The Creation of Inequality: How Our Prehistoric Ancestors Set the Stage for Monarchy, Slavery, and Empire (85 page)

While Inca nobles kept long genealogies and venerated many generations of ancestors, the memories of commoners rarely extended beyond their grandparents. Understandably, commoners who belonged to an ayllu were more concerned with their ancestors than were the yanakuna, whose ancestral ties had been disrupted.

Rulers and other nobles had multiple wives. Since most commoner men could afford only one wife, polygamy was seen as a sign of wealth. Women participated in agricultural tasks, such as hoeing potato fields, so multiple wives could enrich a family. Sometimes a man of modest means was given an extra wife by the emperor for services rendered, or captured a foreign second wife while serving in war.

People taken in war could be considered slaves, but the differences between slaves and yanakuna were subtle at best. While Aztec slaves were always potential victims of sacrifice, the Inca were much more interested in them as a source of labor.

Downtown Cusco

Even as the Inca empire expanded beyond those of the Wari, Tiwanaku, and Chimu, the Cusco Valley remained its dynastic capital. At its apogee, Cusco was home to more than 20,000 people; thousands more lived elsewhere in the valley.

Cusco grew up between two rivers, the Saphy and Tullumayu. The banks of these rivers were walled and canalized, and the Inca made annual offerings at their confluence. At the heart of Cusco was a Great Plaza divided in half by the Río Saphy, its western half called Cusipata and its eastern half Aucaypata. Thousands gathered in Aucaypata on the June and December solstices, the August planting ceremony, and the May harvest celebration. On such occasions the mummies of previous Inkas were brought to the plaza and lined up in the order of their reigns.

In 1559 the conquering Spaniards broke ground for a cathedral in Aucaypata. They were surprised to find that the entire foundation for this eastern plaza was a thick layer of sand, brought hundreds of miles from the Pacific coast. This massive use of sand as a clean foundation for ritual space recalls the 7.4 acres of that material placed beneath the Temple Oval of Tutub in ancient Sumer. In Aucaypata the sand layer had also been filled with golden images and vessels of precious metals, a windfall for the Spaniards.

The Spaniards were equally excited to find the Ushnu, a sacred stone altar covered with gold. The Inca regularly poured offerings of chicha on this altar, watching the stream of corn beer disappear down a canal leading to the Coricancha, or Golden Enclosure. The latter was a Temple to the Sun, much of it covered with fine sheets of gold.

The Coricancha was the ritual epicenter of Cusco, and from it a series of long sight lines, called
ceques,
radiated in many directions. Among other things, these sight lines divided the Inca empire into four
suyus,
or quadrants, corresponding to the four world directions. In addition, the ceques served to align a series of
huacas,
or shrines, built at increasing distances from the Coricancha. There were nearly 400 of these shrines, the most distant of which lay beyond the limits of the Cusco Valley.

Many huacas were rock outcrops, springs, caves, or places associated with sacred visions. In other words, despite the fact that they were the New World’s greatest empire, the Inca continued to share several principles with smaller-scale societies. Like the hunter-gatherers of Australia, they considered springs and rock outcrops sacred places; like the Tewa of San Juan Pueblo, they envisioned a sacred landscape extending far beyond the limits of human settlement.

Several other buildings in downtown Cusco are worthy of mention. One was the Casana, a palace allegedly built by the 11th Inka, Huayna Capac (1493–1527). Another was the Aklla Wasi, or “House of the Chosen Women.” The Aklla Wasi housed hundreds of women whose lives were dedicated to the Inca state. These women wove cloth and brewed chicha for the emperor, and sometimes they served as priestesses in temples.

The Logic of Inca Imperialism

In the course of creating and maintaining their empire, the Inca borrowed no end of principles from Wari, Tiwanaku, and Chimor. These principles provide us with a framework from which we can infer some of the logic of Inca imperialism. There were multiple layers of imperial strategy, depending on whether the Inca were dealing with their capital city, their heartland in the southern highlands of Peru, their more distant provinces, or the outer frontiers to which they expanded.

At the level of Cusco, a number of behaviors maintained the social distance between members of noble ayllus and everyone else. Royals and nobles were exempt from labor service, and the ruler, as we have seen, was allowed to marry his sister or half sister to maximize the rank of his offspring.

Within their heartland the Inca acted upon the ethnocentric belief that their neighbors longed to emulate them. Inca rulers married the sisters and daughters of noble allies and then declared their in-laws’ ethnic groups “Inca by privilege.” Many “Inca by privilege” were later given positions of trust within the imperial bureaucracy.

Inca rulers also selected thousands of young girls to become the aforementioned “chosen women.” Called
mamakuna,
these women were used to weave textiles and brew beer, a role analogous to that of many women who labored for the Sumerian state. Much of the beer was used to host the allies of the Inca. In some cases a key alliance might be cemented by the betrothal of one of the mamakuna to a neighboring leader.

When it came to adding more distant provinces, the Inca (like so many pre-Hispanic empires) chose the path of least resistance. They lavished gifts upon those who accepted Inca rule, using force only on enemies they felt they could defeat.

We have seen that one widespread principle of Andean logic was ayni, or balanced reciprocity. If, for example, members of Group A assisted Group B in the harvest of their crops, they could count on Group B to provide them with comparable help in the future. The Inca convinced many of their provinces to accept an asymmetrical version of this reciprocity: in return for long-term manual labor, the Inca would “balance the account” with a burst of feasting and drinking.

Like their Tiwanaku predecessors, the Inca improved access to distant provinces with a road system. At intervals along the roads the Inca created
tampus,
or way stations, for resting and provisioning their troops. Near each tampu they built long lines of
collcas,
or storage rooms, many filled with foodstuffs. The Inca pattern was to maintain hundreds of small collcas rather than a few large ones. If insects or disease attacked one of these small units, it could quickly be burned before the problem spread.

Before resorting to an all-out war, the Inca used pressure to bring in line resistant provinces. Having borrowed “monument capture” from the Tiwanaku state, they gave this practice an additional twist: the captured statue of a foreign god or ruler might be set up in a public square and flogged for days. Some provinces, distraught over this torture of an icon they considered a living being, eventually capitulated.

When all else failed, the Inca relied on their
sinchi,
or war leader, to subjugate a resistant province. The well-organized Inca army was based on a decimal system and had units of 10, 50, 1,000, 2,500, and 5,000 soldiers. Sometimes resistant groups were obliterated, moved en masse to another region, or replaced with loyal Quechua speakers.

Sinchis were under great pressure to succeed. According to the sixteenth-century Spaniard Miguel Cabello Balboa, an Inca general who had lost several battles was sent women’s clothing and ordered to wear it upon his return to Cusco.

The Administration of Provinces

The Inca had three basic policies for the administration of distant provinces. Two were borrowed from the Chimu: the negotiation of joint rule over some district capitals, and the establishment of direct rule by Inca administrators over others. The third strategy, borrowed from Wari, was to build a brand-new administrative center from scratch. In this section we look at one example of each strategy.

The Chincha Valley.
   The valley of the Río Chincha lies on the south coast of Peru, 110 miles from the city of Lima. Before the Inca rose to power, Chincha was the scene of a kingdom that divided its time between fishing, irrigation agriculture, and long-distance trade. Oral histories suggest that traders from Chincha, hugging the coast in rafts made from balsa logs, traveled to Ecuador’s Gulf of Guayaquil and returned with
Spondylus,
or spiny oyster. The shells of this sacred mollusk were reduced to powder and used to cover the floors of temples, or to create sparkling footpaths for rulers and priests.

In addition to its economic success, Chincha was also the seat of an important oracle. The Oracle of Chincha was allegedly associated with a complex of pyramids at La Centinela, one of two major archaeological sites at the mouth of the Chincha River. The other major site, Tambo de Mora, was part of the same urban sprawl, and the area between the two complexes of pyramids and palaces was filled with the cane-and-clay houses of commoners. Archaeologists have found extensive evidence for the working of spiny oyster and metal at Tambo de Mora.

Archaeologist Craig Morris discovered signs that the Inca takeover of Chincha was bloodless and that it involved joint rule. On the main ceremonial plaza at La Centinela, the Inca built a pair of palaces, one for the local lord of Chincha and one for the Inca administrator. These palaces were not built in the local Chincha style, which involved the pouring of clay between wooden molds; instead, they were built of adobe bricks in typical Inca style. Nearby the Inca built a Temple to the Sun. They also co-opted the Oracle of Chincha, changing the access to the shrine so that it could only be entered from the Inca administrator’s palace.

In return for the Chincha lord’s acquiescence to joint rule, the Inca allowed him to be carried around in a litter, an honor normally reserved for Inca nobles. The Inca also gave him gifts of gold, fine clothing, and pottery vessels that Morris instantly recognized as having been imported from Cusco. The Inca benefited from joint rule at Chincha, since the navigational skills of the local traders kept the supply of spiny oyster shells coming from Ecuador.

The Cañete Valley.
   The valley of the Río Cañete lies 80 miles south of Lima and 30 miles north of Chincha. During the Inca rise to power the Cañete Valley was occupied by two small kingdoms, Huarco on the coastal plain and Lunahuaná in the piedmont.

The Kingdom of Huarco was encircled by a major irrigation canal that took off from the Cañete River and ended at Cerro Azul Bay. The kuraka, or ruler, lived in a palace at the hilltop settlement of Cancharí. At Cerro Azul Bay he established a specialized fishing community that produced industrial quantities of dried fish, shipped inland in exchange for corn, potatoes, sweet potatoes, and other products of irrigation agriculture.

In contrast to Chincha, the Kingdom of Huarco refused to capitulate or agree to joint rule. The Inca army therefore took over Lunahuaná, using it as their staging point for an invasion of Huarco.

In 1470 representatives of the Inca requested a truce with Huarco. Thrilled by this proposal, the people of Huarco entered their watercraft and sailed out for a joyous ritual offshore. Unfortunately, the Inca had lied. Once the nobles of Huarco were at sea, the Inca troops rushed the coast and took them by surprise.

The Inca massacred the Huarco elite and then built two Cusco-style buildings at Cerro Azul. One of these was an adobe brick structure with typical Inca trapezoidal niches in its walls. The other was an oval building resembling an Inca ushnu, set on the brink of a cliff so that it could be seen far out at sea. This building was constructed of volcanic stones imported from the distant highlands. In typical Inca style the stones were so tightly fitted that a razor blade could not be inserted between them. From this building a stairway descended the cliff so that offerings could be made to the sea.

Archaeologists found no evidence of joint rule at Cerro Azul, no twin palaces, and no gifts of gold or pottery sent from Cusco. The Inca had simply wiped out the local elite and installed their own administrators.

Huánuco Pampa.
   One of the most important stretches of the imperial road system was the highland route connecting Cusco with Quito, Ecuador. This route passed through the Huánuco area of north-central Peru, a region mentioned during our discussion of the site of Kotosh.

In one part of the Huánuco area the Inca road traversed a high and sparsely inhabited plain, some 12,350 feet above sea level. To either side lived ethnic groups whom the Inca regarded as “warlike” and “uncivilized.” Included were the peoples of the upper Marañon River and more distant groups called Chupaychu and Yacha.

The Inca decided to build a major city from scratch on the high plain, known as Huánuco Pampa. Their strategy was twofold. First, they would be such generous hosts that local groups would be attracted to the city. Second, they would obligate their guests to repay their generosity with labor. At the heart of their strategy was the belief that periodic feasting and beer drinking more than compensated for long stretches of hard labor.

We have two main sources of information on Huánuco Pampa. One is a sixteenth-century Spanish eyewitness, Pedro Cieza de León. The other is archaeological information from the city of Huánuco Pampa, excavated by Craig Morris and analyzed by Morris and R. Alan Covey.

Huánuco Pampa covered more than a square mile and its east-west axis consisted of three plazas, each with its own complex of public buildings. The imperial road passed directly through the largest plaza, which was 500 yards in length. The centerpiece of this plaza was an ushnu in typical Inca style, adorned with images of pumas.

This largest plaza appears to have been dedicated to huge assemblies of commoners, many invited from neighboring groups. The Inca administrators lived in a smaller and more private plaza. As Cieza de León wrote in 1553:

There was an admirably built royal palace, made of very large stones artfully joined. This palace … was the capital of the province, and beside it there was a temple to the Sun with many priests.