The view from Lima: Recent publications on Andean Colonial history in Peru

Relación de la religión y ritos del Perú hecha por los padres agustinos. Edited, preliminary study and notes by LUCILA CASTRO DE TRELLES. Lima: Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, 1992. Pp. lxxxvii, 75.

Curacas, reciprocidad y riqueza. By FRANKLIN PEASE G.Y. Lima: Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, 1992. Pp. 208.

Perú. Hombre e historia. Vol. II. Entre el siglo XVI y el XVIII. By FRANKLIN PEASE G.Y. Lima: EDUBANCO, 1992. Pp. vii, 347.

Pachacamac y el Señor de los Milagros. Una trayectoria milenaria. By MARIA ROSTWOROWSKI DE DIEZ CANSECO. Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos, 1992. Pp. 214.

Las visitas a Cajamarca 1571–72/1578. Documentos. Preliminary studies and edition by MARIA ROSTWOROWSKI DE DIEZ CANSECO and MARIA DEL PILAR REMY. Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos, 1992. 2 vols. Pp. vi, 416, 463.

Instrucción al licenciado Lope García de Castro (1570). By EL INCA TITU CUSI YUPANQUI. Edited and preliminary study by LILIANA REGALADO DE HURTADO. Paleography by DEOLINDA VILLA E. Lima: Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, 1992. Pp. lviii, 84.     

Becoming Inca: Juan Bustamente Carlos Inca and the Roots of the Great Rebellion

Inca nobles were prominent colonial petitioners for royal mercedes. Their high visibility and persistent claims to a special place in the colonial order, based on their descent from sovereign Inca emperors and past service to the Crown, ensured that the question of political alternatives to normative colonial arrangements would remain alive in the public domain. This article explores the career of one Inca pretendiente, Juan de Bustamante Carlos Inca, the Crown's response to his petitioning, and the significance of his own quest for a better understanding of the ambitions and motives of José Gabriel Túpac Amaru on the eve of the 1780 rebellion. Politically, Bustamante's attempt to win succession to the Marquesado de Oropesa and its entail brought into public view a 1555 cédula of Charles V empowering the then leading Inca noble, Alonso Tito Atauchi—and all his successors—to raise an army on the king's behalf during any crisis within the Viceroyalty of Peru. Bustamante's quest thereby compelled the Crown to confront the potential for political destabilization of Inca succession at the precise moment that the Bourbon dynasty embarked upon an unpopular root-and-branch reform of its empire. The 1555 cédula was the prime source of Túpac Amaru's claim to be rightful heir to the Marquesado—in effect, the version of an Inkarrí that he adopted stemmed in the first instance from the Crown.     

Regional Research on the Inca

The past two decades have witnessed an increase in the amount of regional research on the Inca state of Andean South America. This work has revolutionized our view of the Inca empire and has provided a comparative database for understanding the nature of imperial expansion in premodern empires. This paper places this work in historical context. It then describes the way in which a regional approach has complemented other research to give us a fuller picture of Inca imperial strategies. The Inca state used a variety of strategies to incorporate its provinces into a viable political entity. Regional archaeological approaches provide the best means of defining those strategies, giving us a more nuanced view of premodern states such as the Inca.     

The Chronology of Settlements with Pre‐Inca and Inca Occupations Superimposed: the Case of Pucará de Tilcara (Humahuaca Gorge,Argentina)

The region of the Central and South Andes was, in about the ninth and 15th centuries ad , the stage for the development of political systems tending towards demographic centralization in villages with defensive structures, known as Pucará. The chronological accuracy for these phenomena still remains uncertain, mainly because it involves intervals of long and superimposed occupations, masked by the Inca domination. Thus, this paper analyses the history of the occupation at Pucará de Tilcara, one of the biggest populated centres of the Humahuaca Gorge (Quebrada de Humahuaca, Argentina). Twenty‐five radiocarbon dates are critically evaluated to judge its reliability. The Bayesian statistics show that all the dated spaces were used on a long‐term basis. The most ancient signs are in the middens and relate at least to the 10th century ad , and the occupation of the housing areas could be calculated to the 13th and 16th centuries. A phase of higher intensity of occupation is observed during the Inca period. This redefinition of this site occupation shows the need to statistically analyse the dates in order to differentiate the phases of occupation.     

Ushnus of the Inca provincial region: An analysis of two ceremonial platforms from Inca sites in Catamarca (Argentina)

The Inca polity deployed a variety of strategies in the establishment of imperial relations with the local communities of the southern provinces. These strategies included the translation of symbols materialized in architectural structures. In this sense, the ceremonial platforms denominated ushnus were spaces with particular significance and high hierarchy.     

Colonial Australia,the 1887 Colonial Conference,and the Struggle for Imperial Unity

ABSTRACT

For historians interested in the settler colonial world, one of Professor John Darwin’s most important interventions has been to argue for the reintegration of the dominions into the wider history of the British empire. In re-engaging with the history of Britain’s white settler colonies in North America, Australasia, and South Africa, Darwin’s work has sought to emphasize the place of the dominions in relation to the rise and fall of the British world system, as well as their value as vantage points from which to consider imperial and global history more generally. In this regard, Darwin’s systemic approach has encouraged a more dynamic conception of ‘British world’ history – one deeply embedded in a series of overlapping imperial, regional, and international contexts. This article focuses on a particular moment in imperial history where some of the internal dynamics of the late-Victorian British world system, and the changing place of the settler colonies within it, were brought into sharp relief: the 1887 Colonial Conference. It argues that we might look to the conference as a valuable window onto the impact of Anglo-Australian relations upon the wider struggle for imperial unity in the 1880s.     

Feeding the Mountains: Sacred Landscapes,Mountain Worship,and Sacrifice in the Maya and Inca Worlds

Three texts reviewed here address the linkages between religion and mountainous landscapes in the Maya and Inca realms. Bassie-Sweet provides a thorough analysis of the Maya mythologies of creation and situates its players and concepts within the real world. Besom thoughtfully tackles the place of mountains and child sacrifice within the Andes with a focus on the late prehispanic Inca. Reinhard and Constanza offer a detailed and richly illustrated case study of state-sponsored child sacrifice on a mountaintop in the south of the Inca Empire. Taken together, these somewhat disparate books produce several fascinating parallels in the sacred geographies of mountains and the offerings made to them.     

Tawantinsuyu Integration of the Chillon Valley,Peru: A Case of Inca Geo-Political Mastery

Abstract

Archeological and ethno-historical data from the coastal, transitional, and lower sierra variants of the Chillon Valley, Central Coast of Peru, have led to a new understanding of the nature of Inca political and economic control of one subjugated region. The data reveal that the region was settled unevenly by the Cuzqueños; a more intensive state occupation of the lower sierra is indicated. It is suggested that control of the valley was managed by choice from a geographical-political locus in the highland zone because of certain cultural and environmental circumstances in each valley variant that posed advantages and disadvantages for state operations. Major sites yielding evidence of integration into the Inca state are discussed within the context of such a settlement pattern.     

Abroad and Home: Colonial Culture in France

Lehning, J.R., Peasant and French; Cultural Contact in Rural France during the Nineteenth Century (Cambridge University Press, 1995), 239pp., £14.95, ISBN 0 521 46770 5

Sahlins, P., Forest Rites; The War of the Demoiselles in Nineteenth Century France (Harvard University Press, 1994), 188pp., £11.95, ISBN 0 674 30896 4