The Social Basis of Sacred Spaces in the Prehispanic Andes: Ritual Landscapes of the Dead inChimú and Inka SocietiesAuthor(s): Jerry D. MooreReviewed work(s):Source: Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory, Vol. 11, No. 1, Recent Advances in theArchaeology of Place, Part 1 (Mar., 2004), pp. 83-124Published by: SpringerStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20177493 .Accessed: 29/03/2012 14:25

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Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory, Vol. 11, No. 1, March 2004 (? 2004)

The Social Basis of Sacred Spaces in the Prehispanic Andes: Ritual Landscapes of the Dead in Chim? and Inka Societies

Jerry D. Moore1

Sacred landscapes are a subset of the diverse media that people use to make state ments about social order. Mary Douglas has discussed two dimensions of social

order?group and grid?and suggested connections between their varied concep tions and expressions in the culturally constructed landscape. I extend Douglas 's

concepts to a specific domain of sacred landscapes, funerary architecture. Drawing on two examples from the prehispanic Andes, largue that differences in Chimu and Inka funerary landscapes represent different conceptions of social order. Archaeo

logical investigations of sacred spaces as expressions of varying social experience deepen understanding of Andean societies and other ancient peoples.

KEY WORDS: sacred landscapes; funerary space; Chimu; Inka.

INTRODUCTION

Archaeological approaches to sacred landscapes immediately stumble on a series of difficult issues: What makes a space "sacred?" How is the physical world?the natural, cognitive, and constructed environments?ordered into spe cific cultural classifications and given distinctive meanings? Can archaeologists

meaningfully inquire into classifications made by past societies? It is sobering to

recall that decades ago Leach (1978) concluded that archaeologists could say little of interest about the nature of the sacred. For better or worse, we have continued to try.

In the following discussion, I attempt to make several points. First, I argue that

current approaches to sacred landscapes tend to take one of two dichotomous posi tions, presenting landscapes as reflections of the indisputably sacred or presenting

department of Anthropology, 1000 E. Victoria St., California State University, Dominguez Hills, Carson, California 90747; e-mail: jmoore@csudh.edu

83

1072-5369/04/0300-0083/0 ? 2004 Plenum Publishing Corporation

84 Moore

them as contested spaces. Second, I suggest an alternative position, one that con

siders cultural landscapes as a subset of the diverse media that people employ to

make symbolic statements about social order. This theoretical position extends

Mary Douglas's concepts of grid and group. I summarize Douglas's model, define

the concepts of grid and group, and outline some of the varying manifestations

relevant to culturally constructed landscape. These ideas are directly relevant to

understanding the sacred landscapes of the Inka (ca. A.D. 1200-1530) and the

Chimu (ca. A.D. 900-1470; see Fig. 1). I argue that while both Inka and Chimu

societies had a well-developed sense of themselves as a bounded social group

(what Douglas calls "high group") and a complex web of rules about the role of

the individual (or "high grid" in Douglas's terms), they varied in their conceptions of social order. In essence, the Inka conceptualized social order by extending a

ramifying, lineage-based system that allowed for ranking and inclusion. The basic

Chimu model was different, employing a class-based model in which nobles and

commoners were viewed as the products of separate creations. In turn, these vary

ing conceptions of Andean social orders were restated in different material forms, such as the funerary landscapes of the dead.

THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

Although there has been a recent surge of interest in sacred landscapes (e.g., Carrasco, 1991; Chidester and Linenthal, 1995; Kryder-Reid, 1996; Townsend,

1992), this has been a theme in Andean studies for more than 50 years. For ex

ample, seminal works by Rowe (1946, 1963) and Zuidema (1964, 1978) on the

spatial order and symbolic systems of Inka Cuzco have stimulated subsequent archaeoastronomical studies (e.g., Aveni and Urton, 1982; Bauer, 1992, 1998; Bauer and Dearborn, 1995; Urton, 1981). Similarly, the recurrent fascination with

the Nazca lines and other geoglyphs (Reiche, 1949; Silverman, 1993) are an index

of Andeanists' long interest in sacred landscapes, an interest partially fueled by

ethnographic descriptions of complex Andean spatial geographies (e.g., Bastien, 1978: pp. 37-50, 60-62; Burger, 1992; Earls and Silverblatt, 1978; B. J. Isbell,

1980: pp. 57-61; W. J. Isbell, 1978; Netherly and Dillehay, 1986; Niles, 1992). In 1975, Billie Jean Isbell allegedly told a group of symposium participants, "An

deanists have a thing about space" quoted by Gow (1978: p. 199), and this is

still true of Andean archaeologists. In attempting to understand Andean societies,

anthropological archaeologists have repeatedly investigated the spatial aspects of

culture giving special emphasis to sacred spaces. In that effort, archaeological interpretations of sacred space commonly draw

on two theoretical stances. One body of theory posits that religious symbols are

physical expressions of the sacred. Employing metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche and other referential logics, sacred spaces, along with other religious symbols,

materially embody, manifest, or are irruptions of the sacred. They are expressions

Social Basis of Sacred Spaces in the Prehispanic Andes 85

Fig. 1. Locations of sites discussed in text.

of truths that, like myth (muthos), lie outside the realm of disputation and debate

(logos). Such spaces, in Mircea Eliade's term (Eliade, 1959), are examples of

hierophany, manifestations that are "irreducibly" sacred. Kolata and Ponce Sanguines (1992) employ this approach in their discussion

of the Akapana, the major mound in the civic/ceremonial core of Tiwanaku. The

86 Moore

Akapana was a huaca (Quechua waka), an Andean concept that may include

portable or nonportable natural or artificial objects that are material manifestations

of the sacred. Kolata and Ponce Sanguines write,

The Akapana was Hwanaku's principal earth shrine, an icon of fertility and agricultural abundance. Its location in the core of the city suggests another kind of symbolic represen tation. It was the mountain at the center of the island-world and may even have evoked the

specific image of sacred mountains on Lake Titicaca's Island of the Sun. In this context,

the Akapana was the prinicipal huaca of cosmogonie myth, the mountain of human origins and emergence, which took on specific mytho-historic significance. The elite who lived

within the moated precinct appropriated images from the natural order and merged them

with their concept of social order, asserting, through a mimetic program of architectonic

and sculptural display, their intimate affiliation with the life-giving forces of nature.

In this interpretation, the Akapana was a sacred landscape that physically restated

cosmology, a worldview so broadly held by members of Tiwanaku society, elite

and nonelite, that the architectural references were recognized and accepted. The

appropriation of the sacred by social elites, Kolata and Ponce Sanguines (1992:

p. 322) argue, was a symbolic justification of hierarchy in which "Social inequality and hierarchy were encoded in Tiwanaku's urban form," a form characterized by a

"concentric cline of the sacred" as one moved from the sacred center to the profane

margins of Tiwanaku. Recognized by all as indisputably sacred, the ceremonial

core of Tiwanaku was hierophanic. An alternative position sees sacred spaces, as well as other symbols and me

dia, as contested. This perspective, influenced by Michel Foucault's ideas on power and knowledge (Foucault, 1977, 1984), views systems of classification as entan

gled with social, political, and economic forces. This obviously includes matters

such as the definitions of sacred/profane, piety/blasphemy, purity/pollution, ex

clusion/inclusion, and other matters relevant to ritual and symbolism. Rather than

reflecting received and revealed categories of the sacred, such classifications, as

Chidester and Linenthal (1995: p. 17) have recently stated, are in fact "hierarchical

power relations of domination and subordination, inclusion and exclusion, appro

priation and dispossession." They conclude, "sacred space anchors more than mere

myth or emotion. It anchors relations of meaning and power that are at stake in the

formation of a larger social reality" (Chidester and Linenthal, 1995: p. 17). This view of sacred space as contested undergirds Urton's (1990) analysis of

the Inka origin myth; the myth states that the first Inkas emerged from a cave called

Tambotoco in the region of Pacariqtambo ("the tambo or inn of dawn or origin") and then traveled north to establish Cuzco. Bauer's (1991, 1992) archaeological research suggests that Tambotoco was a rock outcrop now known as Puma Oreo.

Urton shows that as the town of Pacariqtambo was relocated during the reducciones

of the late sixteenth century, the cave of origin was also "moved." The Pacariq tambo elites claimed noble and tax-exempt status on the basis of their descent

from the Inka and their affiliation with the place of original emergence (Urton,

1990: pp. 41^3,48-52). In this context, "the residents of Pacariqtambo from the

sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries were indeed aware of the identification

Social Basis of Sacred Spaces in the Prehispanic Andes 87

of their villages as the origin place of the Inkas,... they were active participants in

the construction of that tradition, and... they used it to their advantage on every

possible occasion" (Urton, 1990: p. 14). "The stakes of the concretization, or lo

calization, of the origin places for people in Pacariqtambo were very high indeed," Urton (1990: p. 15) writes, producing discrepant versions of mythic history and its

associated space which are the products of "individual and family struggles to gain

power and prestige." For the elites of Pacariqtambo, the sacred place of original

emergence was a contested space.

Although other examples could be cited (e.g., Conklin, 1990; Greider, 1978:

p. 189; Urton, 1988), the above cases are sufficient for my point: these are two

distinct theoretical approaches to sacred space. On one hand, the sacred is viewed

as being reified and recognized, its sacredness broadly perceived by the members

of a society and outside the realm of dispute. In contrast, sacred spaces may also

be viewed as embroiled in debate, entangled in and reflecting the contests of social

and political life: they are the very subjects of dispute (Urton, 1988: p. 255). How can such two diametrically opposed, but theoretically plausible positions

coexist? How can one move from these interpretations of sacredness to an approach that might in some way be amenable to archaeological analysis? In this article, I propose a theoretical approach to the archaeological analysis of sacred space.

The argument proceeds via a nested set of progressively narrowed propositions. First, I contend that the views of sacred space as alternatively hierophanic or

contested are not really explanatory alternatives, but rather variable reflections of

social order and social unanimity. They form a subset of an enormous social field

that Bourdieu (1977: p. 164) called doxa, in which the physical world and the

social realm appear to correspond. Bourdieu insists that the creation of systems of knowledge is always a political act, and "the symbolic power to impose the

principles of the construction of reality?in particular, social reality?is a major dimension of political power" (Bourdieu, 1977: p. 165). In societies where systems of knowledge are stable and replicated by their members' actions, then the range of

what is taken for granted is correspondingly large. Customary law "goes without

saying because it comes without saying', the tradition is silent, not the least about

itself as tradition" (Bourdieu, 1977: p. 167). In contrast, when societies experience

permanent or temporary instability, then the field of doxa correspondingly shrinks.

The alternative views of sacred space as hierophanic or contested mark varying

regions within this larger doxic domain.

Second, the doxic domain linking sacred space and social order encompasses

multiple dimensions of social order. I am interested in two dimensions: the as

sociations of being a member of a community, and the rules surrounding indi

viduals' roles and social positions. These dimensions are what Douglas (1966, 1972, 1982a,b) has referred to as "group" and "grid." As Bell (1997: p. 43) has

written, "Grid refers to the strength of the rules governing the interrelationships of individual roles and formal positions in a society, while group refers to the

strength of people's associations as a tightly knit or closed community." Douglas

88 Moore

has outlined expectations regarding the ways different experiences of grid and

group will be symbolically expressed; I summarize Douglas's theoretical position and hypothetical expectations in detail below.

The great value of Douglas's ideas, I contend, is to draw our attention to the

way material culture is employed to make symbolic statements regarding con

ceptions of social order. Sacred landscapes are just one manner in which humans

make symbolic statements about social order. Different social experiences are

symbolically stated in various media with varying material vocabularies: gestures, costumes, processions, urban plans, inscriptions, architecture, fireworks, drums, and tolling bells, to cite an incomplete and diverse set of examples that does not

begin to exhaust the creative ways humans encode and display meanings (De Marrais et al, 1996). The culturally constructed material environment is encoded

to varying levels of ambiguity, multivocality, and symbolic condensation, and the

meanings associated with sacred landscapes may be generally held or bitterly con

tested as the social order is stable or factionalized. No society is perfectly stable, few are utterly chaotic for long, and thus there are significant differences between

societies' experiences of social order.

In the following, I summarize Douglas's concepts of grid and group, and then

apply them to ethnohistoric and archaeological data about the social orders and

cosmologies of the Chimu and Inka. Drawing on Douglas's model, I outline specific

expectations about the differences in the sacred landscapes of the dead in Chimu

and Inka societies. I argue that differences in funerary space and social space were

restatements of different social experiences in Inka and Chim? societies.

GROUP AND GRID ANALYSIS: A THEORETICAL SUMMARY

Douglas (1972,1982a,b) has explored how systems of classification and their

symbolic representations are linked to various social experiences. Douglas argues that "most values and beliefs can be analysed as part of society instead of as a

separate cultural sphere" (Douglas, 1982a: p. 7). The concepts of group and grid are central to her analysis. "Group is obvious," Douglas (1972: p. viii) writes, "the

experience of a bounded social unit. Grid refers to rules which relate one person to others on an ego centered basis." Group/grid analysis,

... is a method of identifying cultural bias, of finding an array of beliefs locked together into relational patterns. The beliefs must be treated as part of the action, and not separated from it as in so many theories of social action. The action or social context is placed on

a two-dimensional map with moral judgments, excuses, complaints and shifts of interest

reckoned as the spoken justifications by individuals of the action they feel required to take.

As their subjective perception of the scene and its moral implications emanates from each

of them individually, it constitutes a collective moral consciousness about man and his place in the universe. (Douglas, 1982b: pp. 199-200)

The strength of this perspective is its stereoscopic focus on symbol and so

ciety, cultural meanings and social relations. Douglas outlines a series of explicit,

Social Basis of Sacred Spaces in the Prehispanic Andes 89

Table I. Grid/Group Matrix (After Douglas, 1970,1982a,b)

Group

Low High

Grid High B C Low A D

testable hypotheses linking social order and symbolic statements, such as the eco

nomic and political expressions of differing social contexts, symbolic structures

relating to the human body and society, and cosmological statements regarding nature, time, human nature, and social behavior (Douglas, 1972, 1982a,b). These

ideas are relevant for understanding sacred landscapes.

Group and grid are independent continuous variables. One could imagine a sliding scale of "group" between "no sense of a bounded social unit" to "a

well-developed sense of bounded social unit." Similarly, one could imagine grid

expressed by continuous gradations from high grid in which "individual experience is tightly controlled by social rules" to low grid in which "individual experience is

unregulated by social rules." However, Douglas has illustrated grid and group by reference to a 2 x 2 matrix (Table I). When a society experiences high grid/high

group (e.g., Cell C) "the quality of relations is ordered and clearly bounded. If

group is found by itself [e.g., Cell D], or grid is found without group [e.g., Cell

B], the quality of relations is different" (Douglas, 1972: p. viii). Douglas (1982b:

p. 191) writes, "The group itself is defined in terms of the claims it makes over

its constituent members, the boundary it draws around them, the rights it confers

on them to use its name and other protections, and the levies and constraints it

applies." In contrast, "The term grid suggests the cross-hatch of rules to which

individuals are subject in the course of their interaction. As a dimension, it shows

a progressive change in the mode of control. At the strong end there are visible

rules about space and time related to social roles; at the other end, near zero, the

formal classifications fade, and finally vanish" (Douglas, 1982b: p. 192; emphasis

added).

Relating Group and Grid to Symbolism and Ritual

Although Douglas conceived of grid and group as continuous variables, her reference to a 2 x 2 matrix may give the mistaken impression that human ex

periences of social order would fit neatly into one of four combinations (for a

discussion of Douglas's sometimes confusing illustrations of group and grid, see

Fardon, 1999: pp. 218-225). For example, Bell (1997: p. 46) has recast Douglas's

diagram as a pair of perpendicular axes, visually indicating that the social expe riences of group and grid are continuous variables between "weak" and "strong"

90 Moore

(Table H). Despite these confusions, Douglas has presented a complex, multidi

mensional model that is "able to correlate, to an unprecedented extent, the degree of ritualization in a society, its general patterns of social organization and world

view" (Bell, 1997: p. 44).

Table II. Grid and Grup as Continuous variables (After Bell, 1997: p. 44)

Strong group

Purity: Strong concern for purity; well-defined purification rituals;

purity rules define and maintain

social structure

Ritual: A ritualistic society; ritual

expresses the internal

classification system

Magic: Belief in the efficacy of

symbolic behavior

Personal Identity: A matter of

internalizing clearly articulated

social roles; individual subservient

to but not in conflict with society

Cosmology: Anthropomorphic; nondualistic; the universe is just and noncapricious

Weak grid

Purity: Pragmatic attitude;

pollution not automatic; bodily wate not threatening, may be

recycled Ritual: Will be used for private

ends if present; ego remains

superior; condensed symbols do

not delimit reality.

Magic: Private; may be a strategy for success

Personal Identity: Pragmatic and

adaptable

Cosmology: Geared to individual success and initiative; cosmos is

benignly amoral; God as junior

partner

Purity: Strong concerns for purity but the inside of the social and

physical bodies are under attack;

pollution present and purification ritual ineffective

Ritual: Ritualistic; ritual focused on

group boundaries, concerned with

expelling pollutants (witches) from social body

Magic: Ineffective in protecting individual and social bodies; a

source of danger and pollution Personal identity: Located in group

membership, not in the

internalization of roles, which are

confused; distinction between

appearance and internal state

Cosmology: Anthropomorphic; dualistic; warring forces of good and evil; universe is not just and

may be whimsical

Strong grid

Purity: Rejected; antipurity

Ritual: Rejected; antiritual;

effervescent; spontaneity valued

Magic: None; magic rejected

Personal Identity: No antagonism between society and self, but old

society may be seen as oppressive; roles rejected, self control and

social control low

Cosmology: Likely to be

impersonal; individual access,

usually direct; no mediation;

benign

Weak group

Social Basis of Sacred Spaces in the Prehispanic Andes 91

In "low grid" societies, social "boundaries begin to be arbitraged. Indi

viduals, deciding to transact across them, weaken the classifications" (Douglas, 1982b: p. 192). Paradoxically, as grid weakens and as individuals more freely engage in social transactions, the rules governing such transactions may become

more explicit, legalistic, and increase in number?much as in modern American

society.

In situations with strong grid/strong group, the individual's social experience is defined first by the social boundary separating group members and outsiders, and second by the explicit rules of intragroup behavior. Within the group, clearly defined social sectors exist (e.g., classes, castes, age grades, etc.) that may have

specialized roles and unequal access to resources; various solutions are employed to resolve conflicts between those sectors. Strong grid/strong group societies tend to be larger and more durable than other societies. Since its members perceive the possibility of "persisting as a group into the future," strong group/strong grid societies can make levies of its members (taxes, corv?e, military service) to invest in its continued existence.

Strong group/weak grid societies also emphasize the definition and authority of the group, but because of their low-grid conditions they lack formalized internal

divisions or segregated social sectors. Relationships between individuals are am

biguous and the resolution of conflicts is more difficult. In the face of conflicts, the

only penalty for internal disputes is expulsion from the group or the fissioning of the

group. This has several consequences: "disagreement is driven underground" since

mechanisms for resolution are ill-developed. Covert factions develop, and group members committed to the maintenance of society will argue for stronger group boundaries to control admission and strengthen the group. Consequently, strong

group/weak grid societies will tend to be small and subject to internal divisions

(Douglas, 1982b: pp. 205-206). The social experiences of high grid/low group and low grid/low group so

cieties are very different. In extreme cases of high grid/low group societies?for

example, societies with chattel slavery?the individual is tightly regulated and in

dividual autonomy is minimized, but so is the individual's affiliation with any social

groups, since those groups?by definition?do not exist. The individual's role and behavior are unambiguously defined by powers that are remote, impersonal, and

insulating (Douglas, 1982b: p. 207). In low grid/low group societies, "the social experience of the individual is

not constrained by any external boundary" and unregulated by ascribed status

classifications (Douglas, 1982b: p. 207). All social classifications are potentially negotiable, the relationships between individuals are ambiguous and their mutual

obligations implicit. In such societies, rewards go to innovators, economic activities

specialize and expand, and the market is controlled by alliances. Nothing succeeds like success in low grid/low group societies, and success is measured by the size of one's following whether these are customers, political supporters, or sport fans

(Douglas, 1982b: pp. 207-208).

92 Moore

Douglas links the analysis of grid and group to broader issues of symbolism and ritual:

the most important determinant of ritualism is the experience of closed social groups. The

man who has that experience associates boundaries with power and danger. The better

defined and the more significant the social boundaries, the more bias I would expect in

favour of ritual. If the social groups are weakly structured and their membership weak and

fluctuating, then I would expect low value to be set on symbolic performance. (Douglas, 1972: p. 14)

In strong group/low grid societies, humanity is divided into insiders and

outsiders, and nature is also bifurcated: the lovable, vulnerable, cuddly part of

nature versus the threatening, dangerous, untamable part of nature. The parallel

dualities in humanity and nature are more than the extension of metaphors, but

reflect "the use made of nature in moral justifications" (Douglas, 1982b: p. 210). Outside the village edge, beyond the border of society, evil forces lurk waiting to

penetrate the human realm. Within the community, one must find the contaminating

agent of evil, drive him out, and purify the realm of humanity again. In strong group/strong grid societies, the emphasis on society's borders is

present but modified by the presence of strong grid. The explicit rules about the

relations among group members are justified by a "transcendental metaphysics which seeks to make an explicit match between civilization and the purposes of

God and nature" (Douglas, 1982b: p. 210). When social relations are confirmed by ritual, the laws of nature are used for moral justification. In strong group/strong grid societies, theoretical models are elaborated, divine sacrifice is highly developed, and social contexts are justified by appeals to "natural law" and cosmological

analyses (Douglas, 1982b: pp. 210-211). In low group/high grid societies, theoretical notions of society and the cosmos

are undeveloped, and cosmologies are incoherent and eclectic "things of shreds

and patches" (Douglas, 1982b: p. 211). Finally, in low group/low grid societies, the unrelenting competition and selection exercised by individuals is expressed in

cosmologies that convey the "excitement and rewards of competition" (Douglas, 1982b: p. 212). And since success is measured by the size of one's following,

society is a source of constant concern because approval, once granted, also may be withdrawn.

Nature stands in contrast to the competition of low grid/low group society. Outside the realm of humanity, an oasis of innocence, nature is not cited to justify social relations since Nature and Society are separate realms. And yet "a wistful

sense of alienation from nature never wins against the excitement and rewards of

competition" (Douglas, 1982b: p. 212). Not surprisingly, the differing experiences of group and grid shape variously

modes of ritual. Douglas (1972: p. 144) writes,

Where grid is strong and group weak, magic is at hand to help the individual in competitive

society. He trusts implicitly in his know-how, his private destiny or star, and in the power of the rules. He celebrates their efficacy with solemn feasts. Where both group and grid are

Social Basis of Sacred Spaces in the Prehispanic Andes 93

strong, magicality supports the social structure and the moral code. Where group is strong and grid weak, magicality protects the borders of the social unit. Only in the area of zero

organisation are people very uninterested in ritual or magic. Here iit is the inner essence

that counts. Rituals are for social interaction (emphasis mine).

The foregoing lengthy theoretical discussion is required by the subtlety of

Douglas's model and justified by its potential for understanding ritual and sacred

space. "All social relationships take place in a spatial dimension" (Douglas, 1982b:

p. 214), and the experiences of grid and group are reflected in spatial configurations and their meanings as restatements of cosmologies.

Table III schematically distinguishes different expectations regarding two

material patterns?spatial order and monumentalism?as they are various shaped

by group and grid. In essence they are objectified restatements of principles of

social order. When grid and group are strong, Douglas predicts that spatial order

will emphasize borders and hierarchy, and monuments will be public expressions of group events. When group is high and grid is low, the spatial patterns should

restate the absence of hierarchy, "but the individual still has to be defined as the unit

of social intercourse, and since nothing else defines him, the model of the village, fenced around, copied and recopied from larger to smaller contexts is an easy one

on which to establish a generalized individualism" (Douglas, 1982b: p. 214). We can extend Douglas's reasoning to generate additional hypotheses. When grid is

high and group is low, we might expect that communal-based monuments would not occur since groups are undeveloped, and spatial order and monuments will

be as eclectic and incoherent as the cosmologies they express. Finally, in low

grid/low group societies, one might expect monuments that are focused on in

dividual achievement, validated by individual following, and are?in the several senses of the word?contested.

To repeat, although Douglas originally illustrated her ideas with a 2 x 2

matrix, we should see this is a heuristic diagram rather than an attempt to divide

Table III. Expectations Regarding Spatial Order and Monuments (From Douglas, 1982b)

Low group High group

High grid Spatial order

Monuments

Low grid Spatial order

Monuments

Compartmentalism without special

meanings

Respects burial places of private dead; few public monuments

Spatial displays; strong division between public and private spaces with public areas highly decorated and maintained, private areas not.

Monuments, memorials to "famous"

dead

Develops complex spatial

metaphors of symmetry,

inequality, and hierarchy Memorials to important group

events

A recursive patterning of external boundaries at all levels; village, compound, and household boundaries clearly demarcated

Memorials to important group events

94 Moore

all human societies into four hypothetical types; grid and group are continuous

variables. Further, the concepts of grid and group are useful in drawing our attention

to more subtle variations among societies. The balance of this article examines two

Andean societies who were, in general terms, "high group/high grid" societies, but

who exhibit fascinating variations in their conceptions of grid and group that are

reflected in their creations of funerary space. I emphasize the ritual landscape of the dead for two reasons. First, a relatively

direct argument links patterns of social order and burial treatment, a body of theory

well-represented in the archaeological literature (Binford, 1971; Brown, 1971;

Chapman et al, 1981; Hodder, 1984; Humphreys and King, 1981; Metcalf and

Huntington, 1991: pp. 1-23). If Douglas's model is relevant to any dimension of

sacred space, it should be most evident in the ritual landscape of the dead, because

this is one arena where social order and the sacred are most commonly linked.

Second, for the archaeologist few other material remains are so "obviously" sacred as mortuary spaces. Although diverse features of the Andean landscape have

been imbued with the sacred?mountains, springs, ceque lines, oracular shrines, etc.?the treatment of the dead has been recurrently sacred throughout Andean

prehistory as it has been elsewhere in the world. Therefore, approaching Inka and

Chimu sacred spaces of the dead as symbolic restatements of social order opens a theoretical door to understanding other Andean societies and may serve as an

analytical model for exploring prehistoric patterns elsewhere.

INKA AND CHIMU: RECONSTRUCTIONS OF GRID AND GROUP

An analysis of grid and group for the Inka and Chimu is based on reconstruc

tions and inferences drawn from distinct bodies of ethnohistoric and archaeological evidence. The wealth of ethnohistoric data for the Inka contrasts with the scant

record for the Chimu, and even the Inka data are not flawless. There are few "in

digenous" texts?the Huarochiri Manuscript the Relaci?n of Joan Sancta Cruz

Yupanqui, the Buen Gobierno of Felipe Guarnan Poma de Ayala are exceptions

varyingly filtered through the prism of Christianity. We rely on Spanish accounts

of differing detail and immediacy. The accounts describing Inka society before

its complete d?structuration, like Pizarro's (1921 [1571]) relaci?n, tend to lack

cultural detail, while the most nuanced chronicles like those of Molina (1964

[1570-84]), Ondagardo (1989 [1559]), Cieza de Leon (1985 [1555]), or Cobo

(1983,1990 [ca. 1653]) were written after the Conquest was complete. These later

chroniclers draw on oral histories of Inka nobility, frequently reflecting an ideal

ized view of the organization of Tawantinsuyu, the "Empire of the Four Quarters"

(Murra, 1980). Although imperfect, the ethnohistoric data contain discussions of

worldview and ritual that illuminate Inkan constructions of grid and group. The situation with the Chimu is more fragmentary. Conquered by the Inka

in 1470, there are no direct Spanish accounts of Chimu ritual (Rowe, 1948). The

Social Basis of Sacred Spaces in the Prehispanic Andes 95

ethnohistoric accounts are based on oral histories and scraps of recollected myths,

forming an uneven basis for reconstruction of grid and group. Nonetheless, suffi

cient details are present to suggest some basic differences between Inka and Chimu

conceptions of group definition and individual identities. This analysis suggests that the Inka and Chimu differed in their experience of grid, although both societies

were on the upper end of the high grid/high group continua.

The Inka

Inka notions of grid and group were expressed in terms of a hierachical,

lineage-based kinship system which provided organizing metaphors for their own

special group identity and the relationships between the original ayllus, "Incas

by privilege," and newly conquered populations. A basic Andean kin unit was the

ayllu, a notoriously slippery concept, which Salomon ( 1991 : p. 22) has defined "as a

named, landholding collectivity, self-defined in kinship terms, including lineages but not globally defined as unilineal, and frequently forming a part of a multi

ayllu settlement." Interwoven through Andean kinship was a genealogical trope of kinship as a ramifying connection between people is encoded in the parallel

meanings of mallki "meaning branch, new growth or sapling, and ancestor" (B. J.

Isbell, 1978: p. 125). The ramifying metaphor of Andean kinship is an example of what Fernandez (1986: p. 24) refers to as tropes, "the metaphoric assertions

men make about themselves or others," referential assertions that influence and

describe social action. The genealogical trope was rooted in the founding myth of

the Inka. Cobo (1990 [1653]: p. 17) scornfully observed,

The reason why these nations of Peru came to believe so much nonsense about their origin was caused by the ambition of the Inkas. They were the first ones to worship the cave of

Pacaritampu as the beginning of their lineage. They claimed that all people came from there, and that for this reason all people were their vassals and obliged to serve them.

Zuidema (1990: p. 21) has reconstructed the Inka genealogical system as a six

tiered system expressing "the genealogical distance to the king himself or to the common ancestor." In turn, this hierarchical system encompassed two parallel and gender-based descent systems. "Kinship, the bedrock of ayllu organization," Silverblatt writes (1987: p. 31), "was conceptualized as parallel chains of men and

women," and the branches of kinship provided an indirect justification and model for Inka statecraft.

This genealogical model was implemented in the valley of Cuzco and beyond. Within the valley, kinship was extended to include all the residents of the valley of Cuzco, including the non-Inka and pre-Inka inhabitants who were called ca

cacuzco, the affines of a male resident of Cuzco (Rostworowski de Diez Canseco, 1962: p. 137; Zuidema, 1990: p. 24). In other regions of Tawantinsuyu, the kinship trope was the basis of what Zuidema (1964: pp. 40-41; 1973) calls a "conquest hi

erarchy" in which descendants of original inhabitants and their foreign conquerors

96 Moore

formed the respective moieties of huari (or llacta) vs. llacuas (Duviols, 1973; Hern?ndez Pr?ncipe, 1923). Within the archbishopric of Lima, the extirpator Ar

riaga found this distinction was maintained 80 years after the Spanish Conquest.

The distinction between huari and llacuas is preserved in many districts, and the llacuazes, like persons newly arrived from somewhere else, have fewer huacas. Instead they often

fervently worship their malquis which, as previously noted, are the mummies of their

ancestors. They [the Indians] also worship huaris, that is the founders of the earth or the

persons to whom it first belonged and who were its first populators. These have many huacas

and they tell fables about them which furnish much light on their idolatry. For these and

other reasons, there are generally divisions and enmities between the clans and factions and

they inform on each other. (Arriaga, 1968: pp. 117-118)

A third and intermediate kin classification was composed of the descendants

of the offspring of Inka conquerors and secondary wives of local origins. Combined

with the distinction between conquerors and original inhabitants, this produced a

three-tiered ranked structure that "marked out a prestige hierarchy through which

an ayllu ordered its constituent kin groups" (Silverblatt, 1987: p. 68). The Inka cosmologies utilized the trope of kinship in defining both group and

grid. To repeat, while Inka social order was "high grid" and "high group," it was

conceptualized via a genealogical model. Sarmiento de Gamboa (paraphrased in

Urton, 1990: p. 13) provides an early (1572) version of the cosmogonie myth of

the Inka:

At a place in the south of Cuzco called Pacariqtambo, there is a mountain called Tampu

T'oqo (window house) in which there are three windows or caves. At the beginning of

time, a group of four brothers and four sisters?the ancestors of the Inkas?emerged from the central window. The principal figure of this group was Manqo Qhapaq, the man

who was destined to become the founder-king of the empire. One of the first acts of the

eight ancestors was to organize the people who were living around Tampu T'oqo into

ten groups called ayllus. The full entourage of ancestral siblings and ayllus set off from

Tampu T'oqo to the north in search of fertile land on which to build their imperial capital, Cuzco.

As various scholars have discussed (Bauer, 1992; Rostworowski de Diez Canseco,

1983; Urton, 1990; Zuidema, 1964, 1990), this myth figured prominently in Inka

imperial ideology, justifying the dominance of the Inka lineages and incorporation of new subjects within a social order employing a kinship metaphor. Cosmogonies are potent ideological tools in the camouflage of inequalities (see Eagleton, 1981), and are particularly powerful when combined with genealogies. For example,

Vansina (1985: pp. 100-108) has discussed some of the specific functions of oral

history, identifying"... a very common use of genealogies all over the world.

They justify existing stratifications by denying them (we are all brothers) while at

the same time providing detailed guidance to inequality by distinctions between

'elder' and 'younger' branches" (Vansina, 1985: p. 103). A cosmogonie statement of group and grid is found in the Huarochiri Tes

tament, one of the only extant provincial Andean texts. One passage relates the

Social Basis of Sacred Spaces in the Prehispanic Andes 97

origins of the worship of Paria Caca:

Paria Caca then established his dwelling on the heights, on the same territory where he had

conquered and began to lay down the rules for his worship. His law was one and the same law in all the villages. The law we speak of was this: "We are all of one birth." (Salomon and Urioste, 1991: p. 71).

These myths have a spatial expression. Just as the "place of original emergence" was associated with Pacariqtambo, Paria Caca and other regional culture heroes in the central Andes were associated with a specific shrine, apacarina or "dawn

ing place." As Frank Salomon describes, Andeans viewed the connection between

humans and mythic founders as continuations of genealogy materialized in sacred

landscape: "The main teller of the Paria Caca mythology thinks of the landscape as divided into domains of influence corresponding to the various large highland derived groups, each defined by putative descent from a persona or child of Paria Caca" (Salomon, 1991: p. 19). "Paria Caca's followers thus construed the 'origi nal' organization as sib- or clan-like. The spatial foci of superhuman and human

genealogy seem to have been symbolized by shrines called pacarinas_"

Descending from the founding heroes, kinship defined both group and grid. Salomon (1991: pp. 19-24) examines three sets of Huarochiri concepts. First, the distinction between yumay (sperm) and yuriy (birth) roughly parallels the differ ence between patrilineage and sibling group, conveying both common descent and birth order, specifically, the preeminence of the firstborn. Second, ayllu becomes a flexible conceptual unit. Not rigidly a kin group, ayllu membership also in volved "social conduct?including political alliances?befitting a genealogically connected person" (Salomon, 1991: p. 22). Finally, llacta, refers to not only the

original "pre-Inka" village, but rather "a triple entity: the union of a localized huaca

(often an ancestor-deity), with its territory and with the group of people whom the huaca favored" (Salomon, 1991: p. 23). Kinship is the connective theme in the

conceptual triad of yumay/yuriy, ayllu, and llacta. The Huarochiri Manuscript contains the myth of the birth of Pariacaca, one of

five brothers born from five eggs. As Hellbom (1963) has discussed, cosmogonie eggs are a common genre in genesis myths, and other egg myths are known from the Andes, including from the North Coast of Peru as discussed in detail below.

There is an important difference, however, between the Huarochiri myth and the North Coast myth: in the Huarochiri myth five eggs become five brothers with the first-born Paria Caca most eminent; on the North Coast, two eggs give rise to two social classes, nobles and commoners. The myths of Pacariqtambo and Huarochiri describe the genesis of lineages; the North Coast myth portrays the creation of class-based society. These creation myths allude to different experiences of grid and group in Inka and Chimu societies.

The Inka trope of descent linked humanity to the gods. Silverblatt (1987: pp. 41-45) analyzes the cosmological model drawn by the Christianized Juan de Santa Cruz Pachacuti-Yamqui Salcamayhua in ca. 1620 showing the interior or

ganization of the Temple of the Sun, the Coricancha (Fig. 2). As he stated himself,

98 Moore

8 B

O

o U

Social Basis of Sacred Spaces in the Prehispanic Andes 99

Santa Cruz Pachacuti drew not an architectural plan, but a conceptual model "which

I have shown, that it may be seen what these heathens thought" (1963: p. 84). This

model shows parallel descent from the ultimate deity, Viracocha, in which men

were descended from the Sun and women from the Moon. Silverblatt (1987: p. 45) observes,

The interior of the Coricancha formalized the perception of the order of things held by the

rulers of the Andes. It was a cosmological image pregnant with politics. In what must be one of the obvious ideological ploys to justify power, the Inkas claimed to be children of

the gods, direct descendants of the Sun and Moon_The Moon might be the mother of

all womankind, and the Sun the father of all mankind, but some humans were closer kin to

the gods than others.

The extension of genealogical history was central to Inka political ideology. Silverblatt (1987: p. 46) calls it,

a model of social hierarchy that neatly legitimized class relations. It also hid them. The rights and power of [newly incorporated] chiefs vis-?-vis their ayllus in no way matched the Inkas'

control over conquered people (chiefs included). Expressing political hierarchy in terms of

sacred genealogies masked inequities of power and economic exploitation. It trivialized

differences in power relations while hiding them behind the skirts of consecration.

The integrative power of the genealogical model was activated in public

displays. For example, Molina (1964 [ca. 1570-84]: pp. 20-34) described the

Situa ceremony, a 6-day festival ridding Cuzco of illness. During the first days of

the festival, "all strangers, all whose ears were broken, and all deformed persons were sent out of the city." Four corps of 100 armed men, representing the four suyus and each corps comprised by members of four ayllus, met in the Haucaypata?the

main plaza of Cuzco?faced their respective directions, and then rushed forward

to drive out evils from the city. After chasing evil forces several leagues from town, each corps stopped and bathed in "rivers of great volume, and were supposed to

empty themselves into the sea and carry the evils with them" (Molina, 1964 [ca.

1570-84]: p. 23). In the following days, the Situa included processions and displays of the

ancestors mummies, prayers and sacrifices, and feasting. The festival was not

exclusively for nobles; at designated passages, the ceremony included poor indi

viduals, minor lineages, and foreigners. For example, at one point during the Situa, the Haucaypata became the stage for displays of the images of the Sun, Viracocha

and Thunder, and the royal mummies. To view this, Molina (1964 [ca. 1570-84]:

p. 26) writes, "All the people of Cuzco came out, according to their tribes and

lineages, as richly dressed as their means would allow; and having made reverence

to the Creator, the Sun, and the lord Ynca, they sat down on their benches, each man according to the rank he held, the Hanan-Cuzcos being on one side, and the

Hurin-Cuzcos on the other." For several days the plaza was the scene of feasts,

dances, prayers and sacrifices, and vows of loyalty to the Inka. On the first day, the

yawar-sancu was eaten?a maize meal pudding sprinkled with sacrificial llama

blood?after all participants had sworn to "never to murmur against the Creator, the Sun, or the Thunder; never to be traitors to their lord the Ynca, on pain of

100 Moore

receiving condemnation and trouble." The yawar-sancu was eaten, "in the manner

of taking an oath, all the tribes rose up, and thus all partook down to the little

children" (Molina, 1964 [ca. 1570-84]: p. 26). On the last 2 days of the Situa, representatives of conquered nations entered

Cuzco, marching into the Haucaypata from the four suyus to make offerings to

Viracocha, Inti, Thunder and Huanacari, the huaca of the Inka. To accommodate

the newcomers, the Hanan and Hurin moieties moved from their places in the plaza and "formed themselves into one," leaving an opposite space for the subjugated

foreigners. The yawar-sancu was eaten again, regional dances were performed

by each conquered nation, and the deformed were allowed to reenter Cuzco and

join the feast. The Situa ended with the sacrificial burning of a llama and of

"a vast quantity of clothes of many colors." The caciques from distant provinces received permission to return home, carrying their huacas, gifts of servants, gold, and cloth?and with a heightened impression of their role in the Inka state. Molina

concludes his description of the Situa by writing, "The same feast, called Situa, was celebrated at the chief places of all the provinces, by the Ynca governors, where-ever they might be: and, although the ceremonies were less grand, and the

sacrifices fewer, no part of the festival was omitted." The Situa ceremony publicly

displayed a system of nested inclusiveness: royalty, hanan and hurin, cacacuzco,

conquered foreigners. It publicly restated the extension of descent from Viracocha

via the Sun and Inka and then onto the human realm.

But for all its inclusiveness, Inka political ideology did not erase the distinc

tions between Inka and non-Inka or among royal lineages; it restated them using a

trope of descent, inadvertently creating the possibility for debate and conflict over

social position. "The ethnohistorical sources," Niles (1987: p. 10) writes, "allow

us to draw a picture of an Inka culture in which rank, prestige, and status are

paramount and in which orderly arrangements of people and commodities were

important." The most prestigious noble lineages were those most closely related

to the reigning Inka (collana), followed by the lesser pojan lineages, and the most

"genealogically" distant and least prestigious cayao lineages; the classifications

simultaneously express genealogical and status rankings. Yet, Niles (1987: p. 10)

points out "because the prestige terms were relative, they changed according to

one's point of reference. For example, the ranking of Cuzco's panaqas, or royal descent groups, that was established by Pachacuti was reformulated by Huayna

Capac [Pachacuti's successor] as the families realigned themselves with respect to the ruling family." Lineage systems often can be recalculated as kin groups

struggle over status and advantage.

The Inka displayed group identity and status distinctions with various media.

Personal attire marked status. For example, large ear spools were restricted to

nobles dubbed orejones by the Spanish (Cobo, 1990 [1653]: p. 185). In addition

to special privileges (e.g., being carried on a litter), the Inka's status was indicated

by his very large ear spools, his royal staff and scepter (suturpaucar and champ?), his royal stool (duho), and the extraordinarily fine cloth of his garments (Cobo,

Social Basis of Sacred Spaces in the Prehispanic Andes 101

1983 [1653]: pp. 244-246). After describing the opulent gold-bangled headdress

(llauto) of Atahualpa, Pizarro (1921 [1571]: pp. 222-223) observed,

And all these Lords (Inkas) went about with their hair short, and the orejones wore it as if

upon a comb. They wore very fine cloth clothes, they and their sisters whom they had for

wives, and their vassals, important orejones, or those whom the Lords made so, and all the

rest wore coarse clothing.

Cloth and clothing symbolized grid and group (Murra, 1962). Santa Cruz

Pachacuti (1964 [ca. 1620]: p. 77) wrote that the founding Inka, Manco Capac "ordered that the dresses of each village should be different, that the people might be known, for down to this time there were no means of knowing to what village or tribe an Indian belonged." The group symbolism of cloth was part of political

display. Betanzos writes that when Huayna Capac toured his realm, the lords of

the conquered provinces would come out to meet the Inka bringing the distinctive

local clothing and headdress "offering him that clothing and the Ynca received it

and then he dressed and arranged his hair and appeared as a native ofthat province and thus he entered the province's principal town where he went to the plaza where

he could see all and be seen by all" (Betanzos, 1987 [1551]: p. 185; translation

mine). According to Cobo (1983 [1653]: p. 196), all ethnic groups were required to wear their distinctive regional attire "and they could not go around without

this identification or exchange their insignias for those of another nation, or they would be severely punished." It was no doubt, Cobo (1983 [1653]: p. 197) opined, "a clever invention for distinguishing one group from another."

In sum, Inka social order was expressed and conceptualized via a ramified

network of kinship. Genealogical histories traced lines of descent from the found

ing ancestors to the Inka and the patrilineages of Cuzco. As Silverblatt (1987:

p. 62) summarizes, "The chain of power [extended] from the Inka and Coya to the

nobility of Cuzco, to the non-Inka Cuzco nobility, to several ranks of provincial

nobility, to local ethnic leaders, and finally [ended] with commoners who have

positions of authority within the ayllu." Incorporating gender-based parallel struc

tures, the tropes of common descent (yumay) and birth order (yuriy) became the bases for ranking patrilineages in a schema relative to the reigning Inka, rankings

overtly communicated in insignia, hairstyle, garments, distinctive behaviors, and

other media. Within the great plazas of the Huacaypata, massive rituals like the

Situa enacted social dramas that emphasized the separateness of different com

ponents of Inka society and others that marked inclusiveness. In the provinces, royal processions allowed the reigning Inka to don the attire of conquered nations, thus becoming the superior kinsman of every conquered ayllu. Translated into the realm of the huacas, this network of hierarchy could incorporate local shrines and pariaccas, their territories, and obedient communities of descendants. From the lowliest commoner and most regional oracle, a network of relatedness extend

upwards culminating in the person of the Inka and the Temple of Qoricancha. Finally, this unifying ideal is incorporated into the Quechua name for the Inka

102 Moore

Empire: Tawantinsuyu, "the four (tawa) places (suyo) in so much as they were

distinct yet united (nim)" (Bastien, 1978: p. 45). In Douglas's terms the Inka obviously fall on the high group/high grid end of

the matrix, but because grid and group were expressed in a genealogical trope, there was some room for flexibility, reinterpretation, and debate. This was especially true

at the death of an Inka when the entire scheme of relatedness could undergo a new

reckoning. Ayllus could wax and wane in significance, small social kin groups could diappear, and relationships would be recalculated (for a twentieth-century case, see Urton, 1988). Inaccurate oracles could be demoted in importance and

replaced by more accurate shrines (MacCormack, 1991: pp. 103-104). Finally, the spread of empire required a continuous strategy of restating priorities, incor

porating new subjects, rewarding allies, subjugating resistant enemies, and in the

process rearticulating the descent-based trope of grid and group. The extension of a descent-based, nested hierarchy created a social experience for the Inka that was

distinct from that of the Chim?.

The Chim?

Less is known about the Chim? because the ethnohistoric record is limited,

lacking the rich detail of Spanish chronicles about the Inka (Rowe, 1948). Conse

quently, reconstruction of grid and group is somewhat more tentative, but sufficient

to identify differences between Inka and Chimu. First, there is some suggestion of a dualistic, moiety-based kinship system on the North Coast in which moieties were in turn divided into subsections (Moore, 1995; Netherly, 1978, 1984, 1990).

Netherly has argued that this dual system formed the framework of political au

thority. Since this scheme is only known from Colonial sources about local lords, this interpretation encounters two fundamental questions: (1) Is this pattern a pre Inka sociopolitical structure or does it reflect an Inka modification? and (2) If it

is a pre-Inka pattern, to what extent does a local level system mirror the upper most strata of Chimu society and state? Archaeological data have provided only

ambiguous answers to such questions (e.g., Moore, 1995), and the entire matter of

"dual organization" remains controversial (Rostworowski di Diez Canseco, 1983;

Urbano, 1988: p. 213; Zuidema, 1990). A handful of terms preserved in de la Carrera's (1939 [1644]: pp. 33, 69)

Arte de la lengua Yunga suggest some of the positions in the North Coast hier

archy, preserving words for cacique (al c), lord (?ie quic), lady (ciequ?io), and

gentlemen (fixllca) along with other terms derived from Spanish words (e.g., gob ernadoro from gobernador). These hints of hierarchy are reinforced by a clear

statement found in the North Coast creation myth recorded by Calancha (1977

[1638]: p. 1244):

It was said in the treatise of Pachacamac that these Indians of the flatlands and seacoasts

were certain (and many believe it today) that their initial masses and founding fathers were

Social Basis of Sacred Spaces in the Prehispanic Andes 103

not Adam and Eve, but four stars, that two gave birth to the Kings, Lords, and nobles, and the

other two to the commoners, the poor, and the indentured, which?as the Faith we profess makes precise?are [actually the result of] the chances of this earth and not because it is

thought that the rich and powerful are descendants of other beginnings than are the humble

and poor, but they see the poor not as naturally equal but as the least valued of Fortune

[translation mine].

Calancha recorded a second myth that describes the separate creations of

different social classes from three eggs (Hellbom, 1963: p. 77). The legend tells

the story of the birth of the culture hero, Vichama, and of the struggles for divine

supremacy between the Sun and Pachacamac (Calancha, 1977 [1638]: pp. 930

935). Calancha states explicitly that the myth was registered by more than a thou

sand witnesses polled in six informaciones in the coastal valleys of Huarmey, Huara, Supe, Barranca, Aucayama, Huacho, Vegueta, Carabaillo to Pachacama,

and "the peoples along the coast... to Arica." It is a violent tale of murder and

revenge set in a prehuman world, a detailed myth that concludes with the creation

of human beings. The myth ends:

Vichama seeing the world without men and the Sun and the huacas with none to worship them, prayed to his father the Sun to make new men, and the Sun sent three eggs, one

gold, one silver, and one copper. From the golden egg came the Curacas, the Caciques, and the nobles they call segunda personas and principales; from the silver one came their

women; and from the copper egg the common people, that today are called Mitayos, and

their women and families. (Calancha, 1977 [1638]: pp. 934-935)

In the North Coast cosmogonies, the celestial origins of social stratification

are presented as inviolable as the movement of the moon and stars. They are

in marked contrast to the Inka cosmogonies, which describe the founders of the

Inka dynasty in kin terms, i.e. they are brothers and sisters. In contrast, the divide

between North Coast nobles and commoners is established at the beginning of

time, potent justifications for unbridgeable social distinctions. As Rowe (1948:

p. 47) observed, "Evidently differences between social classes were great and

immutable on the north coast_"

The origins of the Chimu dynasty are recounted briefly in a scrap of myth

preserved in the 1604 Anonymous History of Trujillo translated by Rowe (1948:

pp. 18-20). The dynastic history briefly states that a man, Taycaynamo, sailed to

the Moche Valley on a balsa raft where he established a kingdom. He established

his household, learned Muchic, intermarried with local families, and was accepted as a ruler. Succeeded by nine rulers, the last independent king of Chimor was

Minchacaman, who extended his realm from Tumbes to the area north of Lima

before being conquered by the Inca in 1470.

The legend of Tacaynamo is frustratingly brief, but fortunately there is another

dynastic myth from the North Coast, the legend of ?amlap, the culture hero of the

Lambayeque Valley. Recorded by Cabello Balboa (1967) in 1551 and reiterated

by Rubinos y Andrade (1936) in 1782, the legend has been glossed by Means

(1931: pp. 51-53), Rowe (1948), and Donnan (1990: pp. 243-245) all of whom

104 Moore

were primarily interested in the accuracy of the dynastic succession recorded in

the tale (for an alternate interpretation, see Netherly, 1990). The tale begins in a mythic past "in very ancient, uncountable times" when

?amlap, the "father of the Company, man of great valor and quality," led a flotilla

of balsas to northern Peru. Rubinos y Andrade (1936 [1782]: p. 362) relates that

?amlap had come from beyond Tumbes, the loser in a war between "some Kings or Caciques or Indian lords of certain states in some islands" a possible reference to the islands and coastal polities of southern Ecuador and far northern Peru.

Accompanied by his principal wife, Ceterni, his concubines, 40 courtiers, and a great company, ?amlap landed at the mouth of the Lambayeque Valley. With

this retinue of noble courtiers?who watched over ?amlap's food, drink, face

paints, and royal costume??amlap's person and household were "adorned and

authorized." ?amlap and his retinue took land in the lower valley, and a half league from the ocean established palaces at the place called Chot, where he enshrined the

idol Yampallec, a green stone carved in the image of ?amlap. ?amlap died after a long life of peaceful rule and numerous progeny, but so his vassals would not

know that death had jurisdiction over him ("porque no entendiessen sus vassallos

que tenia la muerte jurisdicion sobre el"), ?amlap was secretly buried in the palace where he had lived. It was announced throughout the land that ?amlap, because

of his great virtue, had taken wing and disappeared, escaping death. ?amlap's descendants multiplied and spread through the land, and his throne was inherited

by his eldest son, Cium, who, in turn, begat 12 sons, each fathers of large families.

Having lived and ruled many years, Cium was put in an underground crypt where

he died, so liiat all took him for an immortal and a god.

According to Rubinos y Andrade (1936 [1782]: p. 362), ?amlap's name

was given to the principal lineage in Lambayeque, "superior to the rest that were

later established," which even until the late eighteenth century was known as

the "parcialidad de Nam." Although he is very late source, Andrade y Rubinos

is interesting because his record suggests the elements of the myth that were

repeated and maintained in Morrope, including a passage about the symbolic transformation of an architectural form. Rubinos y Andrade (1936 [1782]: p. 363)

writes,

The oldest son and heir of this lord was called Suim [sic] and his wife Cienuncacu; and

these names were recorded for all time in two admirable registers (se fixaron a la duraci?n

en otros dos recomendables padrones): the name of the inheriting prince was given to a

palace, built in the same location, and as generations multiplied and he was the dominant

lord over all, as they had descended from the great family of servants and officials that had

loyally continued in his service [siguieron su obediencia]. And this palace they used to bury his [or their] successors...

Rubinos y Andrade (1936 [1782]: p. 363) recounts how during the Spanish

Conquest the palace was covered with earth, making it into "a eminent huaca, that with time and the rains, was consolidated as if it were virgin earth, and not

man-made." Years later, some Indians dug into the huaca, and opening a hole in

Social Basis of Sacred Spaces in the Prehispanic Andes 105

the roof of the structure saw "the colors of the walls and the wood of the fortress

known by the Indians as the House of the Cacique or the Palace of Sium."

In spite of their limits, some basic inferences about grid and group can be

drawn from the North Coast myths. First, the myths emphasize the difference

between nobles and commoners. Social classes are the products of genesis, es

tablished at the beginning of time and descended from separate stars or eggs as

different as copper and gold. Second, the difference between lords and subjects was maintained even after the death of the lord. Walled away in his house so that

his vassals could not perceive his mortality, his crypt became the burial place for

his descendants and the descendants of his courtiers and servants. As the Indians

of Lambayeque described and Ramirez (1996: pp. 147-148) has discussed, the

houses of rulers were transformed into burial structures, and even later into tem

ples or shrines, "A structure may have begun as a house or palace or a ceremonial

structure and precinct with a burial platform in it. If a dead ruler was 'great' and he

was remembered after several generations, his house and tomb may have become a

temple or shrine, a monument to him where subsequent generations left offerings or were themselves buried." But this practice was only true for kings and nobles; burial practice, as discussed below, marked the division between dead commoners

and lords as certainly as had their separate creations in the mythic past.

DISCUSSION

The ethnohistoric evidence suggests the Chimu and Inka had different ex

periences of group and grid. Although both societies could be defined broadly as

"high group/high grid," their conceptions of grid and group were different. The

differences are most pronounced in the cosmological models of social order. The

Inka myth of original emergence described the origins of royal lineage, a myth that

reinforced both the shared descent and ranked distinctions between kin groups. This cosmogony justified a nested hierarchy based on patrilineal descent from the

original ancestors that was extended to incorporate subjugated peoples (Zuidema, 1973: p. 17). It provided a metaphor for inclusion and a justification for hierarchy; for example, only conquering lineages "were considered to have ancestors so far

removed that they had turned to stone" (Zuidema, 1973: p. 19). Sociopolitical integration was based partially on a hierarchical system of ancestry sufficiently

malleable to be extended through Tawantinsuyu. Yet this was not a fixed or rigid

hierarchy; rather, it provided a recalculable matrix of relatedness. As mentioned

above, the death of an Inca, the extinction of an ayllu, or the inclusion of a newly

subjugated people demanded a certain flexibility in the calculations of kin groups' statuses.

The Chimu experience of grid was different: on the basis of the limited frag ments of myth, the Chim? seemed to emphasize the experience of distinct classes. Nobles and commoners were separately created, the cosmogonies contend, literally

106 Moore

formed from different stuff. Interestingly, when the Indians of Morrope honored

Cium's house, they did this not because Cium was considered an ancestor but

because they traced their ancestries back to the lord's courtiers. The separation between lord and servant was maintained for generations.

I contend that these differing experiences of grid and group were symbolized in diverse aspects of Chim? and Inka cultures, and in the conclusion I outline

some of the other symbolic arenas in which we might expect those differences to

be marked. But I will concentrate on one symbolic arena in which the material

expressions of grid and group are very clear: the creation of ritual landscapes of

the dead.

RITUAL LANDSCAPES OF THE DEAD

The differing social experiences of the Inka and Chim? are paralleled in the

ritual landscapes of the dead. One cannot overemphasize just how sacred Andean

funerary spaces were, a fact clearly recognized by the proselytizers of Christianity and the extirpators of idolatry. As Harris (1982: p. 49) notes for the Bolivian

altiplano, "Control over the dead was a cornerstone of Christian policy for shedding the light of true religion in the lives of heathens." The sacredness of funerary spaces

was so broadly recognized that priests attacked native practices in all regions of

the Andes (Arriaga, 1968; MacCormack, 1991; Ramirez, 1996: pp. 137-148). Yet, those sacred landscapes were differently structured and conceptualized by the Inka

and Chim?.

Simply, the Inka buried their dead on the basis of kinship and the Chim? buried

their dead according to class. The difference is broadly reflected in two distinctive

forms of funerary space. The Inka buried their dead in individual crypts or caves

associated with patrilineal descent groups. The Chim? buried their nonroyal dead

in cemeteries and their dead kings in burial platforms within the ciudadelas of Chan

Chan. I am not claiming that the Inka did not symbolize status distinctions in their

burials, but the organizing principle was kinship. Neither am I suggesting that kin

relations were insignificant to the Chim?; however, there is no evidence I know of,

archaeological or ethnohistoric, indicating that the Chim? buried their dead on the

basis of descent. Rather, I argue that the differing ritual landscapes the Chim? and

Inka built reflect their varying experiences of social order. The ritual landscapes of the Chim? and Inka were as distinctive as their respective cosmogonies.

Funerary Landscapes of the Inka

Just as the original founders of the Inka dynasty emerged from a cave, Inka

funerary architecture recreated a cave-like structure, a machay, an ancestral crypt

(W. Isbell, 1997). The chroniclers are consistent in their descriptions of Inka burial

Social Basis of Sacred Spaces in the Prehispanic Andes 107

practices. In Collasuyu, Cobo writes, tombs consisted of chullpas "made in the form of small towers" between one and six estados (5.5-33.5 ft) in height (Cobo, 1990

[1653]: p. 248). These have been widely documented in the region from Cuzco into Collasuyu (for description of chullpas, see Gasparini and Margolies, 1980:

pp. 147-158). Ninety years after the Conquest, Guarnan Poma de Ayala illustrated the burial customs of all four suyus (Figs. 3-6), and consistently he shows a small

crypt, either an architectural tomb, a partially modified cave, or in the case of the barbarians of Antisuyu, the hollow of a tree (Fig. 5). For Chinchaysuyu (Fig. 6), Guarnan Poma illustrates the funeral march to the tomb. The dead man, strapped to a seatless litter, his feathered flauta tilted back, is carried by two men and is mourned

by two tear-streaked mourners, one a female. The burial crypt is artificial; made

from stone blocks or adobe bricks, it has a vaulted roof. From inside the darkened

tomb entrance, a dead ancestor waits, its long bones and skull visible, its toothy

jaw set in morbid rictus. This is not a North Coast burial scene. Guarnan Poma may have represented a burial from "Chinchaysuyu," but he has depicted a highland funerary practice: the placement of the dead in a machay, an ancestral crypt.

Such tombs were the spatial focus of ancestor veneration. In her analysis of

seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Andean cults to the ancestors, Mary Doyle (1988: pp. 103-104) writes, "The actual burial place of the sacred ancestors and their descendants, the machay was where the ritual and ceremonies in honor of them took place. The machay constituted a sacred space due to its sacralization and

by the rituals performed there." There are several examples where the machay was

fronted by a small open area, a cayan, in which ancestral ceremonies could take

place (Moore, 1996a: pp. 124-125). Machay and cayan were joined in Andean sacred space, created features where the dead returned to the earth and the living joined to honor the ancestors.

Only in special circumstances were Cuzque?os buried in cemeteries. For

example, military settlements at Pambamarca, Inkawasi, and Cerro Chena have associated cemeteries (Hyslop, 1990: p. 155). At Inkawasi there is a cemetery associated with a trapezoidal plaza and a possible Sun Temple (Hyslop, 1990:

p. 174). At Pachacamac, Uhle (1903) retrieved Inka burials in his 1899 excavations and Tello identified a cemetery in the southeastern portion of the site, but it is unclear whether this represents the burials of Cuzque?os or the continuation of coastal funerary practices by local elites with access to Inka goods. Outside the

valley of Cuzco, Inka cemeteries are rare and Morris (1972: p. 396) suggests the interred were there on a rota basis and died away from their home provinces. Ideally, the dead were placed in ancestral tombs.

Reverence of the ancestors was limited by lineage and attenuated by time. An

cestor veneration was limited to lineal kin and, for most descendants, to ancestors

of the -1-3 generation. In a precise passage, Cobo writes,

But it must be pointed out that not all of the living generally worshipped all of the dead bodies. Not even all of their relatives worshipped them. The dead were worshipped only

108 Moore

MT?ERO

PLASMO

Fig. 3. Burial customs of Collasuyu.

cor^O

Social Basis of Sacred Spaces in the Prehispanic Andes 109

EI4T?ER0

Fig. 4. Burial customs of Cuntisuyu.

?Ok?o

110 Moore

emt?ero

Fig. 5. Burial customs of Antiasuyu.

Com^/

Social Basis of Sacred Spaces in the Prehispanic Andes 111

EMT?ERO.

MriMMV?OS 1

t?% V% {/?"CO

Fig. 6. Burial customs of Chinchaysuyu.

co ?vio

112 Moore

by those who were descended from them in a direct line. Therefore they took great care

to worship their father, grandfather, and great-grandfather, and so on as far back as their

information reached. But they were not concerned with the brother of their father, nor

with the brother of their grandfather, not with anyone who had died without leaving descendants.

And

Although it is true this was their ideal, still the worshipping lasted only for the lords. For

everyone else it discontinued when the deceased's children or grandchildren died, and after

that the deceased was forgotten. (Cobo, 1990 [1653]: p. 42)

Inka royalty emphasized lineage, and "For this reason," (Cobo, 1990 [1653]:

p. 42) writes, "they took great care to worship the dead bodies of the lords, es

pecially their own ancestors, whom they saw as the cause of their birth." Other

people worshipped the Inka ancestors "in order to please the Inka" or to obtain

ancestral assistance as intermediaries with the supernatural. His vision refracted

through the lens of Christianity, Cobo states,

The bodies of the kings and lords were the only ones that were venerated by the rest of

the people, in addition to their own descendants. This is because they were convinced that

God made certain people superior and bestowed good fortune on them in this life. Without

doubt these superior people would go to heaven, and in that place their souls would be in good position to help and protect those on earth in times of need. (Cobo, 1990 [1653]:

p. 43)

Ancestor veneration was transformed into state ceremony in the large fes

tivals of Cuzco when the mummies were brought out, carried in litters on their

descendants' shoulders, and placed in the Haucaypata to be feasted, honored with

raised cups of chicha (maize beer), and where the dead could witness the investi

ture of knights, as in the Situa ceremony (Molina, 1964 [ca. 1570-84]: pp. 25,47). But in spite of these spectacular public events, worship of the dead was directed

to specific ancestors and conducted by distinct lineages. Ancestor veneration also was shaped by prestige. Ondagardo (1989 [1559]:

p. 95; translation mine) wrote, "It was also generally understood that those who

prospered in this life were the friends of God and that in the same way they would

be honored in the next life. And from this they went on to honor the lords and

powerful men, even after they had died, and in contrast undervalued the old, the

sick and the poor taking them as the castoffs of God."

Cuzque?o burial customs were focused on directly lineal ancestors, wor

shipped for several generations by their descendants, but then literally moved

aside for new occupants as genealogical memory faded. Just as the death of an

Inka triggered a recalculation of genealogical nearness, so did the death of another

lineal ancestor. Machay and cayan were spaces for ritual encounters, where an

cestors were offered chicha, food, and cloth, honored by dance and prayers, and

asked to intercede with the gods.

Social Basis of Sacred Spaces in the Prehispanic Andes 113

Funerary Landscapes of the Chim?

The funerary landscape of the Chim? was markedly different than that of

the Inka. With the significant exception of the Chim? kings who were interred in

burial platforms within their ciudadelas (Day, 1973,1982; Fig. 7), the Chim? buried

their dead in cemeteries grouped by class. Most individual graves lacked surface

markers. Throughout the North Coast there are literally hundreds of cemeteries,

today extensively looted, that remain mute testimony to the distinctiveness of North

Coast vs. Inka burial practices. If the Inka buried in familiar or individual crypts,

people on the North Coast were buried in cemeteries often containing hundreds

of people, like the vast cemetery found on the southern end of Chan Chan (Day, 1982: p. 63).

At Chan Chan, burial patterns were clearly structured by class distinctions.

Conrad (1982a,b: p. 87) observed, "Variation in burial patterns is one of the major indications of Chan Chan's complex social and political organization. Mortuary

practices in the city range from very simple to extremely elaborate." The Chan

Chan commoners lived in a number of barrios?"relatively self-contained wards

or neighborhoods"?several of which had associated cemeteries (Topic, 1982:

p. 148). Topic (1982: p. 146) estimates that there were some 20,000 commoners

distributed among 15 barrio areas of unequal size. At a later stage in Chan Chan's

history, lower class cemeteries apparently were improved by the construction of

double-walled adobe brick enclosures, the products of corporate labor that Topic (1982: p. 166) interprets as evidence of "state-sponsored renewal." The details of

funerary treatment are unknown because most burials have been looted, but it is

obvious that the burial enclosures served more than a single kin group's direct

lineal ancestors. Since the burial enclosures are associated with medium- and

larger-sized barrios, the living population must have numbered several thousand

and the associated cemeteries included more than a single ayllu. At the other end of the social spectrum, the royalty of Chan Chan were buried

in distinctive, architecturally elaborate burial platforms (Day, 1974, 1982). These

structures were tucked away inside large royal compounds or ciudadelas (Fig. 7),

usually deep within the compound at the end of a bewildering route of barriers and

corridors (Moore, 1996a: pp. 190-198). Everything points to the special status of

their principal occupant: the size of the structure, the uniqueness of its form, the

evidence for subsequent renovation, and the presence of human sacrifices (Conrad,

1982a). At Chan Chan burial platforms and their associated compounds are a class

of funerary architectural space uniquely restricted to the kings of Chimor. The recent discovery of a Chim? architectural model (maqueta) (Fig. 8) sug

gests dead royalty of Chan Chan were feted in ways reminiscent of the great Inka ceremonies in the Huacaypata, but with much smaller and select audiences. Dis

covered by Santiago Uceda and colleagues in intrusive Chim? burials at Huaca de la Luna, Moche, the maqueta is one of the most remarkable artifacts ever found

50 100 m

Fig. 7. Ciudadela Tschudi.

Social Basis of Sacred Spaces in the Prehispanic Andes 115

Fig. 8. Chim? Architectural Model.

in the Andes, providing details about the social dramas that occurred within the

ciudadelas at Chan Chan. As Uceda points out, this "model" is not a proportional, three-dimensional blueprint, "but rather an idealized model or conceptual plan of an architectural space..." (Uceda, 1999: p. 301; translation mine).

The wooden model is 50 cm long and 41.6-39.6 cm wide and shows the

benched piaza of a ciudadela. Two carved wooden figures depicting miniature

mummy bundles, both females, while in the plaza an assembly of wooden figurines

116 Moore

portrays musicians, chicha brewers, and a pair of figures directing the ceremony

(Uceda, 1999: p. 268)."The discovery of these scenes in an architectural model," Uceda (1999: p. 269) writes, "allow us to understand the classes of ceremonies that

were realized in these architectural spaces, like having a three-dimensional view of

those ceremonies." The Chim? maqueta deepens understanding of the ceremonial

activities within the Chan Chan ciudadelas; it materially corroborates the Anony mous Chronicler "who speaks of a type of temple that was also a burial place,

that in the case of the kings '... was like a residential house [casa de habitaci?n], with its sala, chamber and antechamber, with all the other necessary places for the

pantry, the kitchen, patios, corridors, entryways, etc'" (Anomima, 1967: p. 158; cited in Uceda, 1999: p. 301, translation mine). Uceda (1999: p. 301) concludes

"... the king's use [of the ciudadela] in his two lives conferred a divine character

onto the king, that was the base of the ideological structure of power." There are important similarities and contrasts between the Inka ceremonies

described in the chronicles and the ritual portrayed in the Chim? maqueta. In both

societies the dead kings were honored with drink and dance, but in the Chim? case

that ceremony was not witnessed by thousands of participant-spectarors in a large

plaza, unlike the Situa ceremony and other public rituals. In Chim? society, royalty was honored in the privacy of courtyards enclosed by towering adobe walls and

this was true in life and death, reflecting an ideology of separation (Moore, 1996b:

pp. 173-182). Different Chim? social classes were buried in distinctive sacred spaces at

Chan Chan, and this was also true in the Chim? provinces. At the Chim? provincial center of Manchan, located in the Casma Valley, cemetery areas flank the south

east and southwest margins of the site (Mackey and Klymyshn, 1981) (Fig. 9).

Although the cemeteries have been extensively looted, a surface survey indicates

that these were non-elite interments; these cemeteries exhibit no traces of funerary architecture, enclosures, or elaborate grave goods. For example, the mandibles and

maxilla of many crania are stained green from a small piece of copper placed in

the deceased's mouth, but there are no stains indicating copper masks or extensive

ornaments (personal observations, February 1981). In contrast, the most elabo

rate burials at Manchan were found near or within the isolated compounds on the

northwestern side of Manchan (Fig. 9). The isolated compounds are multifunc

tional architectural units incorporating the architectural canons of Chan Chan with

baffled entries, niches, ramps, and benches (Mackey, 1987; Mackey and Klymyshn,

1990). At Manchan, the differences between social classes are reflected in archi

tecture, economic activities, and burial treatments, and lords and subjects were

segregated in life and death (Moore, 1981, 1985). The distinctive Inkan and Chim? conceptions of grid and group were re

flected in burial treatments and funerary spaces. Inkan concepts of grid and group were expressed in the trope of patrilineal descent, and mortuary practices included

treatments (mummy bundles) and funerary architecture that allowed ancestor

Social Basis of Sacred Spaces in the Prehispanic Andes 117

oil i??T r=t T

M^ c ?-^rar^

CANE - STRUCTURES

CEMETERY AREA APW?OXJMAT? ; 3 - -

UM?TS : ?

PANAM6RJCAN HIGHWAY

?Z

4

-C"i CANE D ?fc STRUCTURES

via *

Fig. 9. Map of Manchan.

veneration. Chim? concepts of grid and group apparently were structured by class

distinctions, and burial treatments were also. With the important exception of the burial of the Chim? kings, there were no architectural provisions made for the

direct, physical interaction between the living and their ancestors. Simply, it is im

possible to directly worship the mummies of lineal ancestors if they are buried in filled burial pits in a massive cemetery without tombstones. Unlike the cay an and

machay, there are not special plazas or places dedicated for group reunions within the cemeteries of Chan Chan or Manchan. Chim? funerary spaces are simply not

designed in the same way as Inka familial crypts. They were not meant to be and could not be experienced in the same manner. They are different forms of sacred

spaces.

The only archaeological evidence for direct "feasting" of the dead surrounds the burial platforms of the Chim? kings as discussed above (Conrad, 1974,

1982a,b). Conrad (1982a: p. 112) has hypothesized that the burial platforms were

maintained and added to by a corporate group of heirs "who resided in their

118 Moore

ancestor's compound and were charged with maintaining his worship." How

ever, it is equally probable that the maintenance of the king's cult was in the

hands of descendant of the king's courtiers, not of the king. Just as in Morrope the descendants of Cium's courtiers remembered their ancestral roles and main

tained the "House of Sium" (Rubinos y Andrade, 1936; see above), so too the

Chim? kings may have been honored not by kin but by vassals. This idea is

supported by the Huaca de la Luna maqueta (Uceda, 1999) in which the fig ures honoring the mummy bundles (drummers, dancer, chicha brewer) are very similar to the noble courtiers who attended Tacaynamayo (Rowe, 1948); the minia

ture mummies are not being honored by royal descendants, but by courtiers and

attendants.

When North Coast rulers were buried in their houses, it was to deny their

mortality. In Lambayeque ?amlap and Cium were buried in their houses so their

deaths would not be known by their subjects: porque no entendiessen sus vassallos

que tenia la muerte jurisdicion sobre el (Cabello Balboa, 1967 [1551]: p. 328). It

is hard to imagine a more divergent point than Inka and North Coast conceptions of the ruler as ancestor. The Inka rulers were empirically mortal, or at least dead

in a way different from the Chim? kings. When their mummies were paraded into

the Haucaypata, their transcendance from living kings to ancestral residents of the

Qoricancha was broadly witnessed, even by non-Cuzque?os. It is doubtful Chim?

kings were displayed or conceived of in a similar manner. Perhaps their divine

assumption was reported to the throngs of Chan Chan, but given the sizes and

locations of Chim? plazas, it is unlikely that the dead king was widely observed

or honored by any but a small group (Moore, 1996b). Variations in ritual symbols are created by individuals with differing social

experiences, and sacred landscape forms a subset ofthat larger symbolic repertoire. Within the realm of sacred landscape, the creation of funerary space often incor

porates potent commentary on the nature of social experience. When variations in

funerary space can be recognized, then one may expect them to represent varying social experiences. These experiences may be intercultural or intracultural; they

may refer to variations in gender, ethnicity, status, descent group, class, caste,

etc. Thus, variations in funerary landscapes can be viewed as representations of

varying social experiences; Chim? and Inka conceptions of group and grid were

fundamentally different, and so were the associated ritual spaces.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

"The illusion that all primitives are pious, credulous and subject to the teaching of priests or magicians," Douglas (1972: p. x) observed, "has probably done even

more to impede our understanding of our own civilisation than it has confused the

interpretations of archaeologists dealing with the dead past." Archaeologists have

Social Basis of Sacred Spaces in the Prehispanic Andes 119

tended to approach "the Sacred" in prehistory either with ill-informed bravado

or not at all. Once archaeologists have left the light of historic record and the

penumbra of the protohistoric past, all bets are off: we either shy away from the

sacred and stick to "more material" things, or weave loose analogies to construct

the generic beliefs of a Frazierian "primitive man."

One way out of this dilemma is not to focus on "the Sacred" as isolated from

the social realm. As Bloch and Parry (1982: pp. 6-7) state, "sociological analysis and symbolical analysis are not alternatives but need to be combined," and that

should be the touchstone for archaeological approaches to sacred landscape and

other ritual dimensions. Simply, sacred landscapes?like all other symbolic sets?

are the creations of interactions between people living in societies, societies with

self-conceptions that are variously rigid or loose, articulate or ill-defined, stable or

fluid. Two central conceptions are grid and group, and they provide an analytical

entry into understanding how different societies express, create, and utilize then

varying concepts of the sacred.

I have attempted to make several points. First, I have argued that ritual land

scapes can be profitably seen as "restatements" of varying social experiences, and

I have found Douglas's concepts of grid and group and her hypotheses about their

symbolic manifestations very useful. Second, I have argued on the basis of eth

nohistory, oral history, and myth that the Inka and the Chim? had different social

experiences of grid and group. In essence, the Inka ritually stated the relationships between the living and the dead, the Inka and the Sun, ruler and subject in refer

ence to a nested hierarchy based on kinship. In contrast, the Chim? seem to have

articulated the relationship between peoples in terms of class. I contend that these

distinctive social orders were restated in mortuary ritual and funerary landscapes and thus are amenable to archaeological analysis. Implicitly, I am arguing for a

social prehistory that approaches specific (but not all) classes of archaeological materials as reflecting social experiences. By focusing on the interplay between

social experience and symbolic statements, one avoids the static comparisons of

social structure ? la Radciiffe-Brown and the division between "society" vs. "the

individual" which tends to reify society and ignore social actors. I am arguing for

a social prehistory that focuses on comparisons of social processes and actions,

forcing archaeologists to grapple with issues that they have tended to ignore or

dismiss.

Archaeologists cannot assume that sacred spaces are hierophanic or con

tested; instead we must reconstruct the broader social experiences of past soci

eties and attempt to understand how their sacred landscapes restate and recre

ate those social experiences. Archaeological investigations of sacred spaces that

consider the symbolic expressions of varying social experiences can contribute to a deeper understanding of the prehistoric worlds created by Andean soci

eties and can serve as models of inquiry into the past lives of other ancient

peoples.

120 Moore

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