murra, john 1962- an archaeological "restudy" of an andean ethnohistorical account

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An Archaeological "Restudy" of an Andean Ethnohistorical Account

John V. Murra

American Antiquity, Vol. 28, No. 1. (Jul., 1962), pp. 1-4.

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A M E R I C A N A N T I Q U I T Y

AN ARCHAEOLOGICAL "RESTUDY" OF AN ANDEAN ETHNOHISTORICAL ACC OUN T*

The recent publication in Lima of a detailed, house-to-

house 16th-century census of the H ui nuco region in the

Andean highlands, suggests the possibility of an archaeo-

logical investigation retracing the 1562 survey. Th e ar-

chaeological expressions of th e several ethnic groups

should be identified. Th e degree and nature of the

Inca influences in a peasant area could be revealed.

Eventually it should be possible to clarify archaeologi-cally a variety of moot points in Inca social organization.

w our knowledge of pre-Incaic, An-

dean civilizations, based on archaeological

data, has grown significantly in recent decades,

there has been no comparable advance in our

understanding of Inca social organization. The

reasons for this lag are many, but only one is

relevant here: over the years, archaeologists have

been much more attracted to the study of emer-

gent, "formative" American civilizations. But for

the pioneer archaeological studies of Rowe(1944, 1946) and Menzel (1959), the Inca state

has been left to the popularizers. I would like to

argue here that some aspects of Inca life, left

unclear and confused in the European enthno-

historical sources, could be clarified, amplified,

and verified by archaeological research.

The immediate stimulus for this article is

the current publication of a 16th-century de-

scription of a single highland valley, at Huanuco

(Ortiz [I5621 1920-25, 1955-62). An even

earlier [1549], though much less detailed de-

scription is also available (Helmers 1955-56).In 1562, only 30 years after the European in-

vasion, and ten years before Toledo's mass re-

location of Andean populations, Ifiigo Ortiz de

Zlifiiga set out from Lima with instructions to

conduct a house-to-house census of people and

their resources in a rural area not far from the

European town of L&n de Huanuco. H e was

'Revised version of a paper read at the 60th annualmeeting of the Amer ican Anthropological Association,Philadelphia, November, 1961. The research was sup-ported by a Faculty Fellowship from Vassar College and agrant-in-aid from the Social Science Research Council.

given a questionnaire to fill out and over several

months he moved with his interpreter through

some two score hamlets and villages inquiring

about location and size of settlements and the

composition of each household. He asked and

was told of crops and their varying productivity,

as well as of ecological differences as perceived

by the local population. He was interested inethnic affiliations and what account had been

taken of this fact by the Inca in setting up ad-

ministrative divisions. He was told of the privi-

leges of traditional ethnic leaders and of succes-

sion to office. He encouraged comparisons with

Inca times and produced a first-rate account, the

importance of which we have just begun to un-

ravel (Helmers 1955-56; Varallanos 1959; Mell-

afe 1961; Murra 1961).

To the archaeologist this account offers a

great opportunity. It is not a vague, legendary,

dynastic "history" (Nicholson 1955), but thepainstaking, even bureaucratic listing of the

communities in a particular valley. W e are told

that it was inhabited by two different ethnic

groups, the Yacha and the Chupacho, now no

longer distinguishable, but the names of villages,

markets or ruined warehouses, shrines, salt pans

or pastures have changed but little since 1562

(Varallanos 1959, maps VII, IX, XIV) . Despite

later colonial relocation and recent changes in

land use, most of the settlements Ortiz surveyed

are identifiable today. Archaeological compo-

nents excavated in this area could be ascribedwith some confidence to known historic and

protohistoric occupations.

These settlements are located in a variety of

ecologies. Wit h the help of a n ethnobotanist,

one should be able to verify hypotheses suggest-

ed by coastal archaeology, ethnohistory, and

contemporary ethnology. Are there settlement

pattern differences when the main crop is maize,

as contrasted with Andean crops like potatoes

or kinowa (Willey 1953: 392-3; Murra 1960)?

Will they be different again if the community



2 AMERICAN ANTIQUITY [ VOL .28, No . 1, 1962

migrates seasonally to have continuous access to

a variety of microclimates (Chavez Ballbn, in

Schaedel and others 1959: 47-9)? Could one

define at this late date the "sustaining area" of

a highland community by checking Ifiigo Ortiz

against the archaeological distribution and mod-

ern ethnological practices (Willey 1953: 376)?

And what of the "vertical trade" and markets?

W e know that a periodic fair was held at Chin-

chacocha to facilitate the exchange of zonal

produce, but we have yet to excavate a market

place in the Andes to see what we could learn

about the range of trading operations or about

shifts in their importance through time. In re-

cent years, archaeologists have found that ex-

changes between ecological zones were more fre-

quent before Tiahuanaco times (Stumer 1958:

14-15). In the 16th century, Polo de Onde-

gardo ([I5611 1940: 145) was told that "food

was not bought . ..; some coastal communities

did barter for gold and silver with the food they

took to the highlands but on this almost all the

old men agree that this was before the Inca con-

quered because afterwards there were few oper-

ations of this kind. .. ." It would be exciting to

test the hypothesis that as the redistributive

functions of the Inca state increased in impor-

tance, the local markets atrophied (Murra 1956;

Polanyi, Arensberg, and Pearson 1957).

While all these sites are Late or "Inca" in

time, there is no reason to expect that they will

be easily recognizable as such, though they were

administratively incorporated in the Inca state.

Bennett's conclusions for Huaraz are readily

applicable to the rest of the highlands (1944:

107-9) : "The Inca are known to have inhabited

this region, and some of the construction work. . . appears to be of a generalized Inca type of

architecture, although identification is uncer-

tain. In fact, the absence of a well-defined Inca

period or of any distinctive Late period in the

Callejbn and at Chavin is surprising." (See also

Rowe 1944: 14-15,43-50; McCown 1945: 342-

3; Bennett and Bird 1949: 214.)

This is not the place to inquire into the thin-

ness of the Inca archaeological horizon at th e

peasant level, but for the suggestion that one

way to remedy this defficiency in our knowledge

is to focus on the excavational recognition of the

m i t m a q colonies transplanted from elsewhere

by the Inca state. Some of them will be readily

identifiable as a third ethnic, "Cuzco" element

beyond the aboriginal Yacha and Chupacho, in

such villages as Pillco, Pachacoto, Huanacabra,

Quillcay (Ortiz [I5621 1955: 194-6, 206-8).

While the decimal census system of the Inca

enumerated the m i t m a q jointly with the autoch-

thonous population, even 30 years after the Euro-

pean invasion their ethnic identity was distinct

(Ortiz [I5621 1920: 162): "the said mit imaeshave their own chief, from Cuzco, and never

did the main chief of this division have any

lordship or power over them, on the contrary

the mitimaes had power over these since they

were placed there as overseers of the Inca."

Archaeological identification of such state col-

onies should be useful not onlv for Huanuco,

but also elsewhere in the Andes.

In recent years controversy has arisen among

ethnologists about the proportions of m i t m a q

and other colonists in a given Inca administra-

tive division, and particularly about functions,

which some see as going way beyond strategic

considerations. In Huanuco, some were actual-

ly sent to man the garrisons facing the mon-

tafia, but some came from a much narrower

radius and herded the state's llamas while

others were artisans: the weavers, who we are

told lived at Guapia had been moved there

from Tunsucancha (Ortiz [I5621 1957: 316).

Their craft activities may be difficult to distin-

guish archaeologically, but the potters of Tan-

cor, who originally had come from Caure (Ortiz

[I5621 1957: 69) deserve detailed investigation

(Tschopik 1950).

Recent research has also emphasized the im-

portance of clarifying the local, regional or pea.

sant version of Inca affairs as opposed to that

of the Cuzco elite, reflected in the chronicles

(Menzel 1959; Moore 1958; Murra 1961). One

of the most neglected points of articulation be-

tween the two, is the function of the traditional

ethnic leader, the kuraka, who continued under

Inca rule to be a local man, hence amenable to

the pressures of kinship and local tradition, yet

who had also been made responsible for a var-iety of "federal" activities within the Inca state.

Utilizing Ifiigo Ortiz' account it may be possible

to locate the kuraka's compound within a given

community and by excavating it gain some

depth in our understanding of status differences

and their reflection in local or Inca artifacts,

beyond what is usually learned from distinctive

grave-goods. Thus 60-year old Chuchuyaure,

"chief" of all the Yacha, lived in the hamlet

of Paucar, House 84, with his four wives and

11 minor children. His compound may be dis-

tinguishable from Houses 74 to 83 in the same



MURRA A N D E A N E T H N O H IS T O R IC A L A C C O U N T 3

settlement, all of them inhabited by mono-

gamous folk. On e could go further: Dwelling

81 was that of Condormamba, a "servant" of

Chuchuyaure, who farmed for his lord and

traded on his behalf at the market at Chincha-

cocha (Ortiz [I5621 1956: 299-302, 310-11;

1957: 3 18, 327). Archaeological investigation

of such status differences is likely to be more de-

tailed and revealing than any ethnohistoric

source we may hope to find.

When we come to less tangible matters of

social organization, it may be impossible at this

late date to inquire into land tenures and the

proportions of peasant land alienated by the

state, since the document is not explicit on such

matters. Still, it is not impossible to get insight

into the problem by locating and excavating

storehouses, which we know existed at local,regional, and "federal" Inca levels, and which

inevitably had some relation to land holdings.

Few such excavations have been undertaken,

and even fewer have attempted to distinguish be-

tween the various kinds of warehouses and their

functions. Yet they are nor difficult to locate.

Land and its allocation may also be tested

through survey and excavation of local ethnic

shrines as contrasted with state-built places of

worship. Thus, the village of Vechec had a

shrine with one custodian (Ortiz [I5621 1925:

223), while the apparently Inca-sponsored cere-monial center at Guanacaure, in Huinuco,

"had many male and female servants . . . and

had coca fields and Indians to work them"

(Ortiz [I5621 1920: 31, 41, 160; 1925: 9, 235).

In a rather different context, it may be worth

the effort to excavate settlements located near

chaski way stations and bridges to test the no-

tion that attendants at such facilities were full-

time state retainers as opposed to local peasants

serving their turn. Either can be documented

ethnohistorically and both may be accurate in

particular circumstances, but confirmation ofeven the occasional existence of full-time at-

tendants would be an indication of remarkable

centralization.

Bridges may also lead to the clarification of

other aspects of Inca social and economic struc-

ture. Not far from Cuzco, Rowe (1944: 43)

found "three Inca masonry bridge abutments

less than 50 m. apart. W e could find no traces

of ancient roads on the sides and there is no

obvious explanation for three bridges so near

together." Eyewitnesses of the invasion (Estete

in XCrez ([I5341 1853: 338, 341-2) report that

there were usually two bridges, next to each

other, in the Inca realm: "one is used by the

common people and it has its attendant who de-

mands tolls and the other is crossed by the lords

and their captains: this one is always closed."

Only excavation of the settlements reported

nearby, for the attendants on such public works,

can promise further insight into these matters of

Inca public policy.

Ortiz' account also reports the distance from

Huinuco of various state installations in terms

of days of travel, "de camino." This brings us

to an even more speculative area of research:

weights and measures, distances and amounts,

the whole Andean conception of time and

space, which has only recently begun to receive

the attention it deserves (Rowe 1946: 323-24;

Rostworowski de Diez-Canseco 1960). Theamount normally carried by a llama or dis-

tances along a road are somehow seen as equiv-

alent to the amount of energy expended by two

men and a woman during a day, planting, and

also to the cultivable area needed by a person

for his subsistence over a year (Garcilaso [I6041

Book V, Chapter ii, 1943; 229-30; Gonzalez

Holguin [I6081 1952: 310, 321, 326, 347, 601,

693; Valcarcel, 1925: 179; Morote Best 1951:

121). The apparent Andean equivalent of dis-

tance, weight, energy spent over a traditional

unit of time or subsistence acreage, could beclarified if we retraced in the field the distances

traversed by Ortiz' informants, and then related

distances and time to the dimensions perceived

in this culture today (Rowe 1946: 324).

Further tests will readily occur to anyone

studying the IHigo Ortiz papers: "fortresses" like

Changarima or Cocapaysa, towns like "Huin-

uca Viejo," tampu like Chacaguacha, and other

state structures built in the area by the Inca,

could be included in an archaeological and eth-

nological survey of the area described. But

enough has been said to indicate that given theriches of ethnohistorical description and locali-

zation, at a minimum, a careful survey and re-

study of Huinuco will allow us to set up a

variety of ethnically identifiable benchmarks

which we can then utilize geographically, and

upstreaming stratigraphically, in other areas of

the highlands where we do not have detailed

documentary sources. I suggest two additional

and broader possibilities:

1. The reconstruction of a local, "provincial"

or to be precise, a peasant version of highland

Andean civilization in Inca times.



4 AMERICAN ANTIQUITY VOL. 8, No. 1,1962

2. The archaeological testing of a wide var-

iety of historical and organizational hypotheses

about the Inca state which cannot be eluci-

dated in any other way.

Sources. Following Rowe's suggestion (1960: 424-5),

16th and 17th century sources are cited as follows: the

date in square brackets is the date of original publication

or writing; the second, modern date refers to the edition

used in this paper.

BENNETT,WEN DEL L.

1944 Excavations in the Callejon de Huaylas and atChavin de Huantar. Anthropological Papers ofthe American Museum of Natural History, Vol.39, Part 1. New York.

BENNETT,WENDELL BIRD. AND JUNIUS

1949 Andean Culture History. American Museumof Natural History, Handbook Series, No. 15.

New York.

GARCILASOE LA VEGA

1943 Primera Parte de 10s Comentarios Renles . . .[1604]. Angel Rosenblatt edition, Buenos Aires.

GONZALEZ DIEGOOLGUIN,

1952 Vocnbulario d e la knguu General . . . Qqui-chua [1608]. Instituto de Historia, Universidad

Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, Lima.

HELMERS,MARIE

1955-56 La Visitaci6n de 10s Indios Chupachos: Inkaet Encomendero 115491. Trawaux de l'lnsti tutFranqais d'Etudes Andines, Vol. 5, pp. 3-50.Paris and Lima.

McCow~, HEODORE1945 Pre-Incaic Huamachuco. University of Cali-

fornia Publications in American Archaeology andEthnology, Vol. 39, No. 4. Berkeley.

MELLAFEROJAS,ROLANDO

1961 The Demography of Huinuco Settlements. MS,Santiago de Chile.

MENZEL,DOROTHY

1959 Th e Inca Occupation of the South Coast ofPeru. Southwestern Journal of Anthropology,Vol. 15, No. 2, pp. 125-42. Albuquerque.

MOORE,S. F.

1958 Power and Property in Inca Peru. Columbia

University Press, New York.

MOROTEBEST,EFRA~N

1951 La vivienda campesina en Sallaq. Tradicidn,

No. 7-10, pp. 96-193. Cuzco.

MURRA,OHNV.

1956 Th e Economic Organization of the Inca State.MS, doctoral dissertation, University of Chicago.

1960 Rite and Crop in the Inca State. In Culture inHistory, edited by Stanley Diamond, pp. 393-407. Columbia University Press (for BrandelsUniversity), New York.

1961 Social Structural and Economic Themes in An-dean Ethnohistory. Anthropological Quarterly,Vol. 34, No. 2, pp. 47-59. Washington.

NICHOLSON,. B.

1955 Native Historical Traditions of Nuclear Americaand the Problem of their Archaeological Corre-

lation. American Anthropologist, Vol. 57, No. 3,pp. 594-613. Menasha.

ORTIZDE Z~GIGA,GIGO

1920-25, 1955-62 Visita fecha por mandado de sumagestad . . . [1562]. Revista del Archivo Na-cional del Peru. Lima.

POLANYI,KARL,CONRAD AND W.. ARENSBERG, HARRYPEARSONEDITORS)

1957 Trade and Market in the Early Empires. FreePress, Glencoe.

POLODE ONDEGARDO,UAN

1940 Report to Briviesca de Mufiatones [1561], editedby Carlos Romero. Revista Histbrica, Vol. 13.Lima.

RO~TWOROWSKI MARIAE DIEZ-CANSECO,

1960 Pesos y medidas en el Perti pre-hispdnico. Lima.

ROWE, OHNH.

1944 An Introduction to the Archaeology of Cuzco.Papers of the Peabody Museum of AmericanArchaeology and Ethnology, Vol. 27, No. 2.Harvard University, Cambridge.

1946 Inca Culture at the Time of the Spanish Con-quest. In "Handbook of South American In-dians," edited by J. H. Steward, Vol. 2, pp. 183-330. Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin143. Washington.

1960 Th e Origins of Creator Worship among theIncas. In Culture in History, edited by StanleyDiamond, pp. 408-29. Columbia UniversityPress (for Brandeis University ), New York.

SCHAEDEL, P. AND OTHERSICHARD1959 Los Recursos Humanos del Departmento de

Puno. Plan Regional para el Desarollo del Sur

del Peru, Vol. 5. Lima.

STUMER,OUISM.

1958 Contactos Forineos en la Arquitectura de laCosta Central. Rewista del Museo Nacional,Vol. 27, pp. 11-30. Lima.

TSCHOPIK,ARRY,R.

1950 An Andean Ceramic Tradition in HistoricalPerspective. American Antiquity, Vol. 15, No. 3,pp. 196-218. Menasha.

VALCARCEL,UISE.

1925 Del Aillu a1 Imperio. Lima.

VARALLANOS,OSB

1959 Historia de HLcrinuco. Buenos Aires and Lima.

WILLEY,GORDON.

1953 Prehistoric Settlements in the Viru Valley, Per6.Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 155.Washington.

XEREZ,FRANCISCOE

1853 Verdadera Relaci6n de la Conquista del Per6[1534]. Biblioteca de Autores Espafioles, Vol.26. Madrid.

YALEUNIVERSITY

New Haven, Conn.

January, 1962

murra, john 1962- an archaeological "restudy" of an andean ethnohistorical account

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