1. For the legal activism of the early colonial Inca nobility, see Hemming, John, The Conquest of the Incas (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1970)Google Scholar; Lamana, Gonzalo, Domination without Dominance: Inca-Spanish Encounters in Early Colonial Peru (Durham: Duke University Press, 2008)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Nowack, Kerstin, “Aquellas señoras del linaje real de los Incas: vida y supervivencia de las mujeres de la nobleza inca en el Perú en los primeros años de la Colonia,” in Elites indígenas en los Andes: nobles, caciques y cabildantes bajo el yugo colonial, Cahill, David Patrick and Tovías, Blanca, eds. (Quito: Abya-Yala, 2003), pp. 17–53 Google Scholar; and Oberem, Udo, “La familia del Inca Atahualpa bajo el dominio español,” in Contribución a la etnohistoria ecuatoriana, Yáñez, Segundo Moreno and Oberem, Udo, eds. (Otavalo: Instituto Otavaleño de Antropología, 1981), pp. 153–226 Google Scholar. On indigenous litigation in the Andean region, see Poloni-Simard, Jacques, “Los indios ante la justicia. El pleito como parte de la consolidación de la sociedad colonial,” in Máscaras, tretas y rodeos del discurso colonial en los Andes, Lavallé, Bernard, ed. (Lima: Instituto Francés de Estudios Andinos; Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú; Instituto Riva-Agüero, 2005), pp. 177–188 Google Scholar; Spalding, Karen, Huarochirí: An Andean Society under Inca and Spanish Rule (Stanford: Stanford University, 1984)Google Scholar; Stern, Steve J., Peru's Indian Peoples and the Challenge of Spanish Conquest: Huamanga to 1640 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1993)Google Scholar. The Andes still lag behind New Spain, where the efforts to conceptualize indigenous interaction with the court system after the classic works of Charles Gibson on the Mexicas and Tlaxcalans have gone further. See among others Baber, Jovita, “Native Litigiousness, Cultural Change and the Spanish Legal System in Tlaxcala, New Spain (1580–1640),” Political and Legal Anthropology Review 24:2 (2001), pp. 94–106 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kellogg, Susan, Law and the Transformation of Aztec Culture, 1500–1700 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1995)Google Scholar; Owensby, Brian P., Empire of Law and Indian Justice in Colonial Mexico (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2008)Google Scholar; Medrano, Ethelia Ruiz and Kellogg, Susan, Negotiation within Domination: New Spain's Indian Pueblos Confront the Spanish State (Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 2010)Google Scholar; and Yannakakis, Yanna, The Art of Being In-Between: Native Intermediaries, Indian Identity, and Local Rule in Colonial Oaxaca (Durham: Duke University Press, 2008)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2. Recent approaches to indigenous legal activism before the audiencia and the archbishopric of Lima include Charles, John, “‘More Ladino than Necessary’: Indigenous Litigants and the Language Policy Debate in Mid-Colonial Peru,” Colonial Latin American Review 16:1 (2007), pp. 23–47 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Allies at Odds: The Andean Church and Its Indigenous Agents, 1583–1671 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2010); “Felipe Guaman Poma en los foros de la justicia eclesiástica,” in Los indios, el derecho canónico y la justicia eclesiástica en la América virreinal, Ana de Zaballa Beascoechea, ed. (Madrid; Frankfurt: Iberoamericana/Vervuert, 2011), pp. 203–222; Renzo Honores, “Litigiosidad indígena ante la Real Audiencia de Lima, 1552–1598” (Bachelor's thesis: Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, 1993); Honores, “La asistencia jurídica privada a los señores indígenas ante la Real Audiencia de Lima, 1552–1570,” paper presented at the XXIV International Congress of the Latin American Studies Association (Dallas, March 27–29, 2003); Honores, “Una sociedad legalista: abogados, procuradores de causas y la creación de una cultura legal colonial en Lima y Potosí, 1540–1670” (PhD diss.: Florida International University, 2007); “Caciques as Legal Benefactors: Cacical Legal Offensive in the Andes, 1550–1572,” paper presented at the 123rd Annual Meeting of the American Historical Association/CLAH (New York, January 2–5, 2009); and Mumford, Jeremy, “Litigation as Ethnography in Sixteenth-Century Peru: Polo de Ondegardo and the Mitimaes,” Hispanic American Historical Review 88:1 (2008), pp. 5–40 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For transatlantic litigation, see Dueñas, Alcira, Indians and Mestizos in the “Lettered City”: Reshaping Justice, Social Hierarchy, and Political Culture in Colonial Peru (Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 2010)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Mumford, Jeremy, “Aristocracy on the Auction Block: Race, Lords, and the Perpetuity Controversy of Sixteenth-Century Peru,” in Imperial Subjects: Race and Identity in Colonial Latin America, Fisher, Andrew B. and O'Hara, Matthew D., eds. (Durham: Duke University Press, 2009), pp. 35–59 Google Scholar; and de la Puente Luna, José Carlos, “The Many Tongues of the King: Indigenous Language Interpreters and the Making of the Spanish Empire,” Colonial Latin American Review 23:2 (2014), pp. 143–170 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3. There were, of course, certain notable exceptions, as we know that native Andean and mestizo litigants sometimes brought petitions directly to the American audiencias and the royal court in order to bypass these royal officials. The number of litigants filing petitions directly seems to have increased over time. For a sampler of prominent cases, see Dueñas, Indians and Mestizos.

4. Brian Owensby makes a similar point in his study about indigenous peoples’ engagements with the judicial system in seventeenth-century Mexico: “Despite all the writing, much remains shadowy about the encounters these records depict: How did a party decide to file a petition? Why did a lawsuit continue over months or years at great expense or why was it dropped after a certain point? Why did a particular case turn out as it did and how did parties understand the outcome?” Owensby, Empire of Law, p. 9.

5. Owensby notes that, through the legal system, indigenous commoners “found greater if still limited opportunities to say ‘no’ to excessive demands by encomenderos, corregidores, and principales, in effect to negotiate the terms of their subjection.” Ibid., p. 40. This point has been made by William Taylor as well. Taylor argues that, unless we bring back the consideration of “politics” into colonial law and its processes, we will be leaving out most of the population as “unpolitical.” Taylor, William B., “Between Global Process and Local Knowledge: An Inquiry into Early Latin American Social History, 1500–1900,” in Reliving the Past: The Worlds of Social History, Zunz, Olivier, ed. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1985), pp. 115–190, p. 162Google Scholar.

6. Dueñas, Indians and Mestizos; Honores, “Litigiosidad indígena”; Honores, “La asistencia jurídica”; Mumford, “Litigation as Ethnography.” These works build on previous studies about the caciques’ adaptation to colonial rule, which included litigation in colonial courts. See for instance Murra, John V., “Litigation over the Rights of ‘Natural Lords’ in Early Colonial Courts in the Andes,” in Native Traditions in the Postconquest World, Boone, Elizabeth Hill and Cummins, Thomas, eds. (Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks, 1998), pp. 55–62 Google Scholar; Franklin, Pease G. Y., Curacas, reciprocidad y riqueza (Lima: Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, 1999)Google Scholar; and Saignes, Thierry, “De la borrachera al retrato: los caciques andinos entre dos legitimidades (Charcas),” Revista Andina 9 (1987), pp. 139–170 Google Scholar.

7. For works that show how litigation, inasmuch as it allowed for the privatization of collective resources, could unleash intra-communal processes of social differentiation, thus widening the gap between these native elites and their indigenous subjects, see O'Phelan, Scarlett, Kurakas sin sucesiones: del cacique al alcalde de indios (Perú y Bolivia, 1750–1830) (Cuzco: Centro Bartolomé de Las Casas, 1997)Google Scholar; S. Elizabeth Penry, “Transformations in Indigenous Authority and Identity in Resettlement Towns of Colonial Charcas (Alto Peru)” (PhD diss.: University of Miami, 1996); de la Puente Luna, José Carlos, Los curacas hechiceros de Jauja. Batallas mágicas y legales en el Perú colonial (Lima: Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, 2007)Google Scholar; Ramirez, Susan E., The World Upside Down: Cross-Cultural Contact and Conflict in Sixteenth-Century Peru (Stanford: Stanford University, 1996)Google Scholar; Spalding, Karen, De indio a campesino: cambios en la estructura social del Perú colonial (Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos, 1974)Google Scholar; Huarochirí; Stern, Steve J., “The Social Significance of Judicial Institutions in an Exploitative Society: Huamanga, Peru, 1570–1640,” in The Inca and Aztec States, 1400–1800: Anthropology and History, Collier, George, Rosaldo, Renato, and Wirth, John, eds. (New York: Academic Press, 1983), pp. 289–320 Google Scholar; and Stern, Peru's Indian Peoples.

8. I borrow the expression from Dorothy Tanck de Estrada's in-depth discussion of native towns and community finances in late colonial Mexico. de Estrada, Tanck, Pueblos de indios y educación en el México colonial, 1750–1821 (Mexico: El Colegio de México, 1999)Google Scholar, esp. chapts. 1, 2, and 6. For similar contributions of Oaxacan commoners to the community treasuries and how municipal officers used these collective funds to support litigation, see Yannakakis, The Art of Being In-Between, pp. 37, 120–121.

9. About the Inca and Spanish reorganizations of the Jauja valley, which I have somewhat simplified, see D'Altroy, Terence N., Provincial Power in the Inka Empire (Washington; London: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1992)Google Scholar; Pärssinen, Martti, Tawantinsuyu: The Inca State and Its Political Organization (Helsinki: The Finnish Historical Society, 1992), pp. 338–341 Google Scholar; and De la Puente Luna, Los curacas hechiceros, chapt. 3.

10. In the Jauja valley at this time, the term ‘repartimiento’ was, to a great degree, a synonym of ‘encomienda,’ a royal grant consisting of the right to collect tribute from indigenous communities. In the latter part of the sixteenth century, however, specific groups counted as part of the smaller encomiendas or repartimientos were resettled in the towns of the three major divisions to which I refer in this article: Atunjauja, Luringuanca, and Ananguanca.

11. Ynformaçión hecha por mandado de Su Excelencia sobre los daños que se han reçreçido a los yndios del balle de Xauxa en los pleytos que han tinido, asy en los bienes de la comunidad como en los de particulares y lo por Su Excelencia proveydo para escusar los dichos pleytos y daños y de cómo se les mandaron quemar las provisiones y procesos, 1570. Archivo General de Indias [hereafter AGI], Lima 28A, 63Q. A transcription of this document, along with a detailed analysis of its context of production—Toledo's legal reforms of the early 1570s—can be found in Mónica Medelius and de la Puente Luna, José Carlos, “Curacas, bienes y quipus en un documento toledano (Jauja, 1570),” Histórica 28:2 (2004), pp. 35–82 Google Scholar.

12. In his recent study of the ayllus of Tupicocha, Frank Salomon defines ayllus as “non-localized, predominantly patrilineal corporate descent groups.” He notes that “the term parcialidad denotes the outer face of the corporation, especially its work as a segment of the community,” adding further that “the double terminology reflects the institution's role as the hinge connecting kinship to political organization.” Salomon, Frank, The Cord Keepers: Khipus and Cultural Life in a Peruvian Village (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), p. 57 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The Tupicochan ayllus, and Andean ayllus in general, share a series of enduring structural principles, which Salomon synthesizes as follows: “(1) Ayllus are sibling corporations to each other; that is, they owe each other fraternal solidarity. (2) They stand in fixed order. (3) The rank order is one of precedence, not of dominion. (4) Ayllus have separate endowments but coordinate duties.” Ibid., p. 59. For further discussions of this context-sensitive, relative term, see Isbell, Billie Jean, To Defend Ourselves: Ecology and Ritual in an Andean Village (Prospect Heights, Ill.: Waveland Press, 1985)Google Scholar; and Platt, Tristan, “Mirrors and Maize: The Concept of Yanantin among the Macha of Bolivia,” in Anthropological History of Andean Polities, Murra, John V., Wachtel, Nathan, and Revel, Jacques, eds. (Cambridge; New York; Paris: Cambridge University Press, 1986), pp. 228–259 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13. The Huancas are well known among scholars of the khipus. In 1549, the Huanca lords displayed before the chronicler Pedro Cieza de León an earlier set of khipus, which registered their multiple contributions to the Spaniards since their arrival in the Andes. These and other knotted strings served as the basis for the further elaboration of several detailed lists (memorias) that morphed into more complex probanzas presented by the Huanca lords before the audiencia and the Council of the Indies between 1558 and 1562. These khipu-based lists contained the number of warriors, porters, and servants, as well as the amount of clothes, foodstuffs, and other goods, given to the Spaniards between 1532 and 1554. Soriano, Waldemar Espinoza, “Los huancas aliados de la conquista. Tres informaciones inéditas sobre la participación indígena en la conquista del Perú,” Anales Científicos de la Universidad del Centro del Perú 1 (1971–72), pp. 9–407 Google Scholar; Murra, John V., “Las etno-categorías de un khipu estatal,” in Formaciones económicas y políticas del mundo andino (Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos, 1975), pp. 243–254 Google Scholar. For the survival of some of these Huanca khipus until the beginning of the seventeenth century, see de Figueroa, Diego Dávalos, Primera parte de la miscelánea austral (Lima: Antonio Ricardo, 1602), p. 150 Google Scholar.

14. The generic term for these specialists in Quechua is khipucamayuq, often spelled quipucamayo in the documents and translated as ‘knot-maker’ or ‘cord-keeper.’ Some caciques served as khipucamayuqs and vice versa. For the use of khipus (or quipus) in legal forums, see Brokaw, Galen, “La recepción del quipu en el siglo XVI,” in El quipu colonial: estudios y materiales, Petrocchi, Marco Curatola and de la Puente Luna, José Carlos, eds. (Lima: Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, 2013), pp. 119–144 Google Scholar; A History of the Khipu (Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010); Charles, Allies at Odds; Alan Durston and George Urioste, “Las peticiones en quechua del curato de Chuschi (1678–1679),” in El quipu colonial: estudios y materiales, Curatola Petrocchi and De la Puente Luna, eds., pp. 379–440; Losa, Beatriz, “El quipu y la prueba en la práctica del Derecho de Indias, 1550–1581,” Historia y Cultura 26 (2000), pp. 11–37 Google Scholar; Loza, Carmen Beatriz, “El uso de los quipus contra la administración colonial (1550–1600),” Nueva Síntesis 7–8 (2001), pp. 59–93 Google Scholar; Platt, Tristan, “‘Without Deceit or Lies’: Variable Chinu Readings during a Sixteenth-Century Tribute-Restitution Trial,” in Narrative Threads: Accounting and Recounting in Andean Khipu, Quilter, Jeffrey and Urton, Gary, eds. (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2002), pp. 225–265 Google Scholar; and Urton, Gary, “From Knots to Narratives: Reconstructing the Art of Historical Record-Keeping in the Andes from Spanish Transcriptions of Inka Khipus,” Ethnohistory 45:3 (1998), pp. 409–438 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

15. For the multiple other uses of khipu, see Brokaw, A History; and Gary Urton, Signs of the Inka Khipu: Binary Coding in the Andean Knotted-String Records (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2003)Google Scholar.

16. The existence of the caciques’ hacienda privada speaks already of the privatization of communal resources during the decades between the Spanish Conquest and Toledo's general inspection of the 1570s. At some point, these haciendas privadas claimed by the caciques must have been communally controlled. In the case of the Apoalaya lineage, the paramount lords of Ananguanca, royal grants of indigenous retainers or yanaconas—two hundred to be precise—can be traced back to the 1540s. Autos que presentó en este Superior Gobierno el Procurador Salvador Gerónimo de Portalanza, que contienen el fraude y engaño con que se introdujeron los Astucuris y Limayllas [. . .], 1776. Biblioteca Nacional del Perú [BNP], Manuscritos [Mss.], C2578, fol. 51v. See also the discussion offered in Medelius and De la Puente Luna, “Curacas, bienes y quipus.”

17. Don Francisco de la Guerra y Céspedes, former corregidor (chief magistrate) of Jauja, recalled in 1566, “se fue este don Felipe [Guacrapaucar] a España no se acuerda este que declara si fue por delitos o enviado de los hermanos lo que se aquerda es que le auian dado ciertos dineros de las comunidades que los yndios y caçiques tenian secretas y que se los pedian por los rrecaudos que auia dexado.” Causa con Don Francisco Guacrapaucar y Francisco Ticsi Cangaguala sobre el cacicazgo de segunda persona del repartimiento de Luringuanca, 1600–1602. Lilly Library, Latin American Manuscripts–Peru, fol. 10v.

18. Ynformaçión hecha por mandado, AGI, Lima 28A, 63Q, fols. 3r–7v, 11r–15r. Some of these same mid-ranking caciques also faced the Apoalayas in the courtrooms individually, funding their lawsuits with their family wealth.

19. It was Don Carlos's father, the old cacique Jerónimo Guacrapaucar, who showed the khipus of Luringuanca to Pedro Cieza de León in 1549. Medelius and De la Puente Luna, “Curacas, bienes y quipus,” p. 63.

20. Ynformaçión hecha por mandado, AGI, Lima 28A, 63Q, fols. 2v–3v, 7r–8v. The ayllus of Luringuanca also litigated among themselves. According to don Carlos Limaylla, the caciques of his repartimiento “an tratado unos con otros [pleitos] sobre tierras y sobre casas y sobre otras cosas.” Information on a court case over boundaries between Atunjauja and Luringuanca can be found in Títulos del deslinde y amojonamiento que divide las jurisdicciones de los dos repartimientos de Jauja y Luringuanca aprobado por el excelentísimo señor don Francisco de Toledo, 1570–1594, Archivo Regional de Junín [ARJ], Protocolos Notariales [PN], 19, fols. 554r–588r.

21. On household and suprahousehold spheres of production in Central Andean peasant economies, see Guillet, David, “Agrarian Ecology and Peasant Production in the Central Andes,” Mountain Research and Development 1:1 (1981), pp. 19–28 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Mayer, Enrique, The Articulated Peasant: Household Economies in the Andes (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 2002)Google Scholar. For examples of the use of Andean notions about chuta or trecho for parceling collective tasks among ayllu and ayllu members, see Salomon, Frank and Niño-Murcia, Mercedes, The Lettered Mountain: A Peruvian Village's Way with Writing (Durham: Duke University Press, 2011), p. 141 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

22. The practice of using khipus in conjunction with pebbles and corn seeds has been documented for different regions of the Andes. See among others the testimonies of de Acosta, José, Natural and Moral History of the Indies (Durham: Duke University Press, 2002)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, p. 344; and de la Vega, Garcilaso Inca, Royal Commentaries of the Incas, and General History of Peru (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1966), p. 124 Google Scholar.

23. “e ansi en la destribuçion siempre guardaron la horden de antes, considerado la posivilidad de la gente e haçienda de la mysma provinçia.” de Ondegardo, Polo, “Relacion de los fundamentos acerca del notable daño que resulta de no guardar á los indios sus fueros, in Colección de documentos inéditos relativos al descubrimiento, conquista y organización de las antiguas posesiones españolas de América y Oceanía” (Madrid: Imp. del Hospicio, 1872 [1571]), pp. 5–177, p. 112Google Scholar. In the 1570s, the caciques and chinukamana (the Aymara equivalent of the khipukamayoq) of Sacaca, in Charcas, also relied on pebbles and corn kernels to decode their tributary khipus, using these tokens to add up the partial contributions of each of the parcialidades. Carlos Sempat Assadourian, “String Registries: Native Accounting and Memory According to the Colonial Sources,” in Narrative Threads, Jeffrey Quilter and Gary Urton, eds., pp. 119–150; Fossa, Lydia, “Two Khipu, One Narrative: Answering Urton's Questions,” Ethnohistory 47:2 (2000), pp. 453–468 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Platt, “‘Without Deceit or Lies’“; Urton, “From Knots to Narratives.” A decade later, the native communities of Lucanas, in the Huamanga region, followed the same procedure in a lawsuit against the local magistrate. Petrocchi, Marco Curatola and de la Puente Luna, José Carlos, “Contar concertando: quipus, piedritas y escritura en los Andes coloniales,” in El quipu colonial, Petrocchi, Curatola and De la Puente Luna, eds. (Lima: Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, 2013), pp. 193–243Google Scholar.

24. Residencia tomada al doctor Gabriel de Loarte, alcalde del crimen de la Audiencia de Lima, del tiempo que fue corregidor de la ciudad de Cuzco y visitador de las provincias del Perú, por el licenciado Pedro Sánchez de Paredes, oidor de la misma Audiencia, 1575, AGI, Justicia, 463, fols. 239v–240r. Don Juan Hananpicho testified, “asi se juntaron de un ayllo quatro pesos y de otro seis como le cupieron” (my emphasis). Andrés Chirinos Rivera's detailed analysis of the famous contributions of the Huanca lords to the Spaniards between 1532 and 1554 demonstrates that each repartimiento supplied goods and tributaries to the invaders on the basis of the same principle, though on a much larger scale. The share contributed by each repartimiento represented a part of a whole (in this case, the former Inca fiscal-administrative unit), expressed in fractions such as 2/9, 3/9, and 4/9. Moreover, the ratios that represented each of these shares varied according to changes in the native population during these turbulent years. Rivera, Andrés Chirinos, Quipus del Tahuantinsuyo: curacas, Incas y su saber matemático en el siglo XVI (Lima: Comentarios, 2010), pp. 21–68 Google Scholar. Licentiate Polo Ondegardo explained the decimal rationale behind this procedure. Based on his observations among the natives of Paria, in the predominantly Aymara-speaking region of Charcas, Ondegardo emphasized the nature of the distribution: “los repartimientos, las provincias y el reino, estaba divido por cotas partes, de manera que si a una provincia le cabían diez, luego sabía cada parcialidad si era séptima o quinta o décima parte, con lo que había de acudir y la misma orden guardan hoy en la división del tributo de un repartimiento.” Ondegardo, “Relacion de los fundamentos,” p. 113.

25. See the declarations of the mid-ranking caciques of Ananguanca, leaders of the ayllus of the repartimiento. Ynformaçión hecha por mandado, AGI, Lima 28A, 63Q, fols. 10r–11v.

26. Salomon, The Cord Keepers, pp. 39, 44–47, 49; Salomon and Niño-Murcia, The Lettered Mountain, p. 141. As these authors point out, inter-ayllu responsibilities include annual community-wide canal cleanings, pasture-wall work, and construction of community halls. For the present-day ayllu books of Tupicocha, see ibid. Available collections of “khipu-documents” make it abundantly clear that Salomon's observations about the relationship between khipus and the control of communal labor are not limited to the Tupicocha region. Marco Curatola Petrocchi and José Carlos de la Puente Luna, eds., El quipu colonial: estudios y materiales (Lima: Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, 2013); Pärssinen, Martti and Kiviharju, Jukka, Textos andinos: corpus de textos khipu incaicos y coloniales 2 vols.(Madrid: Instituto Iberoamericano de Finlandia y Universidad Complutense, 2004–2010)Google Scholar.

27. Salomon, The Cord Keepers, pp. 3–7, 16–21, 35–36, 168, 188.

28. Ynformaçión hecha por mandado, AGI, Lima 28A, 63Q, fols. 3v–5r, 9r–9v. According to don Antonio Çuniguacra, head of a thousand households (cacique de guaranga) in Luringuanca, “quando don Felipe fue a España a sus negocios, quando bolbió le dieron çiento e quarenta y çinco pesos de los bienes de la comunidad, bendiendo el ganado y coca e mayz e otros bienes della para los gastar en lo que dicho tiene e para dar a letrados e procuradores, escrivanos por los dichos pleitos.” In funding their own pleitos, the ayllus of Atunjauja followed a similar procedure. On the journey of don Felipe Guacrapaucar, see Espinoza Soriano, “Los huancas”; and Mumford, “Aristocracy.”

29. In the trial of Don Felipe, his political enemies claimed that the reason behind this journey and other legal actions was to extort a “gran cantidad de pesos de oro y ganado” from the communal endowment. Yet, Don Felipe countered these accusations, denouncing his brother don Carlos Limaylla instead. Don Felipe claimed that this animosity stemmed from his defense of communal herds. Residencia tomada al doctor Gabriel de Loarte, fol. 238r.

30. Ibid., fols. 237v–40r. Don Juan Hananpicho, a principal from the town of Mataguasi, declared with the aid of an interpreter that “este dinero es de la comunidad y que no se le a buelto,” asking that justice be met by returning it to the communal fund. The modern khipus of Tupicocha studied by Frank Salomon figure prominently in similar audit procedures. Khipus are displayed during the annual civic meeting or huayrona, when “citizens hold outgoing officers responsible for the past year's work.” These authorities must face the public, be questioned, and hand over the current expense fund and the welfare-ritual fund to the newly elected officials. Conversely, the officials “had the right to call out ayllus as teams to accomplish tasks on the larger, community-wide infrastructure.” Salomon, The Cord Keepers, pp. 138, 186, 197–199.

31. Pedro Xuárez de Carvajal acted as official interpreter during the 1570 investigation. Ynformaçión hecha por mandado, AGI, Lima 28A, 63Q, fol. 2v. The caciques and cord keepers who testified in the subsequent trial against Bartolomé Ruiz, don Felipe Guacrapaucar's associate, relied on the interpretation of Alonso Hernández. Residencia tomada al doctor Gabriel de Loarte, fols. 239v–240r.

32. Residencia tomada al doctor Gabriel de Loarte, fol. 240v.

33. In the late 1560s, the licentiate Francisco Falcón, a prominent lawyer with a large indigenous clientele, explained this concept to his Spanish audience: “los indios comunes que no tenian cargo ni oficio, los cuales partian entre sí por rayas que ellos llaman suyo, lo que á cada uno, sus hijos y muger y gente de su casa para que le ayudasen, y el que tenia muchos que le ayudasen, acababa presto, y este se llamaba hombre rico. Y el que no tenia quien le ayudase era pobre y estaba más tiempo trabajando.” Falcón, Francisco, “Representación hecha por el licenciado Falcón en concilio provincial, sobre los daños y molestias que se hacen á los indios,” in Colección de documentos inéditos, relativos al descubrimiento, conquista y organización de las antiguas posesiones españolas de América y Oceanía (Madrid: Imp. de Frías y Compañía, 1867 [c. 1567]), pp. 451–495, p. 470Google Scholar.

34. “Dime, autor, ¿cómo se hará rrico los yndios? A de sauer vuestra Magestad que an de tener hazienda de comunidad que ellos les llama sapci.” de Ayala, Felipe Guaman Poma, El primer nueva corónica y buen gobierno. Digital facsimile of the original manuscript (Copenhagen: The Royal Library of Denmark, 1615–16), p. 977 Google Scholar http://www.kb.dk/permalink/2006/poma/info/en/frontpage.htm, accessed October 6, 2104. Juan de Santa Cruz Pachacuti's Relación de antigüedades deste reino del Perú also documents the use of sapci in the early seventeenth century. According to the chronicler, Tupac Inca Yupanqui ordered that, in each parcialidad, “obiesen comunidades y sapssi para el prouecho y sustento de los pobres, que son llamas y comidas.” Salcamaygua, Juan de Santa Cruz Pachacuti Yamqui, “Relación de antigüedades deste reino del Perú,” in Antigüedades del Perú, Urbano, Henrique and Sánchez, Ana, eds. (Madrid: Historia 16, 1992), pp. 171–269, p. 232Google Scholar.

35. Murra, John V., “Waman Puma, etnógrafo del mundo andino,” in de Ayala, Felipe Guaman Poma, El primer nueva corónica y buen gobierno, Adorno, Rolena, Murra, John V., and Urioste, Jorge, eds. (Mexico: Siglo Veintiuno, 1992), pp. xiii–xix, p. xvGoogle Scholar.

36. Guaman Poma de Ayala, Nueva corónica, p. 822; Salomon, The Cord Keepers, pp. 140–141; Salomon, , “ Collca y Sapçi: una perspectiva sobre el almacenamiento inka desde la analogía etnográfica,” Boletín de Arqueología PUCP 8 (2005), pp. 43–57 Google Scholar; Salomon, Frank et al., “Los khipus de Rapaz en casa: un complejo administrativo-ceremonial centroperuano,” Revista Andina 43 (2006), pp. 59–92 Google Scholar. Salomon develops these ideas in a series of important works devoted to analyzing the connection between ethnographic khipus and the civic and ceremonial spaces in which they are still found. These “collca/sapci complexes,” as Salomon calls them, are still in use in present-day highland communities such as Rapaz and Tupicocha (modern department of Lima). Based on the observations of Guaman Poma and the anonymous author of the “Quechua Manuscript of Huarochirí,” Salomon convincingly argues that these civic-religious infrastructures and spaces came into being in the 1570s, precisely the “ethnographic present” of this article.

37. “En este mes se uecitan las comunidades y sapci del mays y papas y toda la comida y los ganados comunes y sapci. Y lo castigan, no dando buena cuenta [. . .] se hinche todas las depócitos y las casas de los pobres [. . .] para que ayga que comer todo el año, para que no ayga hambre en los pobres en todo el rreyno.” Guaman Poma de Ayala, Nueva corónica, p. 1153.

38. “de los yndios pobres y de las comunidades.” Guaman Poma presents the list of resources that were typically stored in these deposits (the Quechua term is followed by George Urioste's Spanish translation in brackets): “harqui [carne hecha conserva], lana, misquillicoy [mata dulce], mata, pezaca [perdiz grande] c, chaura [llama] d, uicona [vicuña], uanaco [guanaco], quiuyo [pájaro], chalua [pescado], cuchucho [pájaro], usuta [alpargata], uasca [soga], apa [frazada], maytocuna [envoltorios], cancaua [yerba acuática], lullocha [berro].” Ibid., p. 247.

39. “IVLIO, CHACRA CONAcuy Quilla: En este mes se llama aymoray quilla, que se a de rrecogerse todas las comidas y frutas pasadas y uerduras secas, cacha, yuyo y metellos en los depócitos y despensas de los yndios pobres y de las comunidades y de los caciques principales en todo el rreyno.” Ibid., p. 1159. In an earlier passage, Guaman Poma explains the events of July: “IVLIO, Chacra Conacuy: Quen este mes becitauan las dichas sementeras y chacaras y rrepartían a los pobres de las dichas chacaras que sobrauan; las dichas ualdías y rrealengas lo senbrauan para la comunidad y sapci.” Ibid., p. 251. Further references to the sapci chacara, which George Urioste translates as “sementera de la comunidad” (community fields for planting) can be found in ibid., p. 911. Diego González Holguín glosses sapsichacra as “la de la comunidad.” Holguín, González, Vocabulario de la lengua general de todo el Perú llamada lengua qquichua, o del Inca (Lima: Francisco del Canto, 1608), p. 323 Google Scholar. In a series of pioneering articles, John Murra opened an exploration of the crucial distinction between sapci lands and other types of chacaras in an effort to understand the different regimes of access to agricultural resources that coexisted in the Andes. Murra, , “Derechos a las tierras en el Tawantinsuyu,” Revista de la Universidad Complutense 28:117 (1980), pp. 273–287 Google Scholar; “Una vision indigena del mundo andino,” in de Ayala, Felipe Guaman Poma, Nueva crónica y buen gobierno, Adorno, Rolena, Murra, John V., and Urioste, Jorge, eds. (Madrid: Historia 16, 1987), pp. il–lxiii Google Scholar; “Waman Puma, etnógrafo del mundo andino”.

40. Diego González Holguín defines sapci as “cosa comun de todos” and “Lauor comun de todos[;] obra de comunidad.” González Holguín, Vocabulario, p. 323, 333. González Holguín's vocabulary also includes the following entry: “sapsi ymampas o caquenpas: Los bienes o lo que es de comunidad,” in ibid., p. 323. It is important to note that González Holguín's work is concerned with the Southern Quechua dialect and not necessarily with the Central Quechua dialect spoken in the Jauja valley. Juan de Matienzo writes about sapci, “Lo que cabe a la comunidad es para ellos mesmos, pues de ello se han de sustentar las necesidades comunes, los pobres, y el hospital.” Matienzo, , Gobierno del Perú con todas las cosas pertenecientes a él y a su historia (Paris: Ministére des Affaires Étrangéres, 1967), p. 61 Google Scholar. References to the central contributions of female workers of different age groups to the “comonidad y sapci” can be found in Guaman Poma de Ayala, Nueva corónica, pp. 910, 977. For the contributions of elders, widows, single women, and orphans to their “comunidades y sapci,” see ibid., p. 449. Also relevant is the classic study of John Rowe on the workings and age-grade categories of the Inca census. Rowe, “The Age-Grades of the Inca Census,” in Miscellanea Paul Rivet octogenario didacta, Pablo Martínez del Río and P. Bosch-Gimpera, eds. (Mexico: UNAM, 1958), pp. 499–522.

41. Regarding those who were reserved from full-time work, Guaman Poma writes, “que no eche derrama entre los biejos pasados ni biudas ni solteras en este rreyno. [. . .] Y estos dichos enfermos enpedidos sean rreseruados, conforme la merced y sédula rreal de su Magestad. Sólo que ayude las comunidades y sapci y lo de la yglecia y cofrades [. . .] seruicio de Dios nuestro señor Jesucristo y seruicio de su Magestad y bien de los pobres yndios en este rreyno.” Guaman Poma de Ayala, Nueva corónica, p. 884. In a related passage, Guaman Poma states, “Y ancí con esta dicha comonidad y sapci se a de pagar la taza de los enfermos y no de otra persona,” in ibid., p. 910. See also one of the “laws” presented by Garcilaso as having been compiled by Father Blas Valera from ancient khipu records: “The law and favor of the so-called poor required that the blind, dumb, lame, and paralyzed, the aged and infirm, chronic invalids, and others who were unable to till the soil and feed and clothe themselves by their own labors should be maintained from the public stores.” Garcilaso de la Vega, Royal Commentaries, p. 263.

42. “Expediente sobre el juicio de residencia instaurado por el capitán Pedro de Vega al Maestre de Campo Diego de Escobar Osorio, corregidor y justicia mayor que fue de Jauja,” 1644, BNP, Mss., B1482, fols. 305r–310v.

43. In 1613, the three repartimientos of Jauja were collecting funds from the Caja General de Censos in Lima to pay for “los enfermos y por los muertos que no enteran los tributarios de la Rebisita.” Testimonio de los 500 pesos de a 8 reales que el señor don Lope de Torres y Guzman corregidor de Xauxa pago a don Cristóbal Pomaricra administrador de la comunidad del Repartimiento de Atunxauxa, 1613, AGN, Caja General de Censos, Leg. 4, Doc. 21. In 1666, don Carlos Apoalaya, cacique principal of Ananguanca and a direct descendant of the namesake who declared before Toledo's officials in 1570, gave power of attorney to a Spaniard to collect 4,752 pesos from the Caja General de Censos de Indios of Lima, “por ssi y en nombre de los yndios pobres del dicho repartimiento.” The origin of these funds went back to a sixteenth-century endowment “para el socorro de los yndios pobres tributarios.” Carta de poder del Gouernador Pedro de Garay y otro al Cap. Francisco de Jauregi, February 13, 1666. ARJ, PN, 9, fols. 597r–597v.

44. “sementeras de maýs y trigo, papas, agí, magno [verdura seca], algodón, uiña, obrage, teñiría, coca, frutales. [. . .] Y tengan ganados de Castilla y de la tierra de su comunidad y sapci.” Guaman Poma de Ayala, Nueva corónica, p. 977. “Y para este efecto, todas las uillas, aldeas y ciudades arrienden tierras de los yndios cada año. Para arrendalle, tengan comunidad y sapci como uiña, engenio, obrage, sementeras o ganados o rropa o sensos, trapiches,” in ibid., p. 555.

45. Residencia tomada al doctor Gabriel de Loarte, fols. 239v–240r. For similar collections of derramas to pay for litigation, see Yannakakis, The Art of Being In-Between, pp. 45, 120–121.

46. About derramas and the “institutionalized generosity” expected from caciques in this context, Viceroy Toledo wrote in the early 1580s, “si el [pleito] que traían era del común de los indios, les echaba el cacique derramas en mucha cantidad con color de que era para su bien, que él gastaba y consumía en borracheras, presentes e impertinencias,” Francisco de Toledo, “Memorial que Don Francisco de Toledo dio al Rey Nuestro Señor del estado en que dejó las cosas del Perú después de haber sido virrey y capitán general por trece años, que comenzaron en 1569,” in Los virreyes españoles en América durante el gobierno de la Casa de Austria: Perú, Lewis Hanke and Celso Rodríguez, eds. (Madrid: Atlas, 1978), pp. 128–149, p. 140. Note that Toledo is referring specifically to communal lawsuits.

47. “que caçique es ese don Carlos que no va a pedir justiçia a Lima.” Don Felipe, moreoever, had told his brother Don Carlos, “not to demand tribute in excess from los yndios pobres because if he did, they would file a complaint against us [caciques]” (“que no lleue a los yndios pobres mas tributos de los que son obligados porque sy se los llevan que se quexaran de nosotros”). Residencia tomada al doctor Gabriel de Loarte, fols. 268v, 283v. The supporters of don Felipe Guacrapaucar would attribute his downfall to the fact that Guacrapaucar “favors only the pobres of the community, winning decrees from Lima's High Court of Appeal and preventing Don Carlos [the cacique principal of Luringuanca, his brother] from charging the yndios pobres more tribute than they are obliged to pay” (“solamente faboresce a los pobres de la comunydad y gana prouisiones de la Audiencçia rreal e porquel dicho don Felipe dize al dicho don Carlos que no lleue a los yndios pobres mas tributos de los que son obligados”). Residencia tomada al doctor Gabriel de Loarte, fol. 268r.

48. In 1644, the native authorities of Luringuanca listed, among their “bienes de comunidades,” “algunas chacaras y sabsis que hasen de comunidad para entregar expeçies de tasas” (my emphasis). Expediente sobre el juicio de residencia, fols. 220v–221r. The use of sapci in connection with community assets and deposits is also documented for the province of Cajatambo, in the North Central Andes, in the 1650s. Pierre Duviols, ed., Procesos y visitas de idolatrías. Cajatambo, siglo XVII (Lima: Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú and Instituto Francés de Estudios Andinos, 2003), pp. 485, 491. I thank Susan Ramirez for pointing out these references to the “comunidades y sapçis” in Cajatambo.

49. In 1657, the caciques of Luringuanca lent 10,000 pesos to a Spanish resident of Huamanga. The notary who authorized the transaction pointed out that, although the Spaniard legally owed the money to the Luringuanca repartimiento as a whole, the funds belonged to “the community of each of the towns of the repartimiento” (“Comunidad de cada vno de los Pueblos del dicho repartimiento”). BNP, Archivo Astete Concha, Z1010 [1651], fols. 140r–141v.

50. Autos seguidos por el Licenciado Rodrigo de Acosta por si y los demas sus hermanos, hijos y herederos de Jorge de Acosta difunto contra el Administrador general de esta Caja, sobre que buelua a dichos herederos la Cantidad de 904 pesos 4 reales que cobro indebidamente de los Bienes del dicho su Padre, 1626, AGN, Caja de Censos, Leg. 10, Doc. 4, fol. 14r–14v.

51. Rodríguez, José Antonio Benito, ed., Libro de visitas de Santo Toribio Mogrovejo, 1593–1605 (Lima: Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, 2006), p. 255 Google Scholar. For the restitutions made by several encomenderos to the “comunidad y sapci” of the polities of Jauja, see Espinoza Soriano, “Los huancas,” pp. 393–395; Guaman Poma de Ayala, Nueva corónica, p. 573; and Villena, Guillermo Lohmann, “La restitución por conquistadores y encomenderos: un aspecto de la incidencia lascasiana en el Perú,” in Estudios lascasianos: IV centenario de la muerte de fray Bartolomé de las Casas (1566–1966) (Seville: Escuela de Estudios Hispanoamericanos, 1966), pp. 21–89 Google Scholar. For the estimated value of Luringuanca's communal assets in Huamanga, see Venta que hace la comunidad de indios de Lurin Huancas, de las tierras de Viñaca y Conoc, 1720, BNP, Archivo Astete Concha, Z1010.

52. In 1590, for example, the caciques of Atunjauja declared that they supplemented tribute payments in cash with the sale of maize and wheat obtained from “una chacara que tienen de comunydad.” The chacra was farmed “a costa de todos” (at everyone's expense). Autos promovidos por el Capitán Don García de Paredes y Ulloa, corregidor y justicia mayor de la provincia de Jauja y su jurisdicción, 1591, AGN, Juicios de Residencia, Leg. 8, Cuad. 21, fols. 28r, 32r. For the amount of tribute paid by the Luringuancas annually, see de Espinosa, Antonio Vázquez, Compendio y descripción de las Indias Occidentales (Madrid: Atlas, 1969), p. 457 Google Scholar.

53. “letrados procuradores y lenguas y soliçitadores.” Ynformaçión hecha por mandado, AGI, Lima 28A, 63Q, fols. 2r, 12r–15r.

54. Aranzel de los mantenimientos que se benden en los tambos, 1569, Archivo del Museo Nacional de Arqueología, Antropología e Historia [AMNAAH], Mss., 1; Medelius and De la Puente Luna, “Curacas, bienes y quipus,” p. 48. These expenses do not seem excessive or made-up if one considers that, around the same time, Doña Ana Azarpay Coya, a granddaughter of Atahualpa living in Cuzco, claimed to have spent more than 3,000 pesos in securing a land grant from the viceroy in Lima. Francisco Sierra de Leguízamo, son of a veteran conquistador who settled in Cuzco, sought the king's favor at the royal court on two occasions. The alleged costs were 16,000 pesos. At the close of the seventeenth century, doña Ana María Fernández Coronel, a Lima resident and like doña Ana Azarpay a descendant of the former Inca rulers, authorized her agents to contract debts of up to 2,000 pesos for representing her at the Habsburg court. AGN, PN, 1883 [1696], fols. 27v–28r; Oberem, Udo, Notas y documentos sobre miembros de la familia del Inca Atahualpa en el siglo XVI (Guayaquil: Casa de la Cultura Ecuatoriana, 1976), p. 228 Google Scholar; Stirling, Stuart, The Last Conquistador: Mansio Serra de Leguizamón and the Conquest of the Incas (Stroud, Gloucestershire: Sutton Publishing, 1999), pp. 182–183 Google Scholar.

55. Expediente sobre el juicio de residencia, fol. 241r–241v. During the 1640s and 1650s, the repartimientos of Jauja continued their legal efforts, this time with a transatlantic scope, to secure royal exoneration from mita duties at the mercury mines of Huancavelica. In 1646, they empowered a lawyer and former magistrate of the province to represent them at the royal court. El licenciado Gaspar de Escalona Agüero Procurador general de la Ciudad del Cusco por los Indios de Xauxa, 1647. AGI, Lima, 25. The Huanca made similar efforts in the next decade.

56. At the turn of the eighteenth century, the “prinsipales y comun” of the town of Abancay, in the Cuzco region, complained before a Crown-appointed land inspector that they were too poor to send a delegation to obtain copies of their original land titles in Lima, which meant that important portions of their community lands were usurped in practice. AGI, Títulos de Propiedad, Leg. 24, Cuad. 454 [1711–1714], fol. 309r. A much earlier denunciation of what these legal pilgrimages to Lima meant for litigants of the Southern Andes can be found in Domingo de Santo Tomás to the King, December 10, 1563. Archivo Vargas Ugarte (Lima), Vol. 36, Doc. 7, p. 53.

57. See Alcira Dueñas's contribution to this issue. In the 1570s, the Crown devised a system of legal protection and “free” public assistance to channel the judicial actions of native subjects exclusively. In Mexico and Peru, the system included the creation of special courts and jurisdictions and the appointment of public defenders and attorneys for the Indians. Woodrow W. Borah, “Juzgado General de indios del Perú o juzgado particular de indios de El Cercado de Lima,” Revista Chilena de Historia del Derecho 6 (1970), pp. 129–142; Honores, “La asistencia jurídica privada a los señores indígenas ante la Real Audiencia de Lima, 1552–1570”; Honores, “Una sociedad legalista”; Mumford, “Litigation as Ethnography”; Gómez, Carmen Ruigómez, Una política indigenista de los Habsburgo: el protector de indios del Perú (Madrid: Ediciones de Cultura Hispánica, 1988)Google Scholar. For New Spain, see Borah, Woodrow W., Justice by Insurance: The General Indian Court of Colonial Mexico and the Legal Aides of the Half-Real (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983)Google Scholar; Cunill, Caroline, Los defensores de indios de Yucatán y el acceso de los mayas a la justicia colonial, 1540–1600 (Mérida: UNAM, 2012)Google Scholar; Cutter, Charles R., The Protector de Indios in Colonial New Mexico, 1659–1821 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1986)Google Scholar; and Cutter, , The Legal Culture of Northern New Spain, 1700–1810 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1995)Google Scholar.

58. Juan Vélez, a mestizo interpreter and interim defender of the Indians who, for all intents and purposes, served as an informal attorney for the Huanca peoples before the Audiencia, claimed to have received lands and “yndios muchachos de seruiçio” from the caciques of the Valley, probably in payment for his services. Informaçion fecha de ofiçio conforme a la rreal cedula de su magestad en la rreal audiençia de los rreyes de los seruiçios y meritos de juan belez ynterprete del gouierno, 1615. AGI, Lima, 145.

59. Guaman Poma de Ayala, Nueva corónica, p. 526; Callo, Oswaldo Holguín, Poder, corrupción y tortura en el Perú de Felipe II: el doctor Diego de Salinas (1558–1595), (Lima: Congreso del Perú, 2002), p. 153 Google Scholar. In 1585, the interpreter-general of the Audiencia noted that, because of these fees, native litigants ended up spending “mas que un español” (more than a Spaniard). AGI, Lima, 127 [1585], fols. 16v–17v. For similar fees charged by defenders for the Indians and other officials of the audiencias of Quito and Mexico City, see Bonnett, Diana, Los protectores de naturales en la Audiencia de Quito, siglos XVII y XVIII (Quito: FLACSO; Abya-Yala, 1992)Google Scholar; Borah, Justice by Insurance, pp. 42–58; and Bonnett, Diana, Los protectores de naturales en la Audiencia de Quito, siglos XVII y XVIII (Quito: FLACSO; Abya-Yala, 1992)Google Scholar.

60. A witness of these negotiations between the indigenous leaders and the representatives of the king testified, “por promesas que les hacia de que Su Magd. Les haria merçedes y Les rreserbaria del Seruicio de las minas de sogue y otras cosas a este modo de suerte que aunque no tenian plata En sus caxas de comunidad hicieron la manda del ganado que estaua por naser y del maiz Y otras especies questaua por sembrar Y de sus mismas haciendas de manera que en tres años poco mas o menos pagaron las dichas mandas que hicieron a Su Mags. a mucha costa de sus haciendas y Comunidades.” Informaçion fecha de ofiçio, AGI, Lima, 145, n/fol. Such gifts and donations constituted a widespread native legal strategy. For examples of bribes and gifts to viceroys, audiencia magistrates, and defenders of the Indians by caciques and communities in the Collao and Cuzco regions, see Alaperrine-Bouyer, Monique, La educación de las elites indígenas en el Perú colonial (Lima: Instituto Francés de Estudios Andinos, 2007)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Monsalve, Martín, “Curacas pleitistas y curas abusivos: conflicto, prestigio y poder en los Andes coloniales, siglo XVII,” in Elites indígenas en los Andes: nobles, caciques y cabildantes bajo el yugo colonial, Cahill, David Patrick and Tovías, Blanca, eds. (Quito: Abya-Yala, 2003), pp. 159–174, p. 161Google Scholar.

61. Evidently, holding the cacique status, at least on paper, was not incompatible with occupying some of these posts. One individual could be identified both as “cacique” and “attorney” or “accountant.” A power of attorney granted by the “caciques y principales” of Ananguanca to a Spanish attorney in 1579 lists the titles of don Pedro Poma Lima and don Pedro Chuquillanqui, respectively, as procurador and contador of the repartimiento. Autos seguidos por doña Inés de Ribera, heredera de D. Antonio de Ribera contra D. Hernando Vica Alaya, Gobernador del repartimiento de Ananguanca en la provincia de Jauja, sobre la recuperación de los bienes del extinto, 1579, AGN, Derecho Indígena, Leg. 19, Cuad.93-A. For other examples, see de la Puente Luna, José Carlos, “Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala, administrador de bienes de comunidad,” Revista Andina 47 (2008), pp. 9–51 Google Scholar.

62. In early modern Castile, municipalities managed their public assets, which could include farmland, woods, water sources, and pasture, independently, through periodic town meetings and the decisions of annually elected judges and councils. Municipal property fell under two distinct juridical categories—propios, or property owned by the municipality as a juridical entity, and the commons, public property set aside for the free use of the residents of the place. Nader, Helen, Liberty in Absolutist Spain: The Habsburg Sale of Towns, 1516–1700 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990), pp. 8–18 Google Scholar; Vassberg, David E., Land and Society in Golden Age Castile (Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1984)Google Scholar, chapt. 2. A few years before Viceroy Toledo arrived in Peru, licentiate Francisco Falcón, writing on behalf of “the natives of Peru,” drew a clever comparison between Castilian and native “commons.” Basing his observations on the Iberian precedent, Falcón argued against granting Iberian colonizers access to indigenous public lands, pastures, and water sources. Falcón, “Representación,” pp. 455–459.

63. Mumford, Jeremy, Vertical Empire: The General Resettlement of Indians in the Colonial Andes (Durham: Duke University Press, 2012), pp. 96–98 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; De la Puente Luna, “Felipe Guaman Poma”; Salomon, The Cord Keepers, pp. 140–142; Salomon,”Collca y Sapçi”; Salomon, “Los khipus de Rapaz.” Toledo's laws and ordinances are included in Recopilación de leyes de los reinos de las Indias (Madrid: Julián de Paredes, 1680), Bk. VI, Tit. IV, Laws II, IX, X, XIII; Viejo, María Justina Sarabia, ed., Francisco de Toledo: disposiciones gubernativas para el Virreinato del Perú, 2 vols. (Seville: Escuela de Estudios Hispano-Americanos; Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas; Monte de Piedad y Caja de Ahorros de Sevilla, 1986–1989), vol 1, pp. 1–39, 65–68; vol. 32, pp. 39–46, 59–62, 73–81, 217–266, 409–449Google Scholar. Based as they were on the ideas of jurist Juan de Matienzo and other prominent reformers of the 1560s, Toledo's reforms were not completely original, especially in the case of Jauja. Both the appointment of Spanish corregidores and indigenous officials and the establishment of community strongboxes and storehouses in Jauja date back to the mid 1560s. Matienzo, Gobierno del Perú, pp. 71–75. Instruçion para el capitán Juan de la Reynaga, corregidor del valle de Xauxa,” 1565, Biblioteca Nacional de España, Mss., 1032, esp. instrucciones xxxi, xxxii. For the overarching project of establishing community treasuries in the Andes, see Viceroy Marquis of Cañete to the King, September 15, 1556, AGI, Lima, 28A.

64. In 1575, a Spaniard, Antonio Bello Gayoso, had replaced one Juan de Bardales as steward of communal funds in Jauja. The yearly salary of 1,000 assayed pesos was to be paid from the community funds. A few years later, the communities of Jauja offered to contribute 20.000 pesos to the Crown “para que se les quitasen los Administradores españoles de sus comunidades.” Informaçion fecha de ofiçio, AGI, Lima, 145, n/fol; Sarabia Viejo, Francisco de Toledo, vol. 2: pp. 59–62. With an ethnographic eye, Guaman Poma reveals the connection between this colonial indigenous official and the traditional law of sapci by calling him “collca camayoc, comón y sapci camayoc.” Guaman Poma de Ayala, Nueva corónica, pp. 193, 284.

65. Besides biannual tributary quotas per se, the money stored in the “tribute” lockbox covered ordinary expenditures such as the salary of Spanish magistrates, priests, and caciques. During the term investigation (juicio de residencia) of corregidor don Martín de Mendoza in 1590, each of the repartimientos’ “tribute” lockboxes were opened, their documents inventoried, and their funds thoroughly counted. The safe boxes of the “bienes de comunidad,” overseen by the communal stewards, attorneys, and accountants, were not touched by the royal officials. According to Mendoza, the steward “siempre es un principal que elixe el cabyldo.” Autos promovidos por el Capitán, fols. 13v, 21r. There was a third strongbox, that of the “bienes y rentas del hospital,” which I do not discuss here.

66. By the time of Toledo's 1570 inquiry, the natives of Jauja had managed to form an important archive, which the viceroy partially destroyed. Kept in different community chests (“caxa y archibo”), it included court cases, royal decrees, audiencia rulings, and tribute inspections, and documents to be used for litigating and soliciting. Residencia tomada al doctor Gabriel de Loarte, fol. 139r–139v.

67. The 1566 court case against don Felipe Guacrapaucar lists several authorities who were khipucamayoqs and contadores. Residencia tomada al doctor Gabriel de Loarte, fol. 240r–240v. For Huamanga, see Curatola Petrocchi and De la Puente Luna, “Contar concertando”, p. 206. Guaman Poma's ideal representation of a village councilman (regidor) depicts an individual holding both a khipu and an accounting book. For a detailed discussion of indigenous municipal scribes, see Kathryn Burns, “Making Indigenous Archives: The Quilcaycamayoc of Colonial Cuzco,” Hispanic American Historical Review 91:4 (2011), pp. 665–689.

68. Sarabia Viejo, Francisco de Toledo, vol. 2, pp. 219, 242–250. Accountants and stewards seem to have been audited also during the investiture of a new Spanish magistrate. In 1579, the cacique and the mayordomo de comunidad of Santa Ana de Yaure, in the Cuzco region, gave such an account of their repartimiento's communal holdings before the corregidor. Francisco Chaisa y Alonso Yaure, cacique y mayordomo del pueblo de Santa Ana de Yaure, hacen una declaración de los bienes de su repartimiento ante Francisco Ruiz de Navamuel, corregidor del partido de Canas y Canchis, 1579, AMNAAH, Mss., A353. In his study of the Tupicochan khipus, Salomon discusses similar audit procedures extensively, showing the striking durability of these assemblies or huayronas, as they are called in Huarochirí. Salomon argues that they are indispensable for ayllu equity and that the khipus now held by the Tupicochans evolved as the interface for this process. Khipus are brought to the civic plenum “to prove that each ayllu had performed all its community duties and thereby helped reproduce the totality.” Salomon, The Cord Keepers, pp. 200–203, 269.

69. The caciques of the Acos, in Huanta (Huamanga), declared in 1597, “Each new year we appoint solicitors to use our power of attorney in all our [legal] causes.” The caciques gave power of attorney to two caciques and one Spanish solicitor in Huamanga. Stern, Peru's Indian Peoples, p. 121.

70. In January of 1689, don Luis Chayguac, principal of the town of Mansiche, was “aclamado por el comun de dicho pueblo” for the post of attorney or procurador. Chayguac was elected with the highest number of votes, but the corregidor voided the process and called for another election with the connivance of the cacique principal and the priest. When Chayguac secured a viceregal decree ordering his immediate appointment, the attorney then in office complained to the corregidor. Archivo Regional de La Libertad, Corregimiento, l. 268, c. 3216 [1689]. In the case of don Clemente Anto discussed by Susan Ramirez, twenty-three members of the community of Lambayeque wrote to the defender-general of the Indians (protector general de los naturales) in Lima to have Anto reappointed after his term of service. Members of the cabildo, the cacique, and others opposed his reappointment. Ramirez, Susan E., “Don Clemente Anto, procurador del común del pueblo de Lambayeque,” in El hombre y los Andes. Homenaje a Franklin Pease G.Y., Javier, Flores E. and Rafael, Varón G., eds. (Lima: Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, 2002), pp. 831–840 Google Scholar. For a discussion of the contested nature of local elections of native officials in New Spain, see Owensby, Empire of Law, pp. 213–214. Owensby shows that commoners were sometimes present during deliberations and voting, “acclaiming and applauding a particular slate of officers, or grumbling at a controversial choice.” The creation of the post of town attorney (procurador del cabildo) went back to Viceroy Toledo's reforms of the early 1570s. Sarabia Viejo, Francisco de Toledo, vol. 2: pp. 218–219, 236. For previous discussions of indigenous procuradores, see Lavallé, Bernard, Al filo de la navaja: luchas y derivas caciquiles en Latacunga, 1730–1790 (Quito: Corporación Editora Nacional, 2002)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Mathis, Sophie, “Vicente Mora Chimo, de “indio principal” a “procurador general de los indios del Perú”: cambio de legitimidad del poder autóctono a principios del siglo XVIII,” Bulletin de l’Institut Français d'Études Andines 37:1 (2008), pp. 199–215 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

71. One cannot ignore, however, that casting lots or voting in favor or against initiating or continuing legal action, at least by the caciques and other authorities, was also part of these town meetings. Evidence available for the 1562 journey of Tlaxcalan leaders to the royal court seems to indicate that certain decisions were reached in this way. While in Spain, the delegates of the four Indian cabeceras or headtowns each cast a vote in order to determine whether or not they would authorize their solicitor to purchase a mule to go to the royal palace every day (“entraron en votos sobre la compra;” “pa[ra] yr a negoçiar sus cosas a palacio”). AGI, Justicia, 1016, r. 5 [1563], fol. 644r–644v.

72. Alcira Dueñas's current project on late colonial cabildos as well as her contribution to this issue support this assertion, especially in the case of municipal officials (and not just attorneys) who were literate and familiar with court proceedings. Susan Ramirez notes that don Clemente Anto, attorney or procurator of the town of Lambayeque, was able to fulfill his post in part because he was “conocido por acaudalado, y de un comercio quantioso.” The attorney who replaced Anto renounced one month after the election, alleging that “su cargo le hera de bastante peso, i que asi si los hermanos querían que hel, ynterpusiese defensa a fabor [del] dicho su comun havia de ser costeandolo ellos porque de otro modo no lo podía haser porque tenía hijos y le acia falta qualquiera plata que pudiera gastar en estas defensar por lo que no se podia meter en cosa alguna a Beneficio de dicha comunidad.” Ramirez, “Don Clemente,” pp. 833, 837. In her study of the Sierra Norte of Oaxaca, Yanna Yannakakis finds that local electoral custom varied, especially after cabildo elections became entangled with the developing fiesta-cargo system. In many towns, “electoral custom held that caciques could bypass the lower offices in the cargo system and enter at the level of alcalde.” In some villages, there existed the custom of “discussing new candidates among the entire común before proposing them for election.” Yannakakis, The Art of Being In-Between, pp. 170, 180.

73. In 1660, the native authorities of Luringuanca appeared before the local magistrate seeking authorization to sell some of their communal lands and houses. They justified that the sale was necessary, arguing that, after having “tratado y conferido entre nossotros,” they had “venido de un aquerdo y comformidad en hacer venta dellos.” ARJ, PN, 2 [1660], fols. 3r–8v. Similarly, the caciques of Lucanas and Laramati “se juntaron a cauildo” in 1581 to discuss the sale of cattle that belonged to the community. De la Puente Luna, “Felipe Guaman Poma,” p. 33.

74. Brian Owensby points out that cabildo elections in New Spain were a deeply contested affair, often based on local custom. He suggests, however, that “while technically only caciques and principales actually spoke as voters” on these occasions, “commoners too might have a ‘voice’ in elections, for their willingness to listen to upstarts, acclaim a gobernador who was being challenged, and applaud or grumble as lawsuits were brought could set the political contexts within which elected officials governed.” Owensby, Empire of Law, p. 226.

75. Ayaipoma, Mario Cárdenas, La población aborigen del Valle de Lima en el siglo XVI (Lima: Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos; Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas, 1989), pp. 46–47 Google Scholar; Charney, Paul, Indian Society in the Valley of Lima, Peru, 1532–1824 (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 2001), p. 63 Google Scholar; Lyn B. Lowry, “Forging an Indian Nation: Urban Indians under Spanish Colonial Control (Lima, Peru, 1535–1765)” (PhD diss.: University of California, 1991), pp. 133–134. For the “casas y solar” of the Indians of Chincha, Huarochirí, and Luringuanca in El Cercado, see AMNAAH, A182 [1570?]; AMNAAH, B29 [1612]; ARJ, PN, 7 [1649]. fols. 41v–44r.

76. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the ayllus of Atunjauja owned casas y tiendas that were located “devajo de los portales de los escrivanos.” AGN, Caja de Censos, Leg. 8, Doc. 18 [1585]; AGN, Caja de Censos, Leg. 21, Doc. 20; AGN, PN, 70 [1568], fol. 1016r–1016v.

77. Paul Charney reports on one such case, that of the ten year-old brother of an Indian principal who was learning the profession of public notary in Lima from a Spanish mentor. Charney, Paul, “Negotiating Roots: Indian Migrants in the Lima Valley during the Colonial Period,” Colonial Latin American Historical Review 5:1 (1996), pp. 1–20.Google Scholar

78. Felipe Guaman Poma writes in the Nueva corónica y buen gobierno that the Indians of a town or repartimiento would gather in the town hall in order to discuss whether to demand justice from the indigenous municipal judge (alcalde), the cacique, the provincial defender, or the corregidor, depending on the nature and importance of the matter at hand. Guaman Poma de Ayala, Nueva corónica, p. 669.

79. This composite picture is based on several documents: AGN, Derecho Indígena, Cuad. 128, Leg. 9 [1650], fol. 4r; ARJ, PN, 3 [1640–41], fols. 849r–851v; 902r–v; ARJ, PN, 4 [1657], fols. 435v–436v; ARJ, PN, 7 [1649–1651, 1653, 1655], fols. 41v–44r; 65v–67r, 91v–93v, 243r–46v, 306r–07v; ARJ, PN, 9 [1665, 1667], fol. 586r–88v, 601r–03r; ARJ, PN, 13 [1681], fols. 623r–624r; BNP, Archivo Astete Concha, Z338 [1650–52], fol. 811r-811v; BNP, Archivo Astete Concha. Z1010 [1651].