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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
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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

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