Inka Unku: Strategy and Design in Colonial Peru

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In 1961, the distinguished art historian George Kubler wrote on the extinction of pre-Columbian motifs in colonial art.’ Kubler argued that in the encounter of two distinct cultures, the design, production, and use of indigenous objects is profoundly changed: the most visible or overt forms of the material culture of the vanquished power are usually quickly repressed or destroyed. If anything of a culture was to survive through centuries of foreign domination, he continued, it would be the non-elite objects or traditions. In the central Andes, however, a certain type of highstatus textile, the unku (tunic), proved to be one of the particularly tenacious exceptions to Kubler’s model. Unku, the principal male garment in the Inka culture of the Late Horizon (1476-1532) in Peru, was a sleeveless garment that extended to the knees of the wearer and was worn over a wara (loincloth) (figs. 1, 2). These tunics continued to be produced and worn in certain contexts for several centuries after the arrival of Spaniards in Peru, retaining their role as particularly charged display items.2 The evolution of the appearance and function of this garment type is illustrated here by two tunics in the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. By the end of the eighteenth century, unku had become symbols of Inka heritage during the era of rebellion against the Spanish crown.

Inka Unku: Strategy and Design in Colonial Peru
Author: Joanne Pillsbury
Source: Cleveland Studies in the History of Art, Vol. 7 (2002), pp. 68-103

Unku are particularly important in the study of pre- or postconquest Andean society because of their high visibility and symbolic weight. Textiles in general played a high-profile role in the Inka empire, as a key element in ritual and imperial activities.3 Cloth production was part of an economic obligation to the state, a valuable commodity in an empire based on state and kin-based redistribution rather than a market economy. In addition to its more prosaic uses, cloth served as a valued offering for sacrifice. As garments, textiles were symbols of social membership, rank, and prestige. Dress itself was closely bound up with ideas of origin and identity in the pre- Hispanic world, and this close association was further articulated in the tight restrictions placed on costume.

Dress retained its social importance throughout the viceregal period; the fundamental change that occurred was the removal of the strict sumptuary and design laws that had existed under the Inka state. The lifting of these strictures allowed for a period of considerable flexibility in design and social claims.4 Although by the mid colonial period (latter part of the seventeenth century) tunics had largely become part of the regalia of church festivals rather than everyday wear, they remained a symbolically charged garment type. Far from being passive reflectors of cultural «assimilation,» unku were carefully manipulated by Andeans to achieve their own ends. .

Unku in the lnka Empire

High-status unku were made of a fine tapestry fabric known as qompi (usually spelled «cumbi» in the chronicles of the colonial period). The term is a qualitative one, used to distinguish the finer textiles from the coarser cloth known as awasqa.5 The Spanish writers compared qompi to silk.6 In the main, the term most certainly referred to double-faced, interlocked tapestry weave textiles of the kind found in museum collections, including many Inka tunics. Qompi was made with wool from llamas, alpacas, and vicufias (animals in the camelid family), as well as cotton. On occasion the qompi garments would be further enhanced with feathers and gold or shell beads.7 In addition to its use for full-size garments, qompi was used to dress gold, silver, and shell figurines, and for ritual sacrifice.8

Qompi was a carefully controlled commodity in the Inka empire.

From colonial period historical sources we know that the use of qompi was restricted to the nobility,» and limits were placed on the number of camelids an individual could own.» Most unku were probably woven as part of a labor tax obligation to the state.11 This tight control over the materials and the circumstances under which the garments were made is evident in the corpus of extant Inka tunics. As John Rowe demonstrated, tunics in museum collections show a high degree of standardization in size and design. 12 The remarkably small range in the dimensions of the garments (from 71 to 79 cm in width, with slightly more variation in length) and limited range of designs underscores the close engagement the state had in the production and distribution of the garments.

Men particularly skilled in weaving the finest quality cloth were called qompikamayoc. 13 According to historical sources, some women also wove qompi. Cieza de Leon, author of one of the earliest detailed accounts of the Inka, wrote that the garments of the Sapa Inka (paramount ruler) were created by members of the akllakuna (cloistered women).14

Unku were woven on upright looms as rectangles, the warp defining the short dimension. 15 The neck opening was woven rather than cut into the textile. When removed from the loom, the rectangle was folded over at the shoulder line and the sides sewn, leaving space for the arms. Thus, as worn, the warps were horizontal or «sideways.» The majority of the high-status Inka and colonial unku were created by interlocked tapestry, in which the brightly colored weft completely covered the undyed warp, creating designs of rich, saturated color. Some of the finest interlocked tapestry unku of the Inka period have thread counts as high as fifteen warps and one hundred wefts per centimeter. 16 As such, they are of a significantly higher thread count than European tapestry.17 Martin de Muma, writing in the early seventeenth century, notes that qompi was so valued that the Sapa Inka kept it in the royal treasury of his palace along with precious stones and metals. 18.

Outside of the royal family, high-status textiles such as tapestry unku could only be worn by those upon whom the Sapa Inka bestowed the right.19 Festivals such as Capac Raymi (the celebration of the December solstice) were an occasion for the presentation of textiles and other objects such as keros (ritual drinking cups), both as part of the labor tax obligation and as part of a strategic system of gift exchange.» Textiles were given to nobles, allies, or leaders of peoples newly under Inka rule.21 Cloth was bestowed by the Inka as a reward for service in war or administration,» and to ensure loyalty. For example, after the death of the ruler Huayna Capac, his son Huascar attempted to consolidate and affirm his power by bestowing such gifts on local lords.23 The use of textiles to establish and strengthen alliances has an interesting architectural correlate, according to recent research by Teresa Gisbert, Juan Carlos Jemio, and Roberto Montero.24 The decoration of chullpas (funerary structures for high-ranking individuals) in the Rio Lauca area of Bolivia was clearly inspired by Inka unku designs, and Gisbert and colleagues have argued that the act of decorating tombs with such designs proclaimed a link between the Aymara noblemen and Inka royalty.

In a culture without an alphabetic writing system, such garments had a prominent role as bearers of meaning. Accounts and narratives were recorded on a knotted string device known as a quipu. Textiles, especially unku, were allied vehicles for historical discourse. Colonial accounts of the Inka empire speak of ceremonies following the death of a ruler, and the prominent role of unku. Groups would gather in the fields around Cuzco with the clothes and arms of the deceased ruler, and recite the deeds he had done in war and the favors he had performed for the inhabitants of the various provinces.25 Unku, so closely associated with an individual in life, were used upon death as evidence or testimony to his place in history.

Such a close association between identity and dress is also demonstrated by practices in war. Captives taken in battle were stripped of their usual dress and forced to wear a special tunic as a sign of humiliation.» This connection between individual and garment, and indeed the social significance of tunics, is undoubtedly of considerable antiquity in the Andean region, perhaps extending back to the Paracas culture, centuries before the Common Era. Certainly by the time of the Moche culture (AD 100-800) one sees these garments depicted in other media, in a manner suggesting their symbolic importance. In Moche ceramics, modeled figures are portrayed not only wearing similar garments, but also holding examples up, as if to display them (fig. 3).

Unku Design

Inka unku are characterized by their bold geometric compositions. The overall design structure of the tunics is conventional, usually composed of large, plain blocks of color, with certain areas of elaboration, often a repetition of two or perhaps three motifs. The imagery is highly abstracted in the eyes of modern viewers; veristic animal and human imagery was avoided. Visibility may have played a role in the strong, straightforward compositions of the Inka tunics: one can imagine their effectiveness in distinguishing the wearers on a battlefield or at a festival. The color palette emphasized reds, yellows, ochers, browns, and black, with a more restrained use of green, white, blue, and purple.

There is surprisingly little variation in the designs of Inka tapestry tunics, with most falling into four major types or styles: Inka key (see fig. 1), diamond waistband (fig. 4), black-and-white checkerboard (fig. 5), and tokapu waistband (fig. 6) (tokapu are squares or rectangles contain ing geometric motifs).27 Other styles, such as those featuring an eightpointed star, may be associated with the provinces.» There are also a few tunic styles of which there are only one or two known examples.»

A fine example of an Inka key tunic is in the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art (see fig. 1).30 The fabric is a silky tapestry weave, and the side selvages were joined by binding with embroidery. The neck area was carefully finished with additional stitching. The upper two-thirds of the tunic, as it would have been worn, is covered with the Inka key motif woven in two alternating color combinations-red on yellow and yellow on brown-that create a checkerboard pattern. Six plain bands of alternating colors (red and brown) complete the design on the bottom of the tunic. At least nine other Inka key tunics are known from museum collections, making this style among the most numerous of the pre-Hispanic high-status Inka-style tunics.» All the tunics of this type share the same layout: design squares cover the upper two-thirds of the garment and six stripes form the lower section. Variations occur only in the overall number of squares and the colors used.

In Inka tunics, certain areas are reserved for particular elaboration: the waist, neck, and lower border. These areas may have been loci of critical information regarding status or other matters. At least one of these areas had a specific name: in the colonial period, the term atoaki referred to the diagonal rows of small squares in the yoke or neck area of the tunic, but it may have been extended to include the inverted, stepped triangle around the neck of some tunics.32 Lower borders also often received careful attention. For instance, a zigzag of yellow, red, and green frequently was embroidered toward the bottom of checkerboard tunics. In the Cleveland example, this zigzag border is rendered in two shades of yellow, one light and one dark, flanking a central zigzag in red. The importance of this small detail may be understood by its inclusion in representations of tunics, such as the black-and-white checkerboard tunic appearing as a tokapu on an extremely fine tunic in the collection of Dumbarton Oaks (fig. 7 ), or on miniature tunics (fig. 8). Although the importance of these details may be clear, their significance is still not understood.

Contexts, and even designs, for unku are mentioned in the sixteenthand seventeenth-century accounts of the Spanish historians, administrators, and clergy who came to Peru. The design and use of tunics in the Inka empire was affected by numerous factors including geographic location, age, and rank, as well as military, ritual, and calendrical demands.33 Penny Dransart noted that in Inka origin myths, ancestors entered the world fully clothed, and these clothes identified the ethnic origin of the wearer.34 Several chroniclers wrote that in the Inka period costume differed from region to region, and the subjects of the Inka were required to maintain their regional attire wherever they went, so they could be distinguished and identified according to their place in the political organization of the empire. Cobo describes the custom in detail:

The men and women of each nation and province had their insignias and emblems by which they could be identified, and they could not go around without this identification or exchange their insignias for those of another nation, or they would be severely punished. They had this insignia on their clothes with different stripes and colors …. They were so well known by these insignia that on seeing any Indian or when any Indian came before him, the Inca would notice what nation and province the Indian was from; and there is no doubt that this was a clever invention for distinguishing one group from another.35

Several chroniclers mention that special garments were worn for rituals and feasts. Particular attention was paid to the design of unku during the celebrations of Capac Raymi. The sixteenth-century writer Cristobal de Molina describes the attire of young nobles who were to attain the status of manhood during the ceremonies.36 Cieza de Leon also describes these ceremonies, noting that the young man who was to become the Sapa Inka one day wore special garments.37 The mother and sisters of the young man were charged with creating a set of four garments for the investiture ceremony, including a tawny one with a white mantle, an allwhite example, and another in blue.

The goal of finding correspondences between the textual sources on the unku designs and surviving examples of Inka tunics has met with limited success. R. Tom Zuidema, in particular, studied the illustrations in the manuscript of Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala (completed by 1615) (see fig. 2) against tunics in museum collections.38 The Guaman Poma manuscript is an important source, as it is one of the few illustrated sixteenth- or seventeenth-century manuscripts from the Andes. Although his architectural renderings are often cursory, he paid close attention to dress. Using this source, as well as others, Zuidema argued that certain tunic designs may have been associated with specific ritual occasions. For example, he proposed that the kasana motif (a square subdivided into four smaller squares) was associated with rituals of the month of August and September. The four divisions of the kasana, according to Zuidema, may refer to the four divisions or suyu of the Inka empire. Zuidema’s observations are thought-provoking, but they remain a subject of debate.

Of the Inka tunics that survive, the most common is the black-andwhite checkerboard type. John Rowe and Ann Rowe identified ten of these garments, and several others have come to light since the publication of their articles.39 A black-and-white checkerboard pattern covers the body of the Dallas Museum of Art tunic (fig. 5); at the neck, a crimson inverted stepped triangle starts at the shoulders and extends to just above the middle of the tunic; on the lower border, a zigzag of yellow and other colors is embroidered.

The black-and-white checkerboard tunics may have some military association. Several early colonial writers describe a checkerboard pattern worn by soldiers. Francisco de Xerez, one of the first Spaniards to enter Peru in 1532 with Francisco Pizarro’s army, notes that the first squadron of Atahualpa’s army at Cajamarca wore livery like a chessboard.’? In the Guaman Poma manuscript, checkerboard tunics are seen on military officers.41 Bold, brightly colored tunics were undoubtedly part of the remuneration given by the Inka to the troops, but they may also have played a part in distinguishing regiments and squadrons on the battlefield. Cobo describes a battle scene:

… when they went to war, it was something to see the large army composed of such a variety of people as there were marching, distributed in various regiments and squadrons; and with these insignias the variety was evident at a distance, and each group was easily identified by its general and the rest of the field officers, and in battle it was impossible for the nation that showed the most valor to be overlooked.42

The black-and-white checkerboard and the Inka key tunics appear to be related. 43 One of each of these two types were found together in the same burial in Nasca, one of the few instances where we have reliable information on the archaeological context of Inka tunics. 44 Both the Inka key motif and small representations of a black-and-white checkerboard tunic appear as tokapu on the Dumbarton Oaks tunic (fig. 7). The Inka key and black-and-white checkerboard tunics have a very narrow size range, particularly in comparison with the rest of the corpus of Inka tunics, thus demonstrating the sort of standardization to be expected in the creation of a relatively large number of «military issue» garments. This is not to say these garments were remotely standard attire for the majority of soldiers, however. The high quality of the weaving suggests that they were given to individuals at the higher end of a military hierarchy, or to those who had particularly distinguished themselves in battle.

The Inka key textiles represent the next largest corpus of pre- Hispanic Inka tunics. John Rowe and Ann Rowe identified seven full-size examples of this type and two miniatures; several others have come to light.45 An eighth full-size example is in the Museum voor Volkerkunde, Rotterdam, and a fragment is in the Amano Museum, Lima.» A ninth full-size garment was found recently, in a spectacular discovery atop Cerro Llullaillaco in Argentina. 47 Provincial variation of this style, where the upper portion of the tunic is divided into four quadrants, is in the Textile Museum, Washington.»

The Inka key style tunics may have also had a military association, and indeed Tom Cummins has suggested that the motif itself represents crossed bones.49 If these two tunic styles are indeed associated with the military, it must be emphasized again that these garments would have been military attire in the way a five-star general’s dress uniform is: they were for a select few, and worn on important occasions. It is also of interest that this type of tunic could have been worn by royalty. In a version of the Martin de Murua manuscript now in a private collection in Ireland, an Inka ruler wears a variation on the standard Inka key tunic. 50 If this portrait is an accurate representation of what a ruler might wear, and not merely based on tunics that might have still been around in the early seventeenth century, it may be that the tunic refers to the king’s prowess on the battlefield.

The recent find of an Inka key tunic on Cerro Llullaillaco, however, suggests that the meanings and associations of this design may be more complex. This tunic was found draped over the shoulder of a young girl who had been sacrificed. Johan Reinhard, who found the mountain sacrifice, suggested that either it had been her father’s tunic, which he left to accompany her to the realm of the gods, or it was an offering to the gods in itself.51 This find underscores the complexity of understanding the use and significance of specific designs. A single tunic type may have been used in several different contexts, and have had multiple symbolic associations.

Miniature versions of these types of tunics exist in several collections (fig. 8).52 Full-size garments are replicated in careful detail in garments measuring only six to seven centimeters in length. For example, the miniature tunic illustrated in fig. 8-made to dress a metal figurineis a tiny version of an Inka key tunic, complete with the zigzag border at the bottom. The Inka key design is rendered in an abbreviated fashion. Not all the miniature tunics were necessarily fashioned for figurines, however. It is possible that some were offerings in themselves, placed in wakas (sacred monuments or places) and graves.»

Unku with tokapu designs (fig. 6) are less common in the sample of extant Inka tunics. This rarity may relate to their role as very high-status, perhaps royal, indicators. Cieza de Leon recounts one of the origin myths of the Inka, noting that they wore special garments «of the finest wool of many different colors which they call tucapu, which in our language means ‘king’s robes.’ «54 John Rowe identified only three examples of an uncontested pre-Hispanic date.55 In the Guaman Poma manuscript, tokapu are depicted on the garments of the Inka royal family.56 Although Guaman Poma most commonly depicts a tunic with three bands of tokapu (fig. 2 ), he also shows rulers’ tunics with a single tokapu band or entirely covered with tokapu (fig. g). The Dumbarton Oaks tunic is the only extant complete example of this allover tokapu style. As Rebecca Stone-Miller has argued, the extraordinary quality of the weaving combined with the iconography strongly suggests that this garment was made to be worn by royalty.57

There are also a number of tunics considered provincial Inka in style that date to the Late Horizon. Most of them are from the coast of Peru, and show greater variation in technique as well as design. 58 Two tunics with crescent-headed figures in the yoke area, for example, were probably made on the north coast.59 The figure type has more in common with Chimu iconography, although the dimensions of the tunics suggest that they were made after the Inka conquest of this region (Chimu male garments are shorter and wider than Inka ones). One type, featuring an eight-pointed star, does not seem to continue in the colonial period.» Others, however, continue in a modified form. For example, a tunic from the lea Valley has a pair offelines on the upper portion (fig. 10).61 Pairs of cats, although smaller and in different styles, become a favored motif in the viceregal period.

Unku in the Colonial Period

Unku continued to be made and worn in the colonial period. One of the earliest textual accounts of the use of unku after the fall of the lnka empire concerns the lnka rulers who fled Cuzco in the early years following the Spanish takeover of their capital. Titu Cusi Y upanqui and his brother, Thupa Amaru, two of the last Sapa lnkas to rule from Vilcabamba (their mountain refuge), are both described wearing unku in 1569.62 If the descriptions are accurate, there has already been a change in the traditional designs, at least in the choice of material. For instead of the usual tapestry, Titu Cusi Yupanqui was wearing a tunic of blue damask, and Thupa Amaru one of crimson velvet.

For the colonial period we enjoy a richer set of illustrations depicting garments. The Inka avoided veristic representations of most things, including dress. The earliest depictions of tunics ( outside of small, schematic representations on lnka ceramics) are in the manuscripts of Guaman Poma and of Martin de Murua (completed between 16n and 1616).63 These manuscripts include both detailed descriptions and drawings. The Guaman Poma drawings are in black-and-white (figs. 2, 9, u), but they often include indications of colors, whereas the Murua illustrations are watercolors (fig. 12 ). Guaman Poma seems to have been quite sensitive to the differences in pre-Hispanic and colonial dress, and his drawings are probably relatively reliable. lnka-style tunics also are seen on occasion in portraits of the lnka nobility in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,64 and they are prominent in a well-known series of paintings depicting the festival of Corpus Christi in Cuzco.65

While, in general, descendants of lnka nobility assumed Hispanic dress in order to ease their incorporation into the dominant group,66 at least on certain occasions lnka-style unku were worn both by descendants of lnka nobility and by those claiming to be descendants of lnka nobility. In some colonial portraits, such as the eighteenth-century portrait of Don Alonso Chiguan Topa now in the Museo lnka of the Universidad Nacional San Antonio Abad del Cusco (no. 042-C), lnka nobles are attired in lnka-style costume.67 Although his attire is clearly reminiscent of pre-Hispanic dress (he wears a tunic), there are a number of significant differences, including trousers and gold ornaments at the knee.

The traditional manner of wearing unku with only a wara underneath did not suit the Spanish idea of proper dress, and in the colonial period breeches were included under the tunics (fig. u). In the portraits, the illustrations of Guaman Poma, and to a certain extent the examples of colonial tunics themselves, it is clear that the dimensions of tunics changed in the colonial period: tunics were generally shorter and slightly wider than the standard pre-Hispanic proportions.» This alteration would allow for wearing trousers under the unku-a shorter length would facilitate movement, and appease the Spaniards and their ideas of decency. In other examples, the problem of tunic-over-trousers is resolved by creating slits up the tunic’s side for ease of movement. This is true of a particularly fine tunic in the collection of the Museo de America in Madrid (fig. 13). The presence of such slits, as well as the distinctive color combination (see below), allow us to state with considerable confidence this tunic was made in the colonial period.»

Unku continued to be woven in the colonial period, despite the decline of such traditional groups of weavers as the akllakuna. Qompi retained its value as a high-status material, and at least through the end of the sixteenth century, tunics and other textiles continued to be used in much the same fashion as before the arrival of Europeans. In some cases, Spaniards slotted into pre-Hispanic traditions, and textiles were bestowed as gifts: the encomendero (a Spanish holder of territory or encomienda, to whom its inhabitants owe tribute) Diego Maldonado gave fine lnka and Spanish cloths to the kurakakuna (Andean nobles) of his encomienda.»

Pre-Hispanic tunics were often well cared for by families, and undoubtedly were taken out and worn on certain occasions. New tunics were also commissioned. Acosta notes that as late as the last quarter of the sixteenth century, mummies were given new garments.71 In the seventeenth century, tunics were considered more as festive attire, and were no longer the everyday dress of the urban elite. Still, the value accorded traditional textile types clearly endured. Even in the eighteenth century, textiles «of ancient design» were recorded on clandestine mummies that were being cared for by members of their lineage. 72

The use of tunics took on a new life in the colonial period as well, as part of the regalia of schools and church rituals, especially in Cuzco. For instance, schoolboys in Cuzco wore camisetas (tunics), «conservando el traje de los naturales [maintaining the indigenous costume],» and, on occasion, traditional Andean dress would be worn at church festivals.» Both schoolboys and adults wore Inka-style tunics in church processions in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, judging from both textual accounts and paintings. 74 In the Corpus Christi series of paintings from Cuzco ( dated to the last quarter of the seventeenth century), standard bearers are depicted in Inka-style regalia, including tokapu waistband tunics. In the early eighteenth century, the French traveler Amedee Frezier writes of celebrations of the festival of the Virgin Mary, noting that the Indians paraded in the ancient costumes of the Inka in all Peruvian cities. 75

Unku were also used to dress religious statuary. In the early seventeenth century, wooden images of Christ were dressed as Inka rulers.76 Saints were also adorned in Inka-style clothing: in the early eighteenth century, an image of a patron saint in Cuzco was dressed in an embroidered tunic and mantle.» A small (77 x 27 cm) tunic now in a private collection was probably used for such a purpose.78 The dressing of religious statuary in Inka-style garments continued through the last quarter of the eighteenth century. It was only in the wake of Tupac Amaru II’s rebellion against the Spanish crown, in the last quarter of the eighteenth century, that the use of these garments was seen as a real political threat.79

Although it may seem surprising that the colonial authorities allowed such an important pre-Hispanic tradition to continue (at least until the late eighteenth century), there are several reasons why these garments may have been allowed, and why early objections to the use of unku gave way to apparent indifference by the mid colonial period. The sixteenthcentury viceroy Francisco de Toledo was a vigorous foe of the wearing of unku. He clearly recognized the potential importance of these tunics as cultural symbols and tried to curtail their use.» Overall, however, in the early colonial period, whether or not colonial authorities recognized the importance of textiles to Andeans, they may have considered them far less a challenge to authority than other pre-Hispanic traditions such as the veneration of wakas. These shrines or sacred sites suffered intensive destruction at the hands of the church. Colonial authorities may have seen wearing unku as part of the maintenance of social distinctions and infrastructures, and therefore useful to the colonial order. The Spanish administration, after all, supported the kuraka system, with its heavy emphasis on hereditary descent from Inka royalty. Similarly, in a church context, the use of these textiles may have helped the clergy convey aspects of Christian belief to Andean congregations. For example, dressing a statue of Christ in a high-status or indeed royal-style tunic would have helped convey the idea of «Christ as king» to an indigenous understanding of the Sapa Inka. Until the last quarter of the eighteenth century, the notion of costume as a political threat was not much of an issue. After Viceroy Toledo and before Tupac Amaru II, unku were perhaps seen as a relatively innocuous reference to a distant past.81

Colonial Unku Design

Relatively few technical changes were introduced in weaving unku in the colonial period. Textiles continued to be made until the end of the period, using for the most part the same techniques and materials that were used in pre-Hispanic times. Among the few changes were the introduction of sheep’s wool, silk, and metal-wrapped yarns, all used alongside the traditional camelid fiber.82 Obrajes (workshops) were instituted for the large-scale production of plain weave and twill yardage on Europeanstyle treadle looms, but the traditional methods of the qompikamayoc continued for the creation of fine native-style cloth throughout the colonial period. On the whole, however, colonial garments have lower thread counts.83 This decrease in fineness may have initially been related to an easing of standards formerly imposed in the Inka empire, but later it was more likely desire to achieve a certain visual effect at less effort or cost. The colonial tunics are also generally shorter and a bit wider than their pre-Hispanic counterparts, as mentioned above. Greater changes, however, are evident in the designs of the tunics.

Fig. 14. Inka colonial tunic (side A), Peru, late ifith+rdth century(?), camelid fiber weft, 88.g x 73.7 cm. Private collection.
Fig. 15. Inka colonial tunic (side B), Peru, late 16th-18th century(?), camelid fiber weft, 88.g x 73.7 cm. Private collection.

Details of combatant lions (left) and double-headed eagle.

In his insightful 1979 study of Inka tapestry tunics, John Rowe mentioned the possibility that a number of tunics generally thought of as Inka in style may indeed be of a colonial date.84 As Rowe points out, many objects in an Inka style, but known to have been made after the arrival of Spaniards, show no trace of European influence. How then does one distinguish those made before the conquest from those made in the colonial era? Taking up his challenge, I have sought to separate and identify the corpus of colonial Inka-style tunics. Using tunics of clear colonial manufacture,85 I have elsewhere established a series of design features that may allow us to identify colonial tunics in the absence of new technical features or European iconography.86

 

The prevailing change in the colonial period is the greater variety in the number and type of motifs used, relative to the size of the corpus. The colonial corpus is quite small, with only about a dozen reasonably complete examples: the pre-Hispanic sample is more than twice that size. Restrictions that the Inka once carefully enforced over the design and use of qompi largely disappeared with the dismantling of the Inka state apparatus in the early colonial period. The qompikamayoc could now weave tapestry on commission, and the design could be specified by the customer.87 The Andean nobility wasted no time in ordering more elaborate garments than they had been allowed under the preconquest regulations. Unku were still highly valued and recognized, and they provided an appropriate vehicle for status claims in this period of considerable social mobility. Power and wealth were no longer determined strictly by birth, and Andeans were finding new ways to advance within colonial society.88 Textiles became valuable tools in establishing an advantageous identity.

While the degree of Hispanization of dress varied across social strata and through time, there was a strong incentive to retain the high-status indigenous style of dress, at least on certain occasions.89 In large part, a kuraka’s right to office was based on his Inka ancestry.» The Spanish colonial authorities, while eliminating parts of the highest echelon of pre-Hispanic Inka society, left the lower levels intact. Power and status were negotiated through the kuraka system, much of which was based on genealogical associations with Inka royalty. Members of the kurakakuna were exempt from taxes and personal service, and they held other special privileges. Andeans who broke entirely with their culture were not as successful; those who succeeded in colonial society played on their prestige as part of the Inka royal house.91 There are numerous examples in the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries of individuals claiming descent from Inka emperors in order to improve their situation in colonial society.92 In the early seventeenth century, Guaman Poma complained that even a humble Andean steward could wear the tunic of an Inka lord.93 Although Guaman Poma argued against these false kurakas, he himself was guilty of elevating his own position in society, changing his initial title of cacique (kuraka) to prencipe (prince) in the final emendation of his manuscript.94

Unku were carefully manipulated as part of the social strategies of the period. While retaining the essential design structure of the pre-Hispanic unku, the compositions were aggrandized, and new, European elements were incorporated into the Inka design framework.» Critical to this transformation is the principle that in order for the new claims to be understood, the design must remain «readable» according to the model of preHispanic imperial design. Therefore, the transformation did not involve a dramatic change in the basic elements of the overall design, but the insertion of new imagery into pre-existing structures and the multiplication of critical Inka motifs.

 

The retention of the basic design structure through the colonial period may have been related to more profound reasons as well: the actual structure may have been associated with specific meanings that are not currently known. The tunics and their designs may have other associations, such as references to divine powers and proclaiming one’s right to rule. The garments cover the vulnerable core of the body, and may have been seen to function apotropaically, with the wearer covered in divine attributes.

In addition to the occasional, minor technical introductions and alterations in size mentioned above, there are distinctions in composition and color. In composition, one might characterize the change as one of aggrandizement. Inka symbols of status are doubled up, and European status motifs are inserted into traditional designs. As noted above, in the pre-Hispanic unku the areas of elaboration were carefully controlled: solid color fields were left undecorated and a limited number of motifs repeat in specific areas, such as the neck, waist, and lower border. As the demand for standardization relaxed in the colonial period, these areas were enlarged to emphasize and include more detail, more information (figs. 14, 15). The rows of diagonal stepped bands at the neck increase in number; tokapu, which were comparatively rare in pre-Hispanic unku, became profuse and occur nearly everywhere, including the yoke area and side embroidery.» In pre-Hispanic examples, the yoke contained atmost a pair of opposing figures. In the colonial period, by contrast, the yoke was often filled with scattered motifs. In some colonial examples, opposing figures were rendered as European heraldic animals (figs. 14, 15). Few unelaborated blocks of color are left, with European and Andean imagery scattered across the design fields.

In the colonial unku, the overall visual impression is of a dense packing of imagery. The field is used to its fullest in the repetition of small motifs; few spaces are left unadorned. For example, in the Museo de America tunic (see fig. 13), the essential pre-Hispanic lnka design traditions are evident, such as the checkerboard color patterning, detailed lower border, tokapu waistband, and triangular yoke arrangement. These elements, however, are recombined in a way that would have been unlikely under the strict control of production in the Inka period. The only area left unelaborated on the tunic is the inverted triangle of the neck area, which is inscribed by an eleven-band border of alternating colors. Tokapu is now included in the lower border as well as at the waist, and the main field is filled with finely detailed botanical imagery.97

As would be expected, certain pre-Hispanic unku styles do not continue to any great extent in the colonial period. The lnka key and blackand-white checkerboard unku (see figs. 1, 5), for example, were among the most numerous of the pre-Hispanic sample and apparently had a close association with the lnka military. It is not surprising, therefore, that they were not continued to any large degree in the colonial period.

The dismantling of the Inka army obviated a need or desire to continue such designs. There are two possible exceptions: a tunic in the collection of the Field Museum (fig. 16), and another, current location unknown.98 In either the red yoke or the lower border, the tunics include butterflies, which are more common in colonial than pre-Hispanic tunics. Guaman Poma illustrates them on the yoke area of the tunic of a colonial gentleman (see fig. u), and an American Museum of Natural History colonial tunic (fig. 17) includes butterflies rendered in the style of European tapestry in the yoke area.99 The significance of the butterfly is not clear, but as a natural symbol of resurrection, it may have had resonance in both cultures. Although black-and-white checkerboard tunics are not well represented in the colonial corpus, they do appear on occasion on the painted keros of the colonial period.100 These representations, however, seem to occur most often in the depictions of battle scenes, particularly the conquest. I know of no recognizably colonial tunics with the Inka key or the diamond waistband designs.

Conversely, certain designs, such as those previously associated with royalty, were greatly favored in the colonial period. For example, tokapu waistband tunics form a substantial part of the known corpus of colonial unku. As mentioned above, in the absence of restrictions, the person commissioning the piece was free to use the pre-Hispanic indicators of royalty in their own status claims. And indeed no space is lost on most of these tunics. For example, the tunic illustrated in figures 14 and 15 includes a tokapu awaki, tokapu waistband, and tokapu embroidery along the sides and the lower border. The fields above and below the waistband are covered with flowers (including perhaps the kantuta; a flower associated with the Inka royal house), and representations of an Inka helmet (uma chuku).101

In addition to Inka imagery, certain European motifs were incorporated into unku designs. Heraldic and decorative motifs were woven into the existing Inka format, usually following the traditional areas of elaboration such as the neck area and the lower border. Andeans quickly recognized the significance of European heraldry and embraced certain motifs with equal alacrity. The European elements were selected to correspond with pre-Hispanic imagery or interests. For example, the weavers and the commissioners of unku opted for designs such as heraldic felinesimagery that spoke to Inka as well as European concerns. Guaman Poma used a European eagle and lion to refer to the falcon and puma, animals important in the Huanuco area of his ancestors. 102 On a number of tunics, opposing felines are rendered in the style of European heraldry. The tunic illustrated in figures 14 and 15, for example, includes combatant lions (rampant lions placed face to face) in the style of the Spanish arms of Leon on one side in the neck area, and a double-headed eagle in the style of the arms of the Habsburgs on the other. The tunic joins two types of animals, feline and avian, of importance to both Inka and European audiences. The European and Andean also commingle in another tunic that, at first glance, seems entirely within the design canon of the finest pre-Hispanic unku (fig. 18). Tokapu-like rectangles at the lower border are filled with repetitions of a passant lion ( up-ended into rampant posture) and pairs of figures drawn from both lnka colonial motifs and European vocabularies. 10~ In other cases, the imagery is closer to Andean traditions, and the feline is rendered with the spots of an Andean jaguar (fig. 19). 104 The tunics do not, however, include other common European textile motifs such as urns, baskets, and fruit-items commonly found on wall hangings and other textiles of this era. So it is quite clear that motifs were selected for their meaning, in this case for their association with power and nobility.

 

The use of color also was distinctive in the colonial period. PreHispanic examples emphasized yellow, red, and brown, with a more sparing use of white, black, and green. Blue is uncommon. This color palette changes in the colonial period. Yellow, dark red, and brown were no longer favored, and tunics were woven using a greater amount of blue, pink, red, and purple. White also became increasingly popular as a background color (figs. 17, 20, 21). The increased use of blue is understandable from both an Andean and a European perspective. Although blue was used more extensively on the coast in the pre-Inka periods, it is possible that in certain areas and at certain times blue may have been particularly highly valued and its use indeed restricted.!» Susan Bergh has noted that in Middle Horizon tapestry tunics, predecessors of the Inka unku, blue is often associated with particularly high thread counts, the latter a marker of fineness and value. 106 As noted above, blue tunics and white tunics were associated with royalty in Cieza de Leon’s chronicle.!» Guaman Poma, as well, was quite specific in describing the colors of tunics worn by certain individuals. Red, blue, and white are the colors he most often used to indicate tunics of members of the royal family. In the colonial period, the use of blue is positively profligate. Again, in keeping with this trend toward unrestricted status signifiers in the colonial period, there may have been an increased demand for recognizably royal tunics. Undoubtedly, other factors also contributed. Andeans certainly understood markers of European status and may have favored blue because of its association with royalty in Europe as well as its potential importance in the Andes.

As with many other details of these colonial tunics, color may be seen as an area in which there is a sophisticated negotiation between European and Andean values.

It is difficult to determine with any precision when specific unku were created during the colonial period. Philip Means suggested in 1932 that European heraldic motifs could be used as chronological indicators. 108 Thus, according to Means, a textile with a double-headed eagle could have been manufactured between 1530 and 1700, when the House of Habsburg held the Spanish throne and dominion over Peru. This may be true, but as the Habsburgs reigned for a long period, such a method is of limited utility for finer chronological control. Furthermore, as Adolph Cavallo pointed out, designs such as the double-headed eagle have been used beyond the reign of the Habsburgs.»» Nathalie Zimmern dated colonial textiles in general on a stylistic basis, with the more formally organized textiles being later than the ones with looser compositions.’!» Zimmern argued that one can trace a gradual diminution in the use of Andean motifs in the textiles over time. But this approach also has drawbacks, as objects made at the same time and place can show very different degrees of incorporation of the iconography of the alien culture.111 With the colonial Andean material, it is particularly hazardous to assume a gradual absorption of European imagery, as some eighteenth-century materials appear closer to pre-Hispanic imagery than some sixteenth-century objects. The eighteenth century witnessed a period of heightened interest late 17th-18th century(?), camelid fiber weft, h. 80.6 cm. Ethnologisches Museum, Berlin, VA 8840.

In a few instances it is possible to suggest at least a relative date for a tunic. For example, I have suggested elsewhere that the American Museum of Natural History tunic (see fig. 18) probably dates to shortly after 1589.1 ‘l This supposition is based on the inclusion of an Augustinian motif ( the heart with an arrow) in the lower tokapu border and the role this tunic may have played in a shrine in the area where the garment was collected in the late nineteenth century. The similarity of this tunic to pre-Hispanic examples, however, particularly in color, quality of weaving, proportion, and design, would suggest that it was made not long after this date.

For the most part, unfortunately, it is difficult to date the tunics with certainty. In some cases, it may be possible to suggest a broad time frame for a type of design. For example, a type of tunic discussed below, a white tokapu waistband tunic, is most likely late seventeenth or eighteenth century in date, based on similarities with depictions of unku in contemporary paintings. Much work remains to be done on this subject, however.

Colonial Tokapu Tapestry Tunics

As mentioned above, certain motifs associated with royalty, such as tokapu, proliferate in the colonial era. Tunics with tokapu waistbands become increasingly popular, and two different color schemes predominate. Several with a white ground are known in collections in Europe and the United States (figs. 20, 21), and this style is often depicted in paintings of the period. The similarity of a tunic with distinctive floral motifs depicted in an idealized, mid eighteenth-century portrait of the first Inka, Manco Capac, illustrated by Teresa Gisbert, 114 may help date a half tunic and a related fragment in the Field Museum. 115 The white-ground tunics are particularly prominent in the Corpus Christi paintings, suggesting they may have held a particularly close relationship with this and other church festivals.

A greater number of colonial tokapu tunics emphasize red and blue.

An extremely interesting half tunic in the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art (figs. 22, 23) is part of this group.116 Formerly in the collection of Dr. Jose Lucas Capar6 Muniz, the other half of the Cleveland tunic is most likely that in the Museo Inka of the Universidad San Antonio Abad del Cusco (formerly the Museo Arqueol6gico) (fig. 24). Caparo Muniz was a Cuzco resident, and the majority of the items in his collection were from the Cuzco area. 117 Six other tunics and three fragments may be considered part of this red-blue group. In addition to the tunic mentioned previously (see figs. 14, 15), there is one in the American

Museum of Natural History (fig. 25), another in the Ethnologisches Museum, Berlin (fig. 26), and one in Lima.118 The small tunic probably used to clothe a church sculpture mentioned above is also of this type. Three fragments (figs. 27-zg) and a boy’s tunic (fig. 30 ), also part of this group, are discussed below. As with the white-ground tokapu tunics, two of the red-blue tunics suggest use in church contexts: in addition to the one mentioned above used to dress statuary, the boy’s tunic contains ecclesiastical iconography.

A striking feature of many of these colonial tokapu tunics is that at some point in their histories they were cut: either into two pieces at the shoulder line, or into eccentric shapes. In addition to the Field Museum and Cleveland/Cuzco tunics, the American Museum of Natural History tunic (fig. 25) was also cut. In general textiles were not cut in the preHispanic period, as textiles were woven to size to suit particular needs.

In later periods such practices were not necessarily maintained. Why the tunics were cut is not entirely clear. It is possible that the two sides of these tunics were separated in modem times for display or sale purposes, or indeed earlier if two heirs both wanted their father’s or grandfather’s tunic.119 The tunics may also have been cut in the colonial period for different, and currently unknown, reasons. For example, three unusual fragments cut from a red-blue tokapu waistband tunic (or tunics) are now in the Textile Museum (fig. 27) and the Art Institute of Chicago (figs. 28, 29). The fabric was cut into eccentric, butterfly-shaped pieces, probably in the colonial period. 120

Although no two are alike, the red-blue examples usually have a red yoke area, a blue or purple background broken by repeated motifs, and a tokapu waistband rendered as a separate rectangle, stopping short of the seams. The main field of the Cleveland half tunic is a rich inky blue, with the red yoke area separated from the main field by the four bands of awaki in yellow, red, light blue, and purple. The yoke area of the tunic illustrated in figures 14 and 15 is red, but in place of a blue field, the background of both sides is purple. While Guaman Poma suggests that red and blue were used in pre-Hispanic lnka unku, particularly that of Manco Capac, it seems that these colors became a favored combination in the early colonial period.121

Another interesting feature of these colonial tokapu tunics is the color alternation between front and back on several. In the pre-Hispanic corpus the front and back are usually identical. In the Berlin unku (fig. 26), one side is blue with a red yoke, while on the other side, the main field is a reddish purple, with a blue yoke. A tunic in the Museo Inka in Cuzco (fig. 30) similarly has a red main field on one side (with a blue yoke), and a purple field with a red yoke on the other side. The Cuzco half of the Cleveland/Cuzco tunic appears to be more of a purple than the indigo blue of the Cleveland half. The dual color patterning may reflect beliefs currently unknown, but it is also possible that this color alternation speaks to the increasingly decorative character of the tunics. Regardless of the reason, it is clear that any sense that a ruler would need to identify a social group by the color and pattern of their dress is long gone.

Although some of these tunics do not have any specific European iconography or features such as metal-wrapped yarn that indicate with certainty they were created in the colonial period, when viewed as a group they represent more of a colonial tradition than a pre-Columbian one. Even setting aside the argument that the profusion of imagery and color choices suggest a colonial attribution for this group, I argue that the entire set is colonial. Stylistically, the group is relatively cohesive, and at least some of these tunics display uncontested iconographic or technical evidence of colonial manufacture. The American Museum of Natural History tunic (fig. 25), for example, includes a type of embroidery not found on pre-Hispanic Inka tunics.122 Others contain European iconography that securely places them in the colonial period (figs. 14, 15, 17, 24, 30). While the Berlin tunics (figs. 20, 26) and the butterfly-shaped fragments (figs. 27-29) do not show any overt colonial characteristics, their close affinity with the rest of the group makes a colonial attribution reasonable.

In addition to the traditional use of the tokapu waistband, these tunics include other Inka elite emblems and contain tokapu in the main field and yoke area of the tunics. Depictions of the maskaypacha; the fringed headband worn by Inka rulers, are dispersed across the background, as they are in the Lima tunic. Other motifs on this set of unku include what is probably a representation of the kantuta, a flower associated with the Inka royal house.!» Inka staves (waman chanbi), and Inka shields. The Cleveland and Cuzco half tunics include several types of floral motifs, including what are probably two different types of kantuta below the waistband and on the lower border, and another flower, perhaps that known around Cuzco as Nukch!u (Salvia or Fuchsia) above the waistband. Fortunato Herrera suggested that this second type of flower was associated with divine powers, particularly gods associated with earthquakes. 124 Insect motifs (probably spiders) are both above and below the waistband. Insect motifs appear on pre- Hispanic ceramics, and spiders in particular may have been related to divination.!» Both the Cleveland and the Cuzco half tunics include a motif below the waistband representing an Inka shield (at least a colonial idea of an Inka shield), very close in style to that held by a ruler in the Murua manuscript (see fig. u).

Especially prominent on a number of these tunics are pairs of opposing feline images on the yoke of the garment. As with the other images borrowed from Europe mentioned above, there was a selection favoring what was familiar: animals closely associated with Inka royalty in the pre-Hispanic period, particularly felines, continued to be preferred in the colonial period. Opposing felines are found both on pre-Hispanic tunics and architecture, such as the gateway of the palace at Huanuco Pampa, a provincial Inka site. The feline imagery on the Cleveland-Cuzco tunic, however, is Europeanized. On the Cuzco half tunic, the weaver used shading to convey the volume of the animal. On the Cleveland half, the opposing animals in the neck area are largely lost, leaving only the peculiar feet, tails, and some sort of beak-like protuberance from the head of the animal. The talon-like nature of the feet and the protuberance from the head suggest that the weaver may have been looking at griffins.

On the white half tunic in the Field Museum (see fig. 21), two antithetically posed felines are linked by the arc of a rainbow emanating from their mouths. In the colonial period the rainbow was an imperial symbol of the Inka, used by their descendants and the kurakakuna to refer to their role as mediators between heaven and earth-their right to rule.!» While the motif is relatively common on keros, there are only two known examples in the corpus of tunics, the other being an example from the American Museum of Natural History (see fig. 19). The felines on the Field Museum tunic were woven by someone familiar with European heraldry, judging by the position of the tails. The area under the arc of the rainbow is filled with kantuta and insects.

Tunics following the general patterns of the tokapu waistband unku continued to be made through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in Peru. While there are variations in the waistbands and lower borders, the inverted triangle of the yoke area was always retained. A particularly interesting small tunic is known from the Capar6 Muniz collection (the same collection from whence the Cleveland half tunic came) in the Museo Inka of the Universidad San Antonio Abad del Cusco (fig. 30).127 Known as the Diego Dias tunic because of the name appearing in the tapestry weave, it is similar to the tunics discussed above in its preservation of the essential outline of the Inka design structure of the neck area and lower border. Yet in many respects, the conventions seen in earlier tunics are subverted and reversed in this unku. Compare it with the American Museum of Natural History tunic discussed above (see fig. 18). Instead of an Inka tokapu main field with European motifs in the lower border, the main field of the Diego Dias tunic is filled with European decorative motifs, and the lower border and the yoke area contain Inkastyle tokapu. By the time this tunic was made, perhaps in the late seventeenth or eighteenth century, the Inka and European imagery had been transposed.

As with the pre-Hispanic unku, the Diego Dias tunic is of tapestry weave and the warp was horizontal when worn. Embroidery at the sides and lower border is also in keeping with pre- Hispanic traditions. Yet, on this tunic the traditions merge in a new way: the embroidery linking the sides of the garment forms tokapu motifs, as it does in several other colonial examples (see figs. 14, 15). The yoke area, instead of retaining the solid color field of pre-Hispanic examples, displays a scattering of motifs in the same European-influenced tapestry style seen in the main field below. On one side of the Diego Dias tunic, two heart motifs similar to ex votos flank the neck opening. Tokapu patterning is seen in the step pattern of the yoke area as is a representation of European lace. This side also includes a «Tree of Life» motif, originally a Persian motif common in Mediterranean tapestries.128 The other side contains a loose scatter of floral and avian designs in the main field, with a heart motif just below the yoke.

On both sides heraldic felines flank~ cross-topped orb just above the lower border. On one side there are crowned combatant lions with unusually long tongues. On the other side, similar lions ( uncrowned) are passant gardant. The cross-topped orb, as an emblem of sovereignty, extends back to the time of Constantine and has remained a symbol of the Christian kings of Europe until the present time. The orb is often depicted in the hands of the Christ child in both European and Andean colonial period painting. The reasons for the appearance of the orb on the Diego Dias tunic are unclear, although it suggests that it was used in an ecclesiastical context. The size of this tuni

Unku and Rebellion in the Eighteenth Century

The Inka-style colonial tunics speak to the tenacity and complexity of indigenous textile traditions in the viceregal period. The basic preHispanic lnka male garment continued to be used on key occasions. The fundamental design structure of the indigenous garment was maintained, and new imagery was added in a negotiation of Andean and European values. Unku were worn in the context of church-sponsored festivals and other activities from the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries. But by the unsettled times of the late eighteenth century, Inka-style tunics assumed a new role. As a visual proclamation of Inka descent, they were symbolic of the potential political power of Andeans, separate from Hispanic colonial authority.

Unku played a small but significant part in the uprisings against the Spanish crown in the later part of the eighteenth century. Jose Gabriel Condorcanqui, an Andean lord of the Tungasuca region of Cuzco who took the name Tupac Amaru II (Thupa Amaro), recognized the potent symbol of the unku as a link to a great Andean past, and used it in his call to rebellion against Spain in the last quarter of the eighteenth century.P» His usual attire before the rebellion was that of a Hispanic nobleman, including breeches and waistcoat. After the outbreak of the rebellion, however, he donned an unku. The intention of this act was to rally those born in the Americas to the cause by reminding them of the greatness of the lnka empire. The unku he wore was described as being of wool, with a purple background, embroidered gold borders, and bearing the arms of his ancestors.

Evidence for the use of Inka-style unku beyond the eighteenth century is slim, although in some parts of Peru and Bolivia a type of plain tunic is still worn.131 Tupac Amaru II was executed in 1781, and in the wake of the rebellion, any former privileges accorded the Inka nobility were revoked. 132 Hereditary succession of the kurakakuna was abolished in 1783. Objects and other aspects of culture associated with the Inka tradition were banned. The circulation of Garcilaso de la Vega’s Royal Commentaries was prohibited, as was the teaching of Quechua in the University of San Marcos. The use of Inka genealogical information was restricted. It became illegal to have portraits of Inka rulers, and the use of old clothing or other customs of antiquity in festivals or ceremonies was banned.

Any objects that recalled the customs or social traditions of the Inka were destroyed or mutilated by the colonial authorities. Unku, in particular, were singled out as being contumacious because of their close association with Inka identity. Of course, certain scofflaws disregarded these edicts. As Carolyn Dean notes, a few individuals in Cuzco not only continued to own Inka-style garments, some even made money by renting them out for occasions unknown. 133 Although Tupac Amaru H’s attempt to establish a link between the different strata of colonial society against the Spaniards was ultimately unsuccessful, his use of unku as a supremely visible link to the heroic past is an eloquent statement of the power of these garments in Andean society.

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NOTES

Many individuals lent their time and expertise to the benefit of this paper. In particular, I would like to thank those who so graciously allowed me to study collections under their care, including Susan Bergh (The Cleveland Museum of Art), Paz Cabello Carro (Museo de America), Barbara Conklin and Matthew Pavlick (formerly and currently [respectively] of the American Museum of Natural History), Diana Fane (formerly of the Brooklyn Museum of Art),

Robert Feldman (formerly of the Field Museum), Julie Jones and Heidi King (The Metropolitan Museum of Art), Jeffrey Quilter, Loa Traxler, and Jennifer Younger (Dumbarton Oaks), Ann Pollard Rowe (The Textile Museum), Christa C. Thurman and Richard F. Townsend (The Art Institute of Chicago) and Margaret YoungSanchez (The Denver Art Museum). Susan Bergh, Ann Rowe, and Margaret Young-Sanchez also provided thoughtful comments on earlier drafts of this paper, as did Monica Barnes. Thanks are due also to Catherine Allen, Ran Boytner, Tom Cummins, Terence D’Altroy, Lisa DeLeonardis, Blenda Femenias, Shirley Glaser, Edward Harwood, T. A. Heslop, Pat Hewitt, Catherine Julien, lain Mackay, Jean-Francois Millaire, Magali Morlion, Esther Pasztory, Elena Phipps, John Pillsbury, Margaret Pillsbury, Cesare Poppi, Mary Pye, William Rea, Patricia Sarro, Anne-Louise Schaffer, and Rebecca Stone-Miller. I would also like to thank Steven Hooper, director of the Sainsbury Research Unit for the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas,

for fostering the stimulating research environment in which this project was completed.

1. George Kubler, «On the Colonial Extinction of the Motifs of PreColumbian Art,» in Samuel Lothrop, ed., Essays in Pre-Columbian Art and Archaeology (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1961), 14-34.

2. The origins of this style of garment reach as far back as the later part of the Early Horizon period, or around the beginning of the Common Era. The closest antecedents for lnka tunics are found in the Middle Horizon period (AD 500-1000) of the southern highlands; see Anita G. Cook, «The Emperor’s New Clothes: Symbols of Royalty, Hierarchy and Identity,» Journal ef the Steward Anthropological Society 24, nos. 1-2 (1996) (Gary Urton, ed., Structure, Knowledge and Representation in the Andes: Studies Presented to Reiner Tom Zuidema on the Occasion ef His 70th

.

96

Birthday), 85-120. The tunics associated with the Middle Horizon Wari and Tiwanaku cultures demonstrate similar technical details as well as some design structures and motifs.

3. John V. Murra, «Cloth and Its Function in the lnka State,» American Anthropologist 64 (1962), 710-28.

4. Karen Spalding, «Social Climbers:

Changing Patterns of Mobility Among the Indians of Colonial Peru,» Hispanic American Historical Review 50 (1970), 645-64.

5. The Spanish definitions of qompi only indicate «fine» and «double-faced» cloth; it is possible that fine complementary-warp patterned textiles might have been considered qompi as well.

See Sophie Desrosiers, «An Interpretation of Technical Weaving Data Found in an Early 17th-Century Chronicle,» in Ann Pollard Rowe, ed., The Junius B. Bird Conference on Andean Textiles, 7-8 April 1984 (Washington: Textile Museum, 1986), 219-41. John H. Rowe published a thorough and illuminating study of pre-Hispanic Inka tunics, «Standarization in Inca Tapestry Tunics,» in Ann Pollard Rowe et al., eds., The Junius B. Bird Pre-Columbian Textile Conference, 19-;w May 1973 (Washington: Textile Museum, 1979), 244. Ann Rowe built upon and expanded his study in her extremely valuable articles, «Technical Features of Inca Tapestry Tunics,» Textile Museum Journal 17 (1978), 5-28, and «Provincial Inca Tunics of the South Coast of Peru,» Textile Museum Journal 31 (1992), 5-52. For more information on lnka textiles in general, see Susan Niles, «Artist and Empire in Inca and Colonial Textiles,» in Rebecca Stone-Miller et al., To Weave for the Sun: Andean Textiles in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, exh. cat., Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (1992), 50-65; Ann Pollard Rowe, «Inca Weaving and Costume,» Textile Museum Journal 34-35 (1997), 4-54; Vuka Roussakis and Lucy Salazar, «Tejidos y Tejedores del Tahuantinsuyo,» in Franklin Pease et al., eds., Los Incas:

Arte y Simbolos, Colecci6n Arte y Tesoros del Peru (Lima: Banco de Credito del Peru, 1999), 262-97.

6. Jose de Acosta, Historia natural y moral de las Indias [1590], ed. Edmundo O’Gorman (Mexico: Fonda de Cultura Economica, 1940, 2d ed., 1962), bk. 4, chap. 41, 210.

7. Bernabe Cobo, Historia del Nuevo Mundo [1653], ed. D. Marcos Jimenez de la Espada (Seville: Imprenta de E. Rasco, 1890), bk. 14, chap. u , 205-7;

J. Rowe, «Standardization,» 245.

8. On fine textiles in sacrifices, see Pedro Cieza de Leon, The Incas [1551], trans. Harriet de Onis, ed. Victor Wolfgang von Hagen (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1959), 150; Acosta, Historia natural, bk. 5, chap. 18, 246-48, and chap. 7, 227-28; Garcilaso de la Vega, Comentarios Reales de los Incas [1609], ed. Carlos Aranibar, 2 vols. (Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Economica, 1991, reprint, 1995), bk. 4, chap. 2, vol. 1, 208. On dressed figurines, see Penny Dransart, Elemental Meanings: Symbolic Expression in Inka Miniature Figurines (London: Institute of Latin American Studies, 1995); Johan Reinhard, «Peru’s Ice Maidens, Unwrapping the Secrets,» National Geographic 189, no. 6 (1996), 61-81, and

«At 22,000 Feet Children of Inca Sacrifice Found Frozen in Time,» National Geographic 196, no. 5 (1999), 36-55.

9. Cobo, Historia del Nuevo Mundo, bk. 14, chap. 11,205; Vega, Comentarios, bk. 5, chap. 6, vol. 1, 263.

10. Pedro Pizarro, Relacion del descubrimiento y con.quista de los reinos del Peru y del gobierno y orden que los naturales tenian; y tesoros que en ella se hallaron, y de las demas cosas que en el han subcedido hasta el dia de lafecha [1571], prologue by Ernesto Morales, 2d ed. (Buenos Aires: Editorial Futuro, 1944), 83.

14. Cieza de Leon, The Incas, 95, 104, 176-77; Cobo, Historia del Nuevo Mundo, bk. 14, chap. 11,205.

18. Martin de Murua, Historia general del Peru [1611-16], ed. Manuel Ballesteros (Madrid: Historia 16, 1987), 33 (fol. 204v).

25. Vega, Comentarios, bk. 6, chap. 5, vol. 1, 338. Although Garcilaso de la Vega is not always the most reliable of the chroniclers (he left Peru as a child and only wrote his chronicle in later life in Spain), his details are often extremely valuable. See also Tom Cummins, «Representation in the ifith Century and the Colonial Image of the Inca,» in Elizabeth Hill Boone and Walter D. Mignolo, eds., Writing Without Words: Alternative Literacies in Mesoamerica and the Andes (Durham:

Duke University Press, 1994), 205-8.

26. Juan de Betanzos, Suma y Narracion de los Incas [1551], ed. Maria del Carmen Martin Rubio (Madrid:

Ediciones Atlas, 1987), pt. 1, chap. 19, 94-95; pt. 1, chap. 23, 120.

29. See for example the kasana tunic in the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution (307655), discussed by John Rowe («Standardization,» 261).

30. Inka tunic, Peru, 1400-1532, lnka key style, tapestry weave, camelid fiber weft, cotton warp, camelid fiber embroidery, h. 86.5 cm, w. 76.8 cm. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of William R. Carlisle 1957.136.

Collections: On loan to the museum from John Wise beginning in 1946.

.

97

Literature: The Bulletin of The Cleveland Museum of Art [hereafter CMA Bulletin] 45 (1958), 92; Handbook ef The Cleveland Museum of Art (Cleveland, 1966), 299; Handbook (1969), 299; Handbook (1977), 403.

31. Other examples are in the collections of the Textile Museum, Washington (91.147 and 59.28); the Etnografiska Museet, Goteborg (G.M. 21.6.9); Staatliches Museum fur Volkerkunde, Munich (x.447); the Brooklyn Museum of Art (86.224.133); the Museo Nacional de Antropologia, Arqueologia e Historia, Lima; and the Museum voor Volkenkunde, Rotterdam (33469). Miniature examples are in the American Museum of Natural History, New York (41.2/904); the Field Museum, Chicago (171377); and the Ethnologisches Museum, Berlin (J. Rowe, «Standardization,» 250).

32. Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala,

El Primer Nueva Coronica y Buen Gobierno [1615], trans. Jorge L. Urioste, eds. John V. Murra and Rolena Adorno, 2d ed., 3 vols. (Mexico: Siglo Veintiuno, 1980), 88, 1: 68; Diego Gonzalez Holguin, Vocabulario de la Lengua General de Toda el Peru Llamada Lengua Qquichua O Del Inca [1608] (Lima: Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, 1989), 18 («Ahuaquivncu: la camiseta axedrezada de los hombros al pecho»).

33. On specific attire for rituals, see Acosta, Historia natural, bk. 5, chap. 28, 267₁1; Bernabe Cobo, History cf the Inca Empire, trans. and ed. Roland Hamilton (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1983), bk. 1, chap. 6, 26; and Cristobal de Molina, F ‘dbulas y mitos de los incas [1576], ed. Henrique Urbano and Pierre Duviols, Cronicas de America no. 48 (Madrid: Historia 16, 1989), 70, 99-100. On the association of population groups and design, see Cobo, History of the Inca Empire, bk. 2, chap. 24, 196-97. This chapter also mentions unku worn in battle. On designs of garments worn by soldiers, see Francisco de Xerez, Verdadera relacion de la conquista del Peru [1534], ed. Concepcion Bravo, Cronicas de America no. 14 (Madrid: Historia 16, 1985), 110. See also R. Tom Zuidema, «Guaman Poma and the Art of Empire: Toward an Iconography of Inca Royal Dress,» in Kenneth J. Andrien and Rolena Adorno, eds., Transatlantic Encounters: Europeans andAndeans in the r6th Century (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), 151-202.

34. Penny Dransart, «Pachamama, The lnka Earth Mother of the Long Sweeping Garment,» in Ruth Barnes and Joanne B. Eicher, eds., Dress and Gender: Making and Meaning in Cultural Contexts (New York: Berg, 1992), 145- 63.

35. Cobo, History ef the Inca Empire, bk. 2, chap. 24, 196-97. See also Acosta, Historia natural, bk. 6, chap. 16, 302.

Schloss Schallaburg, Vienna (Vienna:

Niederosterreichische Landesausstellung, 1983), 372, 373 (illus.), no. 12.18.

49. Tom Cummins, personal communication (1991).

50. Illustrated in Roussakis and Salazar, «Tejidos y Tejedores,» 272. In the Guaman Poma manuscript, the Inka ruler Huayna Capac is shown wearing a tunic completely covered with the Inka key motif (Guaman Poma, El Primer Nueva Cor6nica, 112, vol. 1, 92).

54. Cieza de Leon, The Incas, 31. There have been several attempts to understand the use and significance of tokapu designs, although none of the studies has proved entirely conclusive. R. Tom Zuidema has suggested that they are heraldic emblems that correspond to Andean political groups. See «Bureaucracy and Systematic Knowledge in Andean Civilization,» in G. Collier et al., eds., The Inca and Aztec States, r400-r800: Anthropology and History (New York: Academic Press, 1982), 419- 58. Several authors have suggested that tokapu represent a system of writing; see for example Thomas Barthel, «Viracochas Prunkgewand (TocapuStudien 1),» Tribus 20 (1971), 63-124; Victoria de la Jara, Introducci6n al Estudio de la Escritura de los Inkas (Lima, 1975); Federico Kauffman Doig, «Los Retratos de la Capaccuna de Guaman Poma y el Problema de los Tocapo,» in Amerikanistische Studien:

Festschriftfar Hermann Trimborti anlasslich. seines 75. Geburtstages/ Estudios americanistas: Libra jubilar en homenaje a Hermann Trimborn con motivo de su septuagesimoquinto aniversario, ed. Roswith Hartmann and Udo Oberem (San Agustin: Antroposlnstitut, 1978), 1: 298-308; William Burns Glynn, «Introducci6n a la clave de la escritura secreta de los Incas,» Boletin de Lima 12-14 (1981), 1-32, and Legado de los Amautas (Lima: CONCYTEC and Editora Ital Peru, 1990); David

de Rojas y Silva, «Los Tocapu: un programa de interpretaci6n,» Arte y Arqueologia (La Paz) 7 (1981), 09-32. Tom Cummins, however, has pointed out that this confusion arose from the colonial use of the Quechua word quilca (meaning an image or a picture) to refer to books and writing («La representaci6n en el siglo XVI: la imagen colonial del Inca,» in Mito y simbolismo en los Andes: la .figura y la palabra, comp. Henrique Urbano [Cuzco: Centro

de Estudios Regionales Andinos «Bartolome de las Casas,» 1993], 03- 14). For recent discussions, see Carmen Arellano, «Quipu y Tocapu: Sistemas

de Comunicaci6n Inca,» in Franklin Pease et al., Los Incas: Arte y Simbolos, Colecci6n Arte y Tesoros del Peru (Lima: Banco de Credito del Peru,

1999), 215-61; Catherine Julien, «Tokapu Messages,» Proceedings of the Seventh Biennial Symposium of the Textile Society ef America, Santa Fe, 2000 (Earleville: Textile Society of America, 2001); John H. Rowe, «AllT’oqapu Tunic,» in Boone, Andean A rt, 2: 457-64.

57. Rebecca Stone-Miller,» ‘And All Theirs Different from His’: The Dumbarton Oaks lnka Royal Tunic in Context,» in Ramiro Matos Mendieta et al., eds., Variations in the Expression cf Inka Power (Washington: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collections, in press). Alan Sawyer has argued that this tunic is from the colonial period, not because of any Spanish technology or iconography, but because the traditional symbols were employed without regard to their restricted use under Inka rule; see Alan R. Sawyer, «Catalogue List of Exhibition of Peruvian SpanishColonial Textiles,» Textile Museum Workshop Notes, Paper 23 (196!), no. 4. See also Elizabeth P. Benson’s notes on no. 451 in Jay A. Levenson, ed., Circa r492: Art in the Age of Exploration, exh. cat., National Gallery of Art, Washington (1991), 594, and John H. Rowe, «All-T’oqapu Tunic.» Fragments of another allover tokapu tunic are found in the collection of the Textile Museum (91.535). The attribution of this piece to the pre- or postconquest period remains a difficult question. While the exuberant combination of imagery is in some ways in keeping with the overall tendencies of the colonial corpus (see below), no other features such as color changes or proportions suggest that it is colonial.

60. It is important to remember, however, Dorothy Menzel’s observation that some objects made in the colonial period demonstrate no iconographic or technical evidence distinct from preHispanic traditions; Dorothy Menzel, «The Inca Occupation of the South Coast of Peru,» Southwestern Journal ef Anthropology 15, no. 2 (1959), 125-42; reprinted in John H. Rowe and Dorothy Menzel, eds., Peruvian Archaeology:

.

99

Selected Readings (Palo Alto: Peek Publications, 1967 ), 2 31.

61. See also A. Rowe, «Provincial Inca Tunics,» 9-10.

62. R6mulo Cuneo-Vidal, Historia de las guerras de los ultimas Incas peruanos contra el poder espafiol (Barcelona: Casa Editorial Maucci, 1925), 228, 292.

63. Guaman Poma, El Primer Nueva Coronica. See also Elias Prado Tello and Alfredo Prado Prado, eds., Y no hay remedio (Lima: Centro de Investigaci6n y Promoci6n Amaz6nica, 1991); Muma, Historia. A problematic representation of a tunic is seen on a coat of arms

now in the Archive of the Indies in Seville (in the «Escudos y Arboles Geneol6gicos» section, 78). The catalogue date is 1545 ( which would make it earlier than either the Guaman Poma or Murua depictions), and it is meant

to represent a coat of arms granted by Charles V to the descendants of Tupac Yupanqui. This coat of arms has

been published in Laura Escobari de Querejazu, «La Heraldica lncaica y los Caciques Cusicanqui de Pacajes,» Arte y Arqueologia (La Paz) 8-9 (1982-83), 163-66, pl. XXVIII, fig. 1, and Pedro Gonzalez Garcia et al., Discovering the Americas: The Archive of the Indies (New York/Paris: Vendome Press, 1997), 68. Elsewhere I have discussed the possibility that this coat of arms is considerably later than 1545 («InkaColonial Tunics: A Case Study,» in Margaret Young-Sanchez, ed., Andean Textile Traditions, Denver Art Museum [in press]). It is clear, however, that whatever the date of this coat of arms, the distinctive unku designs are seen

as a major identifying aspect of Inka royalty.

64. See for example Thomas B. F. Cummins, «We Are the Other: Peruvian Portraits of Colonial Kurakakuna,» in Andrien and Adorno, Transatlantic Encounters, 203-31, and Isabel Iriarte, «Las tunicas incas en la pintura colonial,» in Urbano, Mito y simbolismo, 53-85.

65. Carolyn Dean, «Painted Images of Cuzco’s Corpus Christi: Social Conflict and Cultural Strategy in Viceregal Peru» (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Los Angeles, 1990), and Inka Bodies and the Body ef Christ: Corpus Christi in Colonial Cuzco, Peru (Durham: Duke University Press, 1999). See also La Processione del Corpus Domini nel Cusco, exh. cat., Roma EUR (Rome: Istituto Italo Latino-Americano, 1996).

66. Francisco Stastny, «lconografia Inca en May6licas Coloniales,» in Vidriados y May6licas del Peru (Lima: Museo de Arte y Historia, Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, 1986), 17. See also Philip A. Means,A Study of Peruvian Textiles (Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, 1932), 111-12; George Kubler, «The Quechua in the Colonial World,» in Handbook ef South American Indians, vol. 2 of The Andean Civilizations, ed. Julian H. Steward, Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 143 (Washington:

Smithsonian Institution, 1947), 361; Rolena Adorno, «On Pictoral Language and the Typology of Culture in a New World Chronicle,» Semiotica 36, nos. 1, 2 (1981), 63.

67. This particular portrait is posthumous (Dean, Inka Bodies, 119), which calls into question the «veracity» of the attire. Whether or not Don Alonso Chiguan Topa himself ever wore such garb, it is likely that the tunic imagery was loosely based on the type worn in church festivals in his lifetime. The portrait has been published in several places, including Dean, Inka Bodies, fig. 29 and cover, and Marthe Valles-Bled et al., eds., L’Art des Incas dans les Collections des Musees de Cusco, exh. cat., Musee de Chartres (1992), 226-27, no. 199. See also Iriarte, «Las tunicas incas.» On the colonial portraits of Inka nobles, see Cummins, «We Are the Other»; John H. Rowe, «Colonial Portraits of Inca Nobles,» in Sol Tax, ed., The Civilizations of. Ancient America: Selected Papers ef the XXIXth International Congress of. Americanists (New York: Cooper Square Publishers, 1967), 258-68; Teresa Gisbert, «Los Incas en la Pintura Virreinal del Siglo xvrn,» America Indigena 39, no. 4 (1979), 748-72.

68. Excluding all miniature or children’s tunics, the pre-Columbian sample ranges 84-100 cm in length (as worn, not the total fabric length), and 72₁9 cm in width. The colonial tunics range 77-98 cm in length and 72-81 cm in width.

69. Elizabeth P. Benson also suggests a colonial date for this piece based on the use of certain motifs; see Levenson, Circa 1492, 595, no. 452. This tunic, collected in the 18th century, has been published frequently. For a discussion of its collection history, see Paz Cabello Carro, Los Incas y el antiguo Peru: 3000 aiios de historia, exh. cat., Centro Cultural de la Villa de Madrid (1991), 482, no. 356.

.

100

70. Steve J. Stern, Peru ‘.s– Indian Peoples and the Challenge of Spanish Conquest:

Huamanga to 1640 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1982), 31.

71. Acosta, Historia natural, bk. 5, chap. 7, 227-28.

72. Frank Salomon, «Ancestor Cults and Resistance to the State in Arequipa, ca. 1748-1754,» in Steve J. Stern, ed., Resistance, Rebellion, and Consciousness in the Andean Peasant World, 18th to zoth. Centuries (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1987), 160.

73. Diego de Esquivel y Navia, Notas cronol6gicas de la gran ciudad del Cuzco [c. 1749], eds. Felix Denegri Luna et al., 2 vols. (Lima: Banco Wiese, 1980), 2: 43. The Spanish word camiseta was generally used to indicate unku, see Mary Money, Los Obrajes, el Traje y el Comercio de Rapa en laAudiencia de Charcas (La Paz: Instituto de Estudios Bolivianos, 1983), 166.

74. Vega, Comentarios, bk. 5, chap. 2, vol. 1, 257; Dean, Inka Bodies; Iriarte, «Las tunicas incas.»

.

75. Amedee Francois Frezier, Relation du voyage de la Mer du Sud aux Cotes du Chily, et du Perou.fait pendant les annees 1712, 1713, et 1714 (Paris: Chez Jean-Geoffroy Nyon, Etienne Ganeau, Jacque Quillau, 1716), 249. See also Karen Spalding, Huarochiri:AnAndean Society Under Inca and Spanish Rule (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1984), 231.

76. Carlos A. Romero, «Festividades del tiempo heroico del Cuzco,» Inca 1, no. 2 (1923), 449. See also Dean, «Painted Images,» 252.

77. Jorge Cornejo Bouroncle, Derroteros de arte cuzqueno. datos para una historia del arte en el Peru (Cuzco: Ediciones Inca, 1960), 258.

78. James W. Reid, «The Age of the Viceroys,» Hali 11, no. 4, issue 46 (1989), 26.

79. Visitador General Don Josef Antonio de Areche to Juan Manuel, Obispo de Cusco (13 April 1781), Archive of the Indies, Seville, fol. 4v, fol. 5r. Minor complaints about the practice existed prior to this time, but they seem to

have had little effect.

So. That he included tunics with a group of lnka items sent to Philip II

of Spain in 1572 is of interest; see Catherine Julien, «History and Art in Translation: The Panos and Other Objects Collected by Francisco de Toledo,» Colonial Latin American Review 8 (1999), 61-89.

81. Dean, Inka Bodies, 177. As Dean points out, by the second half of the

i Sth century, costumes of the Sapa Inka were listed in wills and inventories as just another type of dance livery.

82. Metal-wrapped yarns were not brought over from Spain until the latter part of the ifith century when production was begun in Peru; see M. D. C. Crawford, Peruvian Fabrics, Anthropology Papers 12, pt. 4 (New York: American Museum of Natural History, 1942), 303; Nathalie Zimmern, «The Tapestries of Colonial Peru,» Brooklyn Museum Journal (1943-44), 36. On other technical changes in the colonial period, see A. Rowe, «Technical Features.»

83. A. Rowe, «Technical Features,» 25; Elena Phipps, «Royal lnka Garments in the Post-lnka Period: Native Identity and Dress in the Colonial Andes» (paper presented at the Medieval Academy, Stanford University, 26 March 1998).

go. John H. Rowe, «El Movimiento Nacional Inca del Siglo XVIII,» Revista Universitaria 43, no. 107 (1954), 17-47, and «The Incas under Spanish Colonial Institutions,» Hispanic American Historical Review 37 (1957), 155-99.

91. Spalding, Huarochiri.; James Lockhart, Spanish Peru 1532-1560: A Colonial Society (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1968).

94. Rolena Adorno, «Don Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala,» in Guaman Poma de Ayala: The Colonial A rt of an Andean Author, exh. cat., Americas Society, New York (1992), 32-45.

95. This is not to say that the reverse was not also true, that is, that Andean imagery entered traditional Spanish patterns, for this indeed happened as well. For recent studies of colonial textiles in general, see Pedro Gjurinovic Canevaro, «La Textileria del Peru Virreinal/Textiles in the Peruvian Viceroyalty,» in Tejidos Milenarios, 665-729, and Niles, «Artist and Empire.»

96. See also a tunic in a private collection in Lima illustrated in James W. Reid, Textile Masterpieces cf Ancient Peru (New York: Dover Publications, 1986), fig. 57, pl. 39·

97. The plant imagery has been identified asfloripondio (Brugmasia vulcanicola), a plant associated with lnka royalty, by Paz Cabello Carro, Coleccionismo americano indigena en la Espana del siglo XVIII (Madrid:

Ediciones de Cultura Hispanica, 1989), 153. See also Luis Ramos Gomez and Maria Concepcion Blasco Bosqued, Los tejidos prehispanicos del area central andina en el Museo de America (Madrid:

Ministerio de Cultura, Direccion General del Patrimonio Artistico, Archivos y Museos, 1980), no. 136, pls. XLIII, XLIV; Los Incas y el Antigua Peru, 259, no. 337·

98. The second example was published in a translation of John Rowe’s article, «Standardization» (» Estandardizacion de las Tunicas de Tapiz Inca»), in Tejidos Milenarios, 581, pl. 10. An unusual feature of the Chicago tunic is the olive color of four squares along the upper left of the tunic. The other squares are the usual black or white.

.

101

99. In the Guaman Poma manuscript, butterfly motifs are usually found on women’s dress, although occasionally they are seen on male tunics or chuspa (coca bags) carried by men (see fig. II here); El Primer Nueva Cor6nica, 86, vol. 1, 67; 252 [254], vol. 1,226; 753

[ 767 ], vol. 2, 702.

100. See for example a kero in the collection of the Museo Inka, Universidad Nacional San Antonio Abad del Cusco, illustrated in Jorge A. Flores Ochoa et al., eds., Qeros: Arte Inka en Vasos Ceremoniales (Lima: Banco de Credito del Peru, 1998), xiv.

101. See Fortunato L. Herrera, «Fitolatria lndigena, Plantas y Flores Simbolicas de los lnkas,» Inca 1, no. 2 (1923), 440-46 (kantuta discussed on 443); Eugenio Y acovleff and Fortunato L. Herrera, «El mundo vegetal de los antiguos peruanos,» Revista del Museo Nacional (Lima) 3, no. 3 (1934), 243- 322 [pt. 1], and 4, no. 1 (1935), 31-102 [pt. 2].

102. Guaman Poma, El Primer Nueva Cor6nica, 165 [167], vol. 1,144.

103. This tunic (fig. 18) was collected with several others by Adolph Bandelier in the late 19th century. For a detailed discussion of the set, and this tunic in particular, see Pillsbury, «lnka-Colonial Tunics.»

.

104. This is also true of the Lima tunic discussed above (Reid, Textile Masterpieces, no. 57, pl. 39). Although its date is given as AD 1400-1532 in that publication, the tunic is undoubtedly colonial.

105. The Inka would have had access to indigo and other dyestuffs to produce blue, eliminating the issue of availability as a factor in the decision to avoid blue and use other colors; Ann Pollard Rowe, personal communication (2002).

106. Susan Bergh, Pattern and Paradigm in Middle Horizon Tapestry Tunics (Ann Arbor: UMI, 1999), 1: 123-24.

109. Adolph S. Cavallo, Tapestries ef Europe and Colonial Peru in the Museum ef Fine Arts, Boston (Boston:

Museum of Fine Arts, 1967), 1: 185.

IIO. Zimmern, «Tapestries.»

III. James Deetz, Invitation to Archaeology (Garden City: Natural History Press, 1967), u4-16. See also Lawrence Dawson and James Deetz, Chumash

Indian Art, exh. cat., Art Gallery, Santa Barbara, California (1964).

112. J. Rowe, «EI Movimiento,» Blenda Femenias, «Peruvian Costume and European Perceptions in the i Sth Century,» Dress 10 (1984), 52-63; Francisco Stastny, «Iconografia Inca.»

125. T. Cummins, personal communication (1992).

126. Cummins, «We Are the Other,» 218-22.

William Helburn Press, 1924), 12; John H. Rowe in Gordon R. Willey, Das Alte Amerika (Berlin: Propylaen Verlag, ¹974), 350.

.

PHOTOGRAPHY CREDITS

Figs. 1, 22, 23: copyright The Cleveland Museum of Art; figs. 2, 9, 11: from Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala, El Primer Nueva Cor6nicay Buen Gobierno [1615], trans. Jorge L. Urioste, eds. John V. Murra and Rolena Adorno, 2d ed., 3 vols. (Mexico: Siglo Veintiuno, 1980), 1: 67, 86; 2: 702; fig. 3: Brooklyn Museum of Art; figs. 4, 6, 27: Textile Museum, Washington; fig. 5: Dallas Museum

of Art; fig. 7= Dumbarton Oaks, Washington; fig. 8: Botin, courtesy the Department of Library Services, American Museum of Natural History, New York; fig. 10: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; fig. 12:

J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; fig. 13: Museo de America, Madrid; fig. 16: copyright The Field Museum, #A86173; figs. 17, 25: Dennis Finnin, courtesy Department of Library Services, American Museum of Natural History, New York; fig. 18: K. Perkins, courtesy Department of Library Services, American Museum of Natural History, New York; fig. 19: American Museum

of Natural History, New York; figs. 20, 26: Ethnologisches Museum, Berlin;

fig. 21: copyright The Field Museum, #90410; fig. 24: Museo Inka, Universidad Nacional San Antonio Abad del Cusco, from Marthe Valles-Bled et al., eds., L’Art des Incas dans les collections des musees de Cusco, exh. cat., Musee de Chartres (1992), no. 201; fig. 27= F. Khoury, courtesy the Textile Museum, Washington; figs. 28, 29: The Art Institute of Chicago; fig. 30: Museo Inka, Universidad Nacional San Antonio

Abad del Cusco, from Gordon R. Willey, Das alte Amerika (Berlin: Propylaen Verlag, 1974), fig. 435.