain what precisely this may indicate besides an elevated rank.
Costume was a marker of identity and ethnic groups connected with the very origins of peoples, and when ethnic groups were incorporated into the empire they were required to retain their traditional costume so that they could be identified as inhabitants from particular regions. Additionally, gifts of sumptuous clothing of vicuna, or decorated
9 with feathers and metal bangles, were a sign of favour from the Inca elite, but otherwise the wearing of such items was forbidden and punishable with death.
Miniature clothing was also made to cloak deities, small figurines, buried alone or burned as offerings. Cloth in general was a common component in sacrifices and in burials.
New pieces of clothing were presented at significant milestones in a child's life.
At weaning, a child had his/her hair cut for the first time and in addition to receiving a new name was given gifts of "silver, cloth, wool, [and] cotton" (Murra 1962: 712).
Initiation in adulthood occurred at puberty for girls though little is known; boys, on the other hand, in a ceremony called warachikoy at 14 or 15 received a loincloth (ward) that had been woven by their mothers. More details are known about the elites initiated during Capac Raymi where both genders received a variety of clothing (see Chapter 2).
On Chicha
Next to weaving the chosen women are most often described as being responsible for the brewing of chicha9, a beverage made from fermented maize and other ingredients.
Ground maize was masticated to introduce diastase from the saliva which increases the alcohol content and improves the flavour; modern corn beer is made with jora or malted maize which is created by soaking the maize and allowing it to germinate and then dry.
Both processes convert the carbohydrates or starch in the maize into sugar which then feeds the yeast that drives the resulting fermentation. The masticated or malted maize is then cracked and added to a wide mouth jar with hot water which, after the sediment
9 aqa in Quechua; chicha in Spanish. 10 settles, is transferred to a second jar to sit for two days (Morris 1979: 22). After being boiled and allowed to cool, it is transferred to narrow-mouth jars to ferment, a time period which depends on local temperature variation and preference (Morris 1979: 25).
Archaeological evidence for chicha includes brewing vessels and occasionally the raw grain, but the wooden drinking vessels called keros rarely survive (Morris 1979: 27).
Maize or corn was an important ritual item but its region of cultivation was restricted in the Andes as it required a warm, humid growing season and irrigation; it could not be grown in the highlands10 which was dominated by root crops such as potatoes, oca, and ulluco. Murra (1960: 400-401) calls maize "a state crop" as it relied on
"public works as irrigation, terraces, fertilizer from the faraway coast, and gingerly priestly concern" and argues that reorganization of labour pools was to expand maize producing lands. The Spanish recorded the maize ceremonialism but ignored the comparable ritual activities centered on tubers of the peasantry.
Furthermore, the planting season was inaugurated by the Inca and his kin at the field of Mama Wako, the wife of Manco Capac who introduced the crop. It also developed deeper ideological meanings in regions where it was traditionally scarce:
It is clear that in the minds of those who encouraged the production of corn there were also those other, redistributive considerations: the higher, semi-ceremonial status of maize, inherited from pre-Inca times, would add to the state's eagerness to obtain this commodity in the highlands. An issue of the rarer corn porridge would mean more than a dish of potatoes to a conscript soldier, and a mug of crown corn beer was a morale- building dispensation in a society where patterns of reciprocal generosity were still operative (Murra 1960: 400).
It can grow to 3400 masl generally and higher in certain 'microenvironments' like the Isla del Sol, Lake Titicaca (3800 masl) (John Topic personal communication). 11 To provide chicha to the military and for the needs of the sun cult, a dedicated labour force like the acllacona would be required. Other festivities where this liquid was required included the feting of local lords, calendrical celebrations, rites of passage, and funerals. Corn beer is also difficult to transport particularly in the large jars used in communal settings so each Inca centre would need a dedicated population of beer brewers. In one example, Salomon (1986: 78) estimated that during a local four to six day communal harvest/summer solstice festival celebrated in Quito attended by a minimum of 300 people consuming six litres per person per day would have resulted in
10,800 litres being required. Corn beer was also required for the daily libations made to the sun and at the site of Tichicasa on the isle of the Sun on Lake Titicaca, a thousand women made chicha to thrown upon a sacred stone there (Sancho 1917 [1534]: 163).
The acllacona were responsible for the production of chicha for the state and the physical remains of production such as ceramic containers used to brew the beverage may be used to identify the location of houses of chosen women within the Empire. It is also clear that chicha possessed an important social and symbolic function as it was commonly offered as payment to state workers and to guests and as an offering to the deities.
Conclusion
The aim of this chapter was to provide a cultural and technical background for the central activities of the chosen women. It is also these activities which constitute the primary archaeological clues. Cloth and chicha are also some of the most important examples of social and religious material culture. The former was interwoven with the origins of the Inca and the formation of identities, while both were elements employed in
12 worship and as gifts for guests and honoured individuals. The makers of these items for the state like the acllacona played a role that remains unexamined in detail and the following chapter begins this process by documenting specific information on the chosen women from the Spanish documents.
13 Chapter Two: Literary Evidence
Introduction
The most disheartening aspect of researching the Inca chosen women is the lack of detail in the descriptions of the Spanish witnesses to the end of the Empire, and in those descriptions of their literary descendents who pieced together histories from varied sources. The early writers were often more focused on issues of wealth and war and glory, and women were hardly held in importance. That the chosen women of the Sun earned any mention at all should be a clue to their importance in the state machinery, obvious even to the most indifferent chronicler. Unfortunately, they are often reduced to exotic stereotypes as the writers translate a world unfamiliar to both them and their
Spanish audiences. In addition, descriptive terms are often vague and the same word may have divergent meanings. However, I contend that among the many documents there is enough information to piece together an accurate picture of these women, who often are reduced in identity to virgins who weave for the religion; in fact their lives were more varied and nuanced. This chapter's primary purpose then is to gather from as many sources, as time and resources have allowed, information on the chosen women of the
Inca Empire keeping in mind the methodological and historiographic issues discussed in the beginning of this chapter.
Historiography
There is a difference between the early and later Spanish sources in terms of the information they record. The former are often shorter texts, lacking detail; they are far
14 more concerned with recording the history of the 1532 arrival and the collection of Inca treasure so as to impress the king of Spain. Furthermore, several important players such as Francisco Pizarro were illiterate and none are known to have spoken Quechua, the indigenous language11. The work of missionaries and clergy often seeking to
Christianize and extirpate the 'devils' of Andean belief came to fruition not until the establishment of a stable colonial government following the civil war between warring
Spanish factions (MacCormack 1991: 8).
I am following the lead of Sabine MacCormack (1991: 12) in restricting my sources from the Conquest of 1534 to the mid 1660s as by the latter period, as she notes, it is no longer possible to separate folk beliefs from Inca Imperial beliefs, and any traces of the state religious system has either been destroyed or subsumed. Additionally, recorders of Inca history by the early 1600s no longer interviewed indigenous eyewitnesses but relied on earlier histories as natives came to be viewed as "despised, tribute-paying Indians " (MacCormack 1991: 12) Investigations into indigenous religion were done with the intent to destroy it, to combat idolatrous superstitions with the true faith of Roman Catholicism. I have also purposely chosen sources (both English and
Spanish primary and secondary sources) that are readily accessible through interlibrary loan, to show that this information is available to researchers .
Women are glimpsed only rarely in the background; their roles assumed to be passive and peripheral, and limited by their gender and their biology (Topic 2002: 458).
Nowhere is this more evident than in the work of Juan de Betanzos (1996) [1557]) whose
11 The first known Spanish speakers of Quechua are Juan de Betanzos (1996) [1557]) and Domingo de Santo Tomas (1951 [1563]). 12 This situation has rapidly improved since the work of John Murra and John Rowe. 15 work is a compilation of the oral traditions of his wife's family. Dona Angelina had been the primary wife of Atahualpa, and then in 1538, the mistress of Francisco Pizarro
(She bore him two sons, one of whom survived to play with the chronicler Garcilaso de la
Vega). While she is never described or granted a personality, it was her memories and those of her families that he drew upon (Hamilton and Buchanan 1996: x).
Regardless of the goals of a reading by a modern scholar, basic questions have to be asked of any source. Some concern the author and the time and place of the document: who wrote the document; what was their position in their society; when they were writing and where it was produced. Some sources on the Andes, such as Bartolome de Las Casas
(2007 [1552]), were written by people who never actually visited the area. Chroniclers were also temporally separated from their subject material, and the dynastic history is often questioned on the basis of its authenticity as chroniclers present different lineages and chronologies of descent. Garcilaso de La Vega (1966 [1609]) is known for having a faulty dynastic account and thus the rest of his account is often rejected. It is common for the writers in this period not to name the sources from which they drew their information.
Comparisons between sources sometimes reveal intellectual connections, even speculations of lost histories based on commonalities across sources. Of these, what sources, then, were privileged or ignored in the narrative, and are the sources considered authentic, authoritative, biased and intelligible? For example who was interviewed?
Does the writer speak an indigenous language and thus have access to native speakers?
For example, Juan de Betanzos spoke Quechua fluently and was married to an Inca
1-7 Also known as Afias Yupanque, daughter of either Huayna Capac or Atahualpa (Lockhart 1972:154)
16 princess and had direct access to her family's history and her role as the wife of
Atahualpa. The authors were also interested in specific themes and women and their roles were not a high priority.
For example, Susan Niles (1999: 2) in her work The Shape oflnca History accepts that the tales specifically relating to the Inca rulers and the founding of their patrilineal lineages or panacas as presented in the Spanish chronicles, even if not factual by modern historical standards, are representative oflnca history. For example, in her discussion of praise narratives, which were songs (poems) or speeches praising a particular man and his exploits in battle, she emphasizes their value as propaganda during Inca times and their later co-option by the Spanish. Thus at least some discrepancies in the Spanish chronicles are the result of the recording of opposing accounts oflnca dynastic history in an attempt to highlight the achievements of particular lineages or personages. Different oral traditions thus might have been inadvertently preserved; some chroniclers are known to have favoured their own conception of Inca lineages over others due to their own particular motivations e.g. Garcilaso, and Betanzos (Niles 1999: 28). Mien (2000: 8) echoes Niles' arguments in also interpreting dynastic accounts as a form of propaganda in that the new group in power would reshape a shared history to reflect their new role in the society. This argument simultaneously accounts for some of the differences between chronicles without denying the Incas a history or devaluing the process of historical recording by the Spanish.
The Spanish documents have come to define the scholarship of the Inca Empire and remain a valuable source of information. However, they are often used uncritically by archaeologists and there is a need to revisit the documents rather than citing secondary
17 sources. The goal of this chapter, then, is to create a more critical and cautious reference on the acllacona or chosen women; the next chapter will do the same for archaeological resources.
Defining the Terms
For the purpose of this thesis, the term 'chosen women' shall refer to all women selected from the Empire's population to serve the state as specialized weavers, brewers of beer, sacrifices, concubines or virgins who were to be housed either for a brief period or their entire lives in an acllahuasi or house of chosen women. These social roles were not mutually exclusive and a woman could claim more than one identity over the course of her lifetime. Aclla, and the plural acllacona, refer specifically to the young women, newly chosen, while they are watched over and taught by mamacona (plural), who are perpetual virgins attached indefinitely to the state apparatus. Though used interchangeably to describe each type collectively, the terms refer to two specific categories, though within each there were likely different permutations, examples of which will be discussed later. I have additionally chosen to use the Quechua term eliminating the Spanish plural common in the chronicles (i.e. mamacona versus mamaconas and acllacona versus acllaconas) except in quotations of other sources.
As for the etymological sources of the words for chosen women, Pilar Alberti
Mazanares (1986) in her study of the acllacona examined three dictionaries: Domingo de
Santo Tomas'1563 Quechua lexicon, Ludovico Bertonio's 1612 Aymara vocabulary dictionary and a modern Quechua dictionary. The two colonial works lack the word aclla as referring to a chosen woman, though Santo Tomas (1951 [1563]: 230) included
18 acllani, gui, o aocani, gui: "to choose or elect something" and acllasca o acrasa: "the thing chosen or elected." Translating from Quechua to Spanish, he defines the term as
"to choose the best14." Moving to the second major language of the Andes, Bertonio's
([1612]) Aymara dictionary contains the word hakhllatha monota meaning 'to choose15'and for chosen woman, monjaaca thokhrisi ripa16 which clearly incorporates the
Spanish noun monja meaning 'nun.'
A second colonial Spanish/Quechua lexicon (not examined by Alberti) compiled by Goncalez Holguin (1952 [1608]: 15-16) not only contains the plural acllacona, but the word for chosen woman {aclld) is also related to the idea of choosing, referring to the item or person or the action (Table I). In several cases the choosing involves purifying of the group, picking out the genuine {acllani, acclarcconi) or the sifting of material to remove the less valuable items as one would sift grain to remove the chaff {acllani trigocta, qaractd). He also documents the words mamacuna meaning "matrons or ladies of noble blood and honor" and hue mamacuna, "an old lady or of mature/middle aged"
(Goncalez Holguin 1952 [1608]: 225).
As for modern Quechua, the first dictionary employed by Alberti Manzanares
1 7
(1986: 154) does have the term mamaku which translates as 'ancient woman ' or 'small elderly woman which is absent from Santo Tomas and Bertonio. The diminutive can also imply respect and affection. Modern Quechua also translated the Spanish escoger or
'to choose' to akllay but does not contain any words for chosen women or their houses 14 "escoger el mejor" (Sp.) 15 Escoger (Sp.) 16 Spanish abadesa (abbess) translated as monjanascana tthokhrisi ripa abadesa futini (Alberti Manzanares 1986: 155) 17 Anciana (Sp.) 18 Viejita (Sp.) 19 (Alberti Manzanares 1986: 155). A second modern dictionary contained monasterio or
'monastery' and convento or 'convent' translated as ajllawasi while from Quechua to
Spanish an ajllawasi is a convent of chosen virgins in Tawantinsuyu19. Mamakuna is also included and translated as noble ladies or matrons of the Inca age, the chosen virgins who grow old in the convents (Lara 1978: 137).20 The second dictionary clearly shows the use of a far older Quechua term from the time of the Incas being employed to describe a modern Catholic institution alongside the older meaning. The colonial dictionaries in contrast shed light on the origin of particularly the term aclla implying that these women were specially chosen for particular valued characteristics, an action which may have reflected a rise in status.
Of these meanings, the most important are proffered by Goncalez Holguin (1952
[1608]. He emphasized the connection between the sifting of grain to recover the edible stock with the selection of women who exhibit traits considered to be pure and genuine, often described in terms of virginity and beauty. Other items such as chili peppers and corn cobs would be designated as huacas based upon out of the ordinary traits such as a unique shape; acllacona as subjects to a similar process may also be considered to be huacas as well.
Each chronicler presents a slightly different picture most often varying as to the amount of detail. The uses of the terms were not consistent; some conflated the meanings of acllacona and mamacona while others created clear categories.
"convento de virgenes escogidas en Tawantinsuyu (Lara 1978: 44)" 20 "matronas, sefioras nobles del la antiguedad, virgenes escogidas que envejecian en los conventos (Lara 1978: 137)." 20 Table I: Quechua Terms related to Chosen Women
(Goncalez Holguin (1952 [1608]: 15-16[translated by author from Spanish])
Acllacuna—The religious women who were in chosen seclusion in service of their God the Sun. And now I will tell you, Diospa acllancuna. The religious (los religiosos) or nuns that were chosen of God for his service.
Diospa acllantucuni—to make religious
Acllanichhiclluni—choosing or electing or selecting the best to taste
Acllacuni, or acllarccucuni—Choosing for yourself (escoger para si)
Acllatamuni—To go and to leave chosen
Acllapayani—To choose too much
Acllaytucuni—To be chosen or elected
Acllay—Election
Acllascca. Chosen
Acllasccapura or acllasccamacipura—the elected or chosen ones
Acllani, acclarcconi—selecting and removing or cleaning/purifying the mix/the genuine
Acllachacuni—Selecting the one of all points/places while leaving nothing
Acllapu, huanllapu—capricious/needy, that he chooses or takes everything for himself (Antojadizo, que todo lo escoge o tomapara si.) (1608: 15)
Acllarayan—to be or to stay chosen
Acllarccarani, or acllarcayan—selected from between one of many other things
Acllani trigocta, caracta—To sift, to take dross/chippings (las grangaslgranzas), straw, stones, cleaning it
Mamacuna—matrons or ladies of noble blood and honour
Hue mamacuna—an old lady or a woman of mature/middle age. (1608: 16)
21 Pedro Cieza de Leon (1959 [1553]: 99,109,127,280) in his writings never uses the term acllacona, rather referring to them as mamacona or as virgins, women of the sun or vestals . The acllacona were given to the Inca and could be punished for a sexual transgression other than with the Inca king; he described mamacona as the matron weavers of fine clothing (Cieza de Leon 1959 [1553]: 153).
The mamacona are described as the older perpetual virgins who taught the younger acllacona (Acosta 2002 [1590]: 282). Garcilaso (1966 [1609]) separated all chosen women into two general categories: cloistered virgins serving the temple and the royal concubines (Garcilaso 1966 [1609]: 88). The latter were common girls but they were engaged in the same occupations (weaving and brewing of beer) as the chosen women of the sun. Acllacona became 'mothers' or mamacona upon the death of the Inca king under whom they had been dedicated and they instructed the women who were to become concubines treating them as they would have their own daughters-in-law
(Garcilaso 1966 [1609]: 202). In this case if acllacona are considered to be huacas, then perhaps mamacona are huacas who have lost their fertility with age or as concubines who never produced children, and then are relegated to a teaching role rather than as active symbols of the selection process, as the epitome of beauty, virginity and fertility.
Garcilaso de la Vega (1966 [1609]: 63) called foreign concubines of the Inca mamaconas, which he translates as both 'matron' and as "a women obliged to perform the office of mother." Pallas, in contrast, were the concubines of the Inca's bloodline and other royal lines. (See Garcilaso 1966 [1609]: 558 for example of older women addressed as matron and mamacuna.)
21 As in the Roman Vestal Virgins who tended the fire of the goddess Hestia. 22 Betanzos (1996 [1557]: 46) referred to women living in the Temple of the Sun as mamaconas and for the provinces he provides three separate categories though all grouped under the term mamacona. The first were stationed at tambos or the inns along the Inca highway to provide food and chicha for traveling Inca lords and soldiers
(Betanzos 1996 [1557]: 107); these women would have been quite common as there were many of these structures between the larger Inca centres. The second group, limited to select towns, consisted of the virgins dedicated to the Sun cult who would feed and offer sacrifices to the deity daily. They were to be supplied with garments and the products of storehouses and fields. The third category were also supported in a similar way and consisted of the virgin wives of the Inca (Betanzos 1996 [1557]: 110).
Christianity also supplied descriptive terms. The Roman Catholic Spaniards compared the chosen women with Roman Catholic nuns and even went so far to state that the ones who served the temples never spoke with men as was the case in the cloistered convents of Spain (Guaman Poma 2006 [1615/16]: 94). In a few instances, however, they were granted other duties that would bring them out of the cloistering of the acllahuasi, particularly as participants in major festivals. The Anonymous Chronicler (1906 [1570?]:
153) described the acllacona as those destined for a 'path of grace' similar to nuns. In contrast, Hernando Pizarro condemned the women stationed at the oracle of Pachacamac as dedicated to the devil (Ravines 1996: 9).
The most detailed naming schemes (Table II) were offered by Guaman Poma
(2006 [1615/16]) and Fray Ivlartin Monia (1962 [1590]). It must be noted that these two sources are late, written long after the institutions they talk about had disintegrated, and are potentially related to each other, based on the similarity of the included drawings
23 (John Topic personal communication); Poma was an indigenous writer but also a devout
Christian, while Monia was a Roman Catholic priest who strove to uncover and eliminate heresies. They have clear biases, but their information is still useful through research into the Roman Catholicism of Spain and its colonies.
Guaman Poma (2006 [1615/16]: 67; 94) defined mamacuna as older girls given over to raise orphans, and Cobo (1990 [1653]: 172) translates mamacona as "esteemed mothers," which could imply that they had offspring or could signal age. Temple virgins are another category and Poma calls them wayrur aclla, chaupi aclla, and pampa aclla later connecting the first specifically with service to the huacas. The term mama is considered a title of honour equivalent to the Spanish dona. It also applied to women on
Guaman Poma's Second Path, women who were 50 years old (Guaman Poma 2006
[1615/16]: 77). In his work, Guaman Poma described a series of paths that the genders traveled from childhood to old age and his scheme for the acllacona suggests a similar progression and not just categories into which a woman was slotted for a lifetime. Nine of his twelve categories identified the women as weavers and several, identified as lower classes of acllacona, made chicha. What is most intriguing is the apparently large role that these women played in the Inca religious institutions. Many are connected to huacas and their duties include weaving for the idols housed there. He also notes that not all the women remained virgins.
Morua (1962 [1590]) compiled a similar list organizing the chosen women into houses. Again these houses may not necessarily reflect a class ranking but rather steps a woman might take as she aged as a member of the house. However, once she was in her
30s, her choices became restricted by her birthright; for example the relatives of the Inca are dedicated to the Inca himself, weaving his clothing and that of the Coya, while the daughters of common people became weavers and the secondary wives of lords. Fertility or the waning there of may also play a role.
Table II: Division of the Acllacona inside the Acllahuasi (translated and adapted from Alberti Manzanares 1986: 175-176; Zuidema 1990:57)
Guaman Poma (1980 [1615/1616]: 272-275)
Term Characteristics Occupation
• Guayrur[huayrur] aqlla -> 20 years old and older. Principal -» Served the Sun, the Moon, and chosen woman. Never spoke with the Stars, Chasca Coyllur, men "Venus of the Morning," and Chuqui Ylla, "Thunder"
• Sumac aclla -> 30 years old and older. Beautiful —> Huaca of Huanacauri23 chosen woman. They entered at thirty and stayed in that class (of acllas) until their death. They do not sin, and had no commerce with men.
• Uayror [Guayrur] aclla -» 25 years old and older. Chosen of the -> Principal huacas, the principal sumac beautiful uayror. The acllas between idols guayrur and sumac acllas. They are perpetual virgins until death.
-» 35 years old and older. Followed the -» Secondary huacas. Spin and • Sumac aclla cataquin Sumac aclla weave clothing for the huacas, clothes that were as fine as silk.
• Aclla chaupi catiquin sumac -> 40 years old and above, the beautiful -> Virgins of the huacas, the aclla acllas who follow the central acllas minor idols. They participated in the planting and (wove) clothes.
• Pampa acllacona -» 50 years old and above. A peasant —> They serve the Moon, the chosen woman. All the other acllas Stars, and the other huaca-
Huanacauri is a hill about 20 kilometres southeast of the former Inca capital of Cuzco which figures prominently in the Inca origin myth and was the site of an annual knighting ceremony for young elite Inca boys. 25 of the common people idols, the common gods. They wove the chunbes, 'belts,' huichas, 'bands,' chuspa uatus, 'strings of the coca pouch,' and chuspaystalla, 'women's purses.'
• Aclla de los Incas -> 25 years old. Beautiful chosen -» Served the Incas but were not woman related to them. Wove. Made chicha.
• Aclla pampa ciruec -» N/A22 -> Worked the land of the acllahuasi. Wove
• Aclla cantor as y musicas -> 12 years old. Good voice -> Sang in ceremonies
• Vinachicoc aclla -> 4 years old -> Learned to weave
• Purun uarme acllacona vinay -> 50 years old —> Weavers. Agriculturalists
• Acllacona del inca -> 30 years old -> Concubines, weavers, and maker of chicha for the Inca.
Information is not available in the source document. 26 Murua (1962b [1590]: 73-78)
Term Characteristics Occupation
• Chosen women of the first -» Daughters of the curacas and -> Dedicated to the Inca. Wove house relatives of the Inca for the Inca and the Coya
• Women of the second house -> Daughters of principals and common -> Wove clothing for themselves. people Farmed the fields for the storehouses of the Inca. They married curacas
• Women of the third house -» Daughters of the lords -¥ Served food to the Inca. Made chicha. Agriculturists
• Women of the fourth house. -» 9, 15 years old. Every six years they -> Singers during the festivals of Taqui Aclla are recruited the Incas. Worked in the field, made clothing, herders/shepherds of the sacred flocks • Women of the fifth house. -» 5, 6 years old. Instructed by young -> Servant; spun; agriculturalists; Vinachicuy women of 20 years old. Daughters of wove for the gods the common Indians
• Women of the sixth house -> 15, 20 years old. -> Wove; farmed the gardens of Strangers/Foreigners in Cuzco. the Inca Exceeds in numbers more than the rest.
Santa Cruz Pachacuti Yamqui Salcamayhua (1968 [1613]: 290)
Term Characteristics Occupation
• Guracaclla -» N/A -> Service to viracochanpachayachachi • Uayruaclla -> N/A -» Maidens (virgins), servants
• Pacoaclla -> N/A -> Women of apocuracas
• Yanaaclla ->• N/A —> Women of common Indians
27 Santillan (1968 [1563]: 113-114)
Term Characteristics Occupation
• Induguarmi -> High rank; Daughters of lords -» Service to the Sun; made clothing • N/A N/A -» Service to the huacas
• N/A -> N/A -* Service to the Inca
• Agras ->• Chosen women, popular class -> Clothing for the Inca; (commoners) women of servants and yanaconas
• Guasipas -»• Less attractive women; dependent on the -> In order to marry some with curaca Tocricuc, also with common Indians
Calancha (1653: 18-19)
Term Characteristics Occupation
• Mamaconas -> Highly venerated older virgin women -> N/A
• Guayruro -» Very beautiful virgins -> N/A
• Yurac aclla -» Less beautiful virgins -> N/A
• Paco aclla -» Virgins less beautiful than the Yurac aclla -» N/A
Origin of the Institution
The legendary founding king of the Inca, Manco Capac, is credited with the
establishment of the first acllahuasi in Cuzco, the capital of the Inca Empire. In another
account, the historical Inca Pachacuti builds the first temple, laying out the design with
cord, selecting the stones from the quarry, and supervising the construction before
dedicating five hundred maidens (later referred to as mamaconas) to live in the temple24
"like cloistered nuns" (Betanzos 1996 [1557]: 45). Garcilaso de la Vega (1966 [1609]:
483-484) credits later Inca kings with improving the Cuzco acllahuasi as part of a general
24 Betanzos (1996 [1557]) is incorrect in the sense that the chosen women did not live in the temple itself. 28 commitment to improving state infrastructure following youths spent on campaigns of conquest. For example in his version, Inca Pachacuti, known for conquering the Chimu in the north, spent the remainder of his days as king improving the infrastructure of his empire including revitalizing regions with new settlers and irrigation projects, travel lodges and storehouses and new temples to the Sun and acllahuasi in emulation of the one in Cuzco (Garcilaso 1966 [1609]: 391).
His successor Topa Inca Yupanqui visited the Temple of the Sun in Cuzco and witnessed the mamacona serving the Sun his daily meal and chicha with vessels of clay.
Finding that these were too poor to be used to serve the Sun, he had them replaced with vessels of silver and gold (Sarmiento de Gamboa 1967 [1572]: 111; Garcilaso 1966
[1609]: 462,483-484). The chosen women also received gifts of gold and silver jewellery and garments while their total numbers were increased; this was part of a larger survey he made of the city of Cuzco and a similar gift of mamacona was given to the mummy of Manco Capac and his father Pachacuti Inca Yupanque (Betanzos 1996 [1557]:
166).
The Cuzco Acllahuasi
The Cuzco acllahuasi is the best recorded in both myth and history though physically all that remain are a few walls. It was the model for the provincial houses of chosen women and reputedly only accepted the most elite and most beautiful of the
Empire's women who came to serve both the Inca and the solar cult of Inti. Guaman
Poma (1980 [1615/1616]: 212) provided an illustration (Plate II).
29 2^§j PfiiMEB^PrmoMMSM^s
Plate II: Acllacona spinning in the courtyard of the Cuzco acllahuasi (Reproduced from GuamanPoma 1980 [1615/1616]: 212). 30 A group of women are shown in front of a much larger woman who is double-labelled the abadesa (or abbess) and mamacona. All are spinning using a drop spindle and distaff25. They wear dresses, some with tocapu visible; shawls or llicllas held in place with pins called tupu are draped over their shoulders. The tocapu are tapestry designs done in brightly coloured wool worn exclusively by high ranking members of Inca society and the acllacona are shown with several distinct types. Additionally, the one furthest forward also has a stripe across the bottom of her dress, a motif that appears in other illustrations of women's clothing. It has also been suggested that these striped dresses were part of the material made for the state by the chosen women and perhaps by common women fulfilling their yearly quota. This is based on a cache found in Acari
(Katterman 2006; Katterman and Riddell 1994).
This illustration is the only definitive one of the chosen women, and here they are shown in the confines of the Cuzco acllahuasi. However it dates from the late 1500s and while the illustrator, Guaman Poma, was an indigenous Peruvian, he was not a witness to the Empire. By his time the great state institutions had given way to local folk practices.
The activity, though, (that of spinning) is a commonly mentioned activity performed by these women and the basic clothing styles are likely accurate as well, based on the archaeological record in part; however, he did take liberty with the tocapu designs in comparison to known examples.
The following chapter includes additional information on the physical remains of the Cuzco installation.
However, one on the far left may be sewing or processing fibre. 31 How they were chosen
Chosen women were required to possess a set of desirable traits and the Spanish most often noted their beauty and their virginity. They were chosen young, likely well before they had formed an adult social identity, prior to puberty and the onset of sexual relations. Cobo notes that the girls are chosen by "the will of the Inca and the observance of their religion" and for their nobility and beauty (Cobo 1990 [1653]; Cieza de Leon
(1959 [1553]: 70, 99, 146; Ocampo 1967 [1610]). The head of the provincial acllahuasi, an official called the apupanaca, had the rights over any girl, eight and younger, who lived in his province; they then were sent at fourteen to the court, referring to Cuzco, to have their destinies determined (Acosta 2002 [1590]: 282; Garcilaso 1966 [1609]: 195).
Sarmiento de Gamboa (1967 [1572]: 151) mentioned girls twelve and older and Cobo
(1990 [1653]: 157), females aged ten to twelve who had yet to reach puberty as does the
Anonymous Chronicler (1906 [1570?]: 172). The Anonymous Chronicler (1906 [1570?]:
152) described another group of officials called Sayapayas who were responsible for delivering a count of the mamacona along with that of livestock, deposits in the storehouses, and sacrifices and venerations made to the Sun and huacas to the governors.
Their families had no right to object to the officials' choice, and Acosta suggests that fathers willingly offered up their daughters for the honour that it conveyed (Acosta
2002 [1590]: 283). The Spanish sources are undecided as to whether or not this role was forced upon the girls and their relatives, or if parents may have freely offered up their daughters. There is at least one case of a woman entering an acllahuasi of her free will; the sister of Huayna Capac disapproved of the curaca26, her designated husband,
lord' 32 describing him as "old, great consumer of coca and ugly" and chose the acllahuasi over marriage (Santa Cruz Pachacuti 1968 [1613]: 308). The Anonymous Jesuit (1945 [1594]) insisted that all entered of free will; this requirement, however, may reflect the newly established convent reformations under the guidance of the Council of Trent which banned women from being forced into convents.
Since virginity was a defining trait of the newly chosen acllacona it is fitting to devote a few words to the subject. It was viewed in part admiringly by the Inca as depicted by the Spanish. However, Bernabe Cobo (1979 [1653]) writes that the people of
Peru viewed the virginity of women as 'offensive,' and they were encouraged to lose their virginity; by choosing girls who had yet to reach puberty, the Inca attempted to guarantee their virginity. Their parents did not guard their daughters' chastity, presumably in contrast to the situation in Spain, as staying chaste was considered a sign that they had never been loved (Cobo 1979 [1653]: 29). Cobo (1979 [1653]: 238) suggests this might have been a protective method so as to prevent their daughters from being chosen.
Garcilaso de la Vega (1966 [1609]: 39; 560) presents several different opinions. Intact virginity was a negative quality and sexually active girls were viewed as "industrious."
He vaguely refers to other regions where virgins are desired as marriage partners and the girl is deflowered by the mother publicly to prove her daughter's pure state to the bridegroom's family; in other cases it was the bridegroom's best friends and closest relatives who completed this task. These descriptions may reflect the worldview of the
Spanish more than the actual practices of the indigenous people of Peru, whose lives were seen as inferior particularly in light of Christianity.
Garcilaso (1966 [1609]: 204) also spoke highly of women of noble birth called
33 ocllo who voluntarily remained celibate but were not cloistered; rather they retained contact with their families. He recounts meeting one such woman, the great-aunt of his mother who was treated with the great respect due her age, her chosen path and her place as a kinswoman. Of other women who remained celibate, it was common for widows, even those whose husbands had left them childless (Vega 1966 [1609]: 205). As for religious practices that applied to both genders, fasting, including voluntary celibacy, was a common practice in preparation for religious festivals and pilgrimages.
In one case a girl's virginity meant her life was spared. Atahualpa's sisters who had shared Huascar's bed were to be killed with the male members of the family as they were thought to have been poisoned against Atahualpa. The presumably virgin maidens were to be sent to Atahualpa under heavy guard (Betanzos 1996 [1557]: 233, 244) as he likely would have been concerned with the possibility that these women could be carrying
Huascar's heirs.
While virginity is repeatedly included by the Spanish as a requirement for an aclla, it is impossible to fully comprehend the significance of this characteristic. The records lefts by the Spanish on this topic are often contradictory and imbued with contemporary notions rooted in Spanish and/or Roman Catholic society which valued virginity in women and which restricted sexual intercourse to marriage. It is safe to suggest, however, that virginity was a necessary component of being chosen but was not likely as highly valued as in Europe during the same periods.
34 Class and ethnicity
On the surface the qualifications of youth, virginity and beauty would serve to include a fair number of young women. However, did initial class and ethnic identity preclude being chosen, especially as chosen women became a part of the Imperial structure divorced from their ethnic and familial ties? Were there different standards applied to the house of chosen women in Cuzco than the other houses in the provinces?
There seems to be a general consensus among the Spanish writers that the occupants of the house in Cuzco had to be of Inca royal blood. The clearest description is that of Garcilaso de la Vega (1966 [1609]: 296). He claims that virgins dedicated to the
Sun in Cuzco had to be the daughters of the Inca or of his family, of legitimate birth and not of foreign extraction. This was to ensure that the women were of the same bloodline of the Sun from whom the Inca claimed descent. A second group of mamacona and virgins of a lower class, the Inca of privilege27, then served as maids to the chosen women of royal blood in Cuzco. Again no women of foreign extraction were allowed (Vega 1966
[1609]: 197). This edict came from the age of legendary founder Manco Capac, who ordered the construction of the temple to the Sun at Cuzco as well as a house of chosen women once there were sufficient "women of the royal blood" to occupy it (Garcilaso de la Vega 1966 [1609]: 54).
Cobo (1990 [1653]: 50) refers to the mamaconas who slept in the chapel of the
Sun in Cuzco as the "daughters of lords." Cieza de Leon (1959 [1553]: 146) echoes this
27 This group had been Incanized through gifts of fine Inca clothing and of women trained to weave such things (Costin 1998b: 124) so as to form another group of state administrators. These Inca were granted this status by legendary Manco Capac and villages located within seven leagues of the capital supplied servants to the royal households and were granted the right to wear the clothing of the ethnic Incas (Vega 1966 [1609]: 319). 35 description calling them "daughters of leading nobles (146)"; these descriptions would not preclude the offspring of Inca of privilege. The elite women remained in the temple as perpetual virgins to "weave and dye woollen garments for the service of the temple and make chicha... of which they always had great vessels." A woman in each temple, of a higher class than the others, would be considered the 'abbess' to use Roman Catholic terminology; in Cuzco this role would be filled by a sister of the Inca (Cobo 1990 [1653]:
173). Only she had contact with the outside world, as in family and 'devout' friends, with the stewards and other servants of the house, and in order to conduct business (Cobo 1990
[1653]: 173). Sarmiento de Gamboa (1967 [1572]: 110), avoiding the Christian terminology, also notes the presence of a "chief of the Mama-cunas" participating in the
Sun's daily meal.
This description of hierarchy is potentially problematic as it too closely echoes the organization of a 17th century Spanish convent which was overseen by an abbess who was the only one to have contact with the outside world particularly following the new rules instituted by the Council of Trent.
In the other houses of the Sun located in the provinces, women of all ranks were allowed to join, including the daughters of local chiefs who were honoured to have their offspring chosen. The same is said of the girls of common descent picked for their beauty; they were destined only to be wives or concubines of the Inca and not chosen women of the temples (Vega 1966 [1609]: 200). For example, when Huayna Capac arrived in Tumbes he ordered the building of a temple to the sun adjacent to the Inca fortress with two hundred virgins, all beautiful daughters of local headmen (Cieza de
Leon (1959 [1553]: 294). It was also a convenient way to incorporate newly conquered
36 populations into the Inca Empire by creating affinal relationships.
As seen in the later sources (Table II), Guaman Poma and Monia suggest that all women, from commoners to the relatives of the Inca, were allowed to join the houses but that their future depended on their initial rank. The highest were dedicated to the temple of the Sun and to weaving for the royal family. Lower ranked women married lords, served minor huacas, farmed the land of the Inca, wove, sang songs in religious ceremonies and made chicha.
Numbers
It may be possible to estimate the numbers of chosen women who lived at the height of the Inca Empire based on the Spanish sources. Cobo (1979 [1653]: 172,294) states that the number varied depending on the size and importance of the temple that the occupants of the acllahuasi served; as many as two hundred mamacona (distinct from the acllacona) lived in a single compound which were located one in each major town and provincial capital. Betanzos (1996 [1557]: 45) in describing the building of the first temple of the sun in Cuzco marks the dedication of five hundred maidens to its service.
Eventually more than 1,500 were said to have resided at the acllahuasi in Cuzco at its height (Garcilaso de la Vega 1966 [1609]: 196). Pedro Pizarro (1969 [1571]: 195-196) listed a single sister wife of the Inca and then four thousand daughters of the caciques of the provinces. The four thousand were likely not housed in Cuzco and probably refer to the occupants of the acllahuasi throughout the Empire. He continues by describing these women living in large walled enclosures with many rooms guarded by porters and guards.
When not serving the Inca, they spent their time feasting and celebrating. It must be
37 noted that Pizarro is recording these memories decades later and he seems to be conflating descriptions of serving women to the Coya and concubines with the acllacona.
Alberti Manzanares (1986) listed 28 acllahuasi in the region though one of which,
Ingapirca or Hatun Cafiar, is likely an earlier Cafiari settlement. Cuzco is a separate category as it was the largest, housing from 1,500 to 2,000 women. The other provincial houses held an estimated 200 to 500 women apiece. The total estimate, then, ranges from a low of 5,400 to high of 13,500. Adding in the population of the Cuzco acllahuasi, the total estimated population for the chosen women living in acllahuasi ranged from 6,900 to 15,500. This would not include those who were sacrificed and other temporary members of the houses but represents at least a general idea of the percentage out of a total population of 8 to 12 million that were recruited as likely permanent members of the acllahuasi. Most of the numbers are likely to be guesses made by the chroniclers and it is only for Cajas (Caxas) that we are given estimates28 of numbers from actual eyewitnesses to the 1534 conquest, though recorded 35 years after the fact.
Other occupants of the acllahuasi
It is inappropriate to assume that the women of the acllahuasi were completely self-sustaining. The Spanish suggest that these houses were supported by a variety of both male and females servants and workers, leaving the chosen women free to serve as temple priestesses and both the religion and state as full-time craft specialists. This would be akin to the convents of Europe which housed a bustling population of nuns, novices, servants and even orphans. A 1549 visita notes that the Chupacho Indians of
500 women total 38 Huanaco maintained specialists in the Cuzco acllahuasi including forty who guarded the women of the Inca though this designation is vague as it could refer to his wives, concubines or other chosen women (MacCormack 1991: 149). As for other male occupants, Garcilaso (1966 [1609]: 202) listed each convent as having an Inca governor, a major domo/steward and other officers though these may in fact be inhabitants of the provincial administrative centre itself.
Each house was run by the male apupanaca (Acosta 2002 [1590]: 282; Cobo
1990: 172) who was also in charge of selecting suitable candidates from the local population. The chief of all the priests, the vilahoma also had a role in taking a census of the chosen women. He, like other priests, took a vow of poverty, living in the countryside and subsisting on roots and herbs; he was also to remain celibate (Anonima Jesuita 1945
[1594]: 23). One does have to be cautious as this description closely echoes the ideal image of a Catholic priest though other sources document that religious fasting in excluding salt, aji29 and carnal relations required at least a temporary abstinence. Neither of these men, however, seemed to live in the acllahuasi or have daily encounters with the chosen women; rather each had bureaucratic duties to perform that would bring them into contact on an annual basis.
Men who may have had daily contact and roles in the houses are either described as being deformed in some manner or past their prime years. The former were disfigured;
T A their nose and/or ears would be cut off and they would be castrated (Alberti Manzanares
1986: 158) leading some sources to refer to them as simply eunuchs (Cieza de Leon
29 Hot pepper
30 Munia (1946 [1590]: 250) called those with their noses cut off pongocamayos (gatekeepers). 39 (1959 [1553]: 70; Betanzos 1996 [1557]: 166); Los Agustinos 1992 [1559]: 33).
Betanzos (1996 [1557]: 110) stated that any man who had dealings with the mamacona as well as their guardians were castrated. It is unclear why a man would be chosen; perhaps it was due to a congenital defect, or as a mutilated prisoner of war or an orphan put to use in a state institution; Guaman Poma (1980,2006 [1615/1616]) emphasized that all people had a place in Inca society and that each were put to work in accord with their abilities.
The Anonymous Jesuit went farther in describing how the eunuchs were in charge of listening to the confessions of the chosen virgins (Anonima Jesuita 1945 [1594]: 33).
They were called corasca, who, acting as servants and priests, lived an ascetic life devoted to sun, moon and stars (Anonima Jesuita 1945 [1534]: 36).
Physical disfigurement was viewed as a manifestation of sin and during the festival of Citua, a time designated to dispel sickness, "all people with their ears torn or any other lesion or physical defect, such as the hunchbacked, crippled, and deformed, were made to leave the city" because (as shown by their defects) "they were unfortunate men" (Cobo 1990: 145). Echoing the Inca practice, the ruler from the island of Puna off the coast of Ecuador, was said to be "so jealous that his house-servants and those who guard his women have their noses and genitals cut off (Zarate 1968 [1556] 36).
Guaman Poma (2006 [1615/16]) emphasizes that each member of Inca society had a specific role and in his descriptions of the ten paths (calles) of men and women, keyed in first to age and second to ability. Age groups include those within a ten year age range with the youngest year operating as the example for the category. For example, men on
Guaman Poma's (2006 [1615/16]: 71) Third Path called rocto machos or "deaf old men" who ranged in age from 80 to 150 years of age could serve as "the gatekeepers for the
40 maidens, the virgins, and the noble ladies" as they could no longer serve in the military or work in the fields. Several sources refer to the men who worked at the acllahuasi as gatekeepers (Cobo 1990: 173) or as porters (Jerez 1968 [1534]: 78). Guaman Poma's
Fourth path of men included the sick {uncoc), the wounded, the lame (hanca), the handless and armless {maquin paquisca), the crippled {winay uncoc), the deaf (upa), the blind {nausa), dwarves {time wayaca), the hunchbacked (cumu), and the cleft-nosed
{chicta sinca). These individuals also may have served the acllahuasi as this group was assigned tasks based on ability (Guaman Poma 2006 [1615/16]: 72).
A wider variety of women could be employed to work in the acllahuasi as they presented no threat to the virginity of the chosen ones. Monia (1946 [1590]: 217) divided the women housed at Huarco into three categories: some were there for devotion, others due to illness, and the remainder cloistered there under the orders of the Inca and facing eventual removal. As with the men, women on Poma's Second Path, fifty years old and older, served in the acllahuasi as servants to the acllacona as well as in the palaces to noble women; they were employed as "doorkeepers, stewards, chambermaids, cooks and head maids (Guaman Poma 2006 [1615/16]: 77)." Guaman Poma (2006 [1615/16]: 77) and Garcilaso de la Vega (1966 [1609]: 196) named them as mamacona suggesting that this term was an honoured one earned with age. The Third Path of women beginning at
80 years old, thepuhocpaya or 'old women who know how to sleep and eat,' also ran noble households.
The number of female servants in an acllahuasi was said to be five hundred and of the rank of Inca of privilege and thus not of royal bloodlines. They were controlled by mamacona and had their own virgins separate from the others (Garcilaso de la Vega 1966
41 [1609]: 197). Garcilaso (1966 [1609]) is likely referring to the main house at Cuzco, the importance of which required that the women housed there be of a suitable bloodline, while in contrast local women could be incorporated into provincial houses. The
Anonymous Jesuit adds another category of servants, in the form of virgins who had been raped unwillingly, who could be sent to serve the acllacona (Anonima Jesuita 1945
[1594]: 58). Archaeologically, the presence of these additional members of the house of chosen women may affect the burial patterns unless the acllacona were segregated in death.
On punishment
The Spanish consistently documented the punishment for a chosen woman who engaged in the act of coitus. They detailed a number of methods but the result was always death.
An aclla who lost her virginity would be punished by being buried alive (Cieza de
Leon 1959 [1553]: 22,146; Acosta 2002 [1590]: 283) and the same for her partner except in the case of the Inca king who had free access to these women without risk of the death penalty. In the case of fornication with the Inca, the women did not leave the acllahuasi
(Cobo 1990 [1653]: 173; Sarmiento de Gamboa 1967 [1572]: 101-102)31. In a brutal variation, the woman would be buried alive and her partner hanged and the "man's wife, children, and servants should be slain too, together with his kinsmen, his neighbours, and his fellow townsmen, and all his flocks, without leaving a babe or suckling" (Garcilaso de
31 Garcilaso (1966 [1609]: 201) contradicts this statement in that rather they may have remained as servants to the queen in the royal households and eventually sent back to their home province as honoured individuals, having been granted lands with which to support themselves. 42 la Vega 1966 [1609]: 199). It is claimed that this punishment was never applied as the people never dared to break the law of their king (Garcilaso de la Vega 1966 [1609]:
199); this applied to the houses in Cuzco and the provinces (Garcilaso de la Vega 1966
[1609]: 201 who cites Agustin de Zarate). They could also be hanged (Cieza de Leon
1959 [1553]: 22); their partner would also suffer the same fate tied to the disgraced aclla
(Sarmiento de Gamboa 1967 [1572]: 151).
Cieza de Leon (1959 [1553]: 214) describes a specific incident during the coup against the seventh Inca king Viracocha Inca. Four of the chosen women had had sex
("made evil use of their bodies") with one of their guardians; as a result the five were charged with adultery and put to death on orders of the high priest. In a second accounting by Cieza de Leon, sexual corruption of the mamacona was mentioned in the same sentences as "he [Inca Urco son and heir of Viracocha Inca] was so devoid of honour that he did not seek to be respected" (Cieza de Leon 1959 [1553]: 222). He also lay with prostitutes, concubines and the wives of other orejones. Inca Urco was, according to Cieza de Leon (1959 [1553]: 223), forgotten in the chronicles as he brought shame—"He built no house or edifice; he was an enemy of arms." Corruption of the acllacona could be interpreted as a symbol of the moral decay under the rule of this Inca king, as a successful king would have spent his youth campaigning and adding territory and his old age consolidating his conquests by improving the Empire's infrastructure.
Ocllo, those women who had voluntarily chosen a path of celibacy, faced similar punishments such as being burnt alive or thrown into a lake of lions if they broke their vows (Garcilaso 1966 [1609]: 204).
As for society as a whole, Guaman Poma (2006 [1615/16] notes that a woman,
43 who has had sex or is a 'whore' due to the influence of her partner, was to be hung by her hands or hair from the crag of Anta Caca and left to die. The man is lashed five hundred times and a stone half the size of an adobe brick is dropped from a yard above onto his back (a punishment called hiwaya). A rapist is in contrast automatically sentenced to death and in a situation where both partners have consented both shall hang (63; Guaman
Poma (2006 [1615/16]: 78). These edicts directly contrast with or contradict the earlier discussions on virginity unless these are references to cases of adultery rather than examples of premarital indiscretions.
44 lot 3>EL IRCA
*Mi hj emt+gi
Plate III: Punishment of the adulterers at 'Copper Rock' (Reproduced from GuamanPoma 1980 [1615/1616]: 315). 45 The Inca king had some leeway in punishing the offenders; if a young man was caught with the Inca's wives or concubines or the chosen women from the temple, he could be released and his actions blamed on "the young blood." Huayna Capac, though, punished these men and women with instant death, choices that Cieza de Leon (1959
[1553]: 247) blames on his tendency to take ill counsel. As for the woman, according to
Zarate (1968 [1556]: 51), if pregnant she could save herself by claiming that her child was the offspring of the Sun. Betanzos (1996 [1557]: 102-103) tells us that children born from an unlawful relationship with a mamacona, a married woman, or a daughter of a lord were to be left beneath a bridge to be collected and raised in specially designated houses where the children of prostitutes were also sent; these children would become cultivators of coca. This indeed is a practical solution in contrast to the prescribed punishment of death. However, if a mamacona or married woman were caught, she would be stoned in a place outside of Cuzco where two rivers met. To ensure the accuracy of the accusations, then the accuser would take the place of the defendant if the evidence was found not to be valid (Betanzos 1996 [1557]: 105).
As Weavers, Beer Brewers and Agriculturalists
After covering how these women are chosen, etymological significances of the terms, punishment for breaking vows of virginity etc, what were these women actually doing on a daily basis? What is most often mentioned is weaving and brewing. The products of these activities were essential elements in each ritual performed in the
Empire, and were also given as gifts and used to fete honoured guests. It also appears
46 that the women were involved in the basic production of agricultural products that were used in these specializations.
These activities were not merely conducted for the sake of production. Chicha, as part of a ritual feast, was a key component in showing hospitality to important guests and in rewarding workers reporting for their share of the labour tax to the state. Cloth was also given away in vast quantities with the finest produced by state workers such as the acllacona going to the Inca king and his family or to provincial nobility. Coarser varieties woven by the lower classes as a tax were sent to the military and the peasants.
Finer cloth such as tapestry was constructed using methods and materials unavailable to the masses; for example, a wild product such as the wool of the camelid vicuna was the sole property of the Inca king. Moreover, between other duties to the state and their own subsistence, it would be much harder for a peasant woman to complete a fine tapestry versus one constructed of coarse wool or cotton in a plain weave style.
Despite the textual evidence, chosen women working as agriculturalists are not commonly discussed. It is known that they participated in the ritual planting of the Sun's corn fields; however, two chroniclers, Martin Morua (1962 [1590]: 73-78) and Guaman
Poma (1980 [1615/1616]: 272-275), in their categories of chosen women (see Table II), specifically mention those who worked the fields and among the herds, including those of the Inca king. Morua includes the daughters of principles, lords, and common people in addition to women recruited from the conquered territories; only the daughters of curacas and the relatives of the Inca king did not work in agriculture.
Guaman Poma lists three categories of chosen women involved in agriculture
(from a total of twelve). In each case the women are also designated as weavers, and in one example are also dedicated to the minor idols {aclla champi catiquin sumac aclla).
This last example is also notable due to the age of the women, 40 years old and older, as another of his agriculturalist groups lists women 50 years old (the Purun warme acllacona vinay). Morua's, in contrast, include the youngest members of the acllahuasi.
Each category then had either passed the age of reproduction or had yet to enter into it.
There may be a difference in class as neither includes the kin of the Inca or those who serve the major huacas. The latter two classes also are responsible for weaving the finest cloth, again for the Inca and the huacas; those designated as both agriculturalists and weavers wove unspecified types of cloth except for Morua's (1962b [1590]: 75)
"women of the second house" who wove clothing for themselves and his "women of the fifth house" who are the youngest (5-6 years old) who "wove for the gods" (Munia 1962b
[1590]: 77).
Ultimately these women may have been responsible for producing some of the raw materials that were turned into valuable cultural products through spinning and weaving, and brewing. On the other hand, these agricultural activities may have allowed the acllahuasi to support itself through the husbandry of camelids for meat and the farming of subsistence crops.
As wives, concubines and gifts
Garcilaso de la Vega (1966 [1609]: 200) describes how common women were accepted into the acllahuasi to become the wives and concubines of the Inca. Engaged in the same tasks, they made garments that were gifted to both those of royal bloodlines and others who had performed an important service to the king. These women would be sent
48 to the Inca but would not return to the house of the chosen women once their virginal state had ended; rather they may have remained as servants to the queen in the royal households and eventually sent back to their home province as honoured individuals, having been granted lands with which to support themselves (Garcilaso de la Vega 1966
[1609]: 201). Cobo (1979 [1653]: 122) records that the earlier Inca kings had between fifty and one hundred wives while the later rulers, due to their increased power, had from two hundred to three hundred. However only one wife was considered legitimate and it was from her that male heirs were produced. Cobo mentions a situation where Yahuar
Huacac was advised to marry a concubine who had already bore him children thus legitimizing her and her children. Though this would have handily solved his issue with finding an heir he did not agree (Cobo 1979 [1653]: 126).
Cloth and women are most commonly included on lists of gifts. The Coya, the queen or principal wife, of Pachacuti Inca Yupanque, was given one hundred mamacona by her husband, fifty by the priests and steward of the Sun, along with small towns, two hundred yanacona, other lands and vessels of gold and silver (Betanzos 1996 [1557]: 78).
The brother of the Inca Capac Yupanqui, Tarco Huaman, sent from the province of Cuyos
"a thousand cages of birds from the Andes and the puna, and many strange animals" and in exchange received "large fine clothing and women adding to those he had brought with him from Cuzco (Cobo 1979 [1653]: 122). The Inca also rewarded captains who distinguished themselves in battle or for other unnamed special services with jewels and fine cloth, though most valued was a maiden who had been collected as tribute.
Soldiers were supplied with women almost as rations (Cieza de Leon 1959 [1553]:
61,239, 249). For example:
49 And these soldiers [mitimaes stationed on the eastern slope of the Andes] were provided with rations, corn and other articles of food supplied by those of the vicinity as their tribute and tax, and the pay they received was that from time to time they were given woollen clothing and feathers, or arm bands of gold and silver to those who had displayed the most bravery. They were also given women from among the many who were kept in each province in the name of the Inca. And as most of these were beautiful, they prized and cherished them greatly (Cieza de Leon 1959 [1553]: 61).
Soldiers following Atahualpa were said also to be well-supplied with women captured as spoils of war (Betanzos 1996 [1557]: 214).
Other types of settlers such as farmers who tilled newly acquired land were also given women (Cieza de Leon (1959 [1553]: 62; Guaman Poma 2006 [1615/16]: 70) or to soothe the relations with recently conquered regions (Cieza de Leon 1959 [1553]: 160,
212,229). Atahualpa also sent women and other presents to Francisco Pizarro, his men and their horses when he was stationed at Tumbes (Guaman Poma 2006 [1615/16]: 109) and again when they set up camp outside the city of Cajamarca (Guaman Poma 2006
[1615/16]: 110).
Polygyny was a sign that the Inca had looked upon a man as favoured as only the
Inca could grant the right to have more than one wife; a second wife could also be granted
"in consideration of a person's high rank or superior intelligence, ability, and competence for the government of the republic" (Acosta 2002 [1590]: 283; Cobo 1990: 204;
Sarmiento de Gamboa 1967 [1570]: 151). Acllacona were distributed by the Inca following the harvest on a yearly basis; if given to an unmarried man they would be considered the first and legitimate wife but if they were given to a man who already had a first wife, they were to become a concubine (Cobo 1990: 205).
Garcilaso (1966 [1609]: 203) insists that the other writers were in error in
50 suggesting that some of these chosen women were destined to be the wives of private persons such as the vassal lords of the provinces. This would represent the lowering in her state and the corruption of someone who had been dedicated to the sacred purpose as the wife of the Sun and his human son the Inca king. Rather the women gifted to other curacas were the daughters of other local nobles who had not been consecrated as acllacona; however the gift being from the Inca could be construed as 'divine' seeing as it came still from the hand of the Inca king. As for women of royal blood, the Inca would occasionally give the daughters of the royal house who were illegitimate to the 'lords of great provinces" (Garcilaso 1966 [1609]: 203). The Inca had many other women he could gift without giving away the women of royal lineage and legitimate birth who otherwise could be chosen women, a concubine of the Inca or the wife of a legitimate
Inca, all destinies that did not diminish or insult their social standing (Garcilaso 1966
[1609]: 204). In contrast, Betanzos (1996 [1557]: 52) recounts that Inca Yupanque had sent to each cacique and lord of the conquered territory two sets of garments and a woman born in Cuzco and of Inca lineage who was to be their principal wife and through whom lines of descent would form that would connect the territories to the empire, preventing rebellion.
As participants in the religion, particularly in Cuzco
The role of the chosen women in the religious institutions of the Inca Empire has been neglected in favour of their economic contributions in the form of specialized weaving. However, many of the chroniclers document the presence of these women at important huacas, and festivals showing that they were not exclusively cloistered.
51 Cobo (1990 [1653]) and Sarmiento de Gamboa (1967 [1572:]: 101) assign the mamacona a room in the Coricancha now the Monastery of Santo Domingo, alongside the chapels for Viracocha, the Sun, the Moon, and the Thunderbolt from which they served the temple. He does not elaborate upon their duties (Cobo 1990 [1653]: 50; Rowe
1944: 35) though some of them slept in the chapel in which the statue of the Sun was placed at night; Cobo describes them as wives of the Sun and that they also had intercourse with him (Cobo 1990 [1653]: 50). Sarmiento de Gamboa (1967 [1572: 110]) described them offering rich food and chicha burned as an offering to the Sun, while additional chicha was poured into a trough with a drain; also, they fed the sacrificial fire with specially carved wood (Betanzos 1996[1557]: 46; Anonima Jesuita 1945 [1594]: 13) painted with images of birds and butterflies (Betanzos 1996[1557]: 165). Cieza de Leon
(1959 [1553]: 56) suggests that the mamacona described as specifically dedicated to the temple lived in the Temple of the Sun; another source nearly as early as Cieza echoes his claim while providing added detail in that the women were marked with the blood of sacrificial llamas as were the elderly male caretaker of the temple and three important lords at the dedication of the temple during the reign of Inca Yupanque (Betanzos 1996
[1557]: 45,46). Garcilaso de la Vega (1966 [1609]: 184-185) contradicts this in that he states no women were allowed to enter or to serve in the temple but rather only the priests and servants who supported the temple's economy.
Chosen women were also dedicated to other huacas such as the one of Viracocha in the Cacha province 18 leagues (75.6 km) from Cuzco (Betanzos 1996 [1557]: 175). At
Huarco, Munia (1962 [1590]: 217) describes how the chosen women of the sun weave clothing for the idols, sweep the temple and participate in processions with the priests of
52 the Sun temple, with one line of women and one of men.
Cobo often includes mamaconas as active participants in many of the major festivals that marked the Inca calendar year. These were a permanent feature of the calendar.
Compared to Easter in importance by the Spanish, the festival of Capac Raymi was a celebration that initiated elite Inca youths aged twelve to fifteen years into the status of knighthood or orejones . It began during the first month of the twelve month year, spanning several weeks and involving a number of events and sacrifices. Girls and women also played a role in this festival and in fact the girls may have been participating in a parallel initiation ritual unrecognized by the Spanish (See Betanzos (1996 [1557]) and the Anonymous Chronicler (1906 [1570?]); MacCormack (1991: 115; 159).
Women for example spun and wove the material for the four sets of ceremonial tunics and cloaks. In November they also fetched water from the sacred spring of
Calizpuquio for chicha, while the maize was chewed by the men. Both sexes fasted and the women received their own set of special clothing, an asco and lliquilla33
(MacCormack 1991: 115). They visited together the huaca at Guanacaure and then to
Anaguarque where the boys' female partners served them chicha. After several other phases the men have their ears pierced while a woman's ascension into adulthood was marked by the beginning of menstruation (MacCormack 1991: 116); in both cases, both sexes bled as part of a transitional ceremony into adulthood.
Cobo (1990 [1653]: 126) writes that richly dressed twelve to fourteen year old girls were selected to serve first in spinning the thread for the fringe of the boys' guar as
32 The Spanish nickname orejones or 'big ears' refers to the practice of piercing and stretching the earlobes. 33 Quechua for "shawl" 53 or loincloths. These girls were also stationed at the hill of Chacaguanacauri accompanied by the huaca of Guanacauri (Guanacaure/Huana-cauri)34. They were called Nusta-calli- sapa. Additionally a figure of a woman was brought out from the temple of the Sun.
Called Passa-mama, she represented the moon and was under the aegis of women
(Molina 1873 [1574]: 37)
The wives of the boy's relatives would spin and weave black wool into a tunic and brew four jugs of five arrobas35 each of chicha for the initiate (Betanzos 1996 [1557]: 60) with water for the chicha retrieved from the sacred spring of Calizpuquio. A pair of mamacona carrying two jugs of chicha accompanied the royal insignias that led the procession on the fifth day. These insignias were a white camelid wearing a red garment and gold ear ornaments and a pennant called sunturpaucur. The chicha was designated for this animal which was also trained to eat coca; it was the representation of the first camelid to appear following the mythical Flood which was equated with the Biblical one
(in Cobo's description) (1990 [1653]: 129).
Following a respite of six days, the boys and the other participants reconvened, including the royal insignias and likely the pair of mamacona. The 12 to 14 year old girls were given a red and white dress by the priest of the Sun, goods that had been given in tribute to the religious institutions (Cobo 1990 [1653]: 130). They were to carry jugs of chicha called caliz (Betanzos 1996 [1557]: 60) for the group and thus stationed themselves at the bottom of the hill of Guanacauri calling for the young men to quickly join them. The boys would then run, accompanied by their older male sponsors, at great
34 The site of the stone representing Ayer Capac, brother to Manco Capac, who set himself atop the hill to act as an intermediary between the Incas and the Sun according to the Inca origin myth. 35 Weight of about 25 pounds (Spanish) 54 speed and thus risk. The girls would then give first the sponsor a drink, and then the initiate (Cobo 1990 [1653]: 131).
The hill of Huana-cauri eight miles southeast of Cuzco was the site of an important huaca where Manco Capac's brother had turned to stone. Cieza de Leon (1959
[1553]: 151-151) describes the intoxication (with chicha), strangulation and burial of richly dressed men and women and a shrine served by "farms, laborers, flocks, and virgins and priests." Another shrine near to Cuzco, the temple of Vilcanota was also supported by the same set of properties and peoples, it being an important part of the child sacrifice of capaccocha (Cieza de Leon 1959 [1553]: 151) (see also Coropuna in the puna of Cunti-suyu (Cieza de Leon 1959 [1553]: 152). Mamacona would also accompany the head priest as he traveled to question the oracles during capaccocha, described here as the tribute of llamas, gold and silver vessels, jewels, and blankets
(Cieza de Leon (1959 [1553]: 192) in contrast to other sources which include the sacrifice of children.
The second month of the year, Camay, featured a continuation of the knighthood initiation. Many sacrifices were offered including chicha and fine cloth but Cobo offers no specific mention of the role of the chosen women, though their presence can be gleaned from the products being offered. During the third month, Hatun Puquy, which marked the height of the rainy season one hundred chestnut camelids and twenty cuys
(guinea pigs) were sacrificed to mark the breaking of the soil for the fields or chacras
(chacaras). The mamacona were in attendance and they, according to Cobo (1990
[1653]: 139), are given a certain food. Aucay Cuzqui corresponding to the month of
June was marked with a sacrifice of one hundred brown camelids on the hill of
55 Manturcalla where the Inca king and the elite males would eat and drink served by the mamacona while their wives stayed in a separate patio. Thirty garments of "very colorful cumbi" were also given as offerings (Cobo 1990 [1653]: 142). It was part of the celebration of Inti Raymi, the most important festival to the Sun.
The chosen women were also involved in another ceremony marking the sowing of the fields of the sun during the ninth month called Yapaquis. At the chacra (field) called Saucero, mamacona and other Indians poured chicha onto the field once the seeding was done; a white camelid with golden ears stood with them. Following this ceremony, one thousand cuys ("guinea pigs") collected from all the provinces had their throats slit; some were buried in the field and the rest distributed to the huacas in the name of the frost, wind, and sun (Cobo 1990 [1653]: 144).
The month of Coya Raymi, the tenth month and the beginning of the rainy season, was marked by the celebration of Citua. All provincial dwellers and those with physical deformities were made to leave Cuzco along with all dogs. The festival was to beseech
Viracocha to prevent the illnesses that accompanied the rainy season; these people were considered marked by evil and the dogs might howl, another seemingly ominous sign, so they could not remain in the city during the festival. On another day of the festival a great sacrifice was offered in the main square of Cuzco with the burning of thirty richly dressed camelids brought from the lands belonging to the religion located in the four suyus
("quarters") of the Empire.
The mamacona offered the participants from the provinces lumps of maize flour called gancu (Garcilaso 1966 [1609]: 199) mixed with the blood of a sacrificed white camelid served on gold plates (the same apple-sized 'loaves' were made for the
56 celebration of Raymi (Garcilaso 1966 [1609]: 357). During the festival of Citua the same
bread was made with the blood of boys or children between the ages of five and ten who
were bled from a spot between the eyebrows and were otherwise unharmed (Garcilaso
1966 [1609]: 413)30. The same women ground and kneaded these loaves and made all of the chicha and the other food for the festival as it was meant to be seen as gift from the
Sun to his people with his human wives acting as proxies (Garcilaso 1966 [1609]: 358).
According to Cobo the lumps were given to ensure loyalty as by eating them the people
could not hide the sin of criticizing the Inca king or the Sun. These were also sent to the provinces "by the Sun as a sign that the Sun wanted them all to venerate and honor him"
(Acosta 2002 [1590]: 317; see also Cobo 1990 [1653]: 148). Acosta called this a form of
"diabolical communion" and notes it was also performed during the festival of Capac
Raymi (Acosta 2002 [1590]: 300).
As sacrifices
Despite his heated arguments to the contrary, physical evidence has proven Vega
(1966 [1609]) wrong on his assertion that the Inca did not practice human sacrifice. The
acllacona are cited as potential victims. Acllacona were sacrificed for both ordinary
sacrifices, ordinary referring to those festivals that were part of the yearly cycles and for
extraordinary events such as "the health, death, or war of the Inca" (Acosta 2002 [1590]:
282-3; 292) as well as for volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, floods and droughts.
Women were often included in the burials of their chiefly husbands and the
36 Vega (1966) [1609] insisted that the Inca never practiced human sacrifice, a claim since disproven by archaeological evidence. His book is an example of rhetorical writing arguing for the humanity of his mother's people, the Inca. 57 Spanish often commented on the frequency of the practice among the many ethnic groups of the Andean region. They can be classified as they appear in the documents as acts of suicide (Cieza de Leon 1959 [1553]: 58,245, 276, 310; Zarate 1968 [1556]: 52); as events of sacrifice (Acosta 2002 [1590]: 266,275; Cieza de Leon (1959 [1553]: 197,245,
312); or most commonly the agent of the event is left ambiguous (Cieza de Leon (1959
[1553]: 65; 67; 72; 90; 94; 100,110,125; 132; 148,263, 308-10, 312, 348; Pizarro 1969
[1571]: 226). Suicide is documented in a number of specific cases. For example, women would fight with their co-wives over the right to be buried with their husband, so much so that he had to make his choice before death (Zarate 1968 [1556]: 52). Also upon the death of Topa Inca, men and women hanged themselves across the kingdom and were buried in addition to the women and servants who were entombed with him (Cieza de
Leon 1959 [1553]: 245). Finally, women in the Yunga and other regions who feared being left out of the burial due to a lack of room would hang themselves with their own hair (Cieza de Leon (1959 [1553]: 310).
As for examples of sacrifice with the death of Huayna Capac, one thousand servants and women including officials and their favourite women were killed to serve him in the afterlife (this was considered a fortunate destiny) and the burial rites included feasting and drinking (Acosta 2002 [1590]: 266). Upon the execution of Atahualpa, his sister, some of his troops and a number of women were hanged in order to serve him in death (Pizarro 1969 [1571]: 226).
Living women also played a role in the ceremonies for the dead. Atahualpa's remaining sisters played drums and sang of his deeds, seeking his remains as he had not been buried. Pedro Pizarro (1969 [1571]: 227) told them that the dead do not return and thus dissuaded they abandoned their task. He then recounts how in the past this ceremony would have lasted a year and would have included many more people, women singing and drumming and carrying chicha as they traveled to the places visited by the person in life.
The arrival of the Spanish
A most pressing question is exactly what happened to these women upon the arrival of the Spanish. It can be assumed that they and their institution, as one supported by the state, disappeared quickly as the Empire collapsed. Did they simply melt back into the population or did they, like the treasure memorialized by many early conquerors with avaricious glee, become coveted prizes? Guaman Poma (2006 [1615/16]: 124) wrote that
"after they had conquered and stolen, the Spaniards began taking the women and maidens and deflowering them by force. If they resisted, they killed them like dogs and punished them, without fear of God nor of justice; nor was there any justice." However as late as
1572 with the final siege of Vilcabamba, Topa Amaru was captured by Captain Martin
Garcia de Loyola37 along with his men, princesses [nustaconas] and mamacona (Guaman
Poma 2006 [1615/16]: 152). Slightly earlier Diego Rodriguez de Figueroa (1967 [1565-
1568]: 182, 198) described a trip into the highlands to visit the exiled court of Titu Cusi
Yupanqui, son of Manco Inca . There he witnessed the recreation of the Cuzco court complete with "twenty or thirty fairly good-looking women" serving the Inca, though the
37 The nephew of the founder of the Jesuits, Ignatius Loyola (John Topic personal communication) 38 Manco Inca had been assassinated by a Spaniard in 1545.
59 Inca was to plead poverty and surrender to the Spanish.
The dominant perception of the Conquest is that of Spanish brutality particularly as presented as the Black Legend promulgated particularly by the British (Juderias 1986).
William Bennett Stevenson, who visited in 1817 and wrote in 1829, described the sacking of Pachacamac and the rape of the 'virgenes' despite the fact that they were considered as sacred as the Roman Catholic nuns familiar to Hernando Pizarro and his soldiers (Ravines
1996: 4). Schumacher (1874: 250) recounted in 1874 during an excursion to Pachacamac that the site "is said to have been destroyed under circumstances of revolting cruelties towards the inhabitants and some hundred virgins of the Sun" though he also mentions a conflicting account from Herrera who records that though the women (mamacona) were removed, they were not violated. However, he then describes the seizure of treasure and the excavation of graves so he seemingly falls on the side of a violent interpretation.
As a witness during the Conquest, the messenger, Ciquinchara, in delivering news to Atahualpa, described the Spanish as mere humans though ones who "appropriate everything, leaving nothing. They take it so easily that you would think it were theirs;" they were quitas pumarangra, "leaderless people wandering about and thieving"
(Betanzos 1996 [1557]: 248). He also witnessed them sleeping with local women
(Betanzos 1996 [1557]: 248). Titu Cusi Yupanque describes Hernando Pizarro demanding that the wife of Manco Inca, Cura Ocllo, be handed over to him; Manco Inca replied: "So, that's what Viracocha commands you to do: to rob another man of his possessions and wives? With us, on the other hand, this is not customary behavior and I assert that you are not sons of Viracocha but oisupai—which is to say the Devil in our
39 A central deity in the Inca pantheon. 60 language" (Titu Cusi Yupanque 2005 [1570]: 75).
Most early accounts merely mention these houses of women spinning and weaving but the most complete account emerges from Cajas [Caxas] as it includes the fate of the women; there are several accounts which present slightly different pictures reflecting the authors' roles as official chroniclers and participatory witnesses.
Cajas was a site located in small valley between mountains four leagues4 (16.8 km) from Guancabamba as told by Jerez and was a large city with much storage of maize, corn beer and shoes according to Mena (1968 [1534]: 137-138), though it had been destroyed by the civil war between Huascar and Atahualpa (Porras Barrenechea, in
Trujillo 1970 [1571]: 94) and visited by a group of conquistadors under the command of
Hernando de Soto. The Anonymous writer ([1534] 1929: 27) echoes the descriptions of ruins and adds that the trees were hung with Indians who had refused to submit to
Atahualpa but rather remained loyal to Huascar (who here was called Cosco after the capital, Cuzco); the population was said to have dropped from between 10,000 to 12,000 to 3,00041. Despite this destruction the storehouses were still rich with corn, shoes and wool, and in the acllahuasi women continued to spin and weave and to make chicha.
Jerez (1968 [1534]: 78) provides a different version of the hangings as being that of a man who had tried to enter the house to sleep with one of the women and those of the porters who had admitted him.
The official chronicler of this journey, Francisco Pizarro's secretary Jerez recalls women spinning and weaving in service of Atahualpa at Cajas and in a second account he
40 One league = 1 hours travel time by foot/ 4.2 km (Spanish) 41 See also Mena 1968 [1534]: 138
61 sent to Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo he numbers them at 200. The Anonymous chronicler of 1534 tells of a house with 500 women weaving and making chicha in Cajas
(1929 [1534]: 27) as does Mena (1968 [1534]: 137) who specifies that the clothes and chicha were for the Inca soldiers. Mena ([1534] 1929), also present in 1534, recounts that the Spanish were given four or five women from a house that was closed and guarded for
Atahualpa and he is likely describing the acllahuasi; the same is said by the Anonymous chronicler ([1534] 1929: 27) who specifies that it was the Cacique of Cajas who authorized this gift. These women were to serve the Christians by preparing food for them while traveling.
The previous accounts are typical of the descriptions furnished by the Spanish.
Jerez, as the official chronicler whose work was destined for the king of Spain, likely edited out any brutality inflicted upon the local population, in this case the acllacona. In contrast, Diego de Trujillo (1970 [1571]) in his dictation42 of the events, too, recounts that there were more than 500 women living in three houses ofmamacona ('mamaconas') along with 2,000 Inca militia men. Hernando de Soto, in a move that fits with his violent personality and rectifying the false depiction of him as a saint (Trujillo 1970 [1571]: 95), had the women brought into the plaza and given away to his men43. Trujillo describes the reaction of Atahualpa's captain thusly:
42 His account is described as the product of "an untutored mind, manly and direct, magnificently unconcerned with larger issues, able to see and depict what he experienced in vivid anecdotal fashion" (Lockhart 1972: 364).
43 According to Lockhart (1972: 191), de Soto has, to the English-speaking world, become "a shining knight, an embodiment of various imaginary virtues" as befits an explorer of the United States. However Porras Barrenechea in Spanish has shown him to have killed and mutilated many Indians and only opposed Atahualpa's execution, as it would have been an advantage to his goals in contrast to those of the Pizarros (191).
62 The Captain of the Inga [Inca] became very proud and said, 'How dare you do this with Atabalipa being twenty leagues from here, for there shall not be a living man left among you.' Captain Soto wrote the Governor everything that was happening and of the pride of that Indian. The Governor responded that they should later all suffer for his pride and that we should lead him to believe that we were afraid of him, and with this falsification he brought him to Carran, where the Governor was. So we brought him to Carran where everything about Atabalipa was known, and where he was found out. From there we came, passing by a town called Cala and by Cinto and by Motupe, a dry land without water, where the thirst and the road were great hardships (Trujillo 1970 [1571]: 50)44.
The disjunction between Trujillo's account and that of the official chronicler and even the others is curious. It may stem from the parallels drawn between the chosen women and the nuns of Roman Catholicism. Despite the former serving what was often described in diabolical terms, they were still religious virgins and the writers often speak of their virginity with respect especially in contrast to the supposed promiscuity of other women in Andean society. Jerez's account was destined to be the official chronicle for the Pizarro expedition and was to be the basis by which the Spanish Crown determined the prospects for rewards. Excising the distastefulness of distributing women would have been a prudent manoeuvre.
"Trujillo" may be reporting falsely; however, other examples of desecration litter the records. "Trujillo's" account records a second: upon arriving in Cusco the Spanish entered the houses of the sun without following the law of the priests which mandated a yearlong fast, bare feet, and an offering (Trujillo 1970 [1571]: 59-60). Acllacona were
"el Capitan del Inga se ensoberveci6 mucho, y dijo, como osais vosotros a hacer esto estando Atabalipa veinte leguas de aquf, porque no ha de quedar hombre vivo de vosotros. Luego el Capitan Soto escrivi6 al Govemador todo lo que pasaba y de la sobervia de aquel Indio y el Govemador respondi6, que sufriesen todo su soberbia, y le di6semos a entender, que le teniamos miedo, y con esto disimuladamente le trag^semos a Carran donde al Govemador estaba, y asi le tragimos a Carran a donde se supo del todo lo Atabalipa, y adonde estaba y de alii venimos por un Pueblo que se dice Cala y por Cinto y por Motupe, una tierra seca y sin agua, donde se padecio gran trabajo de sed y caminos" (Trujillo 1970 [1571]: 50).
63 valued and by some accounts were even protected during the protracted civil war between half-brothers Huascar and Atahualpa, the latter who hardly hesitated in wiping out the women in Huascar's family (see Guaman Poma de Ayala 2006 [1615/16]: 44; Vega 1966
[1609]: 617). An alternative account emerges from Sarmiento de Gamboa (1967 [1570]:
185) who writes that Cusi Yupanqui, acting under the orders of Atahualpa, slaughtered the wives, children and friends of Huascar. Among Huascar's allies was the house of
Tupac Inca Yupanqui whose mummy was burned by Chalco Chima and Quiz-Quiz, generals of Atahualpa, who also killed his descendents, the mamacona and servants of the house.
The chosen women of the Coricancha were nearly victimized in an earlier period as the enemies of Inca Capac Yupanqui from the province of Cunti-suyu regrouped following a defeat at his hands. Cieza de Leon (1959 [1553]: 200) writes that "they made haste to gather arms, and had already divided up among themselves the virgins of the temple of Curicancha without having laid eyes on it." One must question the historicity of this event and speculate that it more or less reflects the Spanish viewpoint or even actions. It could also reflect the chaos that is often granted the period prior to the rise of the Inca empire, a theme common to the work of Guaman Poma (2006 [1615/16]; 1980
[1615/16]) and Garcilaso de la Vega (1966 [1609]), both writers who had a stake, through their indigenous heritage, in redeeming the works of their ancestors.
However I have little reason to doubt Trujillo's account as it is documented that the Spanish took indigenous women as companions, including Francisco Pizarro who claimed the primary wife of Atahualpa as his prize.
64 Conclusion
The history of the Inca Empire is aided greatly by the rich documentary corpus available to scholars but as stated earlier not all documents are equally trustworthy; one must acknowledge the varied motives of the Spanish chroniclers as well as the historical context that shaped the document and its author in addition to noting one's own biases.
For this chapter I focused on Spanish documents from the conquest until the year 1653
(Cobo 1979 [1653]: 1990 [1653]) so as to keep to sources as close as possible to the period of the acllacona and Inca Empire.
As to the information derived from the Spanish documents, it is not always clear and consistent; for example the many terms for the chosen women describe different categories suggesting that women were drawn from a variety of social classes to fill differing positions from weavers, to brewers, to religious participants to agriculturalists.
It is important to note that the word aclla is derived from the Quechua to choose and is related to notion of selecting the best so regardless of rank these women possessed characteristics that distinguished them from their peers.
Archaeology is also shaped by the information contained in the Spanish documents and in cases such as the Cuzco acllahuasi are given descriptions of the site and later modification by the Spanish colonists. In addition, the documents can also lead to new avenues in material research as not only were these women involved in the intensive production of cloth and corn beer. It would also be prudent to search for evidence of women at other huacas, associated fields, gardens and camelid herds, musical instruments (as some categories of acllacona are described as singers), and the quarters of other inhabitants of the houses such as male and female servants.
65 The goal of this chapter was to present as much information about the chosen women as can be gleaned from the Spanish documentation. Scholars are unfortunately limited by their sources. Consequently the Spanish were little concerned with spinning and weaving and where mentioned, concentrated on the exoticism of the religion and house of beautiful virgins and yet a careful examination reveals far more diversity than is commonly attributed to the acllacona. However, how much of this information is accurate or hearsay diligently recorded in the pursuit of academic interest and often slander? To resolve these issues, it is necessary to draw on other lines of evidence such as the archaeology.
66 Chapter Three: Archaeological Evidence
Introduction
This chapter will present archaeological information culled from a variety of published works on the acllahuasi of Cuzco and the provinces as well as the possible biological remains of the chosen women themselves. It will also provide necessary background information on Inca architecture and material culture including the identifying cultural markers of the empire in the provinces.
There is an unfortunate tendency to name a set of ruins La Casa de las
Mamaconas or the acllahuasi or the House of the Chosen Women as it is presumed that any Inca site should have one despite any substantive evidence. Additionally, a house of virginal women makes an exotic and novel identification especially for a site whose exact function remains a mystery; even Machu Picchu was once interpreted as an acllahuasi
(Gasparini and Margolies 1980: 87).
Unfortunately, the archaeological material presents another set of problems similar to the Spanish documentary evidence. Problems include a focus on ceramics, little interest in women and the Empire, the large corpus of documents relating to the final days of the Inca Empire that inhibited archaeological studies, and the destruction of
Imperial sites as colonial Spanish and modern cities were built atop the old. Small groups of people in prehistoric societies have poor visibility in the archaeological record. On the opposite end of the spectrum is the willingness to identify acllahuasi based on known traits without critical review. Where there has been modern scholarship it remains unpublished or scattered among a variety of obscure journals, some inaccessible to non-
67 Spanish speaking researchers particularly. Specifically problematic for this thesis has been the lack of interest in the acllacona and the acllahuasi and its architecture. None of the sites examined here have a full complement of evidence. Most are known only from ethnohistoric sources, others from architecture with materials associated with chicha production and weaving.
It may be impossible to recognize the archaeological remains of a structure as an acllahuasi. Even a site with evidence of chicha and textile production may not be proof of a house of chosen women when other specialists and women attached to noble households, who are presumed to have engaged in similar tasks in service of the state, are taken into account. The lack of material remains is also due in part to the brief lifespan of the empire itself as the Inca rapidly expanded from their homeland in the Cuzco Valley c.
1438 AD to the defeat at the hands of the Spanish in 1532 AD. However, what had been accomplished architecturally in a century of conquest is worth praising.
It is likely that the acllahuasi described by the Spanish are the ideal formulation of a mature imperial institution represented by the one in Cuzco. The ideal provided by the written sources does provide a starting point for understanding the acllahuasi in more detail. First each provincial capital should ideally have contained an acllahuasi.
Acllahuasi were built in newly conquered provinces, of which there were eighty, each with ideally between 20,000 to 30,000 households (D'Altroy and Schreiber 2004: 266).
For example, Cieza de Leon (1959 [1553]: 160) wrote:
And when the Inca had appointed a governor with a garrison of soldiers, he went on, and if the provinces were large, he at once ordered a temple built to the sun and women assigned to it as in the others, and palaces built for the Inca, and the amount of tribute to be paid fixed.
68 It was but one element in a distinctive set of imperial architecture imposed across the
Andean landscape derived from the central highland capital of Cuzco wherein briefly they
"sought to rule.. .through a combination of generosity on the grand scale, intimidation, application of a few standardized policies, and a massive program of resettlement"
(D'Altroy and Schreiber 2004: 265). Storage was a key element, needed to supply the military, Inca administrative officials, state works, local elites, and temporary work groups. Etymologically, the term wasi in the word acllawasi {acllahuasi) refers to
'house', 'storehouse' for valuable items like chicha, and to 'jail.' One chronicler, Morua, refers to the houses of chosen women as storehouses (Costin 1998b: 134), supplying fine cloth, chicha, and women, all three given as gifts to cement alliances with newly formed provinces and to secure the old.
What should we look for then and can any of the architectural complexes identified as acllahuasi stand up to scrutiny? The remainder of this chapter attempts to answers this question.
Attributes of Imperial Inca Architecture—Form, Function, and Meaning
Here I will discuss the characteristics of Inca architecture as seen in Cuzco and its replication as part of a corporate style in the Inca administrative centres and tambos45 of the provinces. The term 'corporate' refers to "state construction, from the types of dwellings to the patterns that define the urban establishments, [which] is regulated by norms that necessarily contribute to reaffirming the similarity of forms, the simplification of technology, and the use of familiar spatial concepts" (Gasparini and Margolies 1980:
45 Also spelled tampus, these were way stations located at set intervals between major administrative sites to provide lodging for travelers and storage. 69 320). Humboldt, writing in the mid-19 century, noted that Inca structures seemed as if they were built by a single architect (Humboldt 1810 [1878]; Gasparini and Margolies
1980: 320). Consequently, it is then both easy to identify Inca architecture across the
Empire but more difficult to connect specific functions and activities to architectural remains unless one has the benefit of artefacts.
Additionally, Inca sites were often quickly abandoned following the arrival of the
Spanish, occasionally were re-occupied by local peoples or the Spanish, looted by both, or had merely not been occupied long enough for substantial remains to accumulate, particularly in terms of cemeteries. Traits such as finely laid stonework fitted without mortar and the use of the trapezoid in doorways, niches and plazas (Gasparini and
Margolies 1980: 5) mark imperial architecture. The masonry of the Coricancha or
Temple of the Sun was described as being constructed of stone set so that "the seams of the blocks of stone against stone were so fine that they looked like lines made with a nail across a stone" (Betanzos 1996 [1557]: 48). However, given the short life of the Empire, most sites are not completely made of stone.
The Inca aesthetic was free of "moldings, cornices, pilasters, or any kind of geometric, phytomorphic, zoomorphic46, or anthropomorphic ornamentation" but rather subscribe to the formula that dictates that "as the importance of the function or meaning of the building increased, so also the excellence (or complexity) of the finish and fit of the stonework increased (Gasparini and Margolies 1980: 320.)" The remnants of the acllahuasi in Cuzco clearly subscribe to this aesthetic in the utilization of perfectly fitted stone upon stone, though based on the Spanish accounts it is known that the most
46 An exception to this are the pumas carved into the door at Huanuco Pampa (John Topic personal communication) 70 important buildings, like the Coricancha, were fitted with a strip of gold along the top. In another example from the provincial site of Huanuco Pampa, fine Inca-style masonry adorns a set of doorways aligned with the centre of the stone usnu (ushnu) or platform.
These doors are suspected to have been part of a complex used to house traveling Cuzco officials (Gasparini and Margolies 1980: 105).
The Inca introduced a new building style to the regions they conquered where the necessary materials were available. According to Rowe (1944: 24), the finest examples of Inca style architecture continued to follow a basic and ancient plan of a grouping of rectangular thatched houses or small buildings (kitchens and storage) surrounded by a high enclosure with a yard including room for animals; there would be only a single entrance. These enclosures would be laid out in a rectangular city plan though it was modified to accommodate the landscape. The Quechua word concha or kancha in fact means 'enclosure.' Even the Coricancha or the Temple of the Sun at Cuzco translates as
'golden enclosure,' conforming to this simple architectural plan with each separate building housing a different deity of the Inca cult. Kallankas47 are more commonly found at larger centres; smaller way stations though were generally restricted to roadsides where they could serve a largely transient population (Hyslop 1984: 285).
In the provinces, administrative centres represent a way to maintain control after the conquest though many lack defences like fortresses, walls, and trenches (Gasparini and Margolies 1980: 103). Inca administrative centres have their precedents in the Chimu culture on the North Coast where Chan Chan in the Moche Valley is the capital and
47 "very large rectangular buildings that sometimes had gabled roofs. Their doorways opened onto a plaza. The interiors were undivided and it is known that they were used for ceremonies and to quarter transient groups such as soldiers" (Hyslop 1984: 285; Gasparini and Margolies 1977: 204-228). 71 Farfan was built to act as the administrative branch in the Jequetepeque Valley, constructed in the Chimu style of architecture (Moseley 1982: 17). Passing Inca armies may have drawn from the stores in a territory but once they had conquered an area, a new process was begun involving the relocation of loyal colonists, the displacement of rebellious ones, and the building of imperial architecture to house and supply Inca and
Inca-by-privilege bureaucrats and other imperial dependents from Cuzco and elsewhere.
The Inca impacted the local architecture minimally and conversely adopted few techniques besides the use of local materials when necessary. By maintaining their own unique style, the Inca were able to construct an "architecture of power" that would proclaim their presence and dominance of a region. However they did not convert the populations to a single culture but rather encouraged the local populations to retain differences particularly in terms of native clothing; it is said that one could recognize an inhabitant of his region by his style of dress even among the throngs in Cuzco (Sinopoli
2001: 196).
In general, Inca administrative centres were marked by storage facilities for the support of the daily lives of the local bureaucracy and occasional feasts for locals working to fulfill their tax obligations, barracks for transplanted workers, large kitchens and plazas to prepare and host feasts (Isbell 1987: 84). The permanent population would be small and supplemented by rotating work groups of local people (Keatinge and Conrad 1983:
257) with a superficial occupation atop either an earlier settlement or virgin land. Craig
Morris (1974) includes a list of six traits that mark a administrative centre: 1. there is a clear distinction between state and local pottery types; 2. administrative centres appear abruptly in the archaeological record; 3. the sites contain many storage units first to
72 supply the needs of the centre and second for distribution to the local populace; 4. most buildings appear to have housed mainly transients, likely serving their labour tax and for other non-residential activities; 5. the sites were quickly abandoned following the collapse of the imperial system; and 6. a lack of cemeteries, also indicate of a short life. These traits are then relevant to the identification of an acllahuasi as will be explained below.
Spanish Descriptions of Inca Imperial Architecture
Above and briefly, I presented a short description of an administrative centre from the work of Cieza de Leon (1959 [1553]) but even by his time many of these places had fallen into ruin. The Spanish chroniclers comment on the mortarless stone masonry, and the golden decorations of the temples, occasionally providing a sense of the layout; perhaps they found this more intelligible than the actions of the inhabitants. This brief section offers a few examples; more will be included in descriptions of individual sites later in this chapter.
Cristobal de Molina (1943 [1558]) furnishes us with an interesting description of an administrative centre:
in every one of the towns in this land, and especially in those on the two royal highways [coast and highland], there is or were royal quarters of the Inca or Sun, with his retinue of Indian men and women to serve him and the nobles and captains and messengers that he sent here and there, and quarters and houses of worship for the Sun, with its retinue of women called mamacunas, who were like holy women who remained chaste...They were very meticulous, and in the tribute to the Inca such accounts [were kept] that each town of these provinces had accountants who kept account of the tribute and of what tribute each Indian gave and served, so that the work might be allocated and no one serve more than any other... Likewise each town of these had a great quantity of storehouses wherein were gathered the maize and other supplies that were paid in tribute to the Inca, and the clothing and looms where the rich clothing for the Inca and caciques and the other common cloth for the warriors was woven and many storehouses of wool for it...(Molina 1943 [1558]: 21- 22).
He specifically places the chosen women (mamacunas) in the temples. Cloth for the Inca was also woven at these sites but he fails to mention who was completing this work.
Jerez (1968 [1534]: 78, 92) who was Francisco Pizarro's secretary in 1534 describes the acllahuasi at Cajas (Caxas) as a "large, strong building in the village, surrounded by mud walls pierced with doorways." In Cajamarca he reports a second acllahuasi, describing it as a small square surrounded by lodgings for the women in service to Atahualpa, situated between the mountain and the large, probably, central square; there was also a temple to the sun here. These buildings no longer stand as they were dismantled under Pizarro's orders in part to construct a church atop the temple
(Ravines and Estela 1976). His compatriot Estete (1968 [1534]: 118) commenting on
Pachacamac on the central coast of Peru recorded that "beside the 'mosque' [the Temple of Pachacamac?] is a temple of the sun, standing on a hill; it is of fine masonry and is surrounded by five walls."
Cieza de Leon (1959 [1553]: 21, 50, 21-22) describes the Inca architecture of
Caranqui, Ecuador, as being "made of fine great stone skilfully joined, without mortar."
Built under the orders of Huayna Capac, the buildings are located in a small square, home to priests, acllacona, and a garrison with the temple richly decorated with plates of gold and silver. The walls of these structures are now part of the parochial church, the majority of which were still visible in 1692 but gone by 1798 (Wolfgang von Hagen in
Cieza de Leon 1959 [1553]: 22).
74 In his chapter on Tomebamba in Ecuador, Cieza de Leon (1959 [1553]: 69) describes the storehouses that line the Inca roads. He also mentions that at locations with royal palaces, and temples to the sun with housing for mamacona and priests that there were larger storehouses, likely in order to support this dependent population. The governor and other Inca administrators resided here, and Cieza de Leon (1959 [1553]: 69) compares these sites to the European capitals or the heads of Catholic dioceses. The temple and other Inca structures again were made of skilfully set stone, some black and others resembling jasper. The place where the women called Nustas (Quechua) or princesses lived (suggested to be the temple proper) had a single gate guarded by gatekeepers (Cieza de Leon (1959 [1553]: 70). The single gate is in contrast to other sources (for example Jerez (1968 [1534]) who describe multiple doors each guarded by a gatekeeper.
At Vilcas-huaman, the mamacona resided within the temple of the sun with the priests and their guards, a structure which was associated with seven hundred storage towers, a large plaza and the palaces of Topa Inca. To enter the temple there were two stone staircases with thirty steps apiece49; called the main entrances, there may have been others. It must also be noted that Cieza de Leon (1959 [1553]: 127) is viewing this site already in ruins as "it was once what it no longer is, and by what it is, we can judge what it was. There remains evidence of a plaza with the Temple of the Sun and the usnu is still identifiable while other structures had been robbed to build modern houses (Gasparini and
Vilcas-huaman (Vilcas/Willka Waman) is located 80 kilometres southeast of the department capital Ayacucho in former Chanka territory. 49 This may be a description of the ushnu at Vilcas-huaman (John Topic personal communication). 75 Margolies 1908: 112). Cieza de Leon (1959 [1553]: 127) had recorded 700 storerooms here and remains of some still stand (Gasparini and Margolies 1980: 112).
The Spanish documents contain very brief descriptions of Inca administrative centres but the details are consistent. They often comment upon the fine Inca stonework, and the large plazas around which the palaces, temples and storehouses were organized.
Some mention activities such as weaving but never in great detail. More specific information is applied later to sites such as Cuzco about which a number of chroniclers have commented.
Material Remains
What else could indicate the presence of the chosen women at a site? We know from Spanish records that they were primarily involved in making chicha and weaving fine cloth. Pottery, as one of the most durable forms of material culture, also has been used to detect the presence of the Inca at various sites and to distinguish between the conquerors and the conquered. The institutional production of chicha would also require a large number of jars, capable of brewing and containing the litres required, as well as other ceramic forms used to dispense the liquid. Another indication would be evidence of textile production, in dry regions the textiles themselves and in wetter ones, tools such as spindle whorls and loom parts.
Inca Imperial Pottery
A second indication of Inca Imperial presence is pottery from Cuzco and its local imitations. Classic Inca (Inca, Late Inca or Cuzco Inca) was a pottery style (c. 1400 to
76 1532 AD) likely produced in the Cuzco Basin. Colonial sources note communities of olleros (Spanish) or potters living in Larapa and Safiu (Bauer 2004: 91). Examples of provincial Inca pottery from Chiquitoy Viejo reveal Inca forms with Chimu decorations and Chimu forms with Inca decorations. Inca related forms either locally made or imported from Cuzco were concentrated in the burial platform and high status administrative unit but hardly any was found in the retainer area which is dominated by local Chimu forms and decorations (Conrad 1977: 14). Hyslop (1984: 292) suggests that
"pottery artefacts may provide clues to distinguish between different types of habitation
(of high officials, permanent residents, mitmaq50 or military transients, or mita workers51) and varieties of storages (foodstuffs, manufactured commodities, etc.)."
Patterson (1985) used Inca pottery to judge the presence of the state and whether or not the site of Pachacamac was incorporated into the state machinery. For example, no
Inca pottery was found at the oracle dedicated to the wife of Pachacamac located at
Mamaq in the Rimac valley even with an Inca installation nearby. At Chincha, pottery from the central coast and imitation Inca pottery is found associated at La Centinela (the local and Inca administrative centre) and its graves though local pottery makes up only a quarter of the grave ceramics (Patterson 1985: 167). At Pachacamac Imperial Inca pottery only appears associated with the Temple of the Sun and other structures associated with its role as the Inca provincial capital and is rare around the Temple of
Pachacamac and associated graves (Patterson 1985: 168; Shimada 1991: xxviii).
Seemingly, ceramic associations can indicate social and structural relationships between the locals, the Inca, and the Pachacamac cult, with the Inca presence being confined to
50 Settlers relocated by the Inca state. 51 Temporary state workers fulfilling their required state duties. 77 Inca constructions while local peoples continued to visit the older oracle at the site of
Pachacamac.
Specifically related to the chosen women would be pottery forms used to brew chicha. At Tucume, Narvaez (1995b: 176) describes pots called crisoles recovered archaeologically at the site, which are known ethnographically from the North Coast to have been used to heat chicha. Over forty were recovered from the South Cemetery at
Tucume and likely date to the latter end of the Chimu period/the beginning of the Inca.
They do however only indicate that chicha was consumed and not the presence of specialized brewers. One would expect to encounter Imperial Inca pottery styles and forms, as the acllacona were representatives of the Imperial structure.
Textiles
Textile preservation is rare and best seen in extremely cold, wet or dry conditions.
Unfortunately this produces biases as conditions vary in the Andean region with the best examples emerging from the dry southern coastal deserts. In contrast, little has been recovered from the highlands where the humidity varies daily. Thus most evidence of textile production relies on the preservation of spinning and weaving tools, in particular ceramic and stone spindle whorls. At the Inca site of Potrero-Chaquiago, thirty-eight spindle whorls were uncovered from sector La Solana and coupled with evidence of pottery manufacturing, it is thought this site housed a number artisans including specialized weavers called qompikamayoc (Williams 1983). However most women spun and wove, a necessity to keep their kin clothed, so in order to show the presence of
78 communities of weavers one must look at higher percentages of items like spindle whorls when compared to other sites and sectors within sites.
A salvaged cache of textiles from the site of Rodadero located to the east of
Tambo Viejo, a known Inca provincial site in the Acari Valley south of Nazca, has yielded evidence of state orchestrated textile manufacturing (Katterman and Riddell 1994:
142-143). Rodadero has yet to be excavated but it is presumed to be an Inca storehouse, as a branch of the Inca highway cuts through its centre. It also overlooks Tambo Viejo, similar to the locations of the storehouses at Huanuco Pampa. The textiles had been removed from said storehouse and tossed aside as worthless; there were no associated artefacts. Most of the textiles were damaged by the soil conditions and additionally by a dark brown dye substance. A total of 14 small and 57 large manias or blankets were recovered; the large examples consisted of two panels sewn together. Two of these were completed and there were an additional 17 matched pairs yet to be stitched together.
It is suggested that these textiles were woven to fulfill labour tax obligations.
First, they were found stored together folded in a distinct way in what has been interpreted as an Inca storehouse. The Inca, though, may not have had complete control over quality, as one would expect if these had been woven by full time artisans such as acllacona or cumbicamayos, as even the matched panels possess different thread counts and were of different lengths (Katterman and Riddell 1994: 144). This suggests that common people were weaving these items; they are also all plainweave, of cotton, both natural and dyed, in two distinct sizes and with a set pattern of stripes. A similar blanket has been recovered associated with an infant burial from the Inca site of Quebrada de La
79 Vaca, 100 kilometres south of Acari; this indicates that these either were sent to other sites or were a consistent form mandated to be made by the Inca bureaucracy.
The fact that most of the larger panels were unfinished suggests that the labour tax could consist of a single small manta and one half of a large one. Katterman and Riddell
(1994: 149) cite the 1580 visita which recorded that the 620 Indians of Acari owed the colonial state three hundred and nine and a half pieces of clothing suggested that items could consist of two parts eaph of which fulfilled a single obligation. It is unclear who would complete the finishing of the large mantas; Katterman and Riddell (1994) suggests that master weavers completed the cloth panels and that other groups, either based on site or who would travel to pick up the piecework would have sewn them together. I have already suggested that local people, not master weavers did the actual weaving.
Unfortunately, the example from Acari is a rarity because of preservation issues.
Despite this, the characteristics indicate that this is a state-organized example of work, though one completed by tribute and not by specialized workers such as the acllacona due to their undecorated nature and association with a local storage center with no evidence for a nearby acllahuasi.
Archaeological Evidence for Houses of Chosen Women: The Sites of Cuzco, Huanuco Pampa, Ingapirca (Hatun Canar), Tucume, Pachacamac, and Tambo Colorado
Cieza de Leon in his book provides twenty-one sites that once hosted acllahuasi
(Table III). Few, however, exist intact and have been explored archaeologically. For those that have been, what can be learned from them? For most, we only possess documentary
80 evidence while this section addresses six sites that have archaeological evidence in support of an acllahuasi.
Table III: Locations of Acllahuasi (from Cieza de Leon 1959 [1553]) Location #of Description Location/Str page Misc. women ucture reference Caranqui, more 'beautiful Near Ibarra, 21-22 Ecuador than 200 virgins Ecuador Tacunga/ Llacta- n/a 'virgins', 40 miles 56 cunga, Ecuador 'mamaconas' south of Quito Ecuador Tomebamba, more 'virgins', Tomebamba? 69-70 Ecuador than 200 'mamaconas, ' 'beautiful' in the province of n/a 'virgins' n/a 92 visited by Hernando de Huancabamaba Soto in the province of n/a 'virgins' n/a 95 specific reference to Cajamarca spinning, weaving and dyeing fine cloth Huanco el Viejo n/a 'vestals n/a 109 Jauja, Mantaro 'sun virgins', n/a 114 river valley- 'women of headwaters of the the sun' La Plata river (pg 113) in the province of n/a 'vestals', n/a 127 Vilcas 'mamaconas' Cuzco 'virgins', n/a 146 they dye and weave 'mamaconas' woollen garments; make chicha hill of n/a 'virgins' 8 miles 150-151 Guanacaure southeast of [Huana-cauri], a Cuzco shrine near Cuzco oracle and temple n/a 'virgins' "a little more 151 ofVilcanota than twenty leagues from Cuzco, near the village of 81 Chungara" shrine of n/a 'mamaconas' n/a 151-152 Coropuna, province of Cunti-suyu island at the n/a 'vestals' on Titicaca 280(pg centre of Titicaca Island 233just mentions the temple of the sun) near the fortress over 200 'virgins' n/a 294-295 spin and weave of Tumbes, garments of wool; also Ecuador silversmiths/goldsmiths Pachacamac n/a ''mamaconas' n/a 242, 329, 336 Pucara "palaces of 120 the Incas and a temple to the sun" Ayaviri n/a Temple to the 232,265 Built by orders of Inca sun Yupanqui (Pachacuti) Hatuncolla n/a 'vestals' storehouses, 278 temples to the sun, mitimaes52 Province of Paria n/a temple to the 286 sun, storehouses, royal dwellings Chincha same 'virgins' temple to the 334, 346 number sun, as in lodgings, other storehouses places
Inca (Quechua) term for new settlers/colonists moved into newly conquered regions by the Inca. 82 Cuzco
The most famous of the acllahuasi is best known from historical accounts but the least known archaeologically, as Cuzco was remodelled following the Spanish Conquest.
The city of Cuzco, having been inhabited since the time of the Incas, was appropriated by the Spanish who recognized the value in the native construction techniques as they preserved the neatly joined stone foundations of the more prominent buildings including those from the religious complexes. Thus, a few walls of the acllahuasi still stand but as part of the convent of Santa Catalina.
Located 3,555 meters above sea level, Cuzco was home to a Pre-Spanish population of approximately 126,000 without considering the rural population (Agurto
Calvo 1987: 86). The city was sacked in 1533 and recorded in the reports of three anonymous soldiers who had visited the city in 1533, returning by the end of May of that year . Other witnesses to the city who left descriptions included Pedro Sancho with his
1534 description of the fortress of Sacsahuaman and Pedro Pizarro54's memoirs written in
Arequipa in 1570 (Rowe 1944: 7). Most of Cuzco was destroyed by the Incas during the
Spanish siege of 1535/6 and subsequently burned repeatedly, though it is said that the temple of the sun and the acllahuasi were momentarily spared. The Spanish civil war of the following 20 years took a further toll and it was not until the 1550s that the city was rebuilt.
The sturdy foundations of the ceremonial centre were reused, thus preserving the streetscape. The villages on the periphery were razed and new streets were laid out
European style and Indians were brought in from the rural areas to concentrate their
53 Their report was preserved by Francisco de Jerez (Xerez) (1534) and the Anonymous Chronicler (1570). 54 Francisco Pizarro's nephew 83 population. Rowe (1944: 6) surmises that this process was complete by 1600. Further degrading the archaeological heritage of the city was the earthquake of March 31, 1650 which levelled the Spanish additions to the cityscape (Rowe 1944: 6). It was rebuilt but the city did not prosper until the arrival of the Southern Railroad. Prior to this economic and demographic stimulation, the district of Qoripata (the location of the Temple of the
Sun and the Cuzco acllahuasi) had been abandoned and other parts of the city decayed
(Rowe 1944: 6).
In addition to Hiram Bingham's work at Machu Picchu (1911-16), Guillermo
Lazo conducted excavations during the 1919-20 restorations of the church of Santo
Domingo which had usurped the temple of the sun; these remain unpublished. In 1934 as part of the celebrations of the Fourth Centenary of the Spanish foundation of Cuzco, Luis
E. Valcarcel directed the clearing of sites popular with tourists including Sacsahuaman,
Kenko and Tambomachay (Rowe 1944: 8). Then Rowe in 1940 conducted his own survey of Cuzco's archaeology in part to address the contention that the large stone constructions of the city were in fact Inca and unrelated to those at Tiahuanaco in Bolivia whose form they resembled.
Cuzco's two plazas (once called the Haucaypata and the Cusipata) are now the divided Plaza de Armas and Plaza de Regocijo; they totalled 50,000 m and were flanked with palaces. In the Haucaypata the mummies of Inca rulers were toasted with chicha, and the Inti Raymi festival was held so that the image of Ticsiviracocha could be revered by Incas of all classes. Provincial huacas were also gathered to this place (Moore 1996:
792).
84 The historic documents provide a rich record of the Cuzco acllahuasi that was to be the model for subsequent houses of chosen women across the empire. Garcilaso de la
Vega 1966 [1609], who lived in Cuzco as a child and had visited the former district of the temple of the sun, provides a description of the site of the acllahuasi which had been divided by the Spanish; Pedro del Barco owned half and the other belonged first to
Licentiate de la Gama and then Diego Ortiz de Guzman from Seville who was known personally by Garcilaso (1966 [1609]: 197) (who later mentions that half was owned by
Francisco Mejia who owned the section fronting the square which was filled with merchant shops (Garcilaso 1966 [1609]: 427):
The quarter is between two streets that run from the main square to the convent of St. Dominic, which used to be the house of the Sun. One of those streets goes out of the corner of the square to the left of the cathedral and runs north and south. When I left Cuzco in 1560 this was the main shopping street. The other leaves the middle of the square, where the prison was, and runs parallel toward the same Dominican convent. The front of the house faced the square between these two streets, and its back gave onto a street running across them east and west, so that it occupied an island site between the square and these three streets. Between it and the temple of the Sun there was a large block of houses and a big square which is in front of the temple. This shows how far off the mark were those historians who say that the virgins were in the temple of the Sun, that they were priestesses and that they aided the priests in the sacrifices. In fact the house and the temple are a great distance apart, and the chief object of the Inca kings was that men should not enter the nunnery, or the women of the temple of the Sun (Garcilaso 1966 [1609]: 195).
The acllahuasi was located in the Haucapuncu, a district in Cuzco which translates as
"gate of the sanctuary" which was home to the Temple of Sun, acllahuasi and other important sanctuaries (Vega 1966 [1609]: 421). It was located north of the main square of the city.
85 Reconstructions show the Plaza of Haucaypata (now called the Plaza de Armas) bounded on the southwest side by the Rio Huatanay or Saphi River. The acllahuasi is shown as a walled enclosure with individual kancha-style buildings on the perimeter of the interior, breaking the space into three blocks and creating smaller inner plazas
(Gasparini and Margolies 1980: 55). Garcilaso (1966 [1609]): 249; 798) also described the remains of the granary made up of bins called pirua and workshops.
The remains of the Cuzco acllahuasi now lay beneath the Dominican Santa
Catalina convent built in 1605 though some structural elements remain including the southeast corner, the north walls facing the plaza, now marred with shops, and the west side along the Street of the Sun (Callejon de Loreto), which combined with the wall of the
Amarucancha comprises the best preserved Inca street in the city. The east is poorly preserved and the interior contains only remnants of Inca stone walls (Bauer 2004: 130).
Hudnuco Viejo (Pampa)
Huanuco Pampa55 provides the current best example of a potential acllahuasi excavated with context intact, though Morris and Thompson (1985) acknowledge that identifying an acllahuasi at Huanuco Pampa is the most challenging aspect of the research. They do suggest that state buildings can be recognized by their plans and their masonry. "Very well cut and fitted stone masonry" would be used if available in a region.
What remains is to corroborate this evidence with solid contextual archaeological remains which would likely emerge from a provincial setting. Cuzco's acllahuasi has been too far
55 Hudnuco Viejo is the Spanish name for the Inca administration centre of Hudnuco Pampa and the site was so named following the construction of a new Spanish settlement at a lower altitude also referred to as Huanuco. 86 altered due to centuries of near continuous occupation which included a conversion into a convent for the nuns of Santa Catalina.
Huanuco Pampa is a major Inca administrative site located 150 km from the modern capital of Huanuco. It was not built atop any pre-Inca settlement. Its plan is dominated by a large central plaza, 547 by 370 m, through which the Inca road passes connecting it to Quito and Cuzco; archaeological evidence indicates ritual feasting and public ceremony (Moore 1996: 793). The eastern sector contains two huge halls 70 m long with "trapezoidal gateways of dressed stone." The chroniclers mention that it was a site dominated by herding of camelids overlooked by a southern line of storehouses, over
700 in total. The Spanish occupied the site in 1539 under the command of Captain
Gomez de Alvarado, but they soon abandoned it for lower and warmer altitudes so the colonial and subsequent modern impact was minimal" (Morris and Thompson 1985: 15).
Morris and Thompson (1979; 1985) identified two compounds with evidence for large scale brewing at Huanuco Pampa. First, to the north of the plaza is the compound believed to have been occupied by the mamacona (Plate IV). The excavation uncovered
"several bone weaving implements and dozens of ceramic spindle whorls" and "hundreds if not thousands of large ceramic jars of a kind believed to have been used for making chichd" (Morris and Thompson 1985: 70). Access to this compound was tightly controlled through a single entry on the south side adjacent to the large plaza; this door leads to a small inner patio with the passage into a second larger courtyard controlled by a small square building. The 50 buildings in the north sector of the compound are compared to barracks while the southern structures controlled access and functioned as public space. The former are standardized; 31 are from 17.8 to 19.1 in length while a
87 second set of seven are an average of 13.7 m in length; additionally all but one have two doors. The density of remains suggests a permanent population, particularly in contrast to the rest of the site.
Plate IV: Compound of the mamaconas in the northern sector (based on Morris and Thompson 1985)
The second, to the east of the plaza, was in a block of fine imperial architecture that was presumed to be reserved for the Inca himself (Plate V). The buildings surrounding the two plazas "revealed a whole complex of culinary pottery, food remains, cooking areas and literally tons of jars" (Morris and Thompson 1979: 30) and provide a place where the local Imperial Inca representatives could host local elites. Harthe-Terre 88 (1964) agrees with Morris on his identification of the domicile of the Inca, what he calls the Incahuasi5 . However, he places the house of the chosen women to the south of this building (Plate V). His conclusions are based on the cloistered nature of the rooms and no excavation. Additionally the compound is seen as typical communal Inca living quarters but not of weaving women. Morris and Thompson (1985: 32) suggest that
Harthe-Terre's interpretation may also be derived from a description by Cieza de Leon who stated that the palace was surrounded by a Temple of the Sun, which housed many vestals and priests; however, the site was in ruins by the time that this was recorded so its accuracy is questionable.
Both compounds may have held chosen or elite women based on the brewing jars though the large compound in the northern sector suggests mass production (i.e. chicha to supply conscripted labour groups) while the smaller building may have served the needs of the local elite. They also feature entrances that lead into secondary inner courtyards that then could easily be blocked to restrict access into the inner rooms and patios.
Literally the house of the Inca 89 Plate V: Harthe-Terre's/lc//a/r««5/ (based on Harthe-Terre 1964)
A Entrance B Door II C Door III D Patio of the Acllas E Guardhouses F Cloistered Patio I G Cloister H Servants' quarters I Patio J Platforms
90 Ingapirca (Hatun Canar)
This site, interpreted as a tambo with both pre-Inca and Inca architecture, is located in the valley of Canar 3200 meters above sea level (Alberti Manzanares 1986:
160) near the modern city of Canar in Ecuador. Ingapirca was excavated by la Mision
Cientifica Espahola in Ecuador under the direction of Jose Alcina Franch (1975,1978).
Of the three large architectural groupings (El Castillo, La Condamine and Pilaloma) the archaeologists felt that that La Condamine57 was a Caflari house of women similar to those of the Inca period acllahuasi.
This conclusion was reached based on the following. First, the structure resembled Garcilaso's description of the acllahuasi in Cuzco in having a central corridor with many small niches or repositories along both sides. Second, an acllahuasi in the
Spanish documents is usually accompanied by an Inca Temple of the Sun. El Castillo, a large curved building made of fine Inca masonry, at Ingapirca was identified as a Temple of the Sun in part as it orients exactly east/west (Alcina Franch 1975: 51); a Caflari temple had existed at the same location. Both were located within an area deemed to be part of the religious infrastructure. Finally there was a high frequency of a local ceramic called
Cashaloma, which contradicts evidence from Morris and Thompson (1985) at Huanuco
Pampa which suggests that Imperial Inca pottery should dominate.
However, the site itself was primarily a local Cashaloma-Canari occupation dating from approximately AD 990 to AD 1400. The following Inca period was exceedingly brief though they did construct a unique oval shaped structure called El Castillo atop an older structure described by Alcina Franch (1975: 51) as the pacarina or huaca of the
57 La Condamine was named after Charles Marie de la Condamine who mapped the site in 1739. 91 community. It is unlikely then that the structures located at this site were in fact part of an acllahuasi.
Pachacamac
Pachacamac is a site located approximately 27 km from the colonial and modern capital of Lima on the north bank of the Lurin River, near both the mouth of the river and only 600 yards from the Pacific Ocean (Daggett 1988: 13). It has attracted much attention due to its proximity to this large metropolis, functioning as a tourist site since the 19th century and consequently, has been partially excavated and reconstructed. The site was occupied from the 1st century AD until the arrival of the Spanish and has been
CD investigated by academics and looted by huaqueros . Its name refers to the Quechua term for a pre-Incaic deity, Ichimay or Ichma, whose oracle attracted pilgrims from at least the neighbouring valleys; the oracle was housed in what is called the Painted or
Polychrome Temple (Uhle's Pachacamac Temple). The Inca who occupied the site from c. AD 1440 to 1533 (Shimada 1991: xxiv) recognized the symbolic power of this ancient religious centre; they constructed a temple to the Sun during the reign of Topa Inca
Yupanqui in 1460 AD (Ravines 1996: 47), a house of chosen women and other structures including the palace of Taurichambi and the Plaza of the Pilgrims, in exchange for exporting the cult to other parts of the Empire (Ravines 1996: 24).
Cobo (1990 [1653]: 89) describes a process of consultation with the local caciques ('lords') and the priests of Pachacamac before building an adjacent temple of the
Sun and house of chosen women. Now linked with the Inca Empire, he writes that the 58 Spanish for 'looters' derived from the term huaca which often broadly refers to any Peruvian archaeological site dominated by a mound. 92 oracle at Pachacamac only tightened his hold over "these wretched people" much to
Cobo's chagrin. The newly constructed temple was built atop the remains of an earlier structure. Beginning in 1938 the temple of the Sun was partially excavated and preserved by a National Museum project under the direction of director Luis E. Valcarcel and
American economist, Albert Giesecke which uncovered atop the temple storerooms containing the well-preserved remains of "Inca cloth, maize, hot peppers, and peanuts"
(Shimada 1991: xxxi; Daggett 1988: 17)." Julio C. Tello, as director of the
Anthropological Museum in Magdalena, Lima, had agreed to work on site for the prestige, its proximity to Lima and the possibility of a pre-Incaic settlement and thus work began on May 13, 1939 (Daggett 1988: 18). However little of his work was published with the exception of articles in the Lima newspaper El Comercio (Daggett
1988); he has been heavily criticized for the reconstruction of the House of Mamaconas which he called the Temple of the Moon (Shimada 1991: xxxvi).
Between 1963 and 1968, work focused upon the south side of what Uhle called the Old City Wall, where most of the Inca period construction lies. Under the direction of
Jimenez Borja, who was joined by Bueno in 1964, the central stairway to the Temple of the Sun was exposed and the construction generally cleared and consolidated; the
"inferred" palace of the Curaca Tauri Chumpi or Inca governor was excavated along with other Late Horizon structures (Shimada 1991: xliv).
The University Museum at the University of Pennsylvania is home to the artefact collection from Max Uhle's 1896-97 William Pepper Peruvian Expedition to
Pachacamac. His Field Catalogue is held by the University and parts have faded into illegibility and he published only one account, Pachacamac, in 1903 (Vanstan 1967: 1).
93 Vanstan (1967: 1) has selectively published 160 textiles from his collection designated as
"beneath the Temple of Pachacamac" an addition to her short 1961 article on a collection of miniature shirts from the same collection. Additionally, both Provincial and Imperial
Inca pottery was found at the site.
The description from Cobo (1990 [1653]): 88) is in fact archaeological as
Pachacamac was in ruins by his time but even then he was able to recognize the difference between Inca and Pre-Inca construction techniques as the former used cut stone. "All of these rooms were the lodgings for priests, attendants, and guards of the temple, and the mamaconas had a separate house next to it."
There is some controversy as to the identification of the house of chosen women and while Uhle placed it in one area, Tello chose another. Uhle's Convento de las
Mamacunas at Pachacamac feature the typical Inca trapezoidal niches. Uhle however notes that the Temple of the Sun features a mix of both Cuzqueno Inca and local coastal architecture (Ravines 1996: 18-19). Furthermore, the acllahuasi has a rectangular plan with numerous precincts and patios, access to which are restricted by a high perimeter wall. The construction employs adobe and tapia as well as worked stone laid in horizontal rows in an Imperial Inca style (Ravines 1996: 48). The Temple of the Sun also had associated agricultural terraces that Uhle speculated supported the inhabitants of the temple and supplied the needs of the storage system (Ravines 1996: 18). It is located to the northwest of the main complex in the lower part of the city and thus isolated from the majority of other structures (Ravines 1996: 48).
Uhle also excavated what was then named El Convento or La Casa de las
Mamacunas and he determined that the architectural style was an eminent example of the
94 Imperial Inca style in contrast to all other buildings at the site including the Temple of the
Sun; he felt that the building was an acllahuasi of the Cuzco-type where the women would have been dedicated to serving the religion (Uhle 1991 [1903]: 100). This house was essentially a large enclosed concha surrounded by other buildings with flat roofs and double jambed trapezoidal niches. Uhle also uncovered field systems that he assigned to the religion and that would have supplied the occupants of the acllahuasi (Ravines 1996:
20).
A large Late Horizon cemetery was discovered on the lower terrace of the south western side of the Temple of the Sun. The majority of the burials were in the Cuzco style with a high percentage of goods such as (presumably) wool cloth, chuho
(dehydrated potato staple from the Highlands), aji, coca and other items; of these only 2% of the items were from the coast. More interestingly the burials were those of women.
This determination was based on the large number of items and clothing associated with females. The bodies themselves seem to indicate violent acts as the skulls are displaced from their original positions and spines are no longer articulated; they may have been sacrificial victims and they are often cited as the remains of acllacona. Tello also notes the presence of women who served the cult of Pachacamac who lived in an enclosed compound from which the Spanish obtained most of the treasure (Ravines 1996: 22).
Further excavations by Tello between 1940 and 1945 uncovered an interior featuring the stonecutting style of Cuzco Inca and a series of wells and canals to deliver water. He disagreed with Uhle and instead identified the House of Mamacunas as the
Temple to the Moon, reasoning that if there was a temple to the masculine deity, there had to be one to the feminine despite the lack of evidence. Additionally what he called
95 the Temple to the Moon was one of only two in the Inca style, the other being the Temple to the Sun (Ravines 1996: 20).
"For the greater splendor of the valley of Pachacamac, they [the Incas] would found a house of chosen virgins, for two things that were very highly regarded wherever they existed were the houses of the Sun and of the virgins, since they recalled the two most splendid monuments of Cuzco" (Garcilaso 1966 [1609]: 383). The local rulers in this region were allowed to keep their power as long as they followed the ultimate rules of the Inca who would in return worship and spread the cult of the Pachacamac oracle
(Garcilaso 1966 [1609]: 383). The installation of a Temple of the Sun and a house of chosen women would have marked the oracle as Inca territory but it is significant that the oracle and older temple remained intact and functional up until the arrival of the Spanish.
As described earlier, the acllacona were part of the Inca consolidation of imperial power yet there was a willingness to allow the local populations to retain their own customs when not in conflict with the Empire's aims. In this case it was also to the Inca's advantage as the oracle represented a centre of regional religious and political power and unity
Tucume
Tucume, located on the North Coast, is a site with a long history. Founded by the
Lambayeque culture (AD 1000/1100-1350), they were conquered by the Chimu (AD
1350-1470) who subsequently succumbed to the Inca who occupied the site until the arrival of the Spanish in 1532 (Sandweiss 1995: 77). The Inca choose in this case to augment an existing site rather than building an entirely new installation, as the Inca road
96 ultimately passed within 14 kilometres of Tucume; other Inca sites in the region included
Tambo Real on the Leche River, a location with pottery workshops (Sandweiss 1995: 67).
Northeast of La Raya Mountain is the Monumental Sector with archaeological work focusing upon Huaca Larga, a 700 m (2300 ft) long raised platform pyramid; the
Temple of the Sacred Stone, a small, U-shaped structure just east of Huaca Larga; and
Huaca 1, the tallest of Tucume's man-made pyramids. Huaca Larga has yielded an Inca stone building59 on Platform 2 called the Stone Temple including a set of female burials accompanied by weaving and spinning paraphernalia which will be discussed in a later section on biological remains. This temple is the only example of stone architecture as the remainder is made using adobe bricks; as stated above stonework is often a sign of an
Inca presence. It was also built atop an earlier structure, the Chimu Temple of the
Mythical Bird, suggesting an attempt to lay a spiritual claim to this site by conquering a prominent temple (Narvaez 1995: 91). This building was deliberately destroyed, likely during the first decade of the Spanish conquest, and covered in a special fill as indicated by the discovery of two pairs of Spanish glass earrings in the fill (Narvaez 1995).
Another area in the site, which may be associated with craft production, consists of 25 structures found in the South Plaza associated with Huaca 1 and dated to either the
Chimu or the Inca period. Narvaez (1995: 86-87) stated that "each corridor consisted of large benches on either side of a central dividing wall. The benches had two rows of columns to support short roofs which would have covered the benches but not the corridors." Needles and spindle whorls were found along with evidence for copper smelting (Narvaez 1995: 128). It is compared to the Small Irregularly Agglutinated
59 This temple was built atop the Chimu period Temple of the Mythical Bird. 97 Rooms (SIAR) found at Chan Chan, which are known to have been used as high status workshops and to a weaving scene on a Moche florero, a type of ceramic, that depicts weavers sitting under canopies; the Moche is a North Coast culture that predates the
Chimu (Donnan 1974: 131). A mound in the southwest corner perhaps housed an official overseeing the weaving such as in the scene on the piece of pottery. At Tucume, the bench corridors were burnt and levelled, just as the other Inca structures of Huaca Larga were around the time of the Spanish arrival.
It is presumed that the women buried at Tucume are members of the aclla class based on their age profile and burial assemblages; Narvaez (1995: 93) also notes that the stone structure could easily provide the privacy necessary to cloister the inhabitants. At most what can be said is that there was an elite Inca presence at the site centred around
Huaca Larga. Based on the primary sources, women could transition from being aclla to being the wives and consorts of Inca administrators posted in the provinces and local members of the upper class.
The Stone Temple consisted of four chambers (Recintos 1-4) identified as religious rather than domestic possibly due to the lack of household debris and food waste. South of this is a workshop and kitchen but no living quarters so perhaps this kitchen was used to prepare ritual foods. The burials were cut into Recinto 1 and 3 and the rooms subsequently filled in followed by an intense fire which burned across the entire temple (Toyne 2002: 18).
The excavators also surmise that a group of priestesses served at the Temple of the
Sacred Stone, a building built around an unmodified stone or huanca. The location, like that of the Stone Temple, had been in use since the Lambayeque period. As for the Inca
98 presence, a single silver figurine dressed in a plainweave cloak fastened with a copper tupu60 was found in the courtyards and four Spondylus shell and shell figurines (in male/female pairs) were recovered to the east and to the west of the doorway. The two to the west were dressed in feather headdresses and wool cloaks; one, the female, "is identical to others found in high altitude Inca shrines in the southern Andes, such as Cerro del Plomo in Chile, and Pachacamac" as well with child sacrifices from Nevado Ampato discussed later in this thesis (Narvaez 1995: 109-110).
These items indicate that the Inca thought highly of this temple; they were also made of silver and Spondylus shell, both items associated with the feminine aspect.
Could then the weaving women be the priestesses of this shrine if in fact this shrine was served by female clergy?
Tambo Colorado
Finally, Tambo Colorado (Plate VI) deserves a brief mention as a site which is identified as having an acllahuasi in its tourism signs but with no evidence forthcoming.
It is a group of Inca period buildings located on the north bank of the Pisco River and probably represents a small part of a much older and much larger occupied site (Engel
1957: 34); little is known, as Engel is the only one to conduct a study here despite it being a popular tourist stop (Hyslop 1984:111). Associated architecture, graves, and pottery are late lea with Inca influence (Engel 1957: 35).
A shawl pin worn by women usually made of metal such as copper or silver. 99 Plate VI: Tambo Colorado—overlooking the 'palace' and large plaza towards the Pisco River fPhntn: Flannerv Surette ?.00<9l
Skeletal Remains and Burial Assemblages
Pre-Inca Burial Precedents
The mass burial of young women has pre-Inca precedents. Of particular interest is that of Las Avispas (Pozorski 1971:5), a burial complex east of the northeast corner of ciudadela Laberinto at Chan Chan, a Chimu site in the Moche Valley as it provides an earlier example of sacrificed women, connected to a court and buried with weaving and 100 spinning equipment. Temporally, this site dates from a period both prior to and contemporaneous with the Inca who conquered the Chimu circa 1470.
At Chan Chan, there are thirteen burial platforms of which eight are associated with ciudadelas or palaces; Conrad (1982: 88) defined a burial platform "as an elevated structure specifically designed and built with one or more internal receptacles to hold deceased individuals and mortuary offerings." The burial platform Huaca Las Avispas connected to ciudadela Laberinto, which has only been partially excavated, revealed a minimum of 93 bodies based on 93 left tibiae (Pozorski 1971: 95) extracted from 25 cells; only one cell was completely cleared and was found to contain thirteen complete skeletons "stacked like cordwood" (Conrad 1982: 99). However, it is estimated that the platform may contain a total of 200 to 300 more burials. Regardless it was difficult to obtain an exact count and to reconstruct full skeletons as the site had been subjected to extensive looting since the Inca period. Sixty-seven percent of the individuals were between the ages of 18 and 24 and 90% were under the age of 31 (Pozorski 1971: 96).
All, based on an analysis of sex determination characteristics, were female though it is speculated that the large t-shaped tomb at the centre of the complex once held the body of a Chimu king. Thus it is speculated that these women represented his wives or consorts, or perhaps were selected from the Chan Chan population or other settlements within the empire after his death to be sacrificed to him.
Artefacts included food offerings, Spondylus shells, textiles (plain and fancy, cotton and wool), bundles of raw cotton, ceramics, spinning, weaving and sewing implements such as loom bars/shuttles, battens, combs, spindles/bobbins with threads, copper-alloy needles, and a cane needle case. Pozorski (1971) comments on the poor
101 quality of some of these items particularly the ceramics which may have been due to the turmoil brought upon the Chimu by the Inca conquest or possibly due to the activities of looters.
It is not possible at this time to go beyond the most superficial connections to the acllacona. Though they shared the same physical and demographic characteristics, it is not possible to determine whether these women were buried for the same reasons as the
Inca chosen women were at Pachacamac.
A second example has been erroneously identified as a burial of chosen women.
The burials were uncovered in Pilaloma at Ingapirca, Ecuador, next to a large stone embedded in the ground; stones of unusual size are often deified and considered to be huacas. Found in the central patio, the remains of cloth, basketry, and cordage suggests that the bodies were buried in bundles (Alcina Franch 1975: 51). Ten of the eleven were female including a rich female burial which was interpreted by Antonio Fresco and
Wania Cobo (1978: 156) as the principal burial accompanied by retainers in line with other burials from the Cafiari area. She was "a priestess probably dedicated to a huaca of great importance while Pilaloma could be her place of residence."61 She was buried with a great number of copper items including large tupus, plates, large and medium sized earrings, rings, and needles; other items include collars of shell beads, many pottery vessels, and sacrificed llamas (Alcina Franch 1975: 51). The items were Cafiari in form
61 "una sacerdotisa dedicada probablemente a una huaca de gran importancia (^,La pacarina de "El Castillo"?) Pilaloma pudo ser su lugar de residencia." 62 Concha or mullu
63 "El ajuar funerario del enterramiento result6 ser extraordinariamente rico en objetos de cobre: grandes tupus, placas, aros de tamafio muy grande o mediano, cascabeles, anillos, agujas, etc. como collares con cuentas o « chaquiras » de concha {mullu). Ademas se hall6 una gran cantidad de vasijas y una capa de restos 6seos de animales grandes (^llamas?)..." (Alcina Franch 1975: 51). 102 and Fresco and Wania (1978) date these burials to the Early Pre-Inca part of the occupation.
Alberti Manzanares (1986: 160) misinterpreted the evidence provided by Alcina
Franch. Alcina was not claiming that Ingapirca was in fact home to an acllahuasi but that the structure La Condamine, based on the predominance of female burials and associated artefacts such as manos and metates resembled an Inca period house of chosen women.
The site itself was primarily a local Cashaloma-Cafiari occupation dating from approximately AD 990 to AD 1400. The following Inca period was exceedingly brief though they did construct a unique oval shaped structure called El Castillo atop an older structure described by Alcina Franch (1975: 51) as the pacarina or huaca of the community.
Possible Remains of Chosen Women
Chosen women were occasionally sacrificed as young girls or buried with elite males. Only two sites have produced skeletal remains that may be those of chosen women. The first were excavated in the 1890s by Max Uhle at Pachacamac discussed above; the second group were excavated in the 1980s from an Inca centre at Tiicume.
Finally, the remains of female children left atop several peaks in the Andes may also represent a population of acllacona sacrificed soon after being chosen.
Pachacamac
Max Uhle in the late 1890s excavated a number of structures at the site of
Pachacamac including a cemetery of what he determined to be sacrificed women. This cemetery was located on the terrace to the southeast of the Temple to the Sun and Uhle
(1991 [1903]: 84) described excellent preservation conditions including "ancient dried- meat preparation, 'charki', [which] seemed fresh enough to serve its original purpose."
The style of the graves and their contents seemed to indicate a Cuzco population with fine
Cuzco pottery vessels, heretofore unknown examples of fine textiles that resembled a highland style from 16th century Bolivia and a variety of highland tubers (Uhle 1991
[1903]: 84-85). Only a single weaving tool (a staff) was uncovered and an unknown number of spindle whorls and copper and spine needles (Uhle 1991 [1903]: 96).
All of the people interred in this cemetery were adult women, as determined by the female clothing and accompanying tupus or pins used to fasten women's mantas
(shawls) closed and the white and gray hair of some of the mummies. Uhle also noted that they had been strangled and in his 1903 report, he included a photograph of a specimen—a skull with a white cotton cloth garrotte wrapped tightly around the neck
(Uhle 1991 [1903]: Plate 18.13). A hard knot was placed in the front to constrict the larynx and a second tightened at the back to cut off the airway (Uhle 1991 [1903]: 85).
The age of these women do not match with reports of maidens and children being sacrificed to Inca deities, and Uhle first surmised that they may have been punished as described by the chroniclers (see Chapter Two). The chroniclers also discuss examples in which women voluntarily followed the Inca or their husbands into death through self- strangulation, had volunteered for the honor or were chosen not necessarily of their own accord (Acosta2002 [1590]: 266, 275; Ciezade Leon 1959 [1553]: 58, 65, 67, 72, 90,
94, 100, 110, 125, 132, 148 197, 245, 263, 276, 308-310, 312, 348; Pizarro 1969 [1571]:
226; Zarate 1968 [1556]: 52). They are often cited as the best examples of acllacona known in the archaeological literature particularly due to their burial location, rich textile corpus and apparent sacrifice, but without the ability to properly examine the remains, one is reliant on the Uhle's documentation and conclusions.
Tucume
The only major modern study designed to explicitly identify acllacona based on burial evidence is of a set of skeletal remains excavated from Tucume, was Toyne's 2002
Master's thesis. Inca skeletal material is often lacking as sites were soon abandoned or inhabited by transients. Tucume in the Lambayeque Valley was established as an Inca administrative centre around 1470 AD, possibly as the area had long been inhabited and augmented by a series of monumental architectural works built by the local elite. It is important to note the presence of other Inca bureaucratic institutions such as a palace, a temple to the Sun, storage and tambos. Toyne (2002) analyzed 13 females and 3 males excavated from the Inca period Stone Temple using as comparison 12 individuals from the site's South Cemetery, a burial area used since the founding of the site and one which is more likely to contain local inhabitants rather than recent Inca immigrants.
The females were buried with "many weaving tools (spindles, spindle whorls, balls of thread, needles, loom boards, chalk, etc.), often in covered, rectangular reed baskets" (Narvaez 1995: 93). Pots in Provincial and North Coast Inca and Chimu styles were found along with Lambayeque inlaid wooden earspools, indicators of high status
(Narvaez 1995: 93).
Toyne (2002: 7) compiles a list of traits that would indicate high status weavers to apply to her sample. First, they would be of limited age range—few young adults and preadolescents and few older women. However we know that the mamacona were also weavers who stayed celibate remaining to teach the novitiates and would likely present an older profile. Next, they would present "a consistent picture of biological health status, diet, disease load and physical activities" seeing as they would be members of the same institution living in a barracks-like situation. Additionally they would be healthier than the surrounding populace with a steady access to sufficient, high quality food, lower levels of dental pathology, infectious disease, violent trauma and workload stress as indicated by musculoskeletal stress markers (MSM). Any physical stress would consequently be due to spinning and weaving. In comparison the three male skeletons should display similar health traits but show different stress to the body; the samples from the South Cemetery should contrast in both health and skeletal markers.
Toyne (2002) presumes that honoured wives would display different health characteristics (i.e. would exhibit less dietary and occupational stress than a non-elite woman), while the elite men and women from this sample would have a similar diet and health history; secondly she suggests that the elite men and women would have different activity patterns though it is commonly known that most women spent part of their time weaving. The population of wives could also once have been acllacona, as it is often mentioned in the documentary evidence that acllacona were given in marriage to Inca and provincial elites; consequently, honoured wives and acllacona would exhibit similar health statuses and activity patterns thus limiting the information that can be obtained from skeletal remains.
Again only part of the story is revealed due to the lack of associated architecture like that found in Huanuco Pampa, despite the identification of a workshop at Tucume; however, the workshop also lacks the isolation one would expect for a group of chosen women and living quarters. These women fulfill some of the attributes in being young female, buried with weaving equipment and in association with elite males. However
Toyne's analysis reveals that it is impossible to say from biological evidence if they were fulltime weavers. This final point may be moot as they could have once been acllacona if one views the houses of chosen women as an Inca finishing school. These women also could have been wives, concubines or servants of the household killed to accompany their lords; they could also have been acllacona during their lifetime. Weaving tools, particularly spindles and spindle whorls, were known to have been buried with adult women as a symbol of femininity; as young elite women and as possible sacrifices, those that buried them may have wanted to emphasize this aspect.
One can be more confident of the identity of the male mummy bundles, particularly the rich burial of a 35 year old male wrapped in 16 textiles, 14 of which were decorated and a feather cloak of orange, green and white feathers. Upon his head was a red padded hat with red and yellow tassels; tassels are often cited by the Spanish sources as symbols of governmental authority among the Inca. He also wore silver earspools indicating he was a member of the elite, initiated as a youth into knighthood. The presence of sacrificed women would also seemingly mark his elevated social status, even more so if the women were acllacona (Narvaez 1995: 95-96).
These burials, as mentioned earlier, were late. Narvaez (1995) suggests that they were sacrifices made to counter the upheaval oxpachacuti of the Spanish Conquest. In his analysis, this is supported by the artefactual assemblage, as in addition to the rich items in the burials themselves the fill, also contained burnt textiles; 3000 crisoles and
107 other pots including a Cuzco style censor usually restricted to the capital; wooden items like weaving implements including a carved rueca64 or distaff, spindles, and loom boards; spindle whorls ; gold, silver and copper objects including rings, bracelets inlaid with
Spondylus shell, and copper axe money; pyroengraved gourds and faunal material
(Narvaez 1995: 99-100). In Narvaez's version, the plethora of weaving implements suggests that the burial of the women and the destruction of what may have been a textile workshop are connected. It is also possible that the burials of the men and women on
Platform 2 are unrelated to the subsequent fill event which may have been a rejection of the Inca rule following the collapse of the empire—a suggestion bolstered by accounts of unease under the Inca's rule (Narvaez 1995: 100-101).
Sacrifices
Chosen women were part of the sacrificial system as children and young adults.
Several skeletons have been recovered from the peaks of the Andes. The mountains of the Andes are considered lords or apus and continue to be offered gifts such as beer, llama foetuses, cigarettes, incense, bread, candy and coca (Reinhard 1992: 92, 94-95); additionally, curanderos or ritual healers sell despachos in Cuzco containing "starfish, cookies, minerals, miniature metal figurines, seashells, incense, llama fat and coca leaves." As for offerings from the Inca period, artefacts and mummies have been excavated, the more recent of which are documented in National Geographic (Reinhard
1992, 1997, 1998; Reinhard and Alvarez 1996; Reinhard and Stenzel 1999).
Ruecas is a distaff, used to hold fiber while spinning. See Plate II (30) 108 Several of these mummies may have been acllacona. The first found atop Nevado
Pichu Pichu near the modern city of Arequipa, Peru is that of a woman, 18 years old, killed by a blow to the head and buried with "wooden vases, copper shawl pins, beads, a wooden comb, a ball of thread, and the remains of a comb" though her clothing had disintegrated (Reinhard 1992: 95). A second more famous Inca mummy was found on
Nevado Ampato65 after the eruption of nearby Nevado Sabancaya melted the ice cap.
Nicknamed the ice princess or "Juanita," she was well preserved, frozen. Her intact clothing included a dress (aksu), a belt (chumpi), a shawl (lliclla) fastened with a silver pin (tupu) hung with tiny wooden carvings66, and leather slippers. It is thought that she once wore a feathered headdress like the female figurine buried with her and that of the second female mummy (Reinhard 1996: 73).
"Juanita" was approximately fourteen years old and in good health with no signs of malnutrition in her bones and teeth when she was killed with a blow to her skull above her right temple (Reinhard 1997: 38-39). The method of execution contradicts the
Spanish records who speak of women being sacrificed through strangulation but most of these descriptions concern secondary wives being buried with a dead lord and thus the method of execution may not be applicable.
However these mummies are found in isolation due to the nature of the sacrifice's location and probably rarity, and consequently, do not provide any information about the larger population of adult chosen women. The skeletal assemblages from Pachacamac and Tucume provided better avenues but the former were excavated prior to the advent of modern archaeological methods and the latter remain ambiguous.
65 Named as a principal deity by Spanish priest Crist6bal de Albornoz in 1583 (Reinhard 1996: 69-70). 66 "a box, two drinking vessels, a dog or fox (Reinhard 1996: 80)" 109 Conclusion
The archaeology of the acllahuasi relies on a likely assumption derived from historical documents; each Inca administrative center including the capital, Cuzco, was home to such an institution which was an element in the establishment of each new
Imperial node of control. It is then logical to search for an acllahuasi in these locations; however, as discussed they have been impacted by Spanish colonial and modern constructions and natural changes as the result of events such as El Nino rains and earthquakes. Work on human remains (Toyne 2002) has the potential to reveal information on the lives of women but the techniques do not yet allow for the identification of specific groups such as the acllacona particularly in reference to muscle markers for particular activities such as a weaving.
Huanuco Pampa provides the best example of an acllahuasi but is consequently overused and, as demonstrated, has produced differing interpretations. It handily fulfills the descriptions of the Spanish yet nothing like it has yet to have been excavated closely enough to provide a point of comparison. Additionally, at Huanuco Pampa, only 8% of the buildings have been excavated and 2% of the site has been surveyed (Morris and
Thompson 1985: 82) so the potential for additional evidence lies in further investigation of this and other Inca administrative sites.
110 Chapter Four: Analysis
Introduction
This chapter aims to elucidate and piece together disparate bits of information as well as critique the approaches taken by other writers when discussing the chosen women of the Inca Empire. What were acllahuasi and their inhabitants to the Inca Empire? Is it possible for modern researchers to understand their importance and role when our understanding is partially contingent on a worldview foreign to both the Inca and to modern anthropologists, even as the Spanish worldviews changed from the initial
Conquest through to the stabilization of the Peruvian colonial state? This chapter then begins with a discussion of the Roman Catholic worldview and the Roman Catholic nuns, who act as an interpretational starting point for the majority of Spanish chroniclers for understanding the acllacona. Second, I will discuss the works of Murra (1956; 1962),
Silverblatt (1985; 1981), Costin (1998a), and Gose (2000) and their views on the acllacona, which are primarily economic and political in nature. Finally I propose that the image of the acllacona needs to be expanded beyond that of pawns of the Inca Empire by reclaiming the analogy with Roman Catholic convents and by illuminating the religious significance of weaving in the Andean world.
The Spanish and the Influence of the Roman Catholic Church
As described in Chapter 3 on the archaeology of acllahuasi, these buildings were part of the architecture of power embedded in Inca administrative centres. In the most extreme examples, the Inca even created second Cuzcos, transporting the symbols of their highland homeland to far-flung regions such as Quito and Huanuco Pampa. They trod a
111 delicate balance between allowing disparate cultures to retain their customs, and uniting the inhabitants of a large land mass under a single ethnic unit. In this light the chroniclers mention the order for conquered peoples to keep their traditional dress so that they could be identified. The chosen women were part of the unification strategy; it was an honour to be chosen and these women became ambassadors to their regions when they returned as
Incanized brides, educated in important societal skills as beer brewing and weaving and the tenets of the solar cult. The Spanish connected the acllahuasis to the Roman Catholic convents of Spain symbolically but in building their own convents in Peru they, too, employed these institutions as places to indoctrinate indigenous women so that they could become suitable brides and servants for Spanish citizens of the colony.
A key organizing principle in the construction of Spanish history in the 16 century was Christianity, specifically the Roman Catholic Church. Many Spanish accounts attempt to fit the Inca and other peoples of the New World into a worldview framed by a Biblical chronology. Franklin Pease describes the Spanish view of history from the period as linear, beginning with the creation by a Christian god and ending with the second coming of Christ and in several cases it appears as if the authors are searching for the Andean equivalent of the Biblical flood. (Mien 2000: 297). Because the indigenous population was unfamiliar with the stories of the Bible, Spaniards like
Sarmiento made the point that the Inca "misunderstood natural law and deserve to be governed by Spain (Julien 2000: 298)."
Also shaping the Spanish worldview were fabulous stories presumed to be true.
For example people in the period believed in giants. When Sarmiento provides a discussion of Atlantis, he is actually presenting what was considered scientific theory of
112 the time (Mien 2000: 299). Inca mythology, however, was less likely to be accepted as it would have legitimized the authority of the Inca state and culture, while in contrast, the incorporation of Saint James or the Virgin Mary in the defeat of Manco Inca at Cuzco was readily believed by the Spanish as these Christian elements were part of the Spanish belief system and were not dismissed as 'fables'. Classical sources also described mythology and folklore alongside historical events, and chroniclers familiar with these works had at their disposal another model to emulate (Julien 2000: 5-6). This is best demonstrated by Cieza de Leon calling the chosen women vestals, like the virgin priestesses of Rome.
Religion was an intimate part of the Spanish colonization of the Americas.
"Observers and historians in both the sixteenth and twentieth centuries agree that the conversion of conquered peoples to Catholicism was a paramount goal equal to that of economic exploitation at the highest levels of the imperial organization, that is, the crown and the church" (Deagan 2001: 185). Spain had been granted dominion over their empire by the 1493 Bull of Donation under the obligation to convert the indigenous peoples
(Deagan 2001: 185) and in short to Hispanicize the people by acting as agents of
"Spanish political presence, labor organization, economic production and defence"
(Deagan 2001: 188). I argue that the acllacona were part of a similar system occupied with the assimilation of conquered peoples and, like non-European women during the colonial period, were "a potent force for social integration" (Deagan 2001: 192).
Spain involved the Roman Catholic Church in all aspects of Spanish life including both domestic and foreign affairs; for commoners, too, religion was a daily presence
(Maltby 1988: 31). This picture serves to frame the lives of the Spanish documenters of
113 the Peruvian landscape. Despite being relatively unaffected by the Protestant
Reformation, Spanish religious life was impacted by the reforms issued by the Council of
Trent (1545-1563). I am mostly concerned with those that impacted the convents and nunneries which were hereby under strict orders to cloister their occupants "to remedy the abuses that had sprung up.. .by sealing them up from the outside world" (Norberg 1988:
134), a process completed theoretically by the 1570s (Lehfeldt 1999: 1013). The abuses referred to, according to Norberg (1988), were the result of poverty as sisters were forced to beg for alms. The act of cloistering, thereby, prevented the nuns from leaving but did not to alleviate their poverty, though the Council of Trent did call for convents to not exceed their resources (Lehfeldt 1999: 1011). Cloistering or enclosure was also driven by fears that a woman who returned home could lay claim to her brother's fortune (Lehfeldt
1999: 1021). Women were also described as being under threat from "the sexual advances of outsiders and her own inherent weakness as a woman, which resulted in her inability to resist satisfying her bodily desires" (Lehfeldt 1999: 1014).
Cloistering was the ideal, but in practicality, orders such as the Daughters of
Charity and semi-religious organizations served, nursed and taught among the general populace (Norberg 1988:136). Ferdinand and Isabella made a plea to the papacy in 1493 for permission to reform female monasticism at least in Barcelona by enforcing enclosure so as to cure "one of the most egregious symptoms of monastic decadence in the peninsula" (Lehfeldt 1999: 1018). However, Lehfeldt (1999) describes a situation in
Valladolid, Spain, between 1545 and 1560 where female religious communities flourished without the strictures of cloistering.
Under the rules of Trent, a woman could not be forced to join an order though it
114 was common for nunneries in Florence to become the destination for unwed daughters with no dowry. Many girls were placed in convents before being able to adopt vows at eighteen, and Norberg (1988: 136) surmises few would have rebelled and ask to leave what had become home. This model was echoed in Peru, though with the added importance of transforming indigenous women into Spanish ones.
Claustration was a requirement of the men who set up the convents of Peru.
Poverty did not seem to be as much of an issue possibly because of the extreme wealth that fuelled the early days of the conquest and the resulting ecomiendas that sustained it.
Convents were also granted land by founding patrons and through later legacies which they rented out to provide income while also providing loans (Burns 1999; Lavrin 1966 on colonial New Spain). Guaman Poma (1980 [1615/1616] illustrated an Inca woman visiting a nun who is seen through the locatorio or visiting parlour (Plate VII), which was a series of latticed openings through which sound traveled. Small items could be passed through the torno, a revolving window.
115 Plate VII: The locutorio or visiting parlour at the Convento Santa Catalina, Arequipa, Peru. (Photo: Flannery Surette, 2007)
The convent of Santa Clara (1558) was one of the first institutions founded by the
Spanish conquistadors and the six year old daughter of an Inca noble (Dona Beatriz Clara
Coya, daughter of Cusi Huarcay and Sayri Tupac (d. 1560) was one of the first entrants.
While her companions were mostly mestizas, nineteen were listed as orphans; their status refers to their lack of father, not mother. Thirty-six had living fathers including the daughter of chronicler Juan de Betanzos and Dona Angelina Anas Yupanqui, Dona Maria de Betanzos (Burns 1999: 26). Establishing such a centre in Cuzco was especially significant as it was the spiritual centre of the Inca Empire.
The Dominican Santa Catalina was built atop the former Cuzco acllahuasi in
1605; a third, Santa Teresa, was built in 1673 as the others were overflowing with
116 occupants as they operated as complete communities with "nuns, [and] hundreds of servants, children of all ages, and slaves" (Burns 1999: 2) and "virtual cities within the city" (Burns 1999: 3). For young women they functioned as chaste and protected boarding schools; many more left to be married than those who took vows. As for the young indigenous women who were sent to convents, they were expected to become
"Spanish" and made to be suitable wives and servants, ensuring the survival of the
Christian Spanish culture. It was, as Burns suggested, part of a larger plan of "spiritual conquest." In the words of Polo de Ondegardo, he praises the abbess Francisca de Jesus for saving many souls as long as it included "removing them from all communication with their mothers.. .which was an impediment to instilling anything good in them"
(Burns 1999: 16). Girls were also seen as at greater risk and thus required cloistering in contrast to boys. The education of women was never a primary policy in continental convents but this role was emphasized in Peruvian convents during this period; the maidens or doncellas who were not to take vows also mingled freely with the general population (Burns 1999: 27).
Issues of economics, politics and inheritance also played a role in the early establishment of convents in colonial Peru. Dona Beatriz Clara Coya was one of the richest individuals in Peru as she inherited her father's rich estates in the Yucay Valley.
Her conversion to Spanish culture was seen as part of a negotiation for her claim on a rich estate and in preparation to her engagement to her cousin Quispe Titu, son of the Inca ruler Titu Cusi (Burns 1999: 27-29). Her wealth made her a target and she was the subject of a series of negotiations; the convent was seen as a safe haven for her and others like her. I believe that the Spanish model of the Roman Catholic convent is applicable in some ways to the world of the chosen women. The analogy suggests that the Spanish were more adept than they have been credited for in identifying traits of the Inca institutions and attempting to translate them into familiar terms. Both the convents and the acllahuasi served to incorporate an ethnically diverse group of women into a dominant paradigm, either Spanish or Inca. They were trained for varied paths with some remaining in the houses as celibate inmates and others sent out to marry. The Spanish
Roman Catholic Church also appeared to deliberately forge a symbolic connection between the Inca acllahuasi and the Convent of Santa Catalina in Cuzco though the message was one of assimilation and replacement, the same fate as those Inca girls welcomed into the newly constructed convents of early colonial Peru.
Modern Views of Chosen Women
Four scholars, Murra, Gose, Costin, and Silverblatt have produced distinctive studies that examine the acllacona and each will be examined in turn before offering a perspective on a neglected aspect, the chosen women and religious practice as expressed through weaving. In general, they focus on the economic and political aspects of weaving and chicha brewing while the term "chosen" is taken solely to indicate a state of subservience to the Inca state. These women are manipulated for their production value and their potential as gifted wives of allied elites, but possess no agency; it is implied that to be chosen as an aclla is likely to be a negative development, when in truth it may have led to greater freedom as at least some of these women benefited from a rise in status, secure housing and nutrition from the state, training in craft such as fine weaving and
118 state religious rites, and protection from the dangers of childbirth.
Murra
The earliest work by Murra (1956; 1962) focuses on the products of specialized weavers, those of the chosen women and cumbicamayoc67 and the role of cloth in the Inca economy. For Murra, it is the products and their political, religious and economic uses that are relevant rather than the agency and lives of the creators; they are just pawns in the state machine which employed them to craft the goods necessary to lubricate the works of the Empire's economic system. The same can be said for the peasants who, by fulfilling their obligations to work the fields of the crown and the religion, earned the right to continue to work their own community lands; the same can be said for weaving, as by making cloth for the state, the state granted them access to their own wool and cotton
(Murra 1962: 715; 1956: 126). For Murra (1956: 133) the women are defined sexually in relation to the Inca; their legal status is that of potential concubines. So while both acllacona and cumbicamayocs worked for the state, the former wove for the religion and its ultimate representative, the king who granted elevated status to these women, but without accompanying political and economic power.
Silverblatt
For Silverblatt (1981, 1988), the chosen women are being interpreted in light of feminism. They are presumed to be pawns in a patriarchal system that is inherently oppressive. Plucked from their home communities and the structure of the ayllu, they lose
67 Specialized weavers distinct from the acllacona (Quechua). Also spelled qompikamayoc. 119 their identity to the Imperial state which co-opts this and their sexuality, a pattern that continues in new and more oppressive forms under the Spanish colonial social order. In order to accept this theory one must also adopt the assumption that during the pre-Inca period, social conditions were more egalitarian with women enjoying a higher status socially. This information is nearly impossible to extrapolate due to a lack of written records and she fails to explicitly identify the source of her information.
I contend that this interpretation draws more from modern ideas of gender relations than from the documentary and archaeological evidence available to Silverblatt and is likely not how the acllacona operated or were viewed during the time of the Inca
Empire. Even the seemingly oppressive system of nunneries that dotted the religious landscape of Western Europe had the potential to grant women more freedom and respect through education and religious devotion. The appearance of chosen women in public settings such as important religious festivals suggests that their lives were not as proscribed as claimed by Silverblatt. Even women chosen to be cloistered virgins may have welcomed the freedom from marriage and childbirth, the latter being the source of many deaths in the ancient world.
Costin
Costin (1998a) approaches the chosen women as a category of specialized workers, and as an expression of social identity. She describes four general components that link craft and identity. First, craft is connected to "all cultural domains—the economic, political, social, and ritual" (Costin 1998a: 3) as all items in the pre-industrial world were the result of crafting. Second, craft objects transmit ideas about social identity and roles and, third, illustrate a relationship between the producer and consumer. Fourth, crafting, in contrast to food, states Costin, is often subject to clearer divisions of labour that reveal aspects of social identity. Crafting and the identity created is a combination of both the products and the action (Costin 1998a: 3). Chosen women are defined through weaving and beer brewing. These products also are granted considerable cultural capital, for example, as lubricants of importance alliances between the Inca and local chieftains.
According to Costin (1998b) adult women were defined by their labour in the eyes of the state; they were called awakuq warmi, the first term referring to the type of cloth they produced and the second to their married and thus adult status. Warmi can also be translated as 'woman' and Costin's use of the word defined as 'married women' places it in opposition to her description of the acllacona. Acllacona or the chosen women were not defined by their labour but by their gender which encompassed their "feminine skills," that of weaving and brewing beer, which are skills valued in a potential bride; they again were selected and this is a crucial distinction when compared to married women. In contrast, the term qompikamayoc included the type of labour, as weaving was an atypical activity for males; however, this argument is flawed as there were also cocacamayoq and quipucamayoq terms which designated specialities (coca growing and knowledge of quipu) but not necessarily atypical or gendered positions.
She also draws a connection between the level of state control over the artisans and what she calls the "symbolic content of their cloth." There is also a correlation between the producers, their rank and the rank of the people who were the wearers of their product. Common women who had the lowest level of state supervision thus wove only plain cloth destined for low level soldiers in the Inca military apparatus. Elite 121 provincial women wove fine clothing admired for its beauty which might have been worn by the Inca when he visited the provinces. However, it did not carry the coded meaning of the military garments woven by the qompikamayoc or the rich 'tocapu laden designs by the chosen women. I am unsure how she knows what group wove what and it seems to be an attempt to create parallels for the two categories of specialized weavers. In Costin's formula, the chosen women were given access to powerful esoteric designs, and by cloistering these women, the knowledge of how to manipulate these are restricted and protected. Also, by endowing them with the highest symbolic ranking as wives or sisters of the Inca, these women were granted the social power to be able to construct the most elaborate weavings yet were under the full control of the state as captive peoples divorced from their kin. Costin (1998b: 137) draws a parallel with the Mycenaean world where
"female captives and slaves wove plain cloaks and blankets" while "elite women made fancy clothing for themselves and their families."
On a broader scale, after the Inca conquest, women's labour became a form of
'servitude' to the state as they were required to spin and weave more to fulfil tribute and provide for their families. In contrast, their work that filtered into the coffers of the
Empire was returned to men as a reward for their labour in the military and state corvee.
Costin (1998b: 138), like Silverblatt, sees this shift as going "from a pre-Inka gendered, quasi-egalitarian relation of complementarity (among household members) to a gendered, politicized, and stratified relation of expropriation (from women to state) and remuneration (from state to men)."
122 Qompikamayoc were like yanacona in being hereditary servants. They could also marry and generally preserve ayllu ties (Costin 1998b: 135). These servants may have been drawn from ethnic groups where males already wove and thus were subject to become mitmaqkuna or colonists, moved to regions that needed more artisans. Despite providing an important service to the state they did not receive gifts such as cloth, women, or land which would indicate a high status (Costin 1998b: 136). Table IV examines the relationship between the two groups of specialized weavers, emphasizing their complementarity while preserving the relative freedom and superiority of the male qompikamayoc. The honour and status accrued by the chosen women is cancelled out by the family and ethnic identities preserved by the male weavers despite their commoner status. In the latter cases, it was likely (based on ethnographic research) that the entire
Table IV: Characteristics of Acllacona and Qompikamayoc (Costin 1998b: Table 8.3: 134)
Acllacona Qompikamayoc
Gender female male
Ethnic Identity diminished reinforced
Social Status high (honoured, holy) low (commoner)
Marital Status virgin/unmarried married
Age of Recruitment child adult
Family/Kinship permanently removed from family lived and worked in traditional and natal community social groups
A class of hereditary servants who worked solely for the Inca state. 123 household (thus men, women and children) was devoted to the various aspects of textile production; thus Costin is mistaken in emphasizing the role of the male as the sole producer of fine cloth.
Costin, in contrast to Silverblatt, focuses upon the craft aspects of the chosen women as she attempts to delineate their role in society. While I acknowledge her influence on my own work in identifying the importance of craft and its impact on society and personal identities, her description of the specialized weavers of the Inca Empire is weakened by a lack of clear evidence and an oversimplified dichotomy between the acllacona and the qompikamayoc.
Gose
Gose (2000) employs the acllacona in his examination of the gendering of the
Inca Empire. Like Costin, he emphasizes the gender complementarity inherent in the structures of the Inca Empire and contends that the chosen women compose the 'feminine dimension.' Through them, the Empire fed and clothed their tributaries with the ultimate gift being that of a chosen woman herself. He is critical of Silverblatt's "simple dichotomy of equality versus male domination" (Gose 2000: 84) but wishes to add nuances rather than dismiss her analysis completely by employing the concept of brideservice. The state, by supplying wives to the populace at all class levels, could then demand labour in return (Gose 2000: 86) as "the wife-giver outranks the wife-taker"
(Gose 2000: 89). So not only is the Inca Empire exploiting female labour it is exploiting feminine metaphors which emphasized the feeding of the population literally through the
69 Gose (2000: 89) accepts accounts by the chroniclers of mass weddings of the common men and women organized by the state for the peasant class. 124 nutritional support of work groups and metaphorically by supplying brides.
He furthermore draws upon the concept ofmink'a, whereby ownership of property is established by feeding the workers who farm the land; it places the workers in a position of subservience as food is a necessity. If the Inca had directly collected tribute, it would have implied that rather it was the Inca who were being fed. Additionally these activities are gendered, "female labor of food and drink preparation for male agricultural labor (Gose 2000: 86)." The chosen women then are the avatars of these values, specially selected to feed the Empire so as not to force these qualities upon the militaristic goals and thereby emasculate them. Gose (2000: 84) states that these women are empowered by this aspect of the Inca Empire but ultimately they lack the same freedom as the constructions presented by Silverblatt particularly; they have become a front by which the Inca could supply its conquest and yet not appear weak as feminine is clearly presented as the latter.
This group of modern scholars chose to focus upon the chosen women primarily as economic pawns, recruited by the state and granted little agency in this decision. My aim is to move beyond these generalizations. As discussed above, the Roman Catholic convents provide another model for the acllacona and their communities. Despite being part of a male-dominated and often militaristic society, Spanish women by taking vows gained a measure of freedom and the opportunity for education within busy, vibrant religious communities. I suggest that the same is likely for the acllahuasis which while labouring for the state, also gained new status particularly as religious practitioners as discussed in the following section.
125 Another perspective on the chosen women
The chosen women as religious figures are often neglected even when many of the
Spanish chroniclers described their roles in major religious rites. However, Inca rites were likely supplied with chicha and sanco by the chosen women as well as textile goods which were gifted and sacrificed in great numbers at the numerous shrines of the
Empire. I contend based upon additional archaeological and ethnographic information that the act of weaving was of cosmological significance and was a sacred act in itself.
There are no records of the interaction between the textile arts and religion beyond cloth as sacrificial items and miniatures but based on historic documents of folk religions and modern ethnographic research it is possible to put forth some conjectures.
It is clear that pre-Inca cultures also valued crafts such as weaving and incorporated the products and possibly the production processes into religious ceremonies as well as deeming them to possess religious aspects in their own right. Useful for my purposes are two examples of apparently secular activity. The first shows weavers, from a
Moche flaring bowl (florero) housed at the British Museum decorated in fineline painting and the second, a smelting scene also on a Moche bowl. Donnan (1974) interprets the weavers as making the elaborate headdresses often seen on other pieces of Moche work while the smelters are creating the metal components for the same items. He states that "it is clear from our analysis of Moche iconography that headdresses are an extremely important aspect of ceremonial attire, and play a vital role in indicating status and activity of specific individuals" (Donnan 1974: 130) and thus perhaps the manufacturing of these
A mixture of corn meal and blood (usually camelid) served during Inca festivals; mamacona are recorded as being responsible for the making and serving of this substance. 126 objects are just as richly ceremonial. The weavers also appear to be making ornamented shirts which may have been used as religious offerings.
A third example of an apparent secular activity is from a Moche moulded stirrup spout bottle. The bottle itself appears to be a vessel form found only in ritual contexts in
Moche iconography and the moulded figures seem to be involved in the making of chicha which was often consumed during ceremonies (Donnan 1974: 131). Thus these apparently secular activities become ritualized in the context of the wider world of Moche art and iconography. According to Donnan (1974), Moche art presents a limited number of interrelated themes. The art depicts only the non-secular aspects of Moche life and
71 scenes that do appear to be secular activity are in fact examples of ritualized activities.
He does emphasize that the dichotomy of secular/nonsecular is an artificial Western concept being imposed upon a cultural system which would have found such a split incomprehensible. However it is useful for his purposes in deciphering the "basic message" of the art (Donnan 1974: 130).
Bruhn and Stothert's (1999: 23) interpretation of the scene on the Moche florero sees the weavers as male as they do not have the long braided hair typical in the depiction of Moche women and are wearing what they see as men's style clothing . Alternatively the scene has also been described as a workshop where the women weave and the male figures are involved with the buying and selling of the resulting products with one or more of them having authority over the craftswomen.
Then there are textiles from Pachacamac and Pacatnamu. Keatinge (1982: 221) writes of two textiles excavated at Pacatnamu by Ubbelohde-Doering which match two
71 Secular referring to every day activities such as food preparation and in this case, weaving. 127 found at Pachacamac. These textiles (dated to the Late Intermediate Period—AD 1000-
1476) are bands of applique patches which would have been sewn to tunics (Keatinge
1978). He surmises that the textiles are evidence that the two sites were part of a linked religious system or pantheon like two saints in the Christian tradition or the city states of
Sumer where local temple gods attracted wealth and attention from other cities (Keatinge
1978: 40). They also share similarities such as both are located on a peninsula jutting unto the ocean, possess tripartite site plans and have artefacts that may represent a pilgrim population.
During the Inca period, sacrifices of women seem to be connected to meteorological events. The burials at Tucume were followed by heavy rains (Narvaez
1995: 97). Juanita and the other mummies found atop Mount Ampato were thought to be related to volcanic activity as only a volcanic eruption could have melted the ice atop these mountains allowing the Inca to climb and then bury the victims. A more standardized event was that of capa hucha or capacocha, 'the solemn sacrifice' of children and youths often accompanied by "one or more gold, silver, or Spondylus-shell figurines, human male or female... [some] dressed in miniature clothing (Benson 2001:
15). These children were often sent from the provinces so the event has been interpreted as a solidification of ties to the Inca Empire (Benson 2001: 17). The important aspect to note is the appearance of miniature clothing. Miniature clothing and looms become suitable vessels of sacrifice and perhaps were woven in a ritual setting; they have been found at the major sites of Pachacamac and Pacatnamu.
There were Inca huacas dedicated to weaving. One in the Huamachuco area was called Guallio (Cerro Huallio) to which was offered spindle whorls and other weaving tools, with which the clothes of Huayna Capac were made, along with guinea pigs (Los
Agustinos 1992 [1559]: 22-23; Alberti Manzanares 1985: 564). There was a second huaca nearby dedicated to the production of good dyes (Los Agustinos 1992 [1559]: 25).
From more recent periods, ethnographers have also documented the role weaving has played in modern Andean-Roman Catholic rituals and celebrations. The pilgrimage to Qoyllur Rit'i range for the festival of Star Snow attracts ayllus from the villages around
Cuzco. The journey is arduous as described by Allen (1988) and for most it is a once in a lifetime journey though some, like the ritual specialist Erasmo, make it a yearly pilgrimage. Each village escorts a small shrine (taytacha) containing a depiction of Jesus reflecting the miracle of 1785 when the Christ Child played with a shepherd boy before disappearing into a rock which is now encased in a concrete chapel (Allen 1988: 190).
The participants are part of a rotating cargo and include two women called alfereces who escort the shrine and are described as "the only festival cargo held by women independent of their husbands" (Allen 1988: 191). They camp on the mountain beneath the glacier in groups composed of a set of dancers including the ukuku or bear dancers.
Roman Catholicism offers a slight veneer to what is an Andean encounter with an Apu or lord. Reinhard (1992: 97) suggests that the entreaties invoked during the festival are directed towards the mountain deities rather than Catholic saints. As part of the pilgrimage to Qoyllur Rit'i, women stop at the shrine of the Virgin of Fatima called awaq mamacha or "little weaving mother." They "set up small backstrap looms and weave little pieces to leave as offerings" and "[t]he mamacha guides the women's hands as they weave, and they depart newly instructed in their craft. At the same shrine other pilgrims construct miniature corrals of stones along with other desired objects like "trucks, cars,
129 sewing machines, and televisions" (Allen 1988: 196).
There are examples of simpler rituals from everyday life. An invocation of the patron saints of weaving begins each weaving session no matter how many times a woman is interrupted, as in this example from Allen (1988: 76).
Awanaypaq Mama Consibida, Mama Rosario, Mama Sinakura. Makiykiwan awasaq.
For my weaving, Mama Consibida, Mama Rosario, Mama Sinakura.
May I weave with your hands
Folk magic associated with spinning still exists in the Andean Highlands and I provide one such example, though attempting to prove continuity with the Inca or even just the period is difficult at best. Goodell in 1968 (7) reported that yarn spun clockwise
(lloq 'e in Quechua) was imbued with "magical properties." It was said to provide protection from 'the winds' and provide relief to rheumatics, pregnant women, the ill, and the victims of hexes; travelers too would wear strings of lloq 'e around their wrists and ankles. It was also offered to Pachamama inside of offering packages which are wrapped in an ^unkhuna or a "napkin-sized cloth" which was often woven of lloq 'e. The root, too, of the Quechua word 'camayo' suggests the ability of the artisan to breathe spirit into the object, to make it functional and useful (Lechtman 1993; Costin 1998a: 9).
The extirpator Bernardo de Noboa in March 1656 was soliciting witnesses against
Don Alonso Ricari, the curaca and priest of the Otuco in the province of Cajatambo. He recorded a lineage of female religious practitioners. The niece of Ricari and priestess, Francisca Cochaquillay, describes worshipping the destroyed huacas of Raupoma and
Choqueruntu, "two round stones the color of partridge eggs that at night gave off a light like glowworms" (MacCormack 1991:407). She in turn had been taught and initiated by
Catalina Guacayllano who was responsible for replacing these stones along with eight other desecrated huacas with substitutes for which she burned chicha, cuyes, maize, coca, and llama grease (MacCormack 1991: 408). More interestingly Francisca lived as a virgin, instructing a group of girls under the age often—a pattern familiar from the
Spanish descriptions of acllahuasi; unfortunately there is no mention as to what she instructed them in. She had never been baptized and avoided attending Catholic mass
(MacCormack 1991: 424). The example of Francisca might indicate a pattern that was indigenous to the Andes prior to the rise of the Incas or the remnants of the Inca state religious system. It too could have been an Andean copy of the Roman Catholic convents of Cuzco and Lima, a form of combat against the polluting effects of Christianity and
Hispanic culture. Regardless it is an example of the presence of women in the ritual life of the Andes.
So how do these examples connect to the acllaconcf! First they provide evidence that textiles have been considered part of the religious systems of earlier Andean cultures and that this history continues into the Inca, colonial and modern periods. This is particularly true in reference to miniature textiles as examples are found at the pilgrimage site of Pachacamac and at Pacatnamu, commonly listed as sacrifices by Bernabe Cobo
(1990 [16553]) in his lists of the shrines of the Inca ceque system and are still left attached to miniature looms by female weavers during the Snow Star pilgrimage. It is conceivable then that acllacona were responsible for the weaving of fin miniatures to be
131 sacrificed to the huacas of the Empire
Conclusion
Much attention is given to the final weaving products. They are markers of identity in a pan-Andean empire. They adorn the elite who gift them as signs of favour; they go to the graves of the same elite. Some drape the idols of the temples and the bodies of the mummified dead. They are coarse and rough of undyed llama, or fine and supple decorated with plumes of exotic birds or bits of hammered metal. Women are buried with weaving and spinning implements not just as a demonstration of a role they played in life but as an example of what it meant to be feminine in the Andean cosmology. I contend then that the actual act of weaving is as ritually significant as the final product. Unfortunately ethnohistorical and archaeological examples are either non existent or must be parsed carefully from evidence that fails to be clear. Rather I have had to draw upon modern Andean traditions for examples of weaving as ritual acts both at special festivals and as a matter of everyday activity. Then using the artefacts that appear in these contexts such as the miniature textiles of Pacatnamu and Pachacamac and the
Moche vessels depicting weavers and smelters, I try to uncover similar patterns in the past.
Modern thought vigorously separates the secular and the religious. Thus spinning and weaving is often viewed as a secular, productive activity and furthermore part of a political and economic system in which its utilitarian aspects are emphasized. Textiles in the Andean world were imbued with much more significance. As described earlier they were an integral part of each ceremony, valued gifts, and the creators of the most complex
132 textiles honoured with religious awe. The acllacona as one such group of specialized crafters were also integrated into important ceremonies such as the mamacona who accompanied the young knights during their initiation at Capac Raymi, or were gifts themselves who brought with them their weaving skills. Chapter Five: Conclusion
Introduction
The role of this final chapter is to review the major conclusions drawn from this research concerning the acllacona and their roles in Inca society. I contend that the lives of acllacona cannot be summarized as succinctly as claimed in many archaeological texts and by modern commentators. They were not simply the cloistered virgins of the Spanish chroniclers or the economic pawns of modern research. Rather one has to return to the
Spanish who also described their participation in religious ceremonies and keepers of major and minor shrines, varied roles as weavers, agriculturalists and sacrifices, and destinies that may have included perpetual virginity but also education in crafts such as spinning and weaving prior to marriage to provincial elites. An important source of information that has been neglected has been the Roman Catholic convent as it is often the model upon which the Spanish drew in order to comprehend the Inca acllahuasi.
Reasons for this neglect are based upon both accusations of Spanish bias and naivete and a fundamental lack of understanding as to the organization and role of 16 century
Spanish convents. A second source of neglected information has been that of archaeology which has also been restricted by few modern excavations of Inca sites that would have housed chosen women.
Archaeological information
In addition to the primary documentary sources, archaeology is the second main source of information about the chosen women. It is hampered by the lack of modern
134 excavations of Inca sites and by the analytical framework used in interpretations. What, though, can archaeology tell us about the acllacona and what remains to be explored?
Archaeologists, based on work in the heartland of the Inca Empire centered around the capital Cuzco, are able to recognize the distinct corporate architecture and material remains as their range expanded in conjunction with the conquest of new territories. According to Spanish documents, each new provincial capital was home to an acllahuasi. However due to the predominance of documentary research on the Inca and the political importance of the Inca to Peruvian national identity, archaeology has lagged behind history in the study of the Empire and consequently the best example of a house of chosen women is at the site of Huanuco Pampa.
Archaeology has focused on the remains of textile manufacture and beer brewing in the search for material remains of the chosen women and this has served to emphasize the stereotype of the cloistered weavers and brewers of the Empire. It would be interesting to re-examine the raw data in light of the far more dynamic communities suggested by the Spanish documents; ones that are occupied by a variety of women of different ages who are chosen women proper along with both male and female servants.
This must also be held in mind when considering the make-up of any burial populations though these have been rare.
Finally, one of the main assumptions has been the depiction of the chosen women as a pre-Inca institution and mass burials of young women such as those at Las Avispas,
Chan Chan, has been presented as an example of an acllacona-likz institution. Rather it likely represents the presence of polygamy for elite males within Chimu society as no evidence for Chimu acllahuasi exists. In other cases, such as Tucume, it is difficult to
135 ascertain whether or not the women buried there were actually acllacona or members of the local elite; the former designation is based upon the inclusion of weaving equipment but in a region where weaving was a common task of women and associated with femininity itself, this material offers little proof.
Modern models
The primary models used by Murra (1956; 1962), Silverblatt (1981; 1988), Costin
(1988a) and Gose (2000) reflect the political and economic parts played by the acllacona and furthermore, share in common, an emphasis on these women as helpless pawns of the state machinery. Their analyses focus on two main themes: the chosen women as producers of valued crafts and as representatives of the feminine in Inca society.
Murra (1956; 1962) in his depiction of the chosen women emphasized their product and the subsequent economic, political and religious uses for woven goods and chicha; additionally, the women were also potential reproductive resources as concubines of the Inca. Murra and Costin (1988a) highlight their roles as producers of cloth in line with other specialists and labour tax payers with the former also noting that their other role is that of potential Imperial chattel. Costin also defines the acllacona by their craft as does Silverblatt and Gose (2000) but the latter three include gender as an additional defining feature as these were women chosen for their feminine skills in weaving and brewing.
Silverblatt (1981; 1988) depicts the acllacona as pawns in a patriarchal system that treats them as resources to be exploited either as artisans or reproductive vessels. Costin also views the acllacona as a uniquely gendered position, whereby the women are
136 selected and celebrated for their feminine skills of brewing and weaving and yet placed in opposition to male weavers, the cumbicamayoc, who weave for the sake of production.
What these modern scholars share is an emphasis on the chosen nature of the acllacona. They are chosen based on beauty from a young age and trained to fill particular productive and reproductive niches but they reject a view that would allow for the acllacona to act as agents in their own right. However, as discussed the Spanish records record a variety of roles that were occupied by women labelled as 'chosen'. Thus in addition to being weavers and concubines, these women were also participants in important religious ceremonies such as the Capac Raymi including young female singers, servants to the Sun along with other major and minor huacas, brewers of corn beer, and agriculturalists who worked the gardens of the religion and herded the sacred flocks.
Those who remained virgins and wards of the state were freed from the dangers of pregnancy and childbirth. It may also have represented an opportunity for education and a rise in rank if a woman was married to a local Inca or provincial lord. If these modern models neglect this broader range of activities, can another provide for a more complete analogy for the actual lives of the chosen women?
Convents and acllahuasis—the chosen women as nuns
The most common Spanish analogy is the comparison drawn between the lives of the acllacona and Roman Catholic nuns. This analogy, however, has been rejected by modern scholars as a naive attempt to describe a non-western institution. Unfortunately, it is also rooted in the lack of understanding as the importance of convents in 16th century
Europe as indicated by the early construction of several convents in Cuzco. As discussed,
137 I argue that by illuminating the lives of nuns from this period it is possible to return a measure of agency to the Inca chosen women.
European convents, like the Inca acllahuasi, offered an education, a dignified refuge for elite women who chose to remain unmarried, and an opportunity to actively engage in the religious life of the period without risking being labelled a witch. The women themselves also are the active educators of new arrivals, imparting to them artisanal skills, identities rooted in the dominant Imperial Inca culture, and roles as religious practitioners. These roles are quite different from the lives envisioned by the modern scholars who focus on the manipulation of the productive capacities of chosen women, often negatively contrasted to the supposedly freer life as a wife and member of a defined ethnic group.
The Spanish also described extensively the practice of human sacrifice in reference to the acllacona as it was a trait that lacked a clear analogy to the lives of
European nuns except for the possibility of martyrdom. Despite these discrepancies, I suggest that two others can be employed, the first, a revival of the Spanish analogy to the
Roman Catholic convents of the 16th century and the second, an effort to reconstruct the importance of the act of weaving in addition to that of the finished product.
Weaving as an act of magic
To end my work, I will return to the primary activity attributed to the acllacona by both the Spanish chroniclers and modern scholars, that of spinning and weaving. While much space has been given to the technical processes of cloth creation and the artistic, economic, political and religious importance of the end product, little attention is granted
138 to either the weavers or the act of weaving itself. Cloth was an essential part of Inca society as a marker of ethnic identity, as an honourable gift, and as an item of sacrifice, as well as being associated intimately with the huacas. The Empire took many measures to ensure a steady supply of a variety of cloth types from the coarsest blankets to the finest woven tapestries comparable to the brocades of Europe. An area which deserves further research then is the connections between the act of weaving and the political and supernatural circumstances within which textiles play a central role. It seems clear that the act of weaving itself can be construed as one of creation and conversely the creators of the finest examples may have possessed a measure of political and religious power that extends beyond the economic functions of the resulting product.
Future research
The goals of the thesis were to gather together the references made by the Spanish to the chosen women of the Inca Empire as well as known archaeological resources. This was a necessity in order to expand the range of activities in which the acllacona participated and consequently uncovered new paths for research beyond the stereotype of the chosen women as perpetual virgins cloistered in communal households devoted to weaving, spinning and brewing beer. While this was the reality for some it is clear, based on the Spanish documents, that the acllacona also planted crops, herded camelids, acted as religious officiates, and left the acllahuasi to marry.
139 Primary Sources
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Los Agustinos 1992 [1559] Relacion de los Agustinos de Huamachuco. Fondo Editorial de la Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Peru: Lima.
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