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History, Languages, and Cultures of the

Spanish and Portuguese Worlds
This interdisciplinary series promotes scholarship

Toasts with the Inca

in studies on Iberian cultures and contacts from the premodern

and early modern periods.

SERIES EDITOR

Sabine MacCormack, University of Michigan

SERIES BOARD

J. N. Hillgarth, emeritus, Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies

Peggy K. Liss, Independent Scholar
David Nirenberg, Rice University
Adeline Rucquoi, cole des Hautes tudes en Sciences Sociales

Andean Abstraction
AND Colonial Images
ON Quero Vessels

TITLES IN THE SERIES

The Mirror of Spain, 1500-1700: The Formation of a Myth

J. N. Hillgarth
Bishops, Councils, and Consensus in the Visigothic Kingdom, 589-633

Rachel L. Stocking

THOMAS B. F. CUMMINS

Toasts with the Inca: Andean Abstraction and Colonial Images

on Quero Vessels

Thomas B. E Cummins

Ann Arbor

THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN PRESS

38

is a part
itu

production
of this dis
morent f
moves to c
iish role of
first intera
tact.73 One
written tex
....Lulli.
w
locate
tne
quero/aquilla
must try tc
in Andean and Inca imperial myths and rituals. How and why was the
quero/aquilla used by the Inca? Why was the vessel accepted by
Andeans as a legitimate form to materialize the intersection between
Inca mythological claims and the reality of Inca rule?

CHAPTER TWO

Andean Festivals and Reciprocity

The status of the quero and aquilla in Inca production allied with the
Inca's heightened emphasis on the production of corn as Tahuantinsuyu's quintessential religious and social crop.I Not only was there
massive, state-organized corn production in areas like the Cochabamba
Valley, but entire populations were permanently resettled from higher
elevations, where tuber crops were grown, to the valley floors, where
corn could be intensively cultiVated.z More important, even though
maize was eaten as a food during the meal, its symbolic importance was
recognized in drink. The distinction was clearly marked by the temporal and categorical organization of Inca ceremonial feasts. Only after
the meal had been eaten would the second part of the feast, the drinking, begin.3
The preeminence of drink over food in Inca feasts is a common feature in all Andean celebrations, as is attested by almost every Spanish
chronicler who mentions the subject. For example, an anonymous
Jesuit writes, "they began their feasts and banquets, in which eating was
very little . . . but drinking was extreme. "4 This statement might be
t. J. Murra, "Rite and Crop in the Inca State," in Culture in History: Essays in Honor
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1960), 398-401.
z. Such resettlement took place, for example, in the Janamarca Valley; see T. D'Altroy, "Empire Growth and Consolidation: The Xauxa Region of Peru under the Incas"
(Ph.D. diss., University of California, Los Angeles, 1981), r t; Provincial Power in the Inka
Empire (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1992).
3. Bartolom de las Casas writes, "Nunca jams beban sin que de comer hobiesen
acabado" (De las antiguas gentes del Per [ca. 1557], CLDRHP, zd ser., II [1939]: tz8). See
also J. de Betanzos, Suma y narracin de los Incas Capacruna que fueron seores de la ciudad de Cuzco y de todo lo a ella subjetado [1551[ (Madrid: Atlas, 1987), chap. 13, p. 158;
Garcilaso de la Vega, Comentarios Reales de los Incas [1609-17] (Buenos Aires: Emec Editores SA, 1943), bk. 6, chap. zz, p. 5z. This organization is still basically followed in Andean
feasts, although the introduction of trago, hard grain alcohol, has altered the pattern somewhat (Gary Urton, personal communication with the author, 1982).
4. " .. comenzaban los convites y banquetes en que el comer era muy poco. . . . Pero
el beber era extremado" (Anonymous, "Relacin de los costumbres antiguas de los natuof Paul Radin

73.

See P. Seed, Ceremonies of Possession in Europe's Conquest of the New World,

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995) 69-99.

1492-1640

39

Toasts with the Inca

ANDEAN FESTIVALS AND RECIPROCITY

interpreted as the hyperbole of a priest trying to combat native drinking. Nonetheless, this anonymous Jesuit was judicious and balanced
about what constituted custom in a society. He prefaces his remarks by
saying:

These elements of Andean social organization, well known to

Andean scholars, are important to the discussion in this book, for several reasons. First, the Inca themselves were divided into Hanan and
Hurin as was every province of Tahuantinsuyu.7 Second, the social and
symbolic categories of Hanan and Hurin continued into the colonial
period and are important elements for understanding colonial quero
imagery. Third, Andean feasts were spatially organized according to
Hanan and Hurin affiliation and the age ranking of each lineage group.
Finally, the production and use of queros in pairs is inextricably con- f
nected to the symbolic categories that represent this social organization.

40

the customs and manners of a nation and the people of its republic
ought to be measured not by that which a few individuals or
addicts do but rather by what the whole community keeps or what
they feel they ought to keep and by the laws that they have and
carry out. . . . In the first place, drunkenness and intemperance in
drinking was like a characteristic passion of these people. 5

In this light, the Jesuit's statement is more than just hyperboleAqha

Lcorn beed was the important element in these feasts, and it was drunk
using queros and aquillas. The feast existed only through its performance, so that whatever elle the quero and aquilla might be or express
must be read through their participation in the feast. The Andean feast
must be the focus and a point of departure for understanding these vessels as social objects, things that participate in the life of a community.
But what was an Andean community? In the terms in which the
quero or aquilla participated, it is sufficient to call it an ayllu, a collectivity of a number of lineage groups, each also called an ayllu. Each lineage
group reckoned itself through desceni from a specific ancestbf. The ayllu
as a collectivity in turn recognized itself through the descent from a common, oftentimes mythological ancestor. 6 As a totality, the ayllu was organized into moieties , called "Hanan" and "Hurin" in the southern sierras._
The lineage groups of both Hanan and Hurin were ranked in order of age
according to an originary genealogy. Each moiety had a curaca, or leader,
such that there was a Hanan curaca and a Hurin curaca.
rales del Per" [ca. 1550], in Tres Relaciones de antigedades peruanas, ed. M. Jimnez de
la Espada (Asuncin, Paraguay: Editorial Guarania, 195o), 177.
5. "Los costumbres y usos de una nacin y gente de su repblica, no se han de medir
por lo que algunos particulares viciosos hacen, sino por lo que toda la comunidad guarda
siente que se debe guardar, y por las leyes que tienen y ejectuan. . . . Primeramente, la
embriaguez y la destemplanza en el beber fu como una propia pasion desta gente" (Anonymous, "Relacin de las costumbres," 175).
6. The literature on the Andean concept of ayllu is vast. My condensation is from F.
Salomon, introduction to The Huarochir Manuscript: A Testament of Ancient and Colonial Andean Religion, comp. Francisco de Avila, trans. F. Salomon and G. Urioste (Austin:
University of Texas Press, 1991), 21-23; J. Ossio, Parentesco, Reciprocidad y Jerarqua en

41

The Ayllu Feast: Reciprocity and Authority

Andean feasts were usually held to honor a deity, to mark some aspect
of the agricultural calendar, or to celebrate a special event, such as the
first haircutting of an ata, a child born with a reverse whorl in his or her
hair. 8 Whatever the specific focus of a feast, it was normally organized
in a fashion similar to other feasts, to express the various relations
among the constituent elements of the ayllu community. The feasts
were ritual acts of reciprocity, reaffirming that the cosmic and social
order of the community was inexorably rooted in the S'ocial relations of
production. First, the feasts provided a communal means of venerating
and propitiating the people's deities and/or progenitors. Second, they
conveyed communal solidarity. Third, when the entire community participated, the feasts indicated the curaca's elevated status and marked
his obligation to the community by his responsibility to hold feasts. In
all three cases, the relations were forged by some form of kinship and
were ritually consummated by the mutual exchange of food and drink.
The intent of the exchange of food and drink was to signify that
one gave and received back that which was needed to maintain the
vitality of the community's subsistence economy. In the metaphysical
sphere, deities (huacas) were actual ancestors or mythical progenitors,
w-6-17-7vere fed and give drink in return for the -health; propitious
7. For a fuller discussion that takes into account regional differences and the impor-

tance of a dual and quaternary structure, see M. Prssinen,

Tawantinsuyu: The Inca State

qd Its Political Organization, Studia Historica 43 (Helsinki: SHS, 2992), 304-71.

8. See F. de Avila, comp., The Huarochir Manuscript: A Testament of Ancient and

Los Andes: Una Aproximacin a la organizacin social de la comunidad de Andamarca

Colonial Andean Religion [ca. 1608], trans. F. Salomon and G. Urioste (Austin: University

(Lima: Pontificia Universidad Catlica del Per, 2992), 214 - 301.

of Texas Press, 1991), 151-53.


42

Toasts with the Inca

,
. - At the ayllu and moiety levels, members, by exchanging toasts, were reminded of their obligation to aid one another in personal and communal work, to sustain
their shared livelihood. The curacas and the ayllu/moiety members also
exchanzed toasts, which, along with the curacas' obligation to host the
feasts, signified that the curacas acknowledged the services they had
received from the community. In return, the community recognized the
curacas' authority to oversee ritual ceremonies, coordinate communal
tasks, and redistribute land and resources.9
The last exchange in the feast represented the most tenuous aspect
of social relations. Here, the relationship between curaca and ayllu
entailed the willingness of the community to render to the curaca more
labor value than they received from him. It marked their agreement to
forgo the real reciprocity conducted between themselves in exchange
for periodic symbolic reciprocity with the curaca in the feasts, for the
sake of a stable social and political structure. At the village level, this act
also signified the fact that the curaca's position was not absolute.
Although the curaca's economic role was in fact redistributive in function rather than truly reciprocal, he had to perform his end of the bargain if he wished to continue receiving the goods and services of his
community. At this stage of social and political organization, the curaca
had no power base for his authority other than the community itself, of
which he was a kin member. The differentiation between reciprocity
and redistribution was therefore not acknowledged. They were seen as
one and the same: the condition of all social and economic relations on
which the community's survival rested depended on the fulfillment of
all obligations, and this condition was always couched in terms of reciprocity.
The precariousness of this relationship only became apparent in the
early colonial period, when the norms of Andean behavior were
forcibly disrupted. For example, during his 1566 visita to the north
coast, Gregorio Gonzlez de Cuenca outlawed the curacas' right to dispense aqha. He almost immediately rescinded the order, after receiving
a barrage of complaints from the local curacas, who outlined the law's
disastrous effects. The curaca Don Juan Puenape, the segunda persona
of Jequetepeque, carefully explained, "[the prohibition] will be cause
not to obey, and we will not be able to work the community field and
house service, bring the Indians together for mita [corporate labor
within the ayllu], or anything else necessary to govern this repar9. See K. Spalding, Huarochir: An Andean Society under Inca and Spanish Rule (Palo
Alto: Stanford University Press, 19-4
g
6 0-71.

ANDEAN FESTIVALS AND RECIPROCITY

43

timiento a distribution of Andean labor because through

food and drink to the Indians, they obey their curacas and leaders."I In
a similar petition, Don Cristbal Lloco, the curaca of San Pedro de
Lloco, underscored the paramount importance of aqha in the feasts:
"through aqha, the Indians obey us, which they will not do if it is not
given to them."II It is evident from these statements and similar ones
from the sierrasIl that the obligations of the curaca were necessary and
that if they were not carried out, the curaca became ineffectual.
The apparent fragility of the curaca's authority, however, was
revealed only after the Spanish arrival, when the integrity of the feasts
was violated. Prior to this disruption, the feasts acted as an integrative
force, conflating all relationships into one celebration that conceded as
natural the interdependence and alliance between all entitieshuacas,
curacas, and ayllu members.
The same mode used to express the internal alliances of a community was used to express the external alliances between different communities. Feasts were used to signify the interdependent relations needed
for common defense, "trade," and large projects involving corporate
labor. However, as long as these alliances were conducted among
roughly equal communities who shared whatever benefits derived from
the alliances, a permanent political hierarchy between the communities
was not formed.13 In this sense, the relationship between allied communities was distinct from that between the curaca and his community,
where unequal hieratic relations permanently existed. Between the
curaca and_ the ayllu, the symbolic reciprocity conducted in feasts sublilo. "... ser causa que (no) obedescan ny podremos hazer la sementera de comunidad
y obras de la casa della ny juntar los indios que se dan mita ny otras cosas necesarias al
gouierno deste rrepartimiento porque mediante dar de comer y beber a los yndios obedescan a sus caciques y principales" (Archivo General de Indias, Justicia 458, fol. 1941v, cited
in P. Netherly, "Local Level Lords on the North Coast of Peru" [Ph.D. diss., Cornell University, 1977], 216).
u. "... mediante la chicha nos obedescen los yndios lo qual no haran si les faltase"
(Archivo General de Indias, Justicia 458, fols. 194ov-1941r, cited in Netherly, "Local Level
Lords," zi6).
I2. For example, the highland curaca Cristbal Xulca Condor explained "que le
hagan los indios alguna casa, junta los indios y les habla y ellos se la hacen y les da de comer
y beber en todo el tiempo que en ello trabajan y no les da otra paga y es lo que se usa entre
los caciques y la misma orden tienen en el labrar de las chacaras" (I. Ortiz de Zga, Visita
de la Provinicia de Len de Hunuco [1561] [Hunuco: Universidad Nacional Hermilio
Valdizn, 1967-72], 1:44).
13. See, for example, the description of the political organization of the Chincha Valley in C. de Castro and D. Ortega Morejn, "Relacin y declaracin del modo que este valle
de Chincha y sus comarcanos se governavan antes que oviese yngas y despus q los hobo
hasta q los (christian)os entraron en esta tierra" [1558], in Quellen zur Kulturgeschichte des
priikolumbischen Arnerika, ed. H. Trimborn (Stuttgart,4)
19.3- 23 6-3 8
.

Toasts with the Inca

ANDEAN FESTIVALS AND RECIPROCITY

mated the inherent hierarchy of age rank among lineage groups as well
as the curaca's authority and redistribution of goods, so long as all obligations were fulfilled. Among allied communities, each group retained its
relative autonomy, and a feast by one group for another did not automatically signify the fulfillment of anticipated obligations.
This relationship is recounted in mythic tercos in a Huarochir
manuscript written in Quechua at the beginning of the seventeenth century. In this telling, the Inca sovereign has difficuity subduing some particularly obstinate rebels and calls all the huacas of Tahuantinsuyu to
Cuzco. They assemble in Cuzco's main plaza, Huaycapata Plaza, where
the Sapa Inca asks for their aid. He beseeches them, asking rhetorically
why they thought he had given them food, drink, and other gifts.
Almost all of the huacas remain constant and rebuff his request for
help. Only Maca Uisa, the son of the all-powerful huaca of Huarochir,
acknowledges the Sapa Inca's plea, but in exchange for Maca Uisa's
help, the Sapa Inca enters into an alliance by which he must worship
Pariacaca, Macah Uisa's father, and give fi fty men to serve him.'4
The mythic narrative transforms and inverts the real sociopolitical
relations between the people of Huarochir and the Inca. It nonetheless
demonstrates that the feasts in the plaza were the main forum where
ideal social and political contracts were forged, according to willful reciproca) behavior.I 5 More importantly, the myth, although recounting
relations in Tahuantinsuyu as an already well-coalesced state system,
provides testimony concerning the incipient development of the empire
and the role that feasts and drinking had in it as a means of signifying
sociopolitical relations. Here, it occurs in a myth recorded in a community subjugated by the Inca. Spanish accounts gathered in and around
Cuzco also privilege the feast as major narrative element in the telling of
Inca history. Although these Spanish texts are filtered through language
and cultural barriers, their consistency in relation to the Huarochir
mythic account allows for a study of the feast as it was used to narrate
Tahuantinsuyu's coming into being.

or otherwise, to suppose that they possessed any distinct advantage

over their neighbors. Their rise to power cannot be credited to Inca
innovation; rather, it is itiributable to theirability to exploit an already
existing- situatiOn, theoretically open to all Andean communities.
Inca growth was contingent on fulfilling mutual obligations with
other communities and then manipulating those communities to Inca
advantage." This aspect of Inca development was neither disguised nor
purged from Inca "history." Rather, Inca "history" is divided into two
periods or stages. The distinction between the two is most often marked
by the exploits of the Inca's principal cultural hero, Pachacuti, the
eighth rulerin particular, by his defeat of the Chanca. After this victory, Pachacuti is attributed with renovating Cuzco (especially the Coricancha, the temple of the sun), establishing a uniform code of law, and
initiating the worship of his predecessors. More precisely, he is credited
with devising the political, social, religious, and economic structure of
Tahuantinsuyu as it was when the Spanish arrived.i7 What is significant
about these mythohistoric exploits is the role the Andean feast had as
Tahuantinsuyu shifted from being a small ayllu community to an
expansionist imperial entity.
Whether Pachacuti was a mythical figure or a historical one is
therefore unimportant. What we know of Inca historical recollection is
a conflation of real events and mythohistorical interpretation filtered
through Spanish genres. What is important for understanding how the
Inca interpreted their development is that Pachacuti's reign personifies
the conceptual transition of Cuzco from a small ayllu community based
on alliances to a political organization with absolute power.
Juan Polo de Ondegardo articulated the empirical aspects of this
shift when he tried to reckon the development and length of Inca history. He gives a span of no more than four hundred years, up to the
reign of Pachacuti, when the Inca were a small ayllu community
(behetra) whose sphere of influence did not extend past the Yucay valley (just to the north of Cuzco) and Urcos (even closer, to the south).
Pachacuti's defeat of the Chancasaccomplished with the aid of the
Canas and Canches, who, Polo says, "went with Inca to the war

44

45

The Inca Feast: The Rise of Tahuantinsuyu

In their beginning, the Inca were only one of a number of small ayllu
communities in the southern sierras. There is no reason, archaeological
14. Avila, Huarochir Manuscript, 114 16.
15. For a detailed analysis of this process, see M. Rostworowski de Diez Canseco,
"Reflexiones sobre la reciprocidad andina," RMN 41 (1976): 34 1- 54.
-

r6. See M. Rostworowski de Diez Canseco, "Una Hiptesis Sobre el Surgimiento del
Estado Inca," in El Hombre y la Cultura Andina, Acta y Trabajos, vol. r (Lima: Editora
Lasontay, 1978), 89-roo. See also R. Schaedel, "Early State of the Incas," in The Early State,
ed. J. Claessen and P. Skalnik (The Hague: Mouton, 1978), 189-91.
17. Bernab Cobo writes, "[Pachacuti] orden la repblica con el concierto, leyes y
estatutos que guard todo el tiempo que dur de entonces hasta la venida de los espaoles"
(Historia del Nuevo Mundo 116531, BAE 91-91 [1956]: hk. 12 , chap. 12 , p. -7-78.

Toasts with the Inca

ANDEAN FESTIVALS AND RECIPROCITY

because dierwerc] paid-and not-as-subjectsformed the base of all

other Inca victories. Polo goes on to say that because each province
defended itself without the aid of any other, "the major challenge was
to subjugate the neighboring areas of Cuzco, because all those conquered joined with the Inca, and they [the Inca] were then always much
-stronger."1 9
Prior to defeating the Chanca, the Inca dealt with their neighbors
not on the basis of force but through allianCe. This is suggested by
Polo's remark that the Cana-s and Canchs- were paid, not forced, into
Inca service. Paid is not the correct term, however. Miguel Cabello Balboa records how the Inca formally contracted their early alliances.
Describing the reign of Sinchi Roca, the second Sapa Inca, Cabello Balboa says:

the Canches and Canas carne from the distribution of war booty or
from whatever other material gain carne from the alliance.
The Incas' relatively equal or undifferentiated status with neighboring groups during this first stage of Inca history is confirmed by
another obligatory reciprocal act, Cieza de Len records that during
Sincha Roca's reign, neighboring villages began to see the "good
order" that the Inca had created in Cuzco and wished "to sign treaties
with the Inca." However, these "treaties" were contracted among
equals and through reciprocal acts that the Inca could not refuse. Len
records, for example, that "a curaca of the village that they call Zanu .
implored Sinchi Roca with all the vehemence that he could put into it
that he [Sinchi Roca] take a daughter he had . . . [for] he wished [Sinchi
Roca] to receive her to give her as the wife to his son."22 The request to
have Sinchi Roca's son and heir, Lloque Yupanqui, marry the daughter
of the Sanu curaca went against the wishes of Sinchi Roca's father, the
dynastic founder Manco Capac, who had established marriage
between brother and sister among Inca rulers. Yet Sinchi Roca feared
that if he did not accept, the Sanu curaca and all neighboring curacas
would consider the Inca inhuman or selfish. Sinchi Roca held council
with the other Inca notables and decided that he should accept the
marriage, "because until they had more force and power, they ought
not to be guided in that case by what his father [Manco Capac] had
commanded."2-3
The Inca could not afford to be seen as selfish or inhuman men by
those outside the bounds of Andean society. They were compelled to a
marriage exchange with an outside group just as they were compelled to
hold feasts to form alliances. The Inca acknowledged in their own "history" that at this stage, they did not have the "fuerza y potencia" to
stand alone as a social group unrelated to others through true reciprocal acts. As Polo de Ondegardo's observations suggest, the Inca
acquired this force and power through a strategic combination of
alliances and victories, epitomized by Pachacuti's defeat of the Chanca.
Juan de Betanzos, the Spanish husband of Atahualpa's sister,
recor-de-d, --pssibly from Members of Pachacuti's
group

46

His rule and dominion did not extend six leagues in circumference,
although this area was heavily populated by natives of various languages and names [and] this [Sapa Inca] found the style to attract
these nations without anyone ever being annoyed in his court and
house, which was usually to have a table and filled cups for those
who wished to come.z

Cabello Balboa describes in general "the style," the form of recompense, by which alliances such as the one needed to defeat the Chanca
were maintained in this early period. The term style supposes the notion
of reciprocity expressed by the table and cups kept filled for expected
guests. This is what is meant by "pay" in an Andean sense. Sinchi Roca
is credited with this institution, but it was a traditional expression of
reciprocity that he was obliged to make as the leader of only one of a
number of small communities.zt The real "pay" that Polo mentions for
18. "... fueron con los ingas a la guerra pagados y no por via de seora" (J. Polo de
Ondegardo, "Relacin de los fundamentos acerca del notable dao que resulta de no
guardar a los indios sus fueros" [1571], CLDRHP, ist ser., 3 [5956], 46).
19. "Toda la dificultad que ubo fue en conquistar aquellas comarcas del Cuzco
porque todos los conquistados iban con ellos y eran siempre mucho ms fuerza" (Polo de
Ondegardo, "Relacin de los fundamentos," 47).
zo. "Su mando y seoro no se estenda seys leguas en circuito aun9ue gsta distancia
estaua muy poblada de naturales de varios lenguas y nombres este alo estilo ara atraer
y entretener estos naciones sin que su Corte y casa a nadie jamas enfada's, --ifti-fue tener de
ordinario mesa puesta y vasos llenos para quantos a ellos se quisiesen llegar" (M. Cabello
Valboa, Miscelnea Antrctica: Una historia del Per antiguo [1586] [Lima: Instituto de
Etnologa, San Marcos, 1951], bk. 3, chap. II, p. 274)
zi. By saying that Sinchi Roca "alo el estilo," Cabello Valboa implies that Sinchi
Roca found the custom of holding such banquets useful, rather than creating the institution.

47

zz. ". . . un capitn del pueblo que llaman Zanu . . . rog a Sinchi Roca, con gran
vehemencia que en ello puso, que tuviese por bien que una hija que l tena . . . la quisiese
recibir para darla por mujer a su hijo" (P. de Ceza de Len, El Seoro de los Incas, ed.
Manuel Ballesteros Gaibrois [15541 [Madrid: Historia r6, 5985], chap. 31, p. u1).
z3. ". . . porque hasta que tuviesen ms fuerza y potencia no se haban de guiar en
aquel caso por lo que su padre [Manco Capad] dej mandado" (Cieza de Len, El Seoro
de los Incas, chap. 35, p. III).

Toasts with the Inca

ANDEAN FESTIVALS AND RECIPROCITY

(panaca), 24 the earliest and most complete account of Pachacuti's defeat

important, then, to follow Betanzos's description of the events that followed the victory and systematically changed the nature of Cuzco.
The neighboring curacas, who first refused to aid Pachacuti, join
with him after theysee. the supernatural armies suTpliffby-Vibcocha
Pachayachachic. In the final Inca victory over the Chanca in their homeland, the supernatural forces are no longer needed, as Pachacuti leads
an allied force. The alliance, however, is formed only because the Inca
have already proved themselves supernaturally invincible. After the
final victory, Pachacuti invites the allied curacas to share in the war
booty. He maintins the trditional -standard -f reciprocity, even
thugh the . relatio- ns. beyween them have implicitly changed,. since
Pachacuti now acts from an uncompromised position of power and
supe-rio-rity.To place Pachacuti's ascendancy within the norms of ayllu
behavior, Betanzos records that the curacas ask Pachacuti to be their
sovereign: "At the time the curacas said goodbye to Pachacuti to return
to their lands, they pledged him what he would wish to receive of their
help and favor and [that they were] his vassals, and that they wished he

48

of the Chanca. His version may therefore be the closest to the Inca form
of historical reckoning. It sheds a different light on why the Chanca victory was ayranscendent event by which the Inca divided their "history."
In his account the feast held by the Inca is transformed from being an
act of reciprocity alone to also being one of superiority and power.-Betanzos portrays Pachacuti as an isolated leader of the Inca clan.
He is even abandoned by his nearest kinhis father, Inca Viracocha,
and his brother. Pachacuti asks aid of the neighboring curacas and is
refused unless he can show that he has sufficient forces of his own.
Completely alone, Pachacuti prays to the supreme Inca deity, Viracocha
Pachayachachic, who appears to him in a dream. He consoles Pachacuti, telling him that he will help. On the day of the battle, Pachacuti
goes out with the people of Cuzco to face the Chanca. Suddenly, out of
nowhere, armies of men, never before seen, appear from all four directions and join with the Inca to rout their enemy.zS
This account is important because Pachacuti is said to have
reworked Inca history after this victory. It is probable that certain traditions of the event were suppressed while others were constructed to
explain Inca growth and sovereignty. Yet Betanzos's narrative reveals
that "re-creating history" in the Andean sense meant more than the
mere reconstruction of past events for personal or dynastic aggrandizement. The events of Pachacuti's reign were "re-created" to convey the
profound sociopolitical transformation of the Inca from a small ayllu
community to an Andean imperial state.
Betanzos's narrative differs profoundly from that of Polo de Ondegardo, as Betanzos's emphatically rejects the notion of external aid,
alliance, or reciprocity. Pachacuti's victory is there portrayed as being
gained solely through the Inca's own resource. Encoded into a, perhaps,
historically strategic victory over a chief competitor is the ontological
distinction between the Inca's prior and subsequent relations to nonInca groups. The victory is a transcendent event in Inca "history"
because it established the Inca as a social and political entity that was
not predicated on reciprocal relations with other people. And as we
shall see, the feast conducted by the Inca implied hereafter this change.
The collapsing of the transformation into one mythohistoric event
belies the longer historic process, disclosing the Inca's ideological projection of how they went about constructing Tahuantinsuyu. It is
,

24. R. T. Zuidema, The Ceque System of Cuzco: The Social Organization of the Capital of the Inca (Leiden: Brill, 1964 ) , 31.
25. Betanzos, Suma y narracin, part t, chaps. 7 and 8, pp. 13-30.

49

take for himself the crown [tasselj of state and be [Sapo] Inca. " 2.6

Pachacuti refuses the offer to be their leader, saying that it would

not be right to take the tassel (mascaipacha) while his father, the Sapa
Inca, still lives. He asks the curacas to do two things for him. First, they
should go to his father, who fled to the Yucay Valley, to pay their
respects and do whatever he commands. Second, since the curacas have
said that Pachacuti is their friend and brother, they should come when
he bids and do whatever he asks. The curacas respond that they have no
other leader than Pachacuti and will do whatever he wishes.
The Spanish terms seor and vasallo used by Betanzos accurately
convey, I believe, the changed nature of the relations occurring in the
narrative itself. Whereas the curacas were originally able to choose
whether or not to aid Pachacuti against the Chanca and chose not to,
they now pledge to fulfill whatever request might be forthcoming; the
traditional right to assess a neighbor's request before complying is completely foreclosed. Moreover, Pachacuti precludes that this relation is
based on his attributes as a single powerful leader. Instead, he establishes it as a relation between the office of the Sapa Inca and its subordinates, the curacas. This is seen by Pachacuti's determination to receive
the crown from his father lawfully rather than by seizing it. In no
z6. "... al tiempo que del se despedan los tales seores para irse a sus tierras le rogaron que los quisiese rescibir debajo de su amparo e merced y por sus tales vasallos, e que
quisiese tomar la borla del Estado y ser el Ynga" (emphasis added) (Betanzos, Suma y narracin, part 1, chap. ro, p. 46).


50

Toasts with the Inca

ANDEAN FESTIVALS AND RECIPROCITY

51

e_the_ _olitical position of Sapa Inca, which is

i
dtes
aboye personal attributes, positive or negative. As an individual, Viracocha, Pachacuti's father, is a failed leader, who Pachacuti later humiliates. As the Sapa Inca, however, Viracocha, even during his personal
humiliation, does not have to ask a pardon from Pachacuti for having
tried to kill him, as long as Viracocha Inca says he did it "in name of the
city of Cuzco and those curacas that were present there." 17 Furthermore, Pachacuti binds the curacas to the Inca polity rather than to himself, by first commanding them to go to his father while he is still in the
Yucay Valley. They pledge their allegiance to Viracocha because,
regardless of his personal qualities, he is the Sapa Inca.
Viracocha Inca receives the curacas in the town of Calca. As the
Sapa Inca, he sits on his tiana (throne) and commands that "vasos de
chicha" be brought out and served to them. Viracocha therefore fulfills
the traditional obligation established by Sinchi Roca. In exchange, he
receives the manpower to build a village for himself. At the same time,
he pledges, albeit deceitfully, to give up his crown to Pachacuti, making
the curacas witness to the beginning of the transfer of power.2 8
Again the action goes beyond the simple narrative, marking a second but concomitant ontological distinction between the ayllu community and Tahuantinsuyu, this time concerning resources and property.
Pachacuti becomes Sapa Inca after a series of events ending in Viracocha's forced abdication. Nevertheless even after the abdication, Viracocha still receives a substantial amount of labor from the curacas, and,
more important, the pueblo they build for him is his.
The notion of holding property as a fiefdom is alien to the ayllu
concept in which land and labor were held in common and were periodically redistributed. Viracocha Inca, however, not only personally
possesses property but unconditionally receives labor to sustain it. This
indicates the transformation from ayllu norms of communal property,
including that of a curaca, to the Inca state system of owned and
retained wealth.
While the social and economic relations within the expanding Inca
polity were being radically transformed from their ayllu origins, certain
outward signs of ayllu reciprocal relations were formally maintained.
Paramount among these were the feast and the distribution of specific

transfer of villages' communal resources to the Inca storehouses in

Cuzco. The process is heralded by Viracocha's offer of cups of chicha to
the curacas before they begin to work for him. Under Pachacuti, this
transfer is systematic. With it, Pachacuti transforms Cuzco from an
ordinary village to a powerful city ready to begin conquest.
After Pachacuti arranged the internal organization and renovation
of Inca deities and their shrines, he set into motion a two-step enrichment of Cuzco. He instructed the curacas to plant certain of their lands
for Cuzco's benefit. Then, Pachacuti asked the curacas to provide the
labor to build collcas (warehouses) in Cuzco to be filled with the produce from these fields. In exchange, Pachacuti gavie to the curacas Inca
women, two sets of clothes, and gold and silver jewels. A year later,
Pachacuti called the curacas to Cuzco, telling them he needed the collcas to be filled with textiles. First, he held for the curacas a great banquet, assembled in Cuzco's main plaza, with enormous quantities of
aqha provided. After a six-day drinking feast, the curacas returned to
their communities, where men and women as quickly as possible wove
the cloth that the Sapa Inca required.2-9
Betanzos's description of Pachacuti's activities is essentially a
miniaturization of the economic foundation of Tahuantinsuyu. The
Inca first accumulated from the subjugated populace the food and textiles that in turn were used to sustain and reward those who worked on
state projects.3 In exchange, the Inca hosted large communal banquets.
More important, the account by Betanzos presents the historical shift
from alliance to domination as a natural shift devoid of conflict. The
curacas willingly submitted themselves and their communities to Inca
authority and turned over a portion of their resources to Cuzco. The
story omits the process by which the curacas make their decision,
thereby presenting a peaceful transition that acknowledges only harmonious relations. Harmony was accomplished because the nature of the
sociopolitical relations between the curacas and the Inca were now
posed in the form of curaca/ayllu relations rather than relations
between two autonomous ayllu communities. The curacas asked Pachacuti to be their leader and rendered to him their communities' labor,
produce, and goods. In return, they received his authority as "son of the

27. ". . . en nombre de la ciudad de Cuzco e de aquellos seores que all estaban presentes" (Betanzos, Suma y narracin, part I, chap. 17, p. 83).
28. The actual transfer of rule does not occur until after Pachacuti rebuilds Cuzco.
The curacas are again sent to Inca Viracocha to bring him to Cuzco to place the crown on
Pachacuti's head. See Betanzos, Suma y narracin, chap. 18, p. 84.

29. See Betanzos, Suma y narracin, part r, chap. 12, pp. 56-57; chap. 13, pp. 6o-63.
30. ". . . mediante la comida que ans tuviese, quera edificar la ciudad del Cuzco de
cantera . . . y tena en si, que teniendo bastimientos en tanta cantidad que no le faltasen,
que poda le dar la gente que l quisese hacer y edificar los edificios y casas que ans
reedificar quera" (Betanzos, Suma y narracin, part r chap. 1z, p. 57).

prestige items. In Betanzos's text, they are the leitmotiv that signals the

Toasts with the Inca

ANDEAN FESTIVALS AND RECIPROCITY

sun" and his ability to organize labor projects, lead an army, and redistribute stored goods. This transformation of relations was codified by
the drinking feasts.

who does not provide sufficient food or drink and then punishes those
who complain. Normally, such a fault would break the fictive bonds of
reciprocity existing between a curaca and his people, a point discussed
earlier. However, the Inca is portrayed here as aboye such constraints.
Not only is there no fallout from his lack of generosity during the first
feast (except for whispered complaints unfortunately overheard by the
sovereign), but he is able in the following year to punish those who have
complained, even though, under traditional rules, they had the right to
do so. The punishment comes only in the form of forced drinking from
oversized queros and the discomfort from being unable to relieve oneself. It points to the primacy that drinking had in these feasts. More
important, the story illustrates that although the Inca held the obligatory feast, he is able to control and manipulate this fundamental act of
reciprocity to assert political and metaphysical authority.32
The Sapa Inca held the obligatory feast, but at his own pleasure.
Those who complained were punished within the feast itself. The Inca
were thus able to finely tune the venerable notions of reciprocity
encoded in the feasts. Both the curaca's traditional obligation to hold
the feast and the feasts conducted between two allied communities
became opportunities to display Inca authority and to demand sub-

Propriety, Feats, and Power

As a forum for symbolic reciprocity, the feasts expressed the varying

nature of the social and political relations in an ayllu community. Under
Pachacuti, the feast was used to signify that relations between the Inca
and curacas were similar to the curaca's relations to his community. The
rough parity of allied communities became a politically hieratic and economically unequal relationship. There is, however, a profound
tion between _the_nature.,pf. the curaca/ayllu and the Inca/curaca relations._The _curaca ..authority within his community was coriditional,
and he
hallperform obligatory_feasts to maintain his authority. The
ritual exchange of toasts in these feasts asserted that the community was
first of all sustained by the reciprocity conducted by kin groups of which
the curaca was member and from which he derived his authority. In contrast, the Inca's authority was absolute,
deriving from a corporate base
(the imperial control of various peoples and resources) that the individ-_,
ual community could not effect, The Inca's efforts to maintain ethnic
conquered groups, even when moved about, ensured
that this remained the case. In this sense, the Inca_
conducted
their feasts
.
from a position of absolute, rather ti -6n conditional, authority.
- of authority within the drinking feast is suggested
The mythic 'fOrm
in an account about the ninth king, Tupac Inca Yupanqui, recorded by
the native author Joan Santa Cruz Pachacuti Yamqui. The Sapa Inca is
said to have overheard complaints that he had not provided sufficient
food or drink for his guests during an annual feast. In response, the Inca
monarch ordered that the guests at the following year's feast be plied
with a great quantity of aqha, served three times a day in enormous
queros. As punishment for the previous year's complaints, however, no
one was allowed to leave the plaza to urinate. 3 i
This story is unique to Santa Cruz Pachacuti Yamqui, but like most
of his text, the story is based on Andean mythic structure, in which
social practices are personified through the actions of an individual. In
this case, standard social practice is twice violated by the Inca emperor,
3 1. J. de Santa Cruz Pachacuti Yamqui, Relacin de antigedades deste reyno del Pir
[ca. 1615], ed. P. Duviols and C. Itier (Cuzco: Centro de Estudios Regionales Andinos "Bartolom de las Casas" and Institut Franois D'Etudes Andines, 1993), z39.

53

The Inca's ability to do this stemmed in part from the fact that the
differentiation between reciprocity and redistribution was already sup' pressed in the feasts hosted by the curaca for the community. The Inca
could mediate the disjunction between state redistribution and ayllu
32.. The form of the Inca's punishment, not allowing his guests to urinate, suggests
ore than mere physical discomfort. The Sapa Inca threatens the subsistence of his guests
i breaking the chain of acts required for a bountiful agricultural year. Urine is equated
th sufficient water supply, as is recorded in a prayer to irrigation sources: "madre fuente,
na, o manantial, dame agua sin cessar, orina sin parar" (J. Prez de Bocanegra, Ritual
.

ularto e institucin de curas para administrar a los naturales de este reyno los Santos

dnsentos [Lima: Gernymo de Contreras, 1631], 133). Human urine conceptually is part

"water cycle and fecundity, especially during drinking feasts. An eyewitness details that
g such a feast in Cuzco's main plaza, there were "dos vertedores . . . que deban ser
para la limpieza y desaguadero de agua de las lluvias que caan en la plaza ... [que]
todo el da orines, de los que en ellos orinaban" (M. de Estete, Noticias del Per
CLDRHP, zd ser., 8 [ 1 924]: 55). The relation between drinking chicha, urinating,
ater is also depicted in a small silver bowl now in Cuzco's archaeological museum.
lip is a small urpu that empties into the bowl. The liquid passes into a small male
Standing in the center, who urinates into a jar that forms the earth's opening. Such a
ttiion represents the process, so graphically described by Estete, by which the cultural
tance, chicha, is transformed back into its natural state, thereby completing the cycle
ensuring sufficient ralo for the next harvest. The Sapa Inca's punishment is therefore
t with greater reprisal than just temporary discomfort; he metaphorically threatens
ery livelihood of those who complained.
QS

Toasts with the Inca

ANDEAN FESTIVALS AND RECIPROCITY

reciprocity y ren ering ft equiv

employing the symbolic system of the ayllu. There is, then, a real difference in the sociopolitical significance of the feasts held by Pachacuti as
described in Betanzos's text and the significance of the feast held by
Sinchi Roca as mentioned by Cabello Balboa. The feast held by the Sapa
Inca as the leader of an imperial state was a demonstration of the state's
power.

llamas which they ate, swearing their allegiance to their principal deities and to the Sapa Inca. This, as well as traditional feasting
and drinking, transpired in the first four days of the festival. On the
morning of the fifth day, the representatives of all the conquered
nations reentered Cuzco dressed in their very finest regional clothes and
with their priests carrying their huacas. They carne to the central plaza,
Huaycapata Plaza, where they found the Sapa Inca surrounded by his
relatives, forming a single social unit [bereft of] Hanan/Hurin distinction. The foreigners then took their place in the plaza according to their
suyu affiliation within Tahuantinsuyu, or "place of four suyus":
Chuchasuyu, Continsuyu, Collusuyu, and Antisuyu. First, they paid
respects to the Inca deities. Then, the sun god's principal priest gave
them sancu to eat as a sign of their submission and loyalty to the Inca
and the sun.
A two-day drinking feast followed, after which those who were to
return to their provinces asked permission of the sun, the thunder, and
the emperor to leave. This was granted on condition that the huacas
that had been brought that year were to remain in Cuzco, while those
left the previous year could return. The curacas, in recognition of their
coming (i.e., their loyalty), were given gifts and granted privilegesprivileges that they had enjoyed previously under their own right, such
as being carried in litters. The huacas were also given fields and servants
to till them, which supplied the produce for their sacrifices. At the same
time, sancu was sent back to those provincial huacas and curacas who
had not come to Cuzco, so that their loyalty could also be pledged.
Finally, to ensure that its message penetrated all parts of the empire, the
ritual was carried out simultaneously by all Inca governors in provincial
capitals.34
Several points about the relation between the Inca and their subects are revealed in the feast. First, the Inca represented themselves as
esponsible for the care and prosperity of the entire empire. Second, the
ca conflated within a single purification ceremony the possible danels
, created by the oncoming agricultural season and the political daners of chsloyalty. By first bringing to Cuzco and then expelling the
rovincial elite and their huacas and by placing the primary purification
tes under the tutelage of Inca deities, the Inca emphasized the preemi-

54

An Imperial Inca Feast and the Gift of Queros

Thus far, I have discussed the Inca feast primarily in terms of its
appearance in imperial "historical" accounts. The meaning of the feast
as revealed by these accounts is equally apparent, however, in the
descriptions of specific Inca rituals, such as the Citua ceremony. Moreover, the aquilla/quero there appears as an element of the Inca's manipulation of the ayllu concept of reciprocity as manifested in their feasts.
The Citua ceremony was a purification rite related to the advent of
the rains and first plowing, both portents of certain metaphysical dangers to agricultural production. 33 Under the Inca, however, this ritual
not only rid the empire of all metaphysical ills but also manifested the
harmonious but hieratic political and religious relations between the
Inca and their subjects. For this ceremony, all the provincial huacas or
their images were brought to Cuzco by their curacas and priests. They,
along with all other foreigners and lame or deformed people, were then
expelled from Cuzco for a distance of two leagues. During their
absence, Cuzco was ritually cleansed of all illnesses, which were symbolically carried out of the city by four groups of one hundred warriors.
Beginning in the center of the plaza, each group exited in one of the four
directions of Tahuantinsuyu. Carrying torches and chanting, they ran
to where they met non-Inca groups who took up the torches and chants,
carrying them to rivers where they bathed and deposited the torches.
This was done so that all disease and bad fortune would flow out of the
empire into the ocean.
The Inca in Cuzco then celebrated by themselves in Huaycapata
Plaza, where they sat in two groups facing each other, divided according to their Hanan and Hurin affiliations. At a prescribed time, they all
were given sancu, a maize dough cake mixed with the blood of

34. See C. de Molina, Relacin de las fbulas y ritos de los Incas [1573], CLDRHP, asa
a (1916): 35 37; J. Polo de Ondegardo, "Los errores y supersticiones de los indios
cdas del tratado y averiguacin que hizo el Licenciado Polo" E155 4 1, CLDRHP, ist ser.,
41916): z3; J. de Acosta, Historia natural y moral de las Indias [159o] (Mxico: Fondo de
-

33.

See R. T. Zuidema, "El Ushnu," Revista de la Universidad Complutense (Madrid)

18 ( 1 979): 335.

55

Itura Econmica, 194o), bk.

5,

chap. 1 3, pp. 411-1z.

Toasts with the Inca

ANDEAN FESTIVALS AND RECIPROCITY

nence of their spiritual authority. 35 The only task performed by the nonIncas was that of being drones. By running to the rivers, they completed
the ritual process initiated in Cuzco by the Inca. Then, when the provincials were allowed to reenter Cuzco, the Inca presented themselves as a
single, united group in which the social divisions of Hanan/Hurin were
combined to form an indivisible sociopolitical body surrounding the
emperor.36
The provincials, however, had a dual identity that marked their
individual origins and their common relationship created by the state.
First, they were required to display their ethnic distinctions by being
obliged to wear their native dress. 37 Second, they were made to stand in
the plaza according to their suyu a ffiliationa sociogeographic distinction dependent only on a common relation to Cuzco. The provincials'
political and religious submission to the Inca was then codified by the
ingestion of the sancu and the oath that they swore. Finally, to show
that the authority of the Inca was equally present wherever they might
be, the Citua ceremony was carried out under the auspices of the tocricocs (Inca governors) in the provincial capitals.
The non-Inca elite who attended this festival did not go away
empty-handed. Not only were they given food and drink during the
feast, but in exchange for the labor that it took to come so far a distance,3 8 they were given gold, silver, and textiles. This act of compensation is important. It formed a crucial part of the complex of interaction
between the Inca and non-Inca that took place in the feast and by which

traditional village norms were transformed and encoded with imperial

signs of authority and hierarchy. The transformation was accomplished
not only by the exchange itself but by the contents as well.
Almost all sixteenth- and seventeenth-century chroniclers write
that the Inca distributed such items at major festivals and important
ceremonies. The exchange value of textiles is well known. At one level,
they served as symbols of personal status within the political hierarchy
for Inca and non-Inca alike. At another level, the gifts symbolized the
entrance of the local elite into the new political hierarchy at a subservient position. This act of "generosity" toward the local lords was
meant in either case to fulfill the Inca's obligation to them as regulated
by Andean social codes structured by the notion of reciprocity as conducted within feasts. In return, the Inca received the non-Incas' obediente and the rendering of the goods and services under their curacas'
control.39
While the Inca followed the norms of Andean social codes, the act
of exchange, like the feast itself, was controlled by them. They determined, within the cultural boundaries of Andean society, the appropriate content of the exchange. What the Inca gained was what they
needed most: the labor to construct and maintain Tahuantinsuyu. Such
labor was the quintessential part of communal reciprocity, which was
in theory returned in kind. The Inca, however, did not return in kind.
To the curacas, the Inca returned the curacas' services in the form of
imperial gifts: textiles, gold, and silver.
Damin de la Bandera equates this exchange with a European
mode of recompense, writing, "the Inca paid such curacas, just as the
king [of Spain] pays his corregidores, and the pay was some of his
clothes or some cup of gold or silver when the curacas went to see him,
as way of payment."4 These items were not payment in a monetary
sense, but in addition to the obligation to hold the feast, they were
given, as Bandera says, "por va de merced." The phrase implies not

56

35.For a description of the hieratic relationship beginning with household deities and
culminating with the paramount Inca deities in Cuzco, see F. de Avila, "Relacin que yo .. .
hice ... acerca de los pueblos de indios de este arzobispado donde se ha descubierto la idolatra y hallado grande cantidad de dolos, que los dichos indios adoran y tenan por sus
dioses," in La Imprenta en Lima (1584-1824), ed. J. Medina (Santiago: Casa del Autor,
1904), 1:386-88.

36. The image of a united and invincible force formed by the union of Hanan and
Hurin Cuzco dates mythologically to the origins of these moieties. According to one chronicler, Inca Pachacuti Yupanqui (the Sapa Inca to whom most Inca institutions are attributed), when attacked by Ayamarcos, assembled his troops. First, he divided them into two
groups, which were later called Hanan and Hurin Cuzco. Then, he formed them into a single body, so that when united, no one could defeat them. See P. Sarmiento de Gamboa, Historia de los Incas [1571] (Madrid: Miraguano Ediciones, 1988), 105.
37.All foreigners had to wear native costume emphasizing their difference from and
subservience to the Inca in Cuzco. This is especially true for the curacas, who were given
clothing gifts of Inca design "que los indios [hunu curacas] suelen traer para que las
tuviesen por insignias del dicho cargo" (F. de Toledo, "Informaciones que mando levantar
el virrey Toledo sobre los Incas" [1570-72], in Don Francisco de Toledo supremo organizador del Per, ed. R. Levillier [Buenas Aires: Espasa Calpe, 1940], 2:97-98).
38.Cristbal de Molina (Relacin de las fbulas y ritos, 57) writes, "en recompensa
del trabajo que habia de venir de tan lejanas partes."

57

39. See J. Murra, "La Funcin del Tejido en varios contextos sociales y polticos," in
(Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos, 1975), 165-70.
40. "El inga pagaba los tales caciques ans como el rey paga a sus corregidores, y la
paga era alguna ropa de su vestir, o algn vaso de oro o plata, cuando le iban a ver, por va
de merced" (D. de la Bandera, "Relacin general de la disposicin y calidad de la Provincia
de Guamanga" [1557], RGI r [1965]: 178). The same passage appears in Anonymous,
"Relacin del origen e gobierno que los Incas tuvieron y del que haba antes que ellos
seoreasen a los indios deste reino y de que tiempo y otras cosas que a l convena declaradas por seores que sirvieron al Inga Yupanqui y a Topainga Yupanqui a Guainacapac y
a Huascar Inga" [ca. 1580], CLDRHP, zd ser., 3 (1920): 72.
Formaciones econmicas y polticas del mundo andino

58

Toasts with the Inca

on1Y payment-but gi ts given y-a

alized the Inca's reciprocity as expressed through the feast.
Two properties had to be fulfilled by the objects that the Inca gave.
First, they had to be something that the curacas would accept as suitable. Second, for the Inca, they had to be something that could be used
to express the changed nature of the exchange act without altering its
form. The notion of reciprocity still needed to be maintained while the
implementation of Inca sociopolitical hieratic order of the redistributive
economy was put into play. This determined the appropriateness of the
objects that the Inca dispensed. This act of reciprocity introduces the
importance of the quero as an object of imperial production and a
means to understanding it. Whereas Molina simply says that gold and
silver were given, Damin de la Bandera qualifies this, saying that they
were in the form of cups (vasos). Moreover, from other reports and
archaeological evidence, w knw that wooden cups, queros, were
given in addition to their gold and silver counterparts (aquillas). Queros
and aquillas were important in Inca feasts beyond their utilitarian function. Like textiles, which are perhaps most often mentioned in Spanish
texts, the metal and wooden queros played an essential role in Inca
political and social strategies.
To understand how and why the quero could be used in the feasts as
an imperial gift expressing the nature of Inca sociopolitical strategy, the
object must be studied beyond the context of when it was given and used.
It already comes to that context charged with certain properties. Some
have already been discussed in terms of their production and use, but the
object also participates variously as a discursive element in Inca myth
and political reality. The aquilla and quero bring this myth and reality to
the Andean table each time they are presented in Tahuantinsuyu.

41. S. de Covarrubias Orozco, Tesoro de la Lengua Castellana o Espaola [r6r r], ed.
F. Maldonado and M. Camero, zd ed. (Madrid: Editorial Castalia, 1995), 749.

CHAPTER THREE

Mythical Origins and Inca Queros

4rze

Queros and aquillas provided, among other things, a physical manifestation of Tahuantinsuyu's legitimacy. Although that legitimacy may
have been an internal expression for the Inca themselves, it is no less
important because of that. Inca beliefs about their development cannot
be cynically disengaged from the material aspects used to achieve it.
Neither Inca mythology nor their reworking of it, no matter how
recent, was simply disingenuous imperial propaganda. The Inca needed
to project for themselves a legitimate identity in relation to the Andean
past. The Andean past didnpt _howgv_er, mean history in the sens_e_pf a .
linear seq-ue-s-nce of events. Rather, it meant a foundation in shared cosm
- ological origins. Witholdsuch a "history," the Inca could not explain
'their existence to themselves or anyone else, and their rise to an Andean
power would have been outside any common understanding and
impossible_to sustain.
z?:'Oralit rovided the primar y forum for such historical recounting.
Myth conveyed the cosialgical time and space of Tahuantinsuyu's
sociopolitical development and territorial growth. These oral narratives
were not without material referents. In fact, such -referents viere all
around to be experienced and seen. The landscape as well as objects and
ruins were all recognized as both evidence of the past and protagonists
in- the oral accounts. More important , objects and their forms take on
tri metonymical function of representing and relaying the abstract relation between-present social organization and "past" as expressed in
myth. Together, oral mythandphysical object create a coherent whole,
by which the meaning of my th is tangibly conveyed in the sense that the
object is both past and present simultaneously. The immediacy of
speech is given authenticity to narrate the past through objects that are
either truly ancient or replicas of suggestive forms that evoke the
"past." Such is the Inca's relation to Tiahuanacoan ancient and large
Andean megalithi c- ce-nter near- the silther'n. sho-rs of Lake Titicaca (ca.
zoo-i000 A.D.)and in particular to Tiahuanaco-style queros.
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