Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2plfb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-26T05:44:46.983Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A Calendrical and Demographic Tomb Text from Northern Peru

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Gary Urton
Gary Urton*
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Colgate University, 13 Oak Drive, Hamilton, New York 13346
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The focus of this study is on a khipu—a knotted—string recording device-from the Chachapoya region of the northeastern Andes of Peru. The khipu was one of 32 khipus discovered, along with some 220 mummy bundles, in 1996 in a half-dozen chullpas (burial houses) built into a rock-overhang overlooking a lake, called Laguna de los Cóndores, near the town of Leymebamba (Department of Amazonas). The cultural materials found with the mummies and khipus date from the pre-Inkaic Chachapoya culture (ca. A. D. 800-1450), through the Inka occupation of the region and on into the early colonial era. It is argued that the khipus stored with the dead represented tomb texts, which contained information pertaining to the history of the mummies and the social groups descended from them. One of the khipu samples (UR6) is interpreted as a combined biennial calendar and census of the tribute payers in Chachapoya territory, around Laguna de los Cóndores, in late Prehispanic times. It is argued that khipu UR6 was the source of information from which the first colonial census in the region was drawn up by the Spanish administrators, in 1535.

El eje del presente estudio es un análisis de un khipu-un instrumento donde se registra información con hilos anudados-grande y excepcionalmente complejo procedente de la region de Chachapoyas, en los Andes nororientales del Peru. El khipu en cuestión fue uno de un grupo de 32 descubiertos en 1996, conjuntamente con 220 fardos funerarios, en seis chullpas (edificios mortuorios) de piedra y mortero construidas en la repisa rocosa de un acantilado que mira a la Laguna de los Cóndores (departmento de San Martín), cerca del pueblo de Leymebamba (provincia de Chachapoyas, departmento de Amazonas). Los materiales encontrados con las momias y khipus, entre los que se encuentran ceramica, textiles, mates pirograbados y cuentas europeas, datan de la cultura chachapoya (c. 800-1450 d. C.), la ocupación incaica de la región (1450-1532 d. C.) y la temprana era colonial. Se argumenta que de modo muy parecido a las inscripciones de las tumbas de mayas y egipcios, los khipus guardados con los difuntos representaban “textos funerarios”; en cuanto tales, dichos documentos podrían haber contenido importante información acerca de temas como la historia genealógica de las momias y los grupos sociales (esto es, los ayllus) que descendían de ellas, además de otros tipos de información (calendárica y demográfica, por ejemplo) que podrían haber tenido un interés duradero para el grupo en cuestión. En conformidad con esta hipótesis, se argumenta que uno de los khipus (UR6) de Laguna de los Cóndores fue construido como un calendario bianual y un censo conjunto de los tributarios de la parte sur-central del territorio chachapoya, alrededor del lago, en la época prehispánica tardía. Asimismo se argumenta que el khipu UR6 no sólo es la fuente con la cual los funcionarios españoles realizaron el primer censo colonial de la región en 1535, sino que además, los restos del funcionario local que según los documentos históricos dio la información censal a los españoles-un hombre llamado Francisco Guamán-podría, en relidad, estar entre los fardos funerarios recuperados en las chullpas de Laguna de los Cóndores.

Type
Articles
Information
Latin American Antiquity , Volume 12 , Issue 2 , June 2001 , pp. 127 - 147
Copyright
Copyright © Society for American Archaeology 2000

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

References Cited

Arellano, Carmen 1999 Quipu y tocapu. Sistemas de comunicación incas. In Los Incas. Arte y símbolos, edited by Franklin Pease et al., pp. 215–261. Colección Arte y Tesoros del Perú. Banco de Crédito del Perú, Lima.Google Scholar
Ascher, Marcia, and Ascher, Robert 1978 Code of the Quipu: Databook. Unpublished manuscript, Archivist, Cornell University Library, Ithaca, New York.Google Scholar
Ascher, Marcia, and Ascher, Robert 1997 [1981] Code of the Quipu: A Study in Media, Mathematics, and Culture. Dover Publications, New York.Google Scholar
Aveni, Anthony F. 1980 Skywatchers of Ancient Mexico. University of Texas Press, Austin.Google Scholar
Bonnier, Elisabeth 1993 Architecture of the Living and the Dead in Tantamayo, Peru. Manuscript on file, Longyear Museum of Anthropology, Colgate University, Hamilton, New York.Google Scholar
Brokaw, Galen 1999 Transcultural Intertextuality and Quipu Literacy in Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala’s Nueva Coronica y Buen Govierno. Ph.D. dissertation, Indiana University. University Microfilms, Ann Arbor, Michigan.Google Scholar
Conklin, William J. 1982 The Information System of the Middle Horizon Quipus. In Ethnoastronomy and Archaeoastronomy in the American Tropics, edited by Anthony F. Aveni and Gary Urton, pp. 261–281. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, Vol. 385, New York.Google Scholar
Conklin, William J. 2001 A khipu Information String Theory. In Narrative Threads: Explorations of Narrativity in Andean Knotted-String Records, edited by Jeffrey Quilter and Gary Urton. University of Texas Press, Austin, in press.Google Scholar
Cummins, Thomas B. F. 1988 Abstraction to Narration: Kero Imagery of Peru and the Colonial Alteration of Native Identity. Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles. University Microfilms, Ann Arbor, Michigan.Google Scholar
David, Rosalie 2000 The Experience of Ancient Egypt. Routledge, London and New York.Google Scholar
Dillehay, Tom D. (editor) 1995 Tombs for the Living: Andean Mortuary Practices. Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Washington, D.C. Google Scholar
Doyle, Mary E. 1988 The Ancestor Cult and Burial Ritual in Seventeenth and Eighteenth-Century Central Peru. Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles. University Microfilms, Ann Arbor, Michigan.Google Scholar
Duviols, Pierre 1973 Huari y Llacuaz. Agricultores y pastores: un dualismo prehispánico de oposición y complementaridad. Revista del Museo Nacional, Lima 39:153–191.Google Scholar
Espinoza Soriano, Waldemar 1967 Los señoríos étnicos de Chachapoyas y la alianza his-pano-chacha. Revista Histórica 30:224—322.Google Scholar
Espinoza Soriano, Waldemar 1971–2 Los huancas aliados de la conquista. Tres informaciones inéditas sobre la participatión indígena en la conquista del Perú. 1558, 1560 y 1561. Anales Científicos 1:9–407.Google Scholar
Espinoza Soriano, Waldemar 1981 El fundamento territorial del ayllu serrano. Siglos XV y XVI. In Etnohistoria y Antropología Andina, edited by Amalia Castelli, Marcia Koth de Paredes, and Mariana Mould de Pease, pp. 93–130. Segunda Jornada del Museo Nacional de Historia. Centro de Proyección Cristiana, Aguarico, Lima.Google Scholar
Garcilaso de la Vega, El Inca 1966 [1609] Royal Commentaries of the Incas. Part One. Translated and with an Introduction by Harold V. Livermore. University of Texas Press, Austin.Google Scholar
Guillen, Sonia E. 1999 Arqueología de emergencia: inventario, catalogación y conservatión de los materiales arqueológicos de los mausoleos de la Laguna de los Cóndores. Final report to the Instituto Nacional de Cultura, Lima.Google Scholar
Hare, Tom 1999 Remembering Osiris: Number, Gender and the Word in Ancient Egyptian Representational Systems. Stanford University Press, Stanford, California.Google Scholar
Horkheimer, Hans 1958 Algunas consideraciones acerca de la arqueología en el valle del Utcubamba. Adas y Trabajos del II Congreso Nacional de Historia del Perú 1:71–101. Lima.Google Scholar
Isbell, William H. 1997 Mummies and Mortuary Monuments: A Postprocessual Prehistory of Central Andean Social Organization. University of Texas Press, Austin.Google Scholar
Julien, Catherine J. 1988 How Inca Decimal Administration Worked. Ethnohistory 35(3):257–279.Google Scholar
Kauffmann Doig, Federico 1988 Investigaciones arqueolóicas en los Andes Amazonicos, 1980–1988. Institute de Arqueología Amazonica, Lima.Google Scholar
Langlois, Louis 1939–40 Utcubamba. Investigaciones arqueológicas en este valle del departamento de Amazonas. Revista del Museo Nacional 9(1):33–72, 9(2): 191–249. Lima.Google Scholar
Lerche, Peter 1995 Los Chachapoyas y los símbolos de su historia. César Gayoso, Lima.Google Scholar
Lerche, Peter 1999 A Grave Case of Robbery. Geographical 71(5):18–23.Google Scholar
Locke, L. Leland 1923 The Ancient Quipu, or Peruvian Knot Record. American Museum of Natural History, New York.Google Scholar
Lounsbury, Floyd G. 1974 The Inscription of the Sarcophagus Lid at Palenque. In Primera Mesa Redonda de Palenque. Part II, edited by Merle Greene Robertson, pp. 5–20. The Robert Louis Stevenson School, Pebble Beach, California.Google Scholar
Loza, Carmen Beatriz 1998 Du bon usage des quipus face à l’administration coloniale Espagnole, 1553–1599. Population 53, No. 2:139–160.Google Scholar
Mackey, Carol 1970 Knot Records in Ancient and Modern Perú. Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Berkeley. University Microfilms, Ann Arbor, Michigan.Google Scholar
Mackey, Carol 1990 Comparación entre quipu Inca y quipu modernos. In Quipu y Yupana: Colección de Escritos, edited by Carol Mackey et al., pp. 135–155. Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología, Lima.Google Scholar
Mackey, Carol, Pereyra, Hugo, Radicati, Carlos, Rodriguez, Humberto, and Valverde, Oscar (editors) 1990 Quipu y yupana: colección de escritos. Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología, Lima.Google Scholar
Mills, Kenneth 1997 Idolatry and Its Enemies: Colonial Andean Religion and Extirpations, 1640–1750. Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey.Google Scholar
Murra, John V. 1975 Las etno-categorías de un khipu estatal. In Formaciones económicas y políticas en el mundo andino, pp. 243–254. Instituto de Estudios Andinos, Lima.Google Scholar
Murra, John V. 1982 The Mit’a Obligations of Ethnic Groups to the Inka State. In The Inca and Aztec States, 1400–1800, edited by George A. Collier, Renato L. Rosaldo, and John D. Wirth, pp. 237–262. Academic Press, New York.Google Scholar
Muscutt, Keith 1998 Warriors of the Clouds: A Lost Civilization in the Upper Amazon of Peru. The University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.Google Scholar
Nordenskiold, Erland 1925 Calculations with Years and Months in the Peruvian Quipus. Comparative Ethnological Studies, Vol. 6, Part 2. Göteborg.Google Scholar
Pärssinen, Martti 1992 Tawantinsuyu: The Inca State and Its Political Organization. Societas Historica Finlandiae, Studia Historica 43, Helsinki.Google Scholar
Platt, Tristan 1986 Mirrors and Maize: The Concept of Yanantin among the Macha of Bolivia. In Anthropological History of Andean Polities, edited by John V. Murra, Nathan Watchel, and Jacques Revel, pp. 228–259. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Quilter, Jeffrey, and Urton, Gary (editors) 2001 Narrative Threads: Explorations of Narrativity in Andean Knotted-String Records. University of Texas Press, Austin, in press.Google Scholar
Reichlen, Henry, and Reichlen, Paule 1950 Recherches archéologiques dans les Andes du haut Utcubamba. Journal de la Société des Américanistes 39:219–251.Google Scholar
Remy, Pilar 1992 El Documento. In Las Visitas a Cajamarca. 1571–72/1578, compiled and edited by María Rostworowski and Pilar Remy, vol. 1, pp. 37–108. Instituto de Estudios Peruanos, Lima.Google Scholar
Rivera Serna, Raúl 1958 Libro primero de cabildos de la ciudad de San Juan de la Frontera de Chachapoyas. Revista “Fenix,” Biblioteca National, Nos. 11 … 12. Lima.Google Scholar
Robertson, Merle Greene 1983 The Sculpture of Palenque. Volume 1. The Temple Inscriptions. Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey.Google Scholar
Rostworowski de Diez Canseco, María 1981 La voz parcialidad en su contexto en los siglos XVI y XVII. In Etnohistoria y Antropología Andina, edited by Amalia Castelli, Marcia Koth de Paredes, and Mariana Mould de Pease, pp. 35–48. Segunda Jornada del Museo Nacional de Historia. Centro de Proyección Cristiana, Aguarico, Lima.Google Scholar
Rowe, John H. 1995 Behavior and Belief in Ancient Peruvian Mortuary Practice. In Tombs for the Living: Andean Mortuary Practices, edited by Tom D. Dillehay; pp. 27–42. Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Washington, D.C. Google Scholar
Ruiz Estrada, Arturo 1970 Exploraciones arqueológicas en el valle del Utcubamba. Cultura y Pueblo 6, nos. 19–20.Google Scholar
Salomon, Frank 1995 ‘The Beautiful Grandparents’: Andean Ancestor Shrines and Mortuary Ritual as Seen Through Colonial Records. In Tombs for the Living: Andean Mortuary Practices, edited by Tom D. Dillehay, pp. 315–354. Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Washington, D.C. Google Scholar
Salomon, Frank 2001 Patrimonial Khipus in a Modern Peruvian Village: An Introduction to the ‘Quipocamayos’ of Tupicocha, Huarochirí. In Narrative Threads: Explorations of Narrativity in Andean Knotted-String Records, edited by Jeffrey Quilter and Gary Urton. University of Texas Press, Austin, in press.Google Scholar
Savoy, Gene 1970 Antisuyo: The Search for the Lost Cities of the Andes. Simon … Schuster, New York.Google Scholar
Schjellerup, Inge R. 1997 Incas and Spaniards in the Conquest of the Chachapoyas. GOTARC Series B. Gothenburg Archaeological Theses, #7. National Museum of Denmark, Göthenburg.Google Scholar
Smith, Marvin T., and Good, Mary E. 1982 Early Sixteenth Century Glass Beads in the Spanish Colonial Trade. Cottonlandia Museum Publications, Green wood, Mississippi.Google Scholar
Urton, Gary 1994 A New Twist in an Old Yarn: Variation in Knot Directionality in the Inka khipus . Baessler-Archiv Neue Folge, Band XLII:271–305.Google Scholar
Urton, Gary 1997 The Social Life of Numbers: A Quechua Ontology of Numbers and Philosophy of Arithmetic. University of Texas Press, Austin.Google Scholar
Urton, Gary 1998 From Knots to Narratives: Reconstructing the Art of Historical Record-Keeping in the Andes from Spanish Transcriptions of Inka Khipus. Ethnohistory 45(3):409–438.Google Scholar
Urton, Gary 2001 Recording Signs in Narrative-Accounting khipus. In Narrative Threads: Explorations of Narrativity in Andean Knotted-String Records, edited by Jeffrey Quilter and Gary Urton. University of Texas Press, Austin, in press.Google Scholar
Urton, Gary 2002 Binary Coding in khipu Recordkeeping. In First Writing, edited by Stephen D. Houston. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, in press.Google Scholar
van de Guchte, Maarten 1996 Sculpture and the Concept of the Double among the Inca Kings. Res 29–30:256–268.Google Scholar
von Hagen, Adriana 2000 Nueva iconografía Chachapoyas. Íconos: Revista peruana de conservatión, arte y arqueología 4:8–17.Google Scholar
von Hagen, Adriana, and Guillen, Sonia 1998 Tombs with a View. Archaeology 51, No. 2:48–54.Google Scholar
Wilford, John Noble 1997 Mummies May Be of Incan Elite, After Conquest of ‘Cloud People.’ New York Times December 16:F3.Google Scholar
Zuidema, R. Tom 1977 The Inca Calendar. In Native American Astronomy, edited by Anthony F. Aveni, pp. 219–259. University of Texas Press, Austin.Google Scholar
Zuidema, R. Tom 1989 A Quipu Calendar from Iea, Peru, with a Comparison to the Ceque Calendar from Cuzco. In World Archaeoastronomy, edited by Anthony F. Aveni, pp. 341–351. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar