Once the Cuyo Basin was well integrated into the Inca heartland, settlement shifted to the bottom of the Vilcanota Valley (900 meters lower), where it was administered from Pisaq, a site that was the private estate of Pachacuti Inca Yupanqui (Toledo 1940 [1571]; Rostworowski 1970). The construction of Pisaq was associated with massive public works projects to canalize the Vilcanota River and extend irrigated agriculture onto new terrace groups on the lower valley slopes. New Inca state lands were surrounded by small Inca Period villages that were located at elevations where local groups—as well as provincial laborers brought to the valley by the Inca—could work state fields while also having access to other available agricultural lands. In sum, the Cuyo were independent from Cuzco during the early part of the Killke Period. Settlement was then reorganized around Pukara Pantillijlla when the Inca state established control over the region. Before Inca imperial expansion, the occupations in the upper Cuyo Basin were largely abandoned and there was a major settlement shift to the valley bottom, favoring lands associated with intensive maize production. This shift may represent an energetic reaction to state labor tribute demands rather than a systematic program of regional resettlement by the state, and it appears that chronicle descriptions of the destruction of the Cuyo ethnic group are somewhat exaggerated.
The Region East and Southeast of the Cuzco Valley
It is well documented that the Lucre Basin, which lies to the southeast of the Cuzco Basin, contained two separate, but apparently closely related, ethnic groups called the Pinahua (or Pinagua) and the Mohina (or Muyna). Oral histories recorded by the Spaniards suggest that these groups were important rivals when the Inca consolidated their control in the region. Sarmiento de Gamboa (1906: 49, 55, 56 [1572: Chs. 19, 23, 24]) notes that a series of early Inca kings, including Inca Roca, Yahuar Huacac, Viracocha Inca, and Pachacuti Inca Yupanqui, had each staged military incursions against the principal Pinahua and Mohina settlements. For example, Sarmiento de Gamboa (1906: 57–58 [1572: Ch. 25]) writes:
And then he [Viracocha Inca] went against the people of Mohina and Pinahua, Casacancha and Rondocancha, five small leagues from Cuzco. They had already made themselves free, even though Yahuar Huacac had defeated them. And they [the Inca captains] attacked and killed most of the natives and their cinches [leaders], who at that time were named Muyna Pongo and Guaman Topa. They suffered this war and cruelties because they said they were free and would not serve or be his subjects.17 (Translation by authors)
Unlike the major ethnic groups north (Huayllacan) and west (Anta and Ayarmaca) of Cuzco, with whom the Inca practiced some form of elite marriage exchange early in the period of state development, it appears that the Inca became locked in prolonged confrontation with the Mohina and Pinahua, which lasted for much of the Killke Period.
With Inca imperial development under Huascar, many of the Pinahua were removed from their traditional lands and resettled in the lowlands of Paucartambo. Huascar, who was born in a town on the shore of Lake Lucre (Betanzos 1996: 176 [1557: Bk. 1, Ch. 45]), then built a private estate in the basin. Soon after the Spanish Conquest, the Pinahua began petitioning to have their lost lands returned to them (Espinoza Soriano 1974). These early Colonial Period legal proceeding provide important information on the landholding of the Pinahua during prehispanic times.
The Pinahua ethnic group was so decimated by the Inca that today they are not locally well remembered.18 Nevertheless, documents from the early Colonial Period Pinahua court cases describe their territory in some detail. Before their removal by Huascar, the Pinahua controlled the area on the northern side of the Huatanay River east of the Angostura to its confluence with the Vilcanota River. There is no doubt that the Pinahua once occupied the large site of Chokepukio, since it is specifically and repeatedly mentioned as one of their former towns in the earlier documents of the suit. The site was probably the principal town of the Pinahua, referred to as “Pinagua-Chuquimatero” in the later documents. For example, in 1571 Pedro Lampa, a witness presented by the Pinahua, states: “There was in past times on one side of the narrow drainage of Lake Muyna in some old buildings, a town that was called Pinagua-Chuquimatero” (Espinoza Soriano 1974: 205).19
The area and principal city of the Mohina ethnic group is more difficult to define, since no large collection of documents has yet been found to help reconstruct their holdings. The situation is made more complex by the fact that the Spaniards and later travelers refer to the site of Pikillacta as the ruins of Mohina (e.g., Squier 1877: 419–422; Cieza de León 1976: 261 [1553: Pt. 1, Ch. 97]). The Mohina most likely controlled the area to the south of the lake, opposite the Pinahua-controlled region. It is known that the lands of Mohina were awarded to Paullu Topa Inca Yupanqui by Pizarro in 1537, and that his son Carlos Inca continued to hold the land on the basis of his descent from Huayna Capac (Vazquez de Espinosa 1948: 551 [1629: Bk. 4, Ch. 92]; Cook 1975: 131). By the seventeenth century, some of the Mohina had been removed to the town of Oropesa, located between the Cuzco and Lucre Basins, close to the fortified Killke Period site of Tipón (Stavig 1999: 92).
Exploratory work in the Lucre Basin indicates that Chokepukio is its largest Killke Period settlement, suggesting that the Pinahua quickly filled the power vacuum created by the Wari withdrawal from the region (Photo 8.3). Chokepukio certainly was an impressive site during the Killke Period, with considerable monumental architecture. Dated samples of organic materials (vines) used during the construction of these walls (McEwan 1987: 227; Kendall 1985: 347) suggest that their construction may have begun near the time of the Wari collapse and continued throughout the Killke Period. Although Chokepukio remains one of the best-preserved Killke Period sites in the Cuzco region, it was not unique. Site sizes reported for the nearby sites of Minaspata (Dwyer 1971a: 41) and Cotocotuyoc (Glowacki 2002: 271) are comparable to that of Chokepukio. During the Killke Period, the city of Cuzco was at least as large, and the chronicles describe other nucleated sites in the Anta and Chinchero regions.
PHOTO 8.3. During the Killke Period, the site of Chokepukio was an impressive settlement with considerable monumental architecture.
PHOTO 8.4. The site of Tipón is surrounded by a large defensive wall.
The regional settlement data from the eastern end of the Cuzco Valley illustrate the interactions between the Inca and ethnic groups of the Lucre Basin. As early as the Formative Period (ca. 1000 BC), the stretch of valley between the Cuzco Basin and the Lucre Basin, called the Oropesa Basin, contained numerous dispersed settlements located on alluvial terraces and low slopes bordering the rich maize-producing valley bottom. During the Qotakalli Period and the Wari Period, there was an especially large clustering of hamlets and villages around the Huasao area. With the decline of Wari influence in the neighboring Lucre Basin, a major disruption in the settlement pattern of this area occurred. Most strikingly, all valley-bottom settlements were abandoned in the early Killke Period, and a single nucleated settlement, Tipón, was established on a broad ridge 300 to 400 m above the valley floor (Map 8.3). This Killke Period settlement, along with its agricultural lands and water sources, was surrounded by an enormous defensive wall constructed of rough field stones and mud mortar, approximately 5 min height (Photo 8.4). In other sections, areas of sheer cliffs blocked access to the site. These defensive features of the site run for more than 6 linear kilometers. The site of Tipón is even more remarkable when one considers that, with the exception of the Inca imperial fortress at Sacsayhuaman, this is the only fortified settlement in the Cuzco Valley.20
The complete depopulation of the alluvial terraces and valley floor area between the Cuzco Basin and the Lucre Basin represents the establishment of a well-defined buffer zone between rival polities (Anderson 1994: 39–41; Marcus and Flannery 1996: 124–125). The fact that the only Killke Period settlement in this valley area is within a large, nucleated fortification further supports the argument that the two regions were important rivals (Photo 8.5). From this evidence, it is clear that the ethnic groups
of the Lucre Basin were sufficiently large and well organized to resist Inca attempts to expand from the Cuzco Valley to the east until most of the region was already under the sway of their state.
The Tipón area as well as the Lucre Basin did eventually fall under Cuzco domination. According to statements from indigenous informants, recorded in a 1571–1590 land dispute over fields within Tipón, this fortified site fell to Viracocha Inca (La Lone 1985), who then transformed it into a royal estate (Photo 8.6; Garcilaso de la Vega 1966: 286 [1609: Pt. 1, Bk. 5, Ch. 20]). Our survey data indicate that numerous new Inca sites were established on the low alluvial terraces and valley floor within the buffer zone once it was incorporated under Cuzco control. The nearby Huasao area was resettled with mitmaes (colonists) who were given their own land, along with the task of caring for the lands in Tipón assigned to the cults of Viracocha Inca and that of the Sun (La Lone 1985). Other tracts in the region were given to members of important Cuzco-based lineage groups. For example, various documents in the Cuzco archive indicate that several residents of Chocco, as the descendants of Mama Anahuarque, the principal wife of Pachacuti Inca Yupanqui, were awarded land across the valley from Huasao (Rostworowski 1966: 34).
Inca State Formation and Imperial Administrative Strategies
The cases discussed above illuminate how the Inca used diverse strategies to consolidate regional power over allies and rivals of varying ethnicity and organizational complexity. The ethnohistory and archaeology of some areas outside the current Cuzco survey regions suggest that early Inca conquests were often ad hoc affairs, and that the patchwork nature of the linguistic, ethnic, and political landscape favored a pattern of leapfrogging when making conquests (see Mannheim 1991: 31–60 for a description of linguistic diversity). For example, Ollantaytambo (to the northwest) and Huaro (to the southeast) were both separated from Cuzco by regional rivals (the Ayarmaca and the Pinahua, respectively [Rostworowski 1970; Espinoza Soriano 1974]), yet they are mentioned as being early allies of the Inca (Cabello de Valboa 1951: 283 [1586: Bk. 3, Ch. 12]; Cobo 1979: 115 [1653: Bk. 12, Ch. 6]; Guaman Poma de Ayala 1980: 71 [1615: f. 89]). The developing Inca polity is likely to have had direct control over, or close alliances with, some groups outside the Cuzco Valley even before it was completely consolidated, a condition documented in other cases of early state formation (Algaze 1992; Marcus 1992; Sidky 1995; Spencer and Redmond 2001). The transition from state to empire is more subtle than suggested in the documents, as alliances and hegemonic control were extended beyond the heartland region prior to the full implementation of direct control. The Inca continued their processes of consolidation throughout the imperial period, developing new estate lands and maintaining the autonomy of remaining local ethnic groups.
PHOTO 8.5. The valley floor area between the Cuzco and Lucre Basins, which had been densely occupied for millennia, was suddenly abandoned during the Killke Period as the region became a buffer zone between the Inca and the ethnic groups of the Lucre Basin.
PHOTO 8.6. Inca terracing at the site of Tipón. The site was developed as an estate by Viracocha Inca after the conquest of the Pinahua and Mohina polities of the Lucre Basin.
The full integration of the Inca heartland was an uneven and unstable process, one whose tempo and duration were influenced by the personalities of elite leadership and the military might that could be mustered. The achievements of one leader’s rule did not necessarily continue into a successor’s reign, and early territorial conquests were frequently challenged when new Inca rulers came to power. Even intergroup elite marriages whose overall goal was to stabilize cross-generational alliances often broke down, particularly during interregna, a problem that was also common at the provincial level during the imperial period. The numerous rebellions, reconquests, and negotiations that took place between various groups of the region after the death of an Inca leader underscore the importance that individuals played in extending Inca control throughout the heartland (Covey 2003). In certain cases, powerful allies are even said to have played important roles in the promotion of specific Cuzco leaders. Both the Ayarmaca and the Huayllacan are said to have blatantly attempted to manipulate dynamic succession in Cuzco, even to the point of assassinating unwanted contenders to the throne.
Tracing the intermarriages of the elite Inca with women from rival ethnic groups reveals the gradual expansion of Cuzco-based regional alliances over time. Although the earlier Inca rulers are said to have married the daughters of community leaders from within the Cuzco Basin, and the last Inca emperors considered their full sisters as principal wives, several generations of interethnic regional marriage alliances occurred between Cuzco and other powerful groups of the heartland during the period of state formation (Table 8.1). The Inca modified this practice as their empire spread across the Andes, with the Inca ruler and his kin taking only secondary wives (no longer principal wives) from the noble houses of vanquished ethnic groups. This strategy continued well into the Colonial Period, with high-ranking Cuzco elites offering their women to the Spaniards in hopes of building alliances with the newly established power in the Andes.
Internal development accompanied by alliance building, intimidation, and isolation of rivals can be seen as part of the Inca imperial strategy as well. Imperial Inca expansion was based on the opportunistic manipulation of local ethnic and political relationships, and in many cases involved several generations of conquest and reintegration and the establishment of more direct administration of local populations (e.g., the Colla and Lupaqa in the Titicaca Basin [Stanish 1998, 2000, 2003]). Population resettlement (Murra 1985) and the development of natural resources in ways that undercut local identity (Wachtel 1982) are also imperial strategies whose practice is seen in the Killke Period development of the early Inca state. Using the Killke Period settlement patterns and historical sources, we can now discern greater time depth to the development and practice of Inca expansion and administration.
Summary and Discussion
In order to understand incipient state growth in the Cuzco region, we have examined the available documents as well as the archaeological record of the entire region for evidence of the gradual centralization of political, economic, and military control in the hands of a few and the elaboration of social stratification, rather than simply relying on the heroic actions of a single leader as an explanation of state development. Within this perspective, the rise to power of specific kings, such as Pachacuti Inca Yupanqui, and regional conflicts, such as the Chanka War or the hostilities between the Inca of the Cuzco Basin and the ethnic groups of the Lucre Basin, are not viewed as the causes of state development, but rather as factors influencing the tempo of processes of state formation that were occurring throughout the entire Cuzco region.
Many of the strategies the Inca used to incorporate and administer new territories and ethnic groups were developed between AD 1000 and 1400, when a state formed in the Cuzco Basin and extended direct territorial control over surrounding regions (Figure 8.2). Within the Cuzco Basin, population numbers and density increased dramatically, and the productive landscape was transformed in a way that created stable state incomes while undercutting local and individual autonomy. The city of Cuzco developed into an urbanized center with a series of large satellite villages surrounding it. During this period, powerful rivals included the Pinahua and Mohina of the Lucre Basin, the Ayarmaca of the Chinchero area, plus many other groups of varying sizes scattered across the Cuzco region. The Paruro area, which was sparsely populated, saw little direct manipulation of local settlement by the Inca, while the Cuyo Basin was reorganized under Inca control during the Killke Period through the site of Pukara Pantillijlla, and then later through the site of Pisaq. The unification, or in a few cases the successful elimination, of these groups over the course of several centuries resulted in the creation of an Inca heartland capable of sustaining rapid Inca imperial expansion.
Early colonial documents provide differing, and frequently contradictory, accounts of how and wh
en various groups within the Cuzco region were incorporated into the emerging Inca state. Nevertheless, the chroniclers all stress that a variety of strategies were undertaken and that numerous social institutions were created during the process. For example, although the ethnic groups to the north and west of Cuzco—including the Anta (west), the Ayarmaca (northwest), and the Huayllacan (north)—appear to have been traditional rivals of the Inca, and frequent conflicts arose between them, these groups were eventually allied through marriage exchanges.
FIGURE 8.2. Settlement hierarchies of the Cuzco region during the Killke Period (AD 1000–1400). The Paruro region (PAP) displays a low population lacking a clear site hierarchy or evidence of a developed administrative center. The Cuzco Valley (CVAP) was dominated by Cuzco and had a dense population with large and small villages, but no secondary administrative center. The Vilcanota Valley (SVAP) has small and large villages, as well as the Inca secondary center at Pukara Pantillijlla.
It is said that the last three Inca kings who ruled before imperial expansion spread beyond the Cuzco region married women from these groups (Sarmiento de Gamboa 1906 [1572]). This includes Inca Roca’s marriage to Mama Micay of the Huayllacan, Yahuar Huacac’s marriage to Mama Chicya of the Ayarmaca, and Viracocha Inca’s marriage to Mama Runtucaya of the Anta.21 In the case of the Huayllacan, repeated treachery as they attempted to maintain local autonomy ultimately led to their destruction by the Inca, whereas the Ayarmaca and the Anta may have been incorporated more peacefully on the basis of elite kin ties and external threats.
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