Erica Vermette

Space, Place, and Ritual

Eulogio Guzmn

Kero Vessels: Politics and Ritual in the Inca Empire The use of kero vessels in Inca culture was a means of both highlighting and reinforcing the hierarchy of the Inca Empire. Through the ritual, alliances took on a physical form and the reciprocity of political relationships was expressed. The custom remained intact through the Colonial era, although the decoration of the vessels was influenced by the conventions of Western art. Kero vessels were ceremonial cups made of made of gold, silver, or wood. They were used in toasts at Andean feasts; this custom predated the Inca, but under their rule it took on a new, politically charged meaning. The cups always came in matching pairs, so that each person would keep their half as a token of their alliance. They were often sent as gifts, along with expensive textiles, to the leaders of newly conquered territories; because the custom was widespread throughout the Andean region, this gesture was understood by non-Incas to represent a political link to the Inca Empire. The individual ritual usually involved a person of superior rank sending a toast to a person of inferior rank. The higher-ranking person would hold their kero in the left hand, representing the lower status of the second person. In turn, the second person would hold their kero in the right hand, to acknowledge the superior rank of the first. In a toast between people of equal rank, both used their right hands. The material of a gifted kero played an important role as well, always corresponding to the recipients rankgold was best, then silver, then precious wood; this became yet another layer in the kero ritual as a physical representation of status and power.

While the use of keros illustrated and clarified the Inca power structure, they also made reference to reciprocity and the various dualities in Andean culture. Officials were required by law to hold feasts for the people living in the regions they were in charge of. This way, the people of the Inca Empire would receive a visible return on the taxes and crops they paid to the state, so that the exchange would not seem so one-sided. The emperor was also expected to hold such feasts on a larger scale for leaders of the various regions of the Inca Empire. Here, those leaders would reinforce their loyalty and political connection to the Empire and its leader. The kero ritual also falls in line the many dualities in Andean and Inca cultures. The city of Cuzco itself was one of the most physical symbols of this idea of duality in the division of Hanan and Hurin. The two districts of the city were considered higher and lower, respectively, but not expressly unequal. In turn, Hanan and Hurin were associated with the emperor and his sister/wife, who were associated with the sun and moon, male and female, gold and silver. In each of these pairings there is an inequality but also a dependency, much like the political alliances represented by the kero ritual. The kero ritual reinforced the idea that alliances in the Inca Empire were symbiotic, while still asserting the authority of those of higher rank. At a feast hosted by the Inca emperor and the city of Cuzco, the emperor would open the feast by toasting public officials and military personnel in descending order: according to written accounts, the first group would be military personnel who had proved themselves in battle, then leaders from the regions around Cuzco who had been allowed to call themselves Incas, and then any other officials present that the emperor

wanted to acknowledge. Then, throughout the feast, those officials would send out toasts of their own to those below them or allies of the same rank. In this way, the power structure of the Inca Empire was played out in a very physical form. There were a few rituals where keros were used outside of feasting. At the Inti Raymi midwinter festival, the emperor would go out before dawn with his kin, who would line up by rank. At dawn, the emperor would share a toast with the rising sun, holding a golden kero in one hand and pouring chicha from the matching cup into a ceremonial vessel with the other. This way, it appeared that the sun was drinking. The emperor would then drink a little bit from the other kero before passing it around so that his kin could also share a toast with the sun. A large feast would take place later in the day as part of the festival. Another ritual took place daily in the plaza at Cuzco. All the mummified bodies of the past Sapa Incas were lined up according to Hanan and Hurin divisions. Each mummy had servants to attend to it, and these servants, representatives from the Hanan and Hurin districts, would send keros to one another as if the mummies were toasting. If the emperor were in Cuzco at the time, he would sit beneath the gold idol of the sun in the middle of the plaza and send toasts of his own to the mummies. In this way, the Hanan/Hurin division and the unity of the city were simultaneously expressed, and the emperor could place himself ritually and visually into the lineage of rulers and the sun. Both the Inti Raymi and the Cuzco plaza rituals reinforced the emperor as central to the empire, the son of the sun, and the most important person in the hierarchy of the Inca Empire. The ritual continued into the Colonial era. At the coronation of Manco Capac the

II, newly installed as Sapa Inca by the Spanish, Francisco Pizarro declared that all Inca territory was now property of the Spanish crown and all its people subjects of the king. After the assembled officials and elites declared themselves to be subjects of the crown, the new Sapa Inca raised a gold kero as a sign of his loyalty, and the Spanish recognized the importance of the gesture. Later, when Manco Capac II had been driven out of Cuzco by the Spanish and swore to drive them from Peru, he had his remaining allies drink from keros to pledge their lives to the cause. Keros were originally decorated with carved geometric patterns, or with figurative images that fell within the realm of Inca iconography. Some were in the shape of animals or even human hands holding the vessel. The colonial era, however, saw some changes in the way keros were decorated; the wooden keros, instead of simply being carved, were carved and painted with enamels and used figurative imagery. Though there had been figurative imagery in previous keros, these were much more in line with the Western tradition of representation. Instead of being a part of the structure of the vessel, these new designs were more in line with the Western concept of a figure painted on a ground. Compared to the Inca use of the already-traditional kero ritual to establish authority, these painted, Western-influenced keros signal a compromise, but within the bounds of Inca tradition.

Source: Cummins, Thomas B.F. Toasts with the Inca: Andean Abstraction and Colonial Images on Quero Vessels. University of Michigan, 2002. Print.