Kallanka : Inca authority symbol

Resumen del documento en inglés:

Este artículo examina el diseño arquitectónico esculpido compuesto por una kallanka, una piedra labrada/enfatizada y una plaza en varios asentamientos Inka,y analiza como este diseño materializaba aspectos de la ideología del estado Inka. Una kallanka es una larga y publica estructura rectangular con numerosas puertas abriendo sobre una plaza. La plaza exhibe una piedra especial que podía quedarse tal cual, sin modificación, o al contrario presentarse tallada en un asiento.En la mayoría de los casos,la roca enfatizada era parte del concepto complejo del usnu que muchas veces tenía la forma física de una plataforma arquitectónica. Usnus podían ser asientos de un gobernante o asientos del Sol. La coincidencia filosófica entre la piedra y el usnu evoca varias asociaciones simbólicas. Este diseño existía en Cusco y también en diversas haciendas reales y ciudades elegidas en las fronteras del imperio Inka.Además las rocas enfatizadas eran relacionadas a espacios neutrales y a centros sagrados.Esto demuestra que gobernantes Inka usaron el diseño de manera personal para legitimar su autoridad política.

Did The Inka Copy Cusco? An Answer Derived From an Architectural-Sculptural Model
Autor: Jessica Joyce Christie
East Carolina University

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In this essay, I discuss the possible political meanings of an architectural sculptural pattern found at many Inka settlements. It was developed in Cusco but was used in many parts of the empire to publicize Inka state ideology. This pattern consists of a plaza, a kallanka or kallanka-like buildings, and a carved or uncarved foregrounded rock.A kallanka is a long rectangular hall with numerous doors opening onto a plaza. The plaza exhibits a large rock or boulder which had

Journal ofLatin American and Caribbean Anthropology,Vol.12,No.1,pp.164–199.ISSN 1935-4932,online ISSN 1925-4940. © 2007 by the American Anthropological Association. All rights reserved. Please direct all requests for permissions to photocopy or reproduce article content through the University of California Press’s Rights and Permissions website, http://www.ucpressjournals.com/reprintinfo/asp. DOI: 10.1525/jlaca.2007.12.1.164

particular symbolic significance in state ritual, and could be slightly modified to elaborately sculpted.

The essay presents three major arguments: The first is that the Inka used the architectural pattern of a plaza, a kallanka, and a foregrounded rock (in the text often referred to as “the pattern”) deliberately and selectively to establish links with the capital. Such connections with Cusco were constructed at many royal estates and outlying border towns, which were marked in that way as neutral spaces and centers where the Inka state was symbolically present. The second claim I make in order to contribute to a better archaeological understanding of Inka sculpted rocks is that some carved rock, wak’as (carved rock shrines), functioned as usnus (usnus were masonry platforms or stones and functioned as seats; they will be defined in more depth below). Thirdly, I argue that individual emperors used the pattern selectively and sometimes also modified it, especially the usnu/rock, according to their own likings.

The Physical and Ethnographic Evidence: The Pattern at Cusco, the Capital

The archetypal example of the pattern in focus existed in the center of Cusco itself. I try to describe it below using colonial chronicles and secondary sources. There is no absolute certainty of what Inka Cusco looked like.The city was burnt by the Inka themselves when they attempted to reconquer their capital from Spanish occupation in 1535. The Spanish residents rebuilt Cusco as a Spanish colonial city (Rowe 1990). Thus, only eyewitnesses who saw the capital before 1535 constitute reliable sources of what Inka Cusco looked like. To reconstruct Inka Cusco, John Rowe (1967) uses five such eyewitness accounts, records of the distribution of house lots to Spanish settlers in 1534, as well as some archaeological data. The main plaza had two sectors, Awkaypata and Kusipata, which were separated by the Huatanay or Saphy River. I use the term “plaza”to mean an open space where people gathered in the context of an Inka settlement. Depending upon the type of settlement and its surrounding geography,plazas could be large open spaces,as in the capital,or more intimate courtyards, as in some royal estates.Victor Angles Vargas (1988:79–88) discusses the names and spellings of the two sections of the main plaza in Cusco. The Spanish writers spelled Awkaypata and Kusipata in a number of different ways due to their lack of understanding and interest in the Quechua language.The two names translate as “place of crying” (Awkaypata) and “place of rejoicing” (Kusipata) (Angles Vargas 1988:81–82; see also Cornejo Bouroncle 1946). Angles Vargas relates the names to Inka ritual practices. Many ceremonies began with ritual crying and grieving in the northeastern or Awkaypata sector and ended with a celebration, dancing, and feasting in the southwestern or Kusipata sector thus setting up a clear dichotomy between names and functions of both sectors.

Figure 1 Cusco: Main plaza of Awkaypata and Kusipata with the possible location of the usnu.

Adapted from Zuidema 1980.

The feature of greatest interest in this essay is the foregrounded rock (its Cusco version was the usnu). Nobody knows exactly what the usnu looked like or where in the main plaza it stood because the descriptions by the chroniclers are not consistent (see, for instance, D’Altroy 2002:115, 329; Bauer and Dearborn 1995:36). Tom Zuidema (1980) argues that there were two usnus used for solar observations in Inka Cusco. The concept of the usnu was extremely complex and some carved rocks shared some of its aspects. Due to this complexity, I discuss the Cusco usnu and its relevance for interpreting modified rocks in the second section of this essay.

The third feature of the pattern is the kallanka. Awkaypata was lined by several kallankas (see Bauer 2004:111–135; D’Altroy 2002:117).A kallanka is generally defined as a great hall or long structure with a gabled roof supported by a row of pillars set along the entire length of the long axis that has numerous door openings facing a plaza (Gasparini and Margolies 1980:196). Garcilaso de la Vega provides the most detailed description of the Cusco kallankas (1963:198, 260–262). He talks about four great halls or kallankas, the largest of which was the Qasana compound situated at the northwest corner of Awkaypata.

In many Inka houses, there were great halls [kallankas] measuring two hundred paces in length and 50 to 60 paces in width; each hall was one undivided open space where they held their festivals and dances when rainy weather did not allow them to celebrate in the plaza outside. In the city of Cozco, I counted four such halls which were still standing when I was a boy. One was in Amarucancha, among the houses belonging to Hernando Pizarro, where today the college of the Santa Compañía de Jesus stands; the other was in Cassana where my schoolmate Juan de Cillorico has his shops now; and the third one stood in Collcampata among the houses that belonged to Inca Paullu and his son don Carlos who was also my schoolmate. This hall was the smallest of the four, and the largest was the one at Cassana, which could hold three thousand people: this seems incredible as it was wood that had to cover and vault such vast spaces. The fourth great hall is the one that today serves as the Catholic Cathedral (Garcilaso de la Vega 1963:198).

Thus according to Garcilaso, the four kallankas differed in size. Size is one of the issues that has plagued a scholarly definition of kallanka in the recent literature (Gasparini and Margolies 1980:196, 210). There are many large and small rectangular buildings with unpartitioned interior space and numerous entryways opening onto plazas. But how long does such a building have to be in order to classify as a kallanka? In this essay, I disregard the debate about size, since there is no agreement about it and use the term kallanka in a general sense that includes any hall-like structure with multiple doors in the long side facing a plaza.

Garcilaso (1963:198) also says that kallankas sheltered ceremonies and spectators in case of inclement weather. Gasparini and Margolies (1980:199–201) discuss how the uses of kallankas were always public but likely differed depending upon the location and rank of a settlement within the Inka empire.According to ethnographic evidence,some kallankas—including the one that,according to Garcilaso,stood on the site of today’s Cathedral—functioned as audience and council houses.In conquered and administered territories away from the Cusco heartland, kallankas probably served multiple functions.At times,they may have provided shelter for public events during rainy weather. At other times, they may have been used as temporary lodgings for armies and mit’ayuq laborers (individuals who were relocated for a period of time to serve coerced rotational labor service to the Inka state (see D’Altroy 2002:327). The latter was also suggested by Craig Morris (2004b:22–23; Morris and Thompson 1985), who excavated one of the two kallankas at Huanuco Pampa and found no evidence of continuous or permanent occupation in that building.

A final intriguing question with regard to kallankas is whether they constitute a specifically Inka building type—which is what most scholars assume—or whether they, perhaps, had pre-Inka prototypes. William Isbell (2006:54–60) reconstructs the Central Mound or Main Platform on the east side of the Vegachayoq Moqo Palace complex at Huari as a terraced platform with a row of pilasters on the lower terrace. These pilasters supported a sloping roof, the other side of which rested on top of a wall originally composed of finely cut ashlars which marked the top of the building. He argues that this structure would have closely resembled an Inka kallanka and faced the courtyard of the U-shaped palace complex. There was no usnu at Vegachayoq Moqo,and thus the architectural design would not be an example of the pattern under discussion. If the Wari indeed erected kallankas, it would be another case of Inka appropriation of an earlier building form.

Returning to Cusco, kallankas lining the main plaza Awkaypata were in the Qasana compound, on the east side where today the Cathedral stands, as well as within the Amarukancha and Hatunkancha compounds (for a detailed description and reconstruction of the Cusco main plaza, see Hyslop 1990:34–44; Bauer 2004:111–135; Rowe 1967) (Figure 1).

The pattern of a special rock, kallanka/s, and a large plaza was repeated throughout the empire at numerous Inka settlements that had different functions,such as royal estates, administrative centers, border towns, and the new capital in exile,Vilcabamba the Old. It is however absent from other settlements that have the same functions. I address possible explanations for this below, when discussing specific examples. In general,the pattern may show up at any settlement where the Inka state had a presence and Inka identity was publicly performed.Its absence may be explained simply by the lack of archaeological excavation and by the geographic particularities of some sites.

The Pattern at Royal Estates

The earliest case is Juchuy Qosqo, Wiraqocha Inka’s estate, which is situated high above Calca overlooking the Urubamba Valley. The center of Juchuy Qosqo is laid out around the Main Plaza.

A kallanka building constructed on a terrace overlooks the plaza from the south. And on the west side, the plaza is fronted by two square, two-story structures built of finely-fitted stone masonry up to the second level above which the walls continue in adobe. In the southwestern corner of the plaza, below the kallanka, and next to the access steps to the upper terraces,sits a prominent and very intriguing sandstone boulder. Kendall, Early, and Sillar (1992:199) describe it as “a massive irregular column . . . sitting on a pedestal of the exposed natural surface of the site before terrace leveling and building took place.” They observed slow erosion processes underneath the boulder and think that the Inka arranged stones around its base. Kendall, Early, and Sillar (1992:199) offer two interpretations: first, the boulder seems to visualize deliberate alignments of light and shadow on the June solstice

Figure 2 Juchuy Qosqo: Plan of central area.

Adapted from Kendall, Early, and Sillar 1992.

sunrise; second, postulating that the stones around the boulder’s base may constitute the remains of a circular wall, they argue that the boulder might have been the base of a Sunturwasi and that their Sector I,occupied by the buildings around Plaza A2 (turned into a reservoir in the 19th century), functioned as a palace complex. A Sunturwasi is a round structure with a doorway and three windows that has a conical, thatched roof. It was one of the facilities in a royal palace (see the drawing by Guaman Poma de Ayala (1987:333).

The association of the sandstone boulder with solsticial alignments and with a Sunturwasi that is proposed by Kendall,Early,and Sillar is intriguing since Zuidema (1980:318–321) has demonstrated that the Sunturwasi in Cusco was one of the structures needed to conduct solar observations. In the morning of October 30 and February 13,the days when the sun passes through zenith in Cusco,the tall round tower of the Sunturwasi functioned as a gnomen when observed from the two usnus and cast a line of shadow pointing to the sunset on August 18 and April 23 when the sun crosses anti-zenith or nadir in Cusco (see Zuidema’s drawings 1980:318, 319, 320). Kendall, Early, and Sillar (1992:199) vaguely describe a play of light and shadow at sunrise on the June solstice that seems to aim at the boulder. Obviously, the scenarios at the Sunturwasi in Cusco and at the speculative Sunturwasi at Juchuy Qosqo are not the same. However, one might wonder whether any type of association of a foregrounded rock in the pattern with solar alignments may evoke a link with the model in Cusco.The close proximity between the sandstone boulder and the palace complex assumed to be in Sector I further reinforces the parallel with Cusco. The boulder also constitutes another wak’a with all its symbolic connotations and mediating qualities (see below).

Juchuy Qosqo represents a case which brings up a crucial issue with regard to chronology. The chronicles make it very clear that Wiraqocha Inka built Juchuy Qosqo and that his son Pachakuti gave central Cusco its present form. Would that mean that Juchuy Qosqo predates the archetypal model of the pattern under discussion? Can we ascertain under which ruler the Cusco usnu was erected? So far, precise ethnohistoric and archaeological data are lacking and we can only give general answers.Maria Rostworowski (1999:6–8) offers an ethnohistoric reconstruction of pre-Inka Cusco: the village of Acamama was situated between the Saphy and Tullumayo Rivers and contained a quadripartite division into four districts as well as a dual division equivalent to the hanan(upper) and hurin (lower in physical and symbolic respects) concept. The origin myth of the Ayar brothers speaks of the transformation of some of the brothers into powerful stone wak’as. Data of this nature allow for the general argument that certain fundamental spatial divisions of Cusco and belief structures, such as the metaphorical quality of stone, existed in pre-Inka and early Inka times. This brings me to argue that the boulder at Juchuy Qosqo constituted an important stone wak’a symbolizing the pan-Andean sacred essence of stone material (see below under stone ideology). It was certainly not a stone usnu, a feature which was formalized by Pachakuti in the process of rebuilding Cusco and during the expansion of the Inka state. Bauer (2004:74–78) presents an archaeological reconstruction of Cusco during the Killke Period (or Early Inka; time period and culture in the Cusco basin immediately preceding the development of the Inka state) before imperial expansion took place: he documents numerous locations within the city where Killke deposits (mostly ceramics, but also building foundations) have been found. Thus, archaeological data point to an extensive Killke settlement at the site of the later Inka capital; however, these data cannot (yet?) tell us what this settlement looked like and whether it had an usnu and kallankas.

Some of Pachakuti’s private properties exhibit the pattern and Machu Picchu is the most explicit example.There is a kallanka overlooking a plaza with a carved rock on a lower terrace.In this case,the terrace construction creates the open space of an asymmetrical plaza. The rock is often referred to as the Ceremonial Rock (see Wright and Valencia Zegarra 2001:6–12). Unlike Awkaypata and Kusipata, which mark the very center of Cusco, this plaza is situated outside the wall which features the official entrance gateway to Machu Picchu. The pattern did not have to be

Figure 3 Machu Picchu: Plaza, kallanka, and carved rock, commonly known as the “Ceremonial Rock.”

Plan drawing by Jessica Christie.

manifest inside and in the center of settlements. Indeed, the material evidence of large numbers of potsherds from drinking vessels found in the plaza (Wright and Valencia Zegarra 2001:12) suggests that drinking chicha was a common activity.The consumption of chicha was and is an important component of Andean feasting and ritual and it seems very reasonable to argue that Pachakuti organized such festivities for agricultural workers who did not live inside the perimeter wall of his estate and for other local people from the surrounding area (Salazar 2004:47). The Ceremonial Rock was beautifully sculpted into platforms and steps and could have functioned as a seat and altar during such rituals.

Wright and Valencia Zegarra (2001:8–10) note that some round rocks strewn around this boulder sculpture come from the Urubamba River to make the sacred river which gushes deep below and the watery underworld present.Furthermore,this carved rock appears to be an example par excellence of an usnu. I discuss this below.

Figure 4 Machu Picchu: Carved rock known as the “Ceremonial Rock.”

Photo by Jessica Christie.

Vitcos, another royal estate of Pachakuti,is situated on a flattened ridge and has a small plaza lined by kallanka-like buildings.From this possible palace complex,an Inka road led south to another terraced hill which holds the building group that encloses the sculpted Yurak Rumi Rock (see Lee 2000). Vitcos demonstrates the architectural sculptural features of the pattern—a modest plaza, kallanka-like structures,and a special sculpted rock—but their spatial alignment is disconnected. Therefore Vitcos may not share the pattern which would align it with Pisaq and Ollantaytambo, two additional and very important estates of Pachakuti located in the Urubamba Valley. Pisaq is divided into numerous sectors which crown the mountain ridge line overlooking the valley and the contemporary town of Pisaq.In this case, the topography was not conducive for elaborating the pattern since the ridge locations do not provide sufficient space to construct large plazas. Ollantaytambo as well had different sectors, one in the flat valley bottom of the Patakancha River and the other on the hillside which contains the famous so-called Sun Temple. There would certainly have been space for the pattern but the Inka apparently did not use it here. This impression is based upon the structures and spaces visible today. But Ollantaytambo has been remodeled more often than Pachakuti’s other estates: Manqo Inka used it as a military fortress; the late Inka architectural style of the ‘Araqhama Sector; and the contemporary town which occupies and sits on top of part of the Inka site. Jean-Pierre Protzen (1993:50–53) has shown that there was indeed a plaza opening within the kancha zone and he thinks this plaza was

Figure 5 Callachaca: Sector F, T-shaped plaza group, plan.

Drawing by Susan Niles.

bounded by kallankas. This area has been built over with houses and if there ever was a sacred rock, it has disappeared. Therefore the pattern cannot be documented for Ollantaytambo.

Amaru Thupa Inka, Pachakuti’s oldest son who was supposed to become emperor according to the system of succession, used the same architectural pattern in his estate at Callachaca.Callachaca spreads in several sectors over the hillsides east of Cusco. The one of interest is Susan Niles’ Sector F (Niles 1987:fig.1.3, 106–114). What she calls the T-shaped Plaza Group is a plaza in the form of a thick-stemmed T which is fronted by two partly preserved kallanka-like halls in the north and by a rock outcrop in the south.

The rear walls of the kallankas were built into a hill and their doorways open onto the plaza. The outcrop exhibits several manmade modifications which Niles describes as nooks and elaborations of natural crevices some of which evidence high skills of craftsmanship. She interprets the resulting chamber-like open spaces as tombs. On its south side, the outcrop has at least one seat-like sculpture facing south across the Huatanay Valley which means away from the plaza. Further, this sculpture is not visible from the plaza.Therefore,while it could well have functioned as a seat or throne,its ritual context was most likely unrelated to the T-shaped plaza. Chinchero, the well documented estate of Thupa Inka Yupanki, offers another case of our pattern. Here it focuses on Structure 11 and several carved rocks which form

Figure 6 Chinchero: Plan of Great Plaza area.

Adapted from Alcina Franch 1976.

the southeastern corner of the Great Plaza (for a detailed analysis of the architecture, see Alcina Franch 1976:100–114).

Structure 11 was built over a natural outcrop resulting in a pyramidal volume which consists of four platform levels. The carved outcrop Pumaccacca constitutes the focal point of Structure 11 and sits approximately at its center. It towers about six meters above the level of the Great Plaza and Alcina Franch (1976:106) likens its form “to an eruption of the mountain coming out of its interior, which turns over on the outside and overflows.” I think this verbal image may well describe part of the sacred character the Inka saw in this rock. The carvings are vertical and horizontal cuts forming planes and two sculpted pumas with crossed legs.

Pumaccacca has to be understood in relation to four other carved rocks situated nearby: first is a smaller rock with a seat-like carving which is located at the foot of Structure 1 and in the southeastern corner of the Great Plaza (Figure 6); the second and third sculpted rocks sit on the third platform; the fourth carved boulder is on top of the outcrop on and around which Structure 11 was built.

Structure 11 with Pumaccacca and the four additional carved rocks is situated in the southeast corner of the Great Plaza (Figure 6). The south side of the Plaza is lined by Structures 1, 2, and 3. In particular, Structures 1 and 3 form long rectangles

Figure 7 Chinchero: Structure 11, Pumaccacca, carvings.

Photo by Jessica Christie.

which open to the Plaza with six (Structure 1) and seven (Structure 3) double-jamb windows or entryways (see Figure 6). Structure 1 measures 48 meters in length, Structure 2is 17.80meters,and Structure 3is 42meters long (Gasparini and Margolies 1980:214). They are built on a terrace and their floor level is higher than that of the plaza and therefore access is accomplished from the short lateral sides via two passageways between the buildings. They exhibit the general diagnostics of kallankas and I think at least Structures 1 and 3 fall into this category. The elevated level and the lateral access to the Chinchero kallankas might have made it difficult for large numbers of people to enter at one time but the elevation is low enough that the openings to the plaza could as well have been used as doorways.

Thus the setting and formal elements of Pumaccacca as well as some of the associated smaller carved rocks make them excellent candidates for the pattern with the type of usnu that functioned as elevated throne of the ruler. These issues will be explored in greater depth in Section Two.

Wayna Qhapaq’s well documented estate at Urubamba and Yucay also used the pattern,though in a diminished form,in the palace complex of Quispiguanca.Niles and Robert Batson (Niles 1999) investigated the standing architectural remains, placed them in context, and documented them in a number of plan and reconstruction drawings, some of them in color.

The drawings illustrate that the monumental entrance to Quispiguanca lay on the east side of the complex between two gatehouses. Once the visitor had passed through the portal, he or she stood in the main plaza in the middle of which sat a

Figure 8 Urubamba: Quispiguanca Palace, reconstruction.

Drawing by Susan Niles and Robert Batson.

pronounced white boulder and a possible platform construction.North of this plaza, there were two symmetrical kancha compounds facing each other across an open space.On the side toward the open space,each kancha was fronted by a kallanka and two small rectangular buildings occupied the middle of the open space. Niles (1999: fig.6.2, 171–176), who shows that the unmodified white boulder is not at the exact center point of the plaza, argues that it was accompanied by another structure, possibly a platform,which marked the precise midpoint.The latter probably functioned as a shrine. It is now topped by a Catholic chapel located at the east end of the present cemetery and therefore cannot be reconstructed.Niles also thinks that water may have been channeled through the midline of the plaza, over or around the rock and its shrine, and on to the south terrace wall. Today water drops down the south terrace façade of the palace and during Wayna Qhapaq’s time, it would have been collected in an artificial lake described in the documents (Villanueva Urteaga 1971:38). In 2003, INC (Instituto Nacional de la Cultura) was excavating at Quispiguanca.

The Quispiguanca example reinforces our pattern with a foregrounded but uncarved rock. The fact that we have no idea whether there truly was an adjacent structure and if so, what it looked like, opens doors to speculation. It simply seems reasonable to suggest that given the central position of the white boulder and its possible companion structure,the two served as a focal point for ritual activity.This ritual activity could have been primarily political and related to the usnu concept, and it is conceivable that Wayna Qhapaq sat on the speculative platform overseeing events on the plaza.Or the rituals might have been religious in nature,during which offerings were brought to the boulder and water.

The cases discussed above represent royal estates of Inka rulers presented in a chronological order and situated in a reasonable vicinity to Cusco. We have seen that the pattern using a sculpted rock is most strongly developed on the properties of 176

Pachakuti and his sons Thupa Inka and Amaru Thupa Inka while his father Wiraqocha Inka and Wayna Qhapaq used uncarved boulders.Let us now look at governance sites and administrative centers further away from Cusco to investigate where the pattern is present.Royal estates can be closely connected with individual rulers and remained the properties of their panacas (royal lineages composed of the descendants of the deceased ruler but excluding the son who became the new ruler). Governance and administrative sites are more problematic because historical and archaeological data do not always clearly link them with specific rulers, and because they typically experienced various rebuilding phases and are often partly covered by present-day towns. Further, the number of cases I present can by no means claim to be a complete list of all Inka sites with the pattern. My goal is to introduce a representative sample to build a solid argument that the pattern this study is investigating is indeed meaningful and was deliberately employed in a significant number of Inka settlements.

The Pattern at Outlying Governance Sites and Administrative Centers

An example far away from the capital is the immense sculpted outcrop of Samaipata in Bolivia. It is not entirely clear whether the Inka settlement of Samaipata was constructed during the reigns of Pachakuti, Thupa Inka Yupanki, or Wayna Qhapaq. The crucial point is that it has a Great Plaza faced by a kallanka and overlooking both is the gigantic outcrop.

Figure 9 Samaipata: Plan view of site.

Drawing by Albert Meyers.

Figure 10 Samaipata: Carved outcrop, south side, niches and seats above.

Photo by Jessica Christie.

Among many other carvings, the south side of the rock displays a long row of sculpted seats from which spectators could have observed events in the plaza. Thus, in this case,the foregrounded rock could have served as an usnu for a number of individuals. Indeed,Albert Meyers (1998:67) has called the carved outcrop a giant usnu.

While this remains a possibility, it is also a great oversimplification of the complicated case of Samaipata.The outcrop exhibits a large number of sculptures serving a variety of purposes, for example, the long canals with the rhomboid pattern versus the seats and niches. Albert Meyers (1997) distinguishes two phases in the process of carving and elaborating the rock: in the first phase, the Inka would have sculpted the canals, seats, and steps.When integrated into ritual performance, these works would have forced the participants to look down or to orient themselves toward the rock and the earth.In the second phase,Inka artisans cut the niches into the north and south sides of the outcrop, added the possible temple walls to the south side as well as the L-shaped wall with niches on top of the rock. During ritual performance, participants would now face the niches which might have been filled with figurines or mummies. Their vision would expand further toward the horizon and mountain peaks and would no longer remain static and earth-bound. According to Meyers (1997), this view toward the horizon line and the sky and the use of transportable objects is characteristic of a conquest society. There is also the issue of distance.Anybody sitting on the carved rock seats would not be able to recognize specific actors and events held on the plaza without the use of binoculars.

Nevertheless, it seems legitimate to argue that the monumental presence of the giant outcrop always loomed above the ritual participants in the plaza as a constant reminder of the symbolic and mediating qualities associated with the essence of stone in Andean worldview (see more below). As an afterthought, it is intriguing that Albert Meyers and Cornelius Ulbert (1997) documented a plaza containing a stepped platform with a stairway facing a kallanka at the northern complex of the site of La Fortaleza located some 50 km air-line distance east of Samaipata. This constitutes a clear example of the pattern under discussion: a plaza,a kallanka, and a foregrounded rock that has been replaced by an usnu construction.

Inkallaqta was another settlement located far to the south,east of Cochabamba, in the area of the ancient Pocona in what is now Bolivia (Gasparini and Margolies 1980:207–212).Roberto Teran (cited by Gasparini and Margolies 1980:210) notes that it was built by Thupa Inka between 1463 and 1472. Inkallaqta has a very large kallanka measuring 78 meters long by 26 wide and covering an area of 2028 square meters.The façade fronting the plaza exhibits twelve narrow doorways.Between the sixth and the seventh doors are the remains of a small stepped platform which has been identified as an usnu (see Zuidema 1980 above). Thus, the Inkallaqta case shows an interesting play of scale: a miniature usnu abutting an exceptionally large kallanka. A variant of the pattern under discussion appears to be present in that Inkallaqta has a small stepped platform instead of the foregrounded rock.

Going north, an important administrative center in the northern highlands situated on the qhapaq nan (north-south imperial road) was Huanuco Pampa, which was investigated by Craig Morris (Morris and Thompson 1985). Huanuco Pampa has a large plaza with a dominant usnu platform near its center (Hyslop 1990:27, 203–206,215–218;Morris 2004b:42–56).Elite architecture borders the east side of the plaza, which is known as Sector IIB. The entrance to this elite sector passes between two kallankas (Gasparini and Margolies 1980:201–206). Sector IIB is composed of a series of patio enclosures used for feasting with increasingly restricted access as one moves from the plaza to the inner patios. The gateways leading to the individual enclosures are aligned with the usnu platform in the plaza. Again, a variant of the pattern is present with the centrally situated usnu in the large plaza and two kallankas forming the main entrance to the elite Sector IIB. Yet the usnu is a masonry platform and not a carved rock.

Further south and also located along the qhapaq nan was the administrative center of Vilcaswaman which Cieza de León (1959:126) describes as the geographical middle or center of the Inka empire because the distance from Quito to Vilcaswaman was said to equal the distance from Vilcaswaman to Chile. According to Cieza de León (1959:126–127), Pachakuti began construction at Vilcaswaman and Thupa Inka enlarged it and commissioned additional buildings.Although the features of the pattern are not well preserved, it is clearly present: in what used to be the Inka plaza stands an usnu which originally consisted of five stepped platforms. This usnu was set into a walled compound and accessed through probably three double-jamb doorways (Gasparini and Margolies 1980:271–277). The surviving central door opens directly to the single stairway which leads to the top

Figure 11 Vilcabamba the Old: Reconstruction of Central Sector.

Drawing by Vincent Lee.

platform of the usnu where a cube-like stone block with two precisely cut seats still stands. It represents a wonderful merging of the usnu concepts of the stacked platforms and the sculpted stone seats.The remains of a large kallanka-type structure are found behind the usnu. What makes Vilcaswaman further so important is the fact that two detailed descriptions of its usnu and how it was used have survived (see below).

Chronologically the latest example is Vilcabamba the Old documented by Vincent Lee (2000). Vilcabamba was Manqo Inka’s last refuge where he built a new capital that was likely inspired by the layout and the divisions of Cusco (Lee 2000:413; Christie 2006a). Nicole Delia Legnani (2005:36) has reinforced that Vilcabamba was envisioned as a new Cusco and new Inka center of Qhapaq status in her reading of the Titu Cusi manuscript: for example, because Manqo Inka transferred the Sun idol Punchaw from Cusco to Vilcabamba. Punchaw had been commissioned by Pachakuti and embodied the belief that the Inka were descendants of Inti, the Sun, and it was further coupled with the Inka’s sacred right of territorial expansion. Given the fact that the entire site is covered by dense jungle, the surveying and mapping work Lee undertook is absolutely remarkable. At the same time,as INC excavations are now being conducted (in 2005),some of his plans may have to be altered. It appears that Vilcabamba the Old was divided into a physically Upper and Lower Sector of buildings.Roughly in between these sectors entered the main road from the southeast: it passes by fountains which have run dry, crosses a

Figure 12 Vilcabamba the Old: Foregrounded boulder.

Photo by Jessica Christie.

stream, and after being squeezed in tightly between Building Groups 14 and 15, it opens into the main plaza.This plaza is bordered by Groups 16 and 17 in the southwest and northeast and by a long kallanka hall in the northwest. Lee (2000:413) interprets Groups 14 and 16 as hanan (upper) and 15 and 17 as hurin (lower) sectors in the context of the plaza.On the northeast side of the kallanka and connected to it by a wall sits a large unmodified boulder.

It measures nearly eight by twelve meters across and five meters high and Lee (2000:413) thinks it may be oriented “toward the ushnu-like platform of Group 16.” I find this association too speculative since the platform of Group 16 is really a terrace accessed by a short stairway, whose other function is that of a platform foundation for a kancha formation of houses. The prominence of the boulder and its connection with high-status architecture are unquestionable.

It has to be repeated that Vilcabamba is situated in deep lowland jungle, a natural environment unfamiliar to the Inka. High mountains are absent and their symbolic connotations most likely poorly understood by local people. Therefore, it is significant that Manqo Inka placed or left the boulder (I assume this was the original position of the large block) in such a prominent spot. I suggest his intention was to replicate the architectural pattern used by his predecessors, which I have been documenting. The claim articulated by the plaza-kallanka-special rock configuration was that Vilcabamba was meant to be a new version of Cusco and a royal property.

Relationships between Carved Rock Wak’as and Usnus

The most tantalizing and complex element of the pattern is without a doubt the special rock. Its archetypal Cusco version was known as the usnu or possibly two usnus (Zuidema 1980). There remains much confusion in the literature about what the usnu(s) looked like and where exactly it/they stood because the accounts by the chroniclers are fragmentary and inconsistent on this issue. In this section, I first reconstruct what we know about the Cusco usnu and show which foregrounded rocks in the pattern may most closely resemble it in physical form.Secondly,I address conceptual aspects of stone as a material in Andean worldview which may link the formally different rock wak’as and usnus of the pattern on a symbolic spiritual level.

In Cusco, Betanzos describes the usnu as “a stone made like a sugarloaf pointed on top and covered with a strip of gold” (1996:47–49). Associated with it or next to it was a stone font or basin for holding liquids. Around this stone font, the people of Cusco buried gold statuettes representing the most important lords of each lineage in the city. “In the middle of the font they put the stone that represented the Sun” (Betanzos 1996:48). This was meant as an offering to the Sun, mirroring the social organization of Cusco and its history. It might very well have constituted a parallel to the zeq’e system (a radial system of forty-one imagined lines defined by shrines/wak’as) which had its center in the Qorikancha (the Inka Temple of the Sun) and each radiating zeq’e was maintained by a Cusco lineage. In this manner, the two symbolic centers of Cusco, the usnu and Qorikancha, merged.

It is significant that Betanzos clearly distinguishes between the stone or gold statue representing the Sun which was kept in the Sun Temple and the stone usnu in the plaza. He explains (Betanzos 1996:48) that the stone (usnu) in the plaza was for the common people to worship while the statue of the Sun in the temple was for the lords. The ceremony during which this Sun statue was placed on the font was a symbolic performance of the discourse between the ruler and his subjects. When the Sun stood upon the font or basin made to hold liquids which could be drained through underground channels, it became the symbolic axis mundi or world axis connecting the vertical divisions of the cosmos. This was the role appropriated by the Inka ruler for himself and acted out when he sat on any usnu.His subjects stood and perhaps were grouped around him like the gold statuettes they had buried in the ground. I suggest such a symbolic context was paramount for the architectural pattern under discussion and that it provided the stage background for similar interactions between the ruler and commoners at many other settlements.

In three authoritative publications,John Hyslop (1990:69–101),Zuidema (1980), and F. M. Meddens (1997) have discussed the Cusco usnus, other usnus, and the complex symbolic connotations associated with them. They conclude that usnus could assume a number of material forms: they could be stone pillars, stone seats, stone basins or fonts linked to underground channels, platforms, or truncated pyramids. Depending on their forms, usnus could have a variety of functions. Hyslop (1990:70–72) focuses on usnu platforms and observes that they are rare to absent in the immediate Cusco region but common in conquered territories. He implies that the concept of the personified axis mundi as defined in Cusco functioned as a state symbol and was exported to the outlying regions of the empire.As explained above, the axis mundi could be called into presence interchangeably by the Sun idol placed upon the font or by the ruler seated on an usnu platform in the main plaza. Thus usnu platforms and/or seats brought together Inka nobility who would assume the elevated position on the usnus and common and non-Inka peoples who occupied the great plazas.When the ruler took his position upon the usnu, he oversaw rituals and military reviews, addressed his army, and perhaps also spoke justice in the role of a judge (see Gasparini and Margolies 1980:271). In reference to the Cusco example, the usnu may have stood precisely between the Awkaypata and Kusipata plaza sectors. In the greater context of the capital, the whole main plaza constituted the dividing line between the hanan (upper) and hurin (lower) divisions and the four roads of the empire departed from it to the four suyus (quarters of the empire). The dualistic and quadripartite structures of Inka social and political organization may well have been reflected in the Awkaypata—Kusipata division and performed and dramatized on the usnu (see Rostworowski 1983:130–179).

Zuidema (1980:357) emphasizes the idea that the usnu symbolizes an opening in the ground through which the earth sucks in rain water;this aspect of the usnu takes on material substance in the basin and drainage system as well as in the canalized Saphy River if indeed it stood on top of it. Angles Vargas (1988:76–77) and others place the usnu exactly in between the Awkaypata and Kusipata sectors on top of the canalized Saphy River. In this interpretation, it had direct access to underground waterways and its mediating qualities were physically brought out by its very position between Awkaypata and Kusipata.

But the usnu also marks an observation point of the Sun (Zuidema 1980: 318–331). At least a dozen chroniclers mention the existence of sets of small towers or stone pillars on the eastern and western horizons of Cusco (Bauer and Dearborn 1995:67–100, Hyslop 1990:61–62). One point of observation may have been the usnu in the Awkaypata plaza.The Anonymous Chronicler (in Bauer and Dearborn 1995:35) describes the four western pillars and states that:

When the sun reached the first pillar they prepared for the general planting and began to plant vegetables in the heights, as slower [to mature], and when the sun reached the two pillars in the middle,was the point and the general time of the planting in Cuzco, and it was always in the month of August. It is in this way that, to take the point of the sun between the central two pillars they had another pillar in the middle of the plaza, [a] pillar of well worked stone one estado in height, in a suitable indicated place, that they called usnu, and from there they watched the sun between the two pillars,and when it was exactly there,it was the time for sowing in the Cuzco Valley and its region.

While the Anonymous Chronicler states that sunset between the western central pillars was observed from the usnu, he does not say who watched it. We might assume that he implies the ruler seated on the Cusco usnu.Dearborn (2000) makes the interesting argument that the distances between the pillars which the Anonymous Chronicler provides are much too wide to specify a precise date. According to Dearborn’s calculations,the Sun would appear to set between the central pillars for nearly a week as seen from the usnu in mid-August.The large separation of the pillars also allowed most of the people gathered in Awkaypata/Kusipata to watch the sunset and not exclusively the ruling Inka on the usnu.Dearborn concludes that the primary objective of solar observation from the Cusco usnu was not astronomical in the sense of fixing a precise date, but ritual, meaning that all the people in the plaza watched the Sun set. Dearborn’s argument gives important insights into the discourse between the ruler and common people as it was acted out at the usnu in the context of watching the Sun, who himself was an Inka deity and the progenitor of the ruling Inka dynasty. Zuidema (1980:331) observes that on four important dates in each year, the Sun and the Moon stood exactly above at zenith and below at nadir of the Cusco usnu, reversing their positions between noon and midnight. This alignment further imparts the usnu a role of central axis between the underworld and the sky.Meddens (1997:10) stresses the roles of different usnus as seats of the Sun or of the Inka ruler.

One important issue in the usnu discussion which bears upon the pattern under study is the question of its origin. Zuidema (1978 cited by Hyslop 1990:72) thinks that the usnu as a platform developed from the seat of the Sun or the stone set in the Awkaypata plaza of Cusco. In this scenario, the Cusco usnu would represent the earliest prototype for all later usnus and this line of reasoning would best support my argument in this essay. However, Santiago Agurto (cited by Hyslop 1990:72–73) has linked the usnu platform as an architectural form with pre-contact Andean coastal traditions in which buildings were commonly constructed from solid masses.Inka architecture,on the other hand,does not usually emphasize solid buildings. The hypothesis that solid buildings from the north coast inspired usnu platforms fits well with the observation that these platforms are rare in the immediate Cusco area but are found in outlying settlements established during the Inka state’s expansion often after the coast had been conquered. The origin of the usnu as a stone-basin-drain complex may be a separate matter. Examples of these features are fewer than the platform since their documentation requires archaeological excavation.Known Inka cases include Cusco,the platform in Vilcaswaman (Meddens 1997:5), and one of the platforms framing the lower plaza of Sayhuite. John Staller (N.d.) sees the stone-basin-drain aspect of the usnu as a concept tied to pan-Andean concerns with structure versus fluidity and the ritual use of liquids and drains.

The debate of the origin of the usnu affects this discussion because if the Cusco example truly constitutes the earliest prototype of the usnu, my argument stands on solid ground. If the usnu concept developed in the wake of Inka conquest and state expansion, then my argument is considerably weaker. I think that the usnu concept evolved from the shared pan-Andean symbolic associations surrounding stone.Most likely, there had been some kind of rock wak’a in the Cusco plaza before the rebuilding of the city under Pachakuti took place. Pachakuti and his successors devised the usnu as a special category of foregrounded rocks and as a state symbol and manifestation of Inka stone ideology.The formal vocabulary of the usnu was expanded from a single stone to include the basin and drain complex, seats, and the solid platform.

It appears that there were many different types of usnus and various functions they could fulfill. Each individual usnu did not play all its possible roles and I think that many carved rocks and particularly those which fall in the pattern under discussion shared aspects of the usnu as defined by Hyslop, Zuidema, and Meddens. In my view, Inka carved, sacred, and foregrounded rocks constituted a category much broader than usnus, and some of them exemplified the usnu concept as defined above. For example, the cases from Machu Picchu and Chinchero display carved seats or platforms which relate them to the usnu platform.Evidence for libation rites exists at many rocks in the form of sculpted channels; some examples include Samaipata,Kenko Grande,and Sayhuite.I don’t feel comfortable calling the foregrounded rocks in this study outright usnus; for instance,Carolyn Dean (2006) rightfully pointed out that usnu is one of the terms all too often “abused”by scholars to quickly designate any platform in any Inka plaza and that this term must be more critically used and more carefully defined. Yet they all share the material of stone with the Cusco usnu and more or less formal features,which justifies the conclusion that they had similar functions in the context of ritual performance.As I will argue below, the material essence of stone and its underlying symbolic qualities were the crucial bond that linked the Cusco usnu with all foregrounded rocks.

At Machu Picchu,the Ceremonial Rock was beautifully sculpted into platforms and steps and could well have functioned as an usnu during rituals (Figure 4). Indeed, the material evidence of large numbers of potsherds from drinking vessels found in the plaza (Wright and Valencia Zegarra 2001:12) suggests that drinking chicha was a common activity. The consumption of chicha was and is an important component of Andean feasting and ritual and it seems very reasonable to argue that Pachakuti organized such festivities for agricultural workers who did not live inside the walls of his estate and other local people from the surrounding area (Salazar 2004:47). Wright and Valencia Zegarra (2001:8–10) note that some round rocks strewn around this boulder sculpture come from the Urubamba River to metaphorically make the sacred river and the watery underworld present at the

Figure 13 Guaman Poma de Ayala, 398: Manqo Inka seated on the Cusco usnu.

rock and in the plaza.It is well conceivable that Pachakuti would have used the Ceremonial Rock as an usnu: when he had taken seat on the platform, he mediated in ritual between the lower cosmological layers and his father the Sun on behalf of his subjects who would have gathered around him in the plaza. Rituals of this nature brought to life before the eyes of local people aspects of state ideology which had been devised in Cusco, and that is what the pattern under study is all about. Guaman Poma de Ayala (1987:377, 391, 407) drew the royal usnu three times in a similar form as a stepped pyramid: Guaman’s page 398 illustrates Manqo Inka during his coronation ceremony on the stepped usnu in Cusco; page 374/384 shows Atawallpa seated on a stepped usnu in Cajamarca and Guaman’s page 369 depicts a stepped structure in the background of a scene with Wayna Qhapaq in Cusco.

At Chinchero, Pumaccacca and some of the nearby smaller carved rocks may have been used in a similar fashion as usnus in the form of elevated thrones of the ruler. When seated on one of the platforms of Pumaccacca, Thupa Inka Yupanki could have easily overseen and commanded events in the plaza. More mysterious are the two sculpted pumas. In the rare cases in Inka rock art where figurative imagery occurs, the puma is most frequently represented. This could be due to the general pan-Andean belief that the feline was charged with special powers.We know that Pachakuti wore a puma skin when he went to war (Salazar 2004:36). However, in this case,Pumaccacca could be an attempt to copy Pumaurqu,the place of emergence and origin of the Inka, and transfer it to Chinchero. Pumaurqu located south of Cusco in the Province of Paruro is a much larger and taller outcrop. Its top surface is similarly carved into seats, planes, and platforms and displays two pumas. While very speculative, Thupa Inka might have intended to align himself with this powerful origin place and especially with Manqo Qhapaq, the first mytho-historical ruler in the Inka dynasty. We know that Pachakuti, his father, ordered Pumaurqu be turned into a wak’a and that he most likely commissioned the carvings (after Sarmiento de Gamboa 1942:107). The origin places, Tampu T’oqo and Pacariqtambo,mentioned by Sarmiento de Gamboa have been identified with the sculpted outcrop of Pumaurqu and the nearby Inka settlement Maukallaqta (Bauer 1992: 109–123; Christie and Staller 2004). It is conceivable that Pachakuti’s son wanted to re-create his own Pumaurqu at his personal estate of Chinchero. If this line of reasoning holds true, it would add another significant symbolic layer to the complex concept of the usnu. Meddens (1997:10) interprets pumas, and especially those portrayed on usnus,as forces controlling water and fertility.His reasoning is derived from the rich iconography of the sculpted Sayhuite stone, which includes felines and channels for liquids.

Vilcaswaman represents a third case in which a sculpted rock is clearly part of an usnu. The whole usnu construction consists of a stepped platform with a single stairway surrounded by a compound wall which possibly had four doorways (Gasparini and Margolies 1980:112–116, 271–277). On top of the platform still stands a cube-like stone block sculpted into two seats with armrests. Two unique sources bring to life and validate the ritual spaces and performances at the usnu in the context of the pattern for Vilcaswaman. The earlier writer is Cieza de León who closely describes the plaza and its usnu:

To one side of this plain,toward the rising sun,there was a shrine for the Lord-Incas, of stone,from which small terraces emerged,about six feet wide,where other enclosures came together, and at the center there was a bench where the Lord-Inca sat to pray,all of a single stone so large that it was eleven feet long and seven feet wide,with two seats cut for the aforesaid purpose. They say this stone used to be covered with jewels of gold and precious stones to adorn this place they so venerated and esteemed, and on another stone, not small, now in the middle of this square, like a baptismal font, was where they sacrificed animals and young children (so they say), whose blood was offered up to the gods (1959:126–127).

The second source is part of a description of the province of Vilcaswaman made by Corregidor Don Pedro de Carabajal in 1586:

There was a plaza large enough to hold more than twenty thousand men, which the Inka ordered to construct by hand and to accomplish this, he had to drain a large water pond. In front of the House of the Sun, there was a platform fenced in by a stone wall five estados high; it had a stairway of finely cut stones which facilitated theatrical effects so that the Inka could disappear and walk up to be seen; and on top stood two large stone thrones covered with gold where the Inka and his wife were seated like in a stand and from there they worshipped the sun; and when the Inka sat on the usnu, his whole guard protected the doors with utmost watchfulness; and there the Inka sat below a great canopy of the most colorful feathers, and the support posts upon which rested the roof were of gold, and 12 old captains of the Inka’s panaca carried the canopy. In their language, this canopy is called achigua. . . . He continues to describe sacrifices made to major deities for the wellbeing of the Inka and his family (Jimenez de la Espada 1965:218–219).

The two text passages cited bring together the material forms of the usnu as platform and carved stone seat and they dramatize ritual practices of mediation through the persona of the ruler at the center of Vilcaswaman, which itself was viewed as a symbolic center of the empire. It is of great interest that Cieza de León and Don Pedro de Carabajal describe two seats/thrones on top of the usnu platform and that the very stone block with the two carved seats has indeed survived. Who occupied the second throne? Was it the qoya, the Inka’s wife, as Don Pedro de Carabajal suggests, or did the two seats unite the two functions of the usnu: throne and altar, political and religious, secular and sacred (Gasparini and Margolies 1980: 269)? The Vilcaswaman usnu has to be included as a significant case study in any reconstruction of events surrounding usnus.

The variation of the pattern has most likely to do with the complexity of the usnu. The Cusco usnu was an upright stone, a seat, and a stone font with drainage channels.Perhaps the Inka evoked the concept of the usnu by one or a combination of the above features: Juchuy Qosqo uses the upright stone only while Samaipata shows a combination of all the elements and more. Most variation seems to have occurred with the seat. The seat could be a bench typically carved out of a boulder as at Machu Picchu or Chinchero; but it could also be a small or large masonry platform as at Inkallaqta and Huanuco Pampa or combine both as at Vilcaswaman. I speculate that the choice of the seat feature may have been due to the availability of a boulder suitable for sculpting, and to the intended ritual requirements for which the seat was to be used. For example, royal estates were closely tied to individual rulers and their plazas were relatively small. The carved stone seats/usnus at Machu Picchu and Chinchero probably acted as thrones for Pachakuti and Thupa Inka from which they addressed their people and directed ceremonies.Huanuco Pampa, on the other hand, was a fairly remote administrative center where the ruler was rarely present.State officials had to address and control the local populace.It is possibly for these reasons that they needed a very large plaza with a large seat turned into a masonry platform from which several leaders could direct and control a large audience.

So far, I have focused on formal and visual resemblances between the Cusco usnu,Guaman Poma de Ayala’s drawings,and certain case studies of the pattern.On a more general level, what links together usnus and all foregrounded rocks in the pattern is the fact that they all functioned as wak’as and were made of stone.I argue that first and foremost,all the special rocks which fall under the pattern were wak’as with all their symbolic connotations and mediating qualities addressed by many writers. Frank Salomon (1998:7–17; Salomon and Urioste 1991:16–19) examines wak’as from a linguistic perspective through the language in the Huarochiri manuscript written in Quechua. He shows that wak’as, like people, plants, and animals, pass through several states of being:“from kinetic, fleshy, fast-changing . . . toward static, hard, slow-changing” (1998:9). As the actions of a being become more energetic and powerful, it moves from a soft biotic state to a hard state full of permanence. Since this process appears to be the same for wak’as, people, plants, and animals, it follows that they all would be subject to similar life forces and animating essences, thus establishing a clear parallel between wak’as and humans. The final states of permanence are visualized in deified mountains, other land features, and rock wak’as. In Andean thought, there is a continuum from transitory to durable modes of being, the latter being materialized by stone, mountains, and sculpted rock wak’as. It implies that the rock wak’as had not always been hard and timeless but had passed through softer,more pliable material stages.It probably did not matter whether a boulder was sculpted or not—what mattered was the material essence and quality of stone which manifested its permanent and timeless state of existence. Cesar Paternosto (1996:179–186) discusses these qualities under the term tectonic, which includes all that is related to construction but also refers to the earth’s crust and the geological formations which gave rise to the Andean landscape. Stone wak’as belong to both aspects of the tectonic. At the same time, though, not all natural stones were wak’as. Those foregrounded in the pattern under discussion were thoughtfully selected, some were carved, and deliberately placed into a specific architectural and spatial context meaning that in many cases the rocks stood there first and architectural space (plaza,kallanka) was designed around them.The differing states of being for humans and the natural world were brought into relationship through ritual at the rock wak’as and in the adjoining plazas and kallankas. While the ritual participants—people and wak’as—interacted asymmetrically with the wak’as being the more durable and hence more powerful, ritual activities mediated between the multiple and complex inhabitants of the cosmos and states of existence, made them understandable, and reinforced coherence (see also Allen 1998:25).

Maarten van de Guchte (1990:237–271) superbly explores the complex layers of the concept wak’a based upon ethnographic and linguistic sources. He notices that while Spanish writers in the 16th century tended to focus on wak’as as objects,in the 17th century, there was a greater interest in the processual and ritual characteristics of wak’as and they are treated in the literature as living dynamic forces charged with spiritual powers. Wak’as can be material movable objects or localized features in a landscape, such as a building or water source. Wak’as can make sounds and speak in human languages and have relations with weather phenomena and the celestial bodies and wak’as may have unusual physical features which separate them from normal people and natural objects.Wak’as in all these categories lively interact with humans and we recall Guaman Poma’s (1987:253) well known drawing of Thupa Inka addressing a group of wak’as many of which are carved stones. All such discourse between wak’as and humans,between the landscape and humans is based on the principle of reciprocity central to Andean thinking. Reciprocity (ayni) cements Andean social and economic lives in the form of a vertically-organized trade system between altitude zones and reciprocity was fundamental in the political obligations between the Inka state and its subjects (Stone-Miller 2002:15–16). Reciprocity also characterizes the relations between man/nature and man/supernatural beings and always invokes mediation and dialogue rather than dominance. Of course, the concept of wak’a goes far beyond rocks; the latter only constitute a subgroup of wak’as and the foregrounded/sculpted boulders in the pattern only make up a small group of all rock wak’as.

There may have been another interesting link between the foregrounded rocks in our pattern, usnus, and Inka origin places. There were two main Inka origin stories told with certain variations by many chroniclers, which have been extensively debated in the literature (see,for example,Christie 2006b; Christie and Staller 2004; Salles-Reese 1997; Urton 1990, 1999). In the cosmic origin myth,Wiraqocha created the sun, the moon, and the stars on the Island of the Sun in Lake Titicaca. They are said to have come forth from two pronounced natural holes in a sacred rock outcrop.

This rock outcrop was the focal point of an important Inka sanctuary which people from all parts of the Andes visited in annual pilgrimages. Next Wiraqocha formed humans and painted them in the manner of the dress they were supposed to wear. He sent his newly created people away underground to wait for his call to come up out of springs, caves, rocks, and other similar places. Such places called pacarinas became the unique locations of origin of individual lineages. In the specific Inka origin myth, there was an important place with the name Pacariqtambo, to the south of Cusco,with a nearby mountain called Tampu T’oqo which displayed three windows or caves. The ancestors of the Inka who are represented as four brothers and four sisters in the chronicles emerged from the central window.Tampu T’oqo is known today as the sculpted outcrop Pumaurqu. Pumaurqu is a gigantic outcrop associated with caves, carved boulders, and a few modest Inka buildings around its bottom. Its top surface is sculpted into seats, platforms, and planes, as well as two pumas.The leader and principal figure among the ancestors was brother Ayar Manqo. They left Tampu T’oqo together with local people from the area searching for fertile land on which they would settle. When they arrived at the valley of Cusco, they recognized through miraculous signs that this should be their home. They took possession of it and Ayar Manqo founded the capital and became the first Inka ruler Manqo Qhapaq.

This digression was necessary to show how important stone and rocks—carved as well as uncarved—were in Inka and pan-Andean origin mythology. There may have been a conceptual link between the rocks in the origin stories, usnus, and the foregrounded rocks in the pattern we are investigating. Betanzos and Pedro Pizarro (1978:91) clearly say that one aspect of the usnu in the principal plaza of Cusco was that it functioned as a seat of the sun.Meddens (1997:10),in his discussion of usnus, differentiates between one type of usnu that was the seat of the sun and another type which was the seat of the ruler. He (1997:10) further points out that Inka rulers as well as the sun could literally be represented by certain idols which were understood as their brother images or huauques (wauq’es). Such huauques were mentioned by Spanish writers and specific huauques of Inka rulers have been identified (Van de Guchte 1996). Andean people appear to have believed that the spirit and essence of the ruler entered his brother or double image. The idol Punchaw stationed in the Qorikancha seems to have represented the sun in a similar way.At the beginning of time, when the sun first came out of the opening in the large rock formation on the Island of the Sun,it rested or sat on the stone for a moment in time.Perhaps the sun was made to rest or sit in a similar fashion on the usnu in Cusco when the Inka people placed the idol of the Sun on it (see above Betanzos 1996:48).This ritual act may be understood as an attempt to re-create the origin place in the center of Cusco.The main message of this ritual was to center the sun and its origin in Cusco. Since the Inka ruler was respected as the son of the sun, it would be appropriate for both the ruler and its supernatural father, to occupy equal usnus (see the two carved seats at Vilcaswaman). It is very interesting that Ramos Gavilan as well as Bernabe Cobo (cited by Bauer and Stanish 2001:230–231) mention a large stone basin placed directly in front of the Sacred Rock on the Island of the Sun into which priests poured the corn beer or chicha for the Sun to drink. Bauer’s and Stanish’ excavations (2001:231) exposed the remains of a stone canal which drained liquids away from the Sacred Rock. This seems to indicate that those aspects of the usnu which deal with liquid offerings and drainage were present in the Sanctuary area and that the Island of the Sun had—at least conceptually—an usnu. According to Zuidema (1980:357), this very aspect of an opening in the ground, where the earth absorbs rain water and other liquids, is the central theme of the Inka usnu.

An implicit connection with the origin place Pumaurqu may have been established by Thupa Inka through his carved rock in Chinchero which exhibits seats and platforms as well as two puma figures. Thupa Inka may have envisioned to symbolically transfer the origin site of the Inka dynasty to his personal estate.

The Use of the Pattern by Individual Emperors

In Inka Studies, it is often considered a risky endeavor to attribute specific settlements, buildings, or even masonry and ceramic styles to individual emperors because the accounts of the Spanish writers are not consistent and archaeological data are often inconclusive (D’Altroy 2002:45–47, 53–55, 109; Meyers 1997). Nevertheless,based upon the broad consensus in the chronicles that Pachakuti redesigned Cusco as the capital of the Inka empire and the documentary evidence which attributes the royal estates discussed above to specific rulers, I will dare to link certain consistencies and changes within the pattern to the preferences of individual emperors.

As discussed above, the archetypal model of the pattern plaza-kallankaforegrounded/carved rock originated in Cusco. I have treated this pattern as if it was formed in the course of Pachakuti’s reconstruction of the capital although it is impossible to say what exactly the Cusco usnu looked like and when exactly it was built given the available data. Wiraqocha Inka created a basic copy at his estate of Juchuy Qosqo by integrating the large sandstone boulder in between the plaza, kallanka, and palace complex. Pachakuti commissioned the carving of rocks (Christie N.d., 2003b) and his examples of the pattern in Machu Picchu and Vitcos display finely sculpted boulders. Amaru Thupa Inka’s estate at Callachaca exhibits another case of our pattern including an outcrop that has few carvings while Thupa Inka seems to have followed the elaborate sculptural style of his father.

At his royal estate at Chinchero,he created an impressive group of sculpture,architecture, and open space designed around a carved outcrop. The seat-like carvings charged this outcrop with concepts of an usnu and the sculpted pumas harkened back to the Inka origin place Pumaurqu, thus transforming the outcrop into a formidable seat of power. Wayna Qhapaq used the pattern in his palace complex of Quispiguanca at Urubamba and Yucay.The foregrounded rock is a white uncarved boulder centrally displayed.These chronological comparisons may suggest that the pattern was employed in its most elaborate forms during the reigns of Pachakuti and Thupa Inka. I have presented evidence elsewhere (Christie N.d., 2003b), that Pachakuti in particular promoted the carving of rocks and that Thupa Inka maintained this same strategy.This reasoning extends to Samaipata,which was founded during the reigns of these two monarchs and/or Wayna Qhapaq’s. The case of Samaipata is truly unique and based on its formidable geological conditions: a giant outcrop towering above the plaza with kallanka.The great variety of carvings imply numerous religious ritual and political functions. Other governance sites at great distances from Cusco, such as Inkallaqta and Huanuco Pampa, exhibit platform usnus instead of foregrounded rocks. At Vilcabamba the Old, the pattern is simple and reduced, using a large unmodified boulder. However, given the location of Vilcabamba the Old in the lowland jungle where mountain peaks are nonexistent and the symbolic qualities of the apus and stone perhaps poorly understood, the prominence of the huge boulder standing next to the kallanka is no less conspicuous.

This brief rerun of the examples discussed earlier was meant to bring out the individual nature of each case study. While there was the general overarching pattern, each occurrence is unique and perhaps personal in the way it was interpreted and manipulated by specific rulers. Other examples are the result of an adaptation to geologic conditions, such as Samaipata and to some extent Callachaca. I believe our pattern speaks to the individuality and artistic creativity of Inka rulers and artisans in the way they adapted a specific design to local land formations and changing political contexts. This is why it has been so challenging and difficult to define clear models and patterns in Inka culture in general. For example, scholars have been unable to agree on issues such as what are the identifying features of an Inka palace or royal estate architecture or patterns and meaning of Inka urban design (see Christie 2006a; Hyslop 1990; Kendall 1985; Morris 2004a,2004b; Protzen 2000). Perhaps we should concentrate more on the individuality of Inka design, approach case studies from a local context, and from the local direction find the point at which individuality and personal interpretation was balanced and counteracted by state control.It is this often subtle interplay and balancing act between local expression and state power, the very principle of reciprocity or ayni, that makes the study of Inka culture so fascinating.

Conclusions

The examples analyzed above have demonstrated that the combination of architectural and sculptural/natural features plaza-kallanka-foregrounded rock forms a recurring pattern. In some cases, the special rock had the form of an usnu with a seating area and thus functioned as a place where the ruler appeared in a prominent and elevated position. Guaman Poma de Ayala (1987:391, 407, 377) represented Atawallpa and Manqo Inka seated on usnus in Cajamarca and Cusco as well as a stepped platform as part of an architectural setting in a scene during the reign of Wayna Qhapaq (Figure 13). In these three drawings, the usnu is a stepped pyramidal stone with four platforms, but it is by no means certain that this was the historically correct form of the Cusco usnu. The carved rocks at Chinchero, Machu Picchu, and Vilcaswaman may have been used as similar royal thrones. Yet, such a context does not explain the entire pattern since other cases, for example, Quispiguanca and Vilcabamba were not carved as seats. What linked all the foregrounded rocks in the pattern together was that they were wak’as and consisted of stone and the symbolic qualities associated with it.

Finally, relationships of the highest order may have been called up by the rocks and boulders in our pattern.The examples discussed include Cusco,the capital,five royal estates: Juchuy Qosqo, Machu Picchu, Chinchero, Callachaca, Quispiguanca, the outlying governance sites of Samaipata, Inkallaqta, Huanuco Pampa, and Vilcaswaman as well as the new capital in exile Vilcabamba. One fundamental concept that qualified Cusco as the capital and elevated it to the center of the empire was that the division of the four quarters of Tawantinsuyu originated from its main plaza Awkaypata.More specifically,Zuidema (1980:326) interprets Molina’s description of the citua festival in the way that the four-partite division indeed began at the usnu. The document of the visit by Damian de la Bandera in the valley of Yucay in 1558 states that this valley was the personal property of Wayna Qhapaq (“como recamara suya”—like his private room) and that therefore the Indians who lived there did not belong to any suyu (Villanueva Urteaga 1971:94).Witnesses Lucas Chico and Martin Cutipa, mitimaes from the Yucay Valley, confirmed that neither this valley nor Wayna Qhapaq’s properties were ever part of any of the four provinces into which the empire was divided (Villanueva Urteaga 1971:129–131). For Damian de la Bandera, this was important because yanaconas and camayos traditionally maintained and worked the personal estates of the ruler and were thus exempt from tribute to the state and de la Bandera wanted to change that by taxing them. In the context of this study, it establishes an intriguing political parallel between Cusco and the royal estates: they all may have been considered neutral spaces, types of centers, and certain origin places. The division of the four quarters started in Awkaypata and possibly at the Cusco usnu itself. I suggest that the pattern of plaza-kallanka-foregrounded rock at the royal estates evoked similar ideas. While plazas and kallankas generally have practical functions, the special rocks are clearly the most powerfully charged feature in the pattern.As discussed elsewhere (Christie N.d., 2003a, 2003b; Niles 1992), on the most basic level, stone and rocks have the symbolic quality of mediating between the underworld (ukhu pacha), the world of man (kay pacha),and the upper world (hanan pacha) because bedrock reaches deep inside the earth and stone in the form of the Andean mountains towers high above the human world in the realm of the apus or mountain deities.Some of the stepped carvings may reproduce the man-made terraces on the mountain slopes.But I think in the context of royal estates, the rocks in the pattern may have another level of meaning beyond their functions as seats/thrones and mediators between the vertical divisions of the cosmos.Going back to the discussion of wak’as above,these special boulders and sculpted rocks may call up different states of being and meanings which we as Westerners understand as disparate but which in the mind of Andean people were related. It should be recalled that Salomon (Salomon and Urioste 1991:19) recognizes clear correspondences between the organization of wak’as and human social structure. I speculate to summarize such interrelations as follows: Cusco-ruler-center-plaza and kallankas for people-stone usnu-libations for ukhu pacha, offerings to hanan pacha-royal estates-ruler-plaza and kallankas for peoplestone wak’as. I think the administrative centers with usnu platforms covered above may be included even though the symbolic associations presented here apply most directly to stone wak’as and only in a secondary sense to usnu platforms. Ritual in the plazas, kallankas, and at the stones brought these interrelations alive through performance and acted them out. I argue that the pattern articulated formal, ideological, and conceptual parallels with Cusco, the center—a link that underlined the high status of royal estates as well as of any other settlement using the pattern.These associations would have been most appropriate and even necessary for Vilcabamba, which Manqo Inka pronounced the new capital.

Thus the discussion has demonstrated that the pattern of a plaza-kallankaforegrounded rock in Inka settlements was indeed meaningful. It brought up numerous ideas about Inka political power grounded in cosmology since some of the sculpted and foregrounded rocks display features of an usnu and all of them fall into the category of wak’as charged with powerful animating essences. The great variety of contexts and ideas which could be brought up by the special rocks had to be dramatized and explained in rituals conducted in the plaza and kallanka.Through ritual performances most likely led and presided over by the Inka ruler, ambiguities with regard to worldview were cleared away and order was instituted. While not all of the occurrences of the pattern are identical in their material form—they may vary in layout, elements of an usnu, distances between the diagnostic features, and elaboration of the rocks—, they evoked similar concepts and thought structures.

Acknowledgments

I would like to express my thanks and gratitude to Dr. Jean Muteba Rahier, Editor of JLACA and to his Managing Editor,Christi Navarro,as well as to the anonymous reviewers who helped me with inexhaustible commitment to improve my manuscript and make it acceptable to JLACA’s readers. I also thank Kelly Adams at East Carolina University for digitally altering many of my images and for her great patience and reliability.

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