An Essay Exploring Inca Textile Designs and Their Use in the Development of an Inca Brand Identity

Branding an Empire An essay exploring Inca textile designs and their use in the development of an Inca brand identity. Heather Tucker May 11, 2017 University of Notre Dame Inca and Colonial Peru Michael Schreffler Graduate Research Paper Content Introduction Defining the Inca Empire Brand Values Identifying the Inca Empire Brand Identity Inca Textile Design & Production: Materials Inca Textile Design & Production: Iconography Inca Textile Design & Production: Standardization Conclusion Fig. 1 Inca tunic, Peru, 1400–1532, camelid fiber weft, 91 x 76 cm. Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, Pre- Columbian Collection Introduction Most abstract logos—when seen without Fig. 2 (left page) Abrstract logos from left to right and context or associations—have very little top to bottom. Boomerang from Instagram, Microsoft meaning to a viewer. However, when a Windows, Mitsubishi, Mercedes-Benz, Chase company or organization builds a set of Bank, Marlboro experiences, messages, and interactions associated with their brand, the logo begins to trigger a feeling, story, or connection to broader ideas. In the same way, the Inca empire used symbols and a set of visual standards to create a “brand identity” for the empire. This is most apparent in their design, creation, and use of textiles. In this essay, I explore how Inca textile design and production used techniques such as— attention to materials, iconography, and standardization—to create and strictly reinforce the Inca empire brand identity. Defining the Inca Empire Brand Values According to legendary designer, Massimo Fig. 3 (left page) Martin de Murua. Coya Mamabuaco, Vignelli, “The objective of identity design from Historia general del Peru (cat. no. 36), ca. 1611 is to coordinate all visual aspects related to a company in order to present a strongly identifiable image and position in the economic and social world in which it functions. This involves the articulation of a company’s culture, which will generate and determine the quality of everything produced.”1 In the same way, the Inca empire developed a brand identity using textiles as the most frequent and visible output. Every textile designed and produced reinforced the brand identity—from the quality of the materials, icons used, and format or layout of garments. Consistency and control over these elements played a crucial role in the successful development of the Inca brand. 1 Celant, et al. Design: Vignelli, 31 In the Andes, textiles served many purposes far Fig. 6 Child sacrifice found with buried objects, beyond just providing warmth. Economically, including a miniature dress statue. Found at Cerro El textile production was part of the lower-class Inca Plomo. populations obligation to the state. In her article, Inka Unka: Strategy and Design in Colonial Peru, Joanne Pillsbury describes the economic value of textiles in the Inca empire, “[textiles were] a valuable commodity in an empire based on state and kin-based redistribution rather than a market economy.”2 In his article Cloth and Its Functions in the Inca State, John Murra writes about the exchange of obligation for access. A system where the lower-class labored the field and looms in order to plant and harvest state owned land, and access state collected textiles.3 Cloth Fig. 4 Storage house were found throughout the acted as a form of “payment” for military service, “the empire and housed tribute military on the move expected to find clothes, blankets, There are also accounts that specific clothing types items. and tent-making equipment on their route.”4 Storage were used to mark initiation into puberty and clothing Fig. 5 Folded uncu into sixteenths. These garment houses that were once filled with textiles, food, and played an important role in marriage ceremonies would be created as tribute and death ceremonies.6 In religious ceremonies we to the empire and folded empire supplies can still be found throughout the Inca for storage. territory. know that textiles are important as they are found on dressed figures buried with child sacrifices, Betanzos Culturally, clothing was a key part of the narrative describes this activity and the role textiles played, in the Inca story of origin as described by Juan de “He ordered that all the lords of Cuzco should send out throughout the entire land and have a thousand boys Betanzos, and girls brought... They should be very well dressed, “The men came out [of the cave] dressed in garments paired up male and female… These children would be of fine wool woven with gold. On their necks they collected from all over the land and would be carried brought out some bags, also of elaborately woven in litters together and by pairs to be buried in pairs wool; in these bags they carried sinewed slings. The with the table service that they had been given. They women also came out dressed very richly in cloaks would be buried all over the land in the places where and sashes that they call chumbis, well woven with the Inca had established residence.”7 gold and with fine gold fasteners, large pins about two palms long, which they call topos.” 5 2 Pillsbury. “Inka Unka: Strategy and Design in Colonial Peru,” 69 5 Betanzos. Narrative of the Incas (1551) 13–14 3 Murra. “Cloth and Its Functions in the Inca State,” 715 6 Murra. “Cloth and Its Functions in the Inca State,” 715 4 Ibid.,” 717 7 Betanzos. Narrative of the Incas (1551) Chapter 30 Fig. 7 (top left) Detail of Inca Textile Design Man’s tunic (uncu), Inca, late 15th-early 16th century. & Production: Camelid fibers, 85 x 78 cm (33.5 x 30.75 in.). Boston, Materials Museum of Fine Arts Fig. 8 (top right) Man’s tunic (uncu), Inca, late 15th- early16th century. Cotton With so many textile goods in demand it and camelid fibers, 89 x 74 cm (35 x 29 in.). New York, could have been a breeding ground for visual Metropolitan Museum of chaos, however, Inca textile share a similar Art. visual language—shared color palette (red, Fig. 9 (middle left) Woman’s dress (anacu), Inca, late white, black, yellow, dark purple, and rarely, 15th – early 16th century. Camelid fibers, 85 x 62.5 in. blue and green), highly abstract geometric (216 x 159 cm). Pachacamac, shapes (not figurative or anthropomorphic), Peru, Museo del Sitio Arqueológico. standard garment types (for both men and Fig. 10 (middle right) Detail women), and garments woven with specific Man’s tunic (uncu), Inca, 1450-1540. Cotton and materials (using exceptional craftsmanship). camelid fibers, 90 x 77 cm (35.5 x 30 cm). Washington DC, Dumbarton Oaks. Fig. 11 (bottom) Woman’s belt (chumpi), Inca, 1400- 1532. Camelid fibers, 6.5 x 63 in. (16.5 x 160 cm). Brooklyn, Brooklyn Museum. piece of woven cloth that was doubled over and sewn together along the edges, leaving the bottom open. Women wore one-piece dresses, bound at the waist by an ornamental sash called a chumbi. And, draped over their shoulder was a cloak fastened with a large straight pin known as, topos. (See Fig 16 and 17) For both men and women’s clothing little was done to the cloth after it was removed from the loom.11 “The king had certain fabrics reserved for his use alone and his shirts are reported to have been very delicate, The highest quality materials known as kumpi and embroidered with gold and silver, ornamented with was made through a waft-faced weaving technique Fig. 13 (left) Inca weaving feathers, and sometimes made of such rare fibers as was reserved and designated as the official method centers near Lake Titicaca. (Map by A. Roy, after bat hair.”8 Certainly, textile materials used for textile of production for garments worn by the king and Phipps 2004b:25, fig 25) design had a strategic and important function. Most his appointed administrators.12 Additionally, “early Fig. 14 Pictures of alpaca. (In-Class Lecture Week 3) garments are made from cotton and camelid—from observers agreed that kumpi blankets and clothes alpaca and llamas. For the highest quality textiles, were wonderfully soft, ‘like silk,’ frequently dyed in there was a, “specialized production system, including gay colors or ornamented with feathers or shell beads. the selective breeding of animals as sources of luxury The weave was smooth and continuous, ‘no thread fibers.”9 could be seen.’”13 Weaving made from a weft-faced pattern and with coarser material, were called awaska, To understand the Inca textile production process it’s these were produced for domestic purposes and worn essential to understand their weaving process. The by the lower-class.14 Fig. 16 The second quya, Chinbo Urma, pen and ink, process consists of a loom that has a weft—thread or drawing from El Primer yarn that is drawn over and under through the warp— The difference in quality of materials and weaving Nueva Coronica y Buen Goierno by Felipe Guaman yarn that holds the tension on the loom. process reinforce the Inca class based social structure Poma de Ayala, c. 1615 of hanan and hurin—the moieties of the Inca empire. Fig. 15 Visual representation of the The majority of the textile artifacts found from the The division of the empire into upper (hanan) and warp and Weft weaving technique. (In-Class Inca empire are high-quality clothing garments—both lower (hurin) references topography, kinship, and Lecture Week 3) male and female.10 The high-quality male tunic is mythology. Quality of materials used in textiles played called an uncu which consisted of a singular broad an important role in defining the division. 8 Murra. “Cloth and Its Functions in the Inca State,” 719 11 Pillsbury. “Inka Unka: Strategy and Design in Colonial Peru,” 69 9 Phipps.

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