Huamachuco

INKA STORAGE SYSTEMS
Edited by TERRY Y. LeVINE
1992
UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA PRESS : NORMAN AND LONDON
Chapter 7

INKA STORAGE IN HUAMACHUCO
Dr. John R. Topic and Coreen E. Chiswel

INTRODUCTION

HUAMACHUCO is located in the North Highlands of Peru, approximately 115 km from Trujillo and 90 km from Cajamarca, in the southern end of the Condebamba-Cajamarca drainage basin. The area is one of relatively broken topography, where small valleys, drained by northward-flowing rivers, are separated by hills and mountains. The town itself is at 3,160 m, but variations in altitude give local people access to a variety of resource zones. Much of the land in the immediate vicinity is suited to rainfall agriculture, and there is a limited amount of highland pastureland.

Despite references in the sixteenth-century Spanish chronicles to an Inka center located at Huamachuco, remarkably little evidence of the Inka presence survives to modern times. The town of Huamachuco is believed to overlie the original Inka installation, and it has obliterated almost all architectural evidence of the prehispanic settlement. Outside modern Huamachuco, qollqa were first recognized in 1981 (Topic and Topic 1982). An analysis of these storage facilities provides one way to better understand the Inka presence in Huamachuco.

Storage was an important aspect of the Inka economy, and sixteenth-century chronicle sources abound in references to Inka storage structures. The chroniclers make clear that there were many types of storage facilities, that a wide range of food and nonfood products were stored, and that facilities were specifically dedicated to a variety of state institutions. For example, the chroniclers tell us that there were storage facilities for each town, and sometimes for individual fields; that the state religion and important shrines had separate storage facilities; and that traveling dignitaries, soldiers, akllaquna (chosen women), and people fulfilling state labor obligations were supplied from stores set aside for them.

Although specific details of the chronicles cannot always be taken at face value, they provide a wealth of general information about storage that would be unavailable from archaeological excavation alone. At the end of this chapter, we will consider the degree to which our present understanding of the Huamachuco qollqa concurs with these general descriptions of Inka storage. However, most of the chapter will be devoted to describing what remains of the storage complex, the excavations we conducted, the identification of distinct types of storerooms and their possible functions, the analysis of botanical remains, and the regional and historical context of the Huamachuco complex.1

The time frame that encompasses the construction and abandonment of the Huamachuco qollqa is defined with relative precision by historic references. Rowe's (1946: 209-10) general chronology of the Inka expansion as it pertains to Huamachuco is supported by local documentation. Although some Inka military activity may have taken place earlier, Huamachuco was effectively incorporated into the Inka realm by Thupa Yupanki probably between 1463 and 1471. Local documentation for this event is sparse, but Thupa Yupanki is mentioned in some documents.2 There are suggestions that Wayna Qhapaq, who reigned from about 1493-1527, may have played a major role in incorporating Huamachuco into the empire: Espinoza (1974a: 22, 35) feels that he may have reorganized the local population by creating a waranqa (unit of 1,000 tributaries); the Primeros Agustinos (1918) mention him in regard to several local huacas (holy places); and Guaman Poma (1980: 1094-1103) notes that Wayna Qhapaq had houses in Huamachuco. It was under these two rulers that the Inka town was built, the road system was reconstructed, mitmaqkuna (state-sponsored colonists) installed, and the storage facilities discussed in this chapter created (Topic and Topic n.d.).

After Wayna Qhapaq's death, the civil war between Waskar and Atawalpa raged through Huamachuco. During the war, Atawalpa spent several months in Huamachuco, destroying the famous oracle of Catequil in Porcón (Primeros Agustinos 1918: 22-24; Betanzos 1987: segunda parte, cap. xvi). Atawalpa's troops executed Waskar in Andamarca, in the southern part of the province of Huamachuco (Sarmiento 1965: 274; Betanzos 1987 segunda parte, cap. xxiv). Undoubtedly, throughout this period both armies were provisioned on occasion from state storehouses in Huamachuco. The Spanish conquerors probably were still drawing on these stores in 1533 as they passed through Huamachuco (Estete 1917: 77; Pedro Pizarro 1965: 187-88). A rather strange reference by the Augustinians (Primeros Agustinos 1918: 36) to finding two mummies hidden in piles of maize may indicate that the storerooms were still functioning to some extent in 1560.

It is unlikely that any system of centralized storage was still functioning in 1567. In that year, Gregorio Gonzales de Cuenca (Ordenanza, folio 3433) ordered that each tampu (state waystation) in the province be stocked with food from surrounding towns. Moreover, the food was to be sold to travelers and the money deposited in the community treasury; he notes that this is a change from what had been customary during and immediately following Inka control.

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