The Power of Huacas: Change and Resistance in the Andean World of Colonial Peru

1. A Land Obsessed with Confessions; or, The Historians’ Insights into the World of Colonial Andean Religious Specialists

chaPTer oNe a land obsessed wiTh confessions; or, The hisTorians’ insighTs inTo The world of colonial andean religioUs specialisTs duriNg The coloNial Period, Peru became a land of confessions. In 1684 the artist José López de los Ríos captured the dramatic importance of this Catholic practice in the history of Andean religious specialists on a 4 × 8 meter cloth (figure 1.1).1 In the picture’s upper left corner an indigenous woman kneels in front of a Jesuit priest. Her face is black, a devil pulls her by her shoulders, and snakes crawl down her bosom. Behind the woman’s back, two other women dressed in indigenous gowns kneel in front of a third indigenous person—who boasts two horns—and offer him a qero, the ritual cup that preserved the memory of the Incas during the colonial period.2 The tableau thus depicts two different confessions: one in front of a Jesuit, and the other in front of an indigenous priest. Underneath these, a Latin message reads: “Vae nobis cur peccavimus mittent eos in caminum ignis ibi erit fletus et stridor dentium in infernon [sic] nulla est redemptio” (Woe on us: why did we transgress? They [the heavenly powers] will throw those [who transgressed] into the chimney of fire where there will be howling and teeth grinding. In hell, no one is redeemed). This allusion to Matthew 8:12 divides the picture into two halves, with the lower part reserved for the horrors of hell.3 López de los Ríos made the onlooker vividly imagine how devils torture, devour, and kill their victims. Destructive fires surround loathsome creatures and naked human beings, their eyes filled with fear. They seem to hope for rescue, but salvation cannot be expected from this world of horrors. Above hell, the two confession scenes are complemented by a vignette in which an indigenous couple move stiffly to the music of two musicians. One musician plays a zampoña (similar to a pan flute) and holds a drum; the other beats a drum. In the upper right corner, Spaniards , Creoles, mestizos, and an Afro-Peruvian indulge in the pleasures a land obsessed wiTh confessions 27 of life. For all the people on this small earth, hell awaits. In each of the four scenes, one person is depicted with horns: the devil, the indigenous priest who receives the qero, the indigenous musician, and one Spaniard. In two instances, the artist makes earth and hell converge. He pushes the Latin inscription aside to allow two clouds of steam to emerge from hell. These little clouds curl up around the confessing woman (apparently a Catholic), the indigenous person playing music, and the two women confessing to the indigenous priest. What was so sinful about these acts? What was wrong with an Andean woman’s confession to a Jesuit priest, musicians playing, and the offering of a qero by two women? The poliTical and spiriTUal conqUesT of The lake TiTicaca region López de los Ríos’s late seventeenth-century image was painted for the church of Carabuco, a small town perched on the eastern shore of Lake Titicaca at an elevation of about 3,830 meters. During colonial times, the southern highlands were the heartland of the indigenous Andean population. It is estimated that in 1620 around 350,000 of an estimated total of 670,000 indigenous Peruvians were living in the region of Lake figUre 1.1. Panel from El Infierno (1684), by José López de los Ríos. Church of Carabuco, Bolivia. 28 The power of huacas Titicaca.4 This area boasted a mythological importance for the Collas, the Lupacas, and the Omasuyos (ethnic groups from the south) as well as for the Incas.5 The Incas built their identity around Tambo Tocco, Cuzco, and the lake.They located their dynasty’s and Viracocha’s origin on the largest island in Lake Titicaca, the island of the sun.6 According to their myths, it was from this rugged island that the Incas began their astonishingly rapid rise to power.7 Unsurprisingly, and consistent with their imperial politics, once the Incas were in power they continued to recruit high-ranking officials from the Collasuyo.8 Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala identified the high priests of the Inca regime (“laycaconas , umoconas, vizaconas, camascaconas”)—for him the prototypes of hechizeros—with the Collasuyo region by depicting them with the headdress...