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Chanka and Quichua Community Profiles and Mortuary Practices

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The Bioarchaeology of Societal Collapse and Regeneration in Ancient Peru

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Abstract

Mortuary practices transformed in the aftermath of Wari’s fragmentation. Key was the abrupt and ubiquitous use of communal, commingled anthropogenic cave tombs known as machay. Artifacts and human remains from Quichua and Chanka funerary sites in Andahuaylas reveal the changing role funerary rites and dead bodies themselves played in ordering the activities, rights, and responsibilities of living descendants. Demographic profiles of the entombed skeletons inform on the principles that structured internment as well as community organization writ large. The origins of the Chanka and Quichua populations, and their relationship to earlier Wari-affiliated people in Andahuaylas, are interrogated through skeletal indicators of biological affinity. Enduring uncertainties, concerning either mass displacement or more limited migrations associated with unfolding social disasters, are clarified using a fairly reliable bioarchaeological geo-location technique known as strontium isotope analysis.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Chullpas, aboveground open mortuary sepulchers (Isbell 1997), may have been used in Andahuaylas to temporarily store human remains. Throughout the course of our survey work, we encountered several chullpa sites. These sites were located on windy saddles with wide viewsheds. They are associated with agricultural terraces and apachetas (passes with stone cairns) or huacas (shrines). Due to their small size, only ~2–3 adult mummy bundles would have been able to fit in each cylindrical sepulcher. Similar to food-storing collqas, chullpas in Andahuaylas might have been used to desiccate bodies, and may not have been intended for more permanent storage. Given the less architecturally integrated nature of chullpas, relative to machays, as well as practical space limitations, aboveground sepulchers may have been used intermittently, as either a desiccation stage of the mortuary process, or as a temporary, performative “showcase” for certain important mummies. Today, chullpas sites in Andahuaylas remain important loci of yearly, ritual, and festive congregation.

  2. 2.

    Original Colonial Spanish: Los tenian en tres bobedas muy curiosas debajo de la tierra arriba en los pueblo biejos llamados Marca Patacum entrrados en ellas y toda su familia en la bobeda o machay Choqueruntu y su hermano Carua Runtuc estaba en otro con su familia donde abia setenta y cinco cabezas del aillo Conde Ricuy y en el aillo Chaupis Otuco y el de Xulca estaba libiac Raupoma Libiac Uchupoma y su familia que eran quarenta y dos cabezas y en el del aillo Allauca esta Libiac Rum Tupia con su hermano Libiac Guacac Tupia con quarenta y quarto cabezas de su familia… Y asimesmo manifestaro los susodichos a Cuspa malqui con sinquenta y seis cuerpos de su familia y diejieron que abia cuerpos de cristianos rebueltos entre los jentiles.

  3. 3.

    Original: Los que hacian esto no daban otro tribute ni servicio…tenian en todo la tierra Salinas acotadas y guardadas, y en ellas indios que las beneficiaban y ponian la sal en deposito.

  4. 4.

    As Cobó (1964: 133) describes it, “On top of [their heads] they wore lion skins. The entire animal’s body was skinned, and their heads were empty. Patens were placed on these heads; rings in their ears, and in place of their natural teeth, others of the same size and shape were used with alijorcas [sequins] on their paws…. These skins were worn in such a way that the head and neck of the lion came down over the head of the person wearing it and the animal’s skin came down over the person’s back.”

  5. 5.

    Betanzos (2004: 109) writes, “Those who raised livestock were to have an insignia of it hanging on their door, such as a sheep’s…jawbone…If the man were a hunter, a fisherman, or a farmer or had any other trade, he should hang on the door of his house some insignia of it.”

  6. 6.

    Strontium isotope testing on teeth from two dog skulls at Cachi (Canis familiaris) revealed values consistent with western Andahuaylas.

  7. 7.

    Intriguingly, intact, sealed machays could always be located by identifying the bright, yellow buds of the cruzkitchka thorn tree. Excavations revealed that the roots of the cruzkitchka tended to wrap around bones, and emerge from cave apertures. In some cases, large sections of tree root – up to 8 cm thick – had to be carefully sawed away from cave interiors. Back in the lab, the wood was separated into small sections and delicately removed from the bones.

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  1. University of California, Santa Barbara, USA

    Danielle Shawn Kurin

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Kurin, D.S. (2016). Chanka and Quichua Community Profiles and Mortuary Practices. In: The Bioarchaeology of Societal Collapse and Regeneration in Ancient Peru. Bioarchaeology and Social Theory. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28404-0_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28404-0_4

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