The Development of Inca Power: Space and Time

The Incas achieved unprecedented dominance over the Andean region by adapting different forms of power to local conditions. Imperial power manifested itself to varying degrees and in both absolute and relative measures—that is, Inca strength came not only from the development of new sources of power, but also because in many instances the Incas co-opted, redirected, or diminished the ways that local individuals and groups acquired and held power.

In the south-central highland valleys, labor tribute built economic power for the Inca elite, while settlement pattern shifts toward valley-bottom fields diminished the defensive power of local leaders. The construction of fortifications on the frontiers increased Inca military power while depriving peripheral groups of safe access to key resources and exchange routes. In other parts of the eastern periphery, state farms reconfigured regional economic relations, building imperial power and establishing dependency on state administration among diverse tributary populations working new lands. Even as coastal rulers maintained titular authority over their kingdoms, the Incas resettled their artisans in Cuzco and implemented direct control over caravan routes connecting the coast, highlands, and Amazonian slope.

Inca ideological power grew gradually as the imperial elite recrafted its message to find consonance with local expectations. The Incas invested in promoting themselves as patrons for local supernatural entities, although they also left a large degree of local sacred propitiation in the hands of local populations. The state-initiated spread of the sun cult helped to buttress political power at highland administrative centers, but special efforts were necessary to integrate sun worship and Inca religious patronage into higher-order cosmological beliefs and local ritual practices. In areas where regional pilgrimages celebrated universal creation, the Incas adapted their own ancestral origin myth to fit local practices, and invested in establishing a state presence at pilgrimage destinations.

In the Titicaca Basin, Inca nobles directly occupied creation shrines, articulated new pilgrimage routes, and introduced solar observations to the celebration of universal creation. On the coast, the Inca presence at Pachacamac was far less prominent, consisting of a sun temple and aqllawasi placed near the shrine, which continued to organize coastal cosmology and political confederations. The promotion of Cuzco as a place of sanctification and festive reciprocity enhanced Inca ideological power—sacred objects and sacrificial victims traveled from the provinces to Cuzco, and pilgrimages and ritual routes began and ended in the city.

This emphasis on transformation in Cuzco also became a means of enhancing Inca political and economic power. The Incas supposedly required provincial nobles to maintain palaces in Cuzco, and to send their sons to reside in the ruler's palace to be “educated,” while kurakas made the journey to the capital to have a small piece of the Inca ruler's power conferred on them, along with the trappings of office. Economically, provincial kurakas channeled exotic raw materials to Cuzco, where specialists attached to the ruler or sun cult created wealth goods that could be offered ritually or given by the ruler as gifts. Wealth goods helped to distinguish Inca from non-Inca, and ideally would only flow outward from the center through a ruler's generosity. These goals underlay the conceptualization of the Inca realm as an entity that was unified and bounded—Cuzco centered the universe and dominated the whole of civilized life in the four provincial regions (suyus), beyond which lay wild spaces and savage peoples that Inca order kept at bay. Of course, this project of economic and ideological reorientation was not fully realized at the time of the European invasion, and it may be argued that the military power required to carry out the final decades of territorial annexation in the Amazonian slope was incompatible with other expressions of centralized imperial social power.

A final measure of Inca power is its performance in the last years before the European invasions, and its legacies after the fall of the imperial dynasty. The factionalism inherent to Inca domestic power in the capital region contributed to succession crises, the last of which erupted into a full-scale civil war. That conflict exposed the contradictions between the ideological power of the noble Inca households in the capital region and the growing military power of the frontier forces. With their power derived from the ruler, Inca political hierarchies were not as strong as the authority of local nobles or the shared values of ethnic groups. Rather than holding the empire together through crisis, the decimal hierarchy splintered as local groups supported one Inca or another, or fought for their freedom from imperial rule.

The Inca Empire built new networks and connections that helped to distribute both ideological and military power, but state infrastructure also contributed directly to the success of the European invasion. The extension of a well-maintained road and storage system facilitated the spread of Old World pathogens that devastated Inca populations in advance of the Pizarro expedition, which rode the Inca highway from the coastal periphery to the capital, taking necessary supplies from Inca storehouses along the way. The strong emphasis on the transformative powers of the Inca ruler made it possible for the Spaniards to kidnap Atahuallpa, hold him for ransom, and after murdering him, to attempt to use several of his half-brothers as puppet rulers. Stories of Inca wealth attracted new conquistadors to the Andes who increased Spanish forces and replenished critical military equipment and supplies—the steady influx of new Europeans helped the original invaders to survive Inca-led uprisings and to extend control over the Andes.

Multiple aspects of Inca social power enabled the transition to Spanish colonial rule during the disruptive sixteenth century, particularly in the decades before the crown extended formal administrative control over the indigenous population.

Even today, the Inca legacy resonates in nation-state ideologies and indigenous movements across the Andes.

Bibliography

Alconini, S. 2004. “The Southeastern Inka Frontier against the Chiriguanos: Structure and Dynamics ofthe Inka Imperial Borderlands.” Latin American Antiquity 15, no. 4: 389-418.

Andrushko, V A., M. R. Buzon, A. M. Gibaja, G. F. McEwan, A. Simonetti, and R. A. Creaser. 2011. “Investigating a Child Sacrifice Event from the Inca Heartland.” Journal of Archaeological Science 38, no. 2: 323-333.

Arkush, E. N. 2011. Hillforts ofthe Ancient Andes: Colla Warfare, Society, and Landscape. Gainesville, FL.

Bauer, B. S. 1996. “The Legitimization ofthe Inca State in Myth and Ritual.” American Anthropologist 98, no. 2: 327-337.

Bauer, B. S. 1998. The Sacred Landscape ofthe Inca: The Cuzco Ceque System. Austin, TX.

Bauer, B. S., and R. A. Covey. 2002. “Processes of State Formation in the Inca Heartland (Cuzco, Peru).” American Anthropologist 104, no. 3: 846-864.

Bauer, B. S., and L. C. Kellett. 2010. “Cultural Transformations of the Chanka Homeland (Andahuaylas, Peru) during the Late Intermediate Period (A.D. 1000-1400).” Latin American Antiquity 21, no. 1: 87-111.

Bauer, B. S., and C. Stanish. 2001. Ritual and Pilgrimage in the Ancient Andes. Austin, TX.

Berthelot, J. 1986. “The Extraction of Precious Metals at the Time of the Inca.” In J. V. Murra, N. Wachtel, and J. Revel, eds., Anthropological History of Andean Polities, 69-88. New York.

Besom, T. 2009. Of Summits and Sacrifice: An Ethnohistoric Study of Inka Religious Practice. Austin, TX.

Betanzos, J. de. [1550s] 1996. Narrative ofthe Incas. Translated by R. Hamilton. Austin, TX.

Bray, T. L., L. D. Minc, M. C. Ceruti, J. A. Chavez, R. Perea, and J. Reinhard. 2005. “A Compositional Analysis of the Pottery Vessels Associated with the Inca Ritual of Capacocha” Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 24, no. 1: 82-100.

Brush, S. B. 1982. “The Natural and Human Environment of the Central Andes.” Mountain Research and Development 2, no.

1: 19-38.

Burger, R. L., C. Morris, and R. M. Mendieta, eds. 2007. Variations in the Expression of Inka Provincial Power. Washington, DC.

Burns, K. 2010. Into the Archive: Writing and Power in Colonial Peru. Durham, NC.

Cieza de Leon, P. de. [1553] 1986. Cronica del Peru, primera parte, 2nd ed. Lima.

Cieza de Leon, P. de. [ca. 1550] 1988. El sehorio de los incas. Edited by M. Ballesteros. Madrid. Cobo, B. [1653] 1990. Inca Religion and Customs. Translated by Roland Hamilton. Austin, TX. Covey, R. A. 2000. “Inka Administration ofthe Far South Coast of Peru.” Latin American Antiquity 11, no. 2: 119-138.

Covey, R. A. 2006a. “Chronology, Succession, and Sovereignty: The Politics ofInka Historiography and Its Modern Interpretation.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 48, no. 1: 166-199.

Covey, R. A. 2006b. How the Incas Built Their Heartland: State Formation and the Innovation of Imperial Strategies in the Sacred Valley, Peru. Ann Arbor, MI.

Covey, R. A. 2008. “Multiregional Perspectives on the Archaeology of the Andes during the Late Intermediate Period (ca. AD 1000-1400).” Journal of Archaeological Research 16, no. 3: 287-338.

Covey, R. A. 2011. “Landscapes and Languages of Power in the Inca Imperial Heartland (Cuzco, Peru).” SAA Archaeological Record 11, no. 4: 29-32, 47.

Covey, R. A. 2013. “Inca Gender Relations from Household to Empire.” In C. Brettell and C. Sargent, eds., Gender in Cross-Cultural Perspective, 6th ed., 70-76. Boston.

D'Altroy, T. N. 2014. The Incas, 2nd ed. New York.

DAltroy, T. N., and C. A. Hastorf, eds. 2001. Empire and Domestic Economy. New York.

Diez de San Miguel, G. [1567] 1964. Visita hecha a la provincia de Chucuito por Garci Diez de San Miguel en el ano 1567. Lima.

Garcilaso de la Vega, “El Inca.” [1609] 1966. Royal Commentaries of the Incas and General History of Peru. Translated by H. V Livermore. Austin, TX.

Guaman Poma de Ayala, F. [1615] 1980. Nueva coronica y Buen gobierno, 3 vols. Mexico City.

Hayashida, F. M. 1999. “Style, Technology, and State Production: Inka Pottery Manufacture in the Leche Valley, Peru.” Latin American Antiquity 10, no. 4: 337-352.

Heckenberger, M., and E. G. Neves. 2009. “Amazonian Archaeology.” Annual Review of Anthropology 38: 251-266.

Hyslop, J. 1984. The Inca Road System. New York.

Hyslop, J. 1985. Incawasi, the New Cuzco: Canete, Lunahuana, Peru. Oxford.

Isbell, W H. 2008. “Wari and Tiwanaku: International Identities in the Central Andean Middle Horizon.” In H. Silverman and W H. Isbell, eds., Handbook of South American Archaeology, 731-782. New York.

Julien, C. J. 1988 “How Inca Decimal Administration Worked.” Ethnohistory 35, no. 3: 257-279.

Julien, C. J. 1998. “Coca Production on the Inca Frontier: The Yungas of Chuquioma.” Andean Past 5: 129-160.

Kroeber, A. L., and W D. Strong. 1924. The Uhle Collections from Chincha. Berkeley, CA.

LeVine T. Y., ed. 1992. Inka Storage Systems. Norman, OK.

Malpass, M., ed. 1993. Provincial Inca: Archaeological and Ethnohistorical Assessment of the Impact of the Inca State. Iowa City.

Malpass, M., and S. Alconini, eds. 2010. Distant Provinces in the Inka Empire: Toward a Deeper Understanding of Inka Imperialism. Iowa City.

Menzel, D. 1959. “The Inca Occupation of the South Coast of Peru.” Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 15, no. 2: 125-142.

Millaire, J.- F. 2010. “Primary State Formation in the Viru Valley, North Coast of Peru.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 107, no. 14: 6186-6191.

Moore, J. D., and C. J. Mackey. 2008. “The Chimu Empire.” In H. Silverman and W H. Isbell, eds., Handbook of South American Archaeology, 783-807. New York.

Morales, A. de, ed. [1556] 1976. Repartimiento de tierraspor el Inca Huayna Capac (Testimonio de undocumento de 1556). Cochabamba, Bolivia.

Morris, C., and R. A. Covey. 2003. “La plaza central de Huanuco Pampa: Espacio y transformation.” Boletin de Arqueologia PUCP 7: 133-149.

Morris, C., and R. A. Covey. 2006. “The Management of Scale or the Creation of Scale: Administrative Processes in Two Inka Provinces.” In C. M. Elson and R. A. Covey, eds., Intermediate Elites in Pre-Columbian States and Empires, 136-153. Tucson, AZ.

Morris, C., and D. E. Thompson. 1985. Huanuco Pampa: An Inca City and Its Hinterland. New York.

Murra, J. V. 1960. “Rite and Crop in the Inca State.” In S. Diamond, ed., Culture in History: Essays in Honor of Paul Radin, 393-407. London.

Murra, J. V 1986. “The Expansion of the Inca State: Armies, Wars, and Rebellions.” In J. V Murra, N. Wachtel, and J. Revel, eds., Anthropological History of Andean Polities, 49-58. New York.

Ogburn, D., S. Connell, and C. Gifford. 2009. “Provisioning ofthe Inka Army in Wartime: Obsidian Procurement in Pambamarca, Ecuador.” Journal of Archaeological Science 36, no. 3: 740-751.

Ortiz de Zuniga, I. [1562] 1967. Visita de la Provincia de Leon de Huanuco, vol. I. Edited by J. V Murra. Huanuco.

Ortiz de Zuniga, I. [1562] 1972. Visita de la Provincia de Leon de Huanuco, vol. II. Edited by J. V Murra. Huanuco.

Pagden, A. 1982. The Fall of Natural Man: The American Indian and the Origins of Comparative Ethnology. New York.

Pillsbury, J., ed. 2008. Guide to Documentary Sources for Andean Studies: 1530-1900. Norman, OK.

Quave, K. E. 2012. In Service to the Nobility: Developing Economies and Newly Constituted Communities on the Inka Royal Estate (Maras, Cusco, Peru). PhD diss., Department of Anthropology, Southern Methodist University.

Quilter, J., and L. J. Castillo, eds. 2010. New Perspectives on Moche Political Organization. Washington, DC.

Reinhard, J., and M. C. Ceruti. 2010. Inca Rituals and Sacred Mountains: A Study of the World’s Highest Archaeological Sites. Los Angeles, CA.

Salomon, F. 1986. Native Lords of Quito in the Age of the Incas: The Political Economy of North- Andean Chiefdoms. New York.

Salomon, F., and G. Urioste, eds. 1991. The Huarochiri Manuscript: A Testament of Ancient and Colonial Andean Religion. Austin, TX.

Santo Tomas, D. de. [1560] 1951. Lexicon, o vocabulario de la lengua general del Peru. Lima.

Sarmiento de Gamboa, P. [1572] 2007. The History of the Incas. Translated by B. S. Bauer and V. Smith. Austin, TX.

Silverblatt, I. 1987. Moon, Sun, and Witches: Gender Ideologies and Class in Inca and Colonial Peru. Princeton, NJ.

Stanish, C. 2001. “The Origin of State Societies in South America.” Annual Review of Anthropology 30:41-64.

<< | >>

↑

Source: Bang Peter F., Bayly C.A., Scheidel Walter (eds.). The Oxford World History of Empire. Volume Two: The History of Empires. Oxford University Press,2020. — 1352 p.. 2020

The Development of Inca Power: Space and Time

More on the topic The Development of Inca Power: Space and Time: