Tawantinsuyu (Inca) Economy

Background Information

• Kohler, T. A., Smith, M. E., Bogaard, A., Feinman, G. M., Peterson, C. E., Betzenhauser, A., … & Ellyson, L. J. (2017). Greater post-Neolithic wealth disparities in Eurasia than in North America and Mesoamerica. Nature, 551(7682), 619-622.
• Ortman, S., & Lobo, J. (2020). Smithian growth in a nonindustrial society. Science advances, 6(25), eaba5694.

Overview

• La Lone, D. E. (1982). The Inca as a nonmarket economy: Supply on command versus supply and demand. In Contexts for prehistoric exchange (pp. 291-316). Academic Press.
• Earle, T. (1994). Wealth finance in the Inka empire: Evidence from the Calchaqui Valley, Argentina. American antiquity, 59(3), 443-460.
• D'Altroy, T. N. (1997). Recent research on the central Andes. Journal of Archaeological Research, 5(1), 3-73.
• D'Altroy, T. N., & Wilkinson, D. A. (2008). War, Peace, and the Landscape of the Inka Heartland. Cardozo Pub. L. Pol'y & Ethics J., 7, 663.
• Nash, D. J. (2009). Household archaeology in the Andes. Journal of Archaeological Research, 17(3), 205-261.
• Quave, K. E. (2012). Labor and domestic economy on the royal estate in the Inka Imperial heartland (Maras, Cuzco, Peru) (Doctoral dissertation, Southern Methodist University).
• Eeckhout, P. (2012). Inca Storage and Accounting Facilities at Pachacamac. Andean Past, 10(1), 12.
• Mantha, A. (2012). 10 Shifting Territorialities under the Inka Empire: The Case of the Rapayán Valley in the Central Andean Highlands. Archeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association, 22(1), 164-188.
• Vaughn, K. J., & Tripcevich, N. (2013). An introduction to mining and quarrying in the ancient Andes: sociopolitical, economic and symbolic dimensions. In Mining and Quarrying in the Ancient Andes (pp. 3-19). Springer, New York, NY.
• D’Altroy, T. N. (2015). The Inka Empire. Fiscal Regimes and the Political Economy of Premodern States, 31.
• Manzanilla, L. R., & Rothman, M. (Eds.). (2016). Storage in ancient complex societies: administration, organization, and control. Routledge.
• Covey, R. A., & Quave, K. E. (2017). The economic transformation of the inca heartland (Cuzco, Peru) in the late sixteenth century. Comparative Studies in Society and History, 59(2), 277-309.
• Earle, T. (2018). Staple Finance, Wealth Finance, and Storage in the Inka Political Economy. In Bronze Age Economics (pp. 191-215). Routledge.
• Wilkinson, D., & D’Altroy, T. (2018). The Past as Kin: Materiality and Time in Inka Landscapes.”. Constructions of Time and History in the Pre-Columbian Andes, 107-132.
• Quave, K., Kennedy, S. A., & Covey, R. A. (2019). Rural Cuzco before and after Inka Imperial Conquest: Foodways, Status, and Identity (Maras, Peru). International Journal of Historical Archaeology, 23(4), 868.
• D’Altroy, T. N. (2021). Funding the Inka empire. In The Inka Empire (pp. 97-118). University of Texas Press.

Overview of Khipu Practices

• Medrano, M. (2021). Khipu Transcription Typologies: A Corpus-Based Study of the Textos Andinos. Ethnohistory, 68(2), 311-341.
• Hyland, S. (2021). Festival Threads: Khipu Calendars and Mercedarian Missions in Rapaz, Peru (c. 1565–1825). The Catholic Historical Review, 107(1), 119-147.
  • watancha — "ceremony that was done once a year and whose principle purpose was to render the accounts, services, communal labours given during the year." [Note how watan means "year" and watana means "to fasten or tie" or "cord"]

  • When the author spoke with Mecias Puma-julka, Mariano’s grandson, Mecias explained that khipu accounts had to be made "clean" ("limpia") at the end of every year. By this he meant that all the debts knotted onto the cords had to be settled at the end of the year so that there was a "clean" cord for the New Year. Since communities that kept khipu accounts settled them once a year, it makes sense that this is how the Mass fee accounts would be paid when the fee information was recorded on khipus; the annual lump sum payment of Mass stipends in colonial Rapaz was in keeping with the nature of khipu accountancy in the Central Andes.

  • For example, in 1725 diocesan inspectors inter- viewed a khipu expert from the Churín diocese—possibly from Rapaz itself. Tis individual possessed a khipu with detailed information aboutevery member of his kin group ("panaca"), including their names, status, livestock, property, and communal labor obligations.

  • Quispi’s khipu recorded both sheep and cattle,including information on sex, age, how many were sold at what price, how much money was used to pay the priest’s tithes, and that six reales came from selling dried meat that Quispi prepared from cattle killed by pumas.

  • It is highly likely that the Oyón cofra-dia maintained khipu cords indicating each time Mass was said and for what price; these sums then were written into the ledger at the watancha, revealing an integration of knotted and alphabetic accounting. If we exam-ine the Rapaz khipus’ structures, can we gain insights into how such stipends/offerings may have been coded on khipus, and what this would reveal about the ancestors and the mountains?

• Setlak, M., Moscovich, V., Hyland, S., & Milillo, L. (2020). Quipus y quipucamayoc. Codificación y administración en el antiguo Perú. Ernst y Young Consultores S. Civil de RL.
• Medrano, M. (2020). Testimony from knotted strings: An archival reconstruction of early colonial Andean khipu readings. History and Anthropology, 1-23.
• Medrano, M., & Urton, G. (2018). Toward the decipherment of a set of mid-Colonial khipus from the Santa Valley, coastal Peru. Ethnohistory, 65(1), 1-23.
• Hyland, S. (2017). Writing with twisted cords: The inscriptive capacity of andean khipus. Current Anthropology, 58(3), 412-419.
• Hyland, S. (2016). How khipus indicated labour contributions in an Andean village: An explanation of colour banding, seriation and ethnocategories. Journal of Material Culture, 21(4), 490-509.
• Hyland, S., Ware, G. A., & Clark, M. (2014). Knot direction in a Khipu/Alphabetic text from the central Andes. Latin American Antiquity, 189-197.
• How to Make an Inka Khipu

Databases

• Khosla, Ashok. Khipu Field Guide.

Pop culture

• Staff. (2020) The mystery of quipus—Incan knot records. The Americas. The Economist. February 1.
• Cossins, D. (2018) We thought the Incas couldn't write. These knots change everything. NewScientist. September 26.
• Jones, J. (2018) How the Inca Used Intricately-Knotted Cords, Called Khipu, to Write Their Histories, Send Messages & Keep Records. Open Culture. November 28.

Linguistic Definitions Regarding Khipus

• proto-Quechua
  • Quechua I
    • Central
      • Alto Pativilca–Alto Marañón–Alto Huallaga
        • quipucäcu̱:n - apretarse (un nudo) tanto que no se puede desatar, to become so tight that one cannot un do it (a knot)
        • wasca - la soga, multistrand rope
        • wata:n - atar, amarrar, to tie
          • wata:na - threads attached to the warp rod
        • wata - año, year
          • watacha:n - cumplir año, to have a birthday
          • watan - the next year
        • millwaya:n - volverse como lana, to become wool
        • millu:n - torcer en sentido contrario, to twist in contrary directions
    • Pacaraos
  • Quechua II
    • Northern Quechua
      • Kichwa
        • kipu - cifras, numerales, figure, number, numerals
          • kipukamayuk - a person that works numerals, figures
          • k'ipuk - contador, meter, taximeter
          • k'ipuknin - secretario, secretary
          • k'ipukuj - contador, accountant
        • waska - cadena, red, cuerda, chain, network, rope
        • watana - atar, amarrar, agarrar, bind to, fasten, tie
          • watani - atadura, cord
          • makiwatana - pulsera, bracelet; |maki| = mano, hand
        • wata - año, year
          • watantin - anualmente, annually
          • watapaktay - cumpleaños, birthday
        • millma - lana, wool
      • Ayacucho
        • kipu - ligadura, nudo, knot
          • kipuy - atar, nudar, knot, tie; ajustar, adjust
        • waska - la soga, multistrand rope
        • wata - año, year
        • miɫma - lana, wool
    • Southern Quechua
      • Cuzco
        • k"ipu/khipu - ligadura, nudo, knot
          • k"ipuy/khipuy, k"ipuchay/khipuchay - atar, nudar, knot, tie
        • wask"a/waskha - la soga, multistrand rope
        • watay - atar, nudar, knot, tie
          • watana - atadura, cord
        • wata - año, year
        • miɫma - lana, wool
      • Cochabamba
        • k"ipu/khipu - ligadura, nudo, knot
          • k"ipuy/khipuy, k"ipuchay/khipuchay - atar, nudar, knot, tie; ajustar, adjust
        • wask"a/waskha - la soga, multistrand rope
        • wata - año, year
        • miɫma - lana, wool

Kinti-Moss, N., & Masaquiza Chango, N. B. (2018). Kichwa-English-Spanish Dictionary.
Parker, G. (1964). ENGLISH-QUECHUA DICTIONARY–CUZCO, AYACUCHO, COCHABAMBA.
Weber, D., & Cayco Zambrano, F. (1998). Rimaycuna quechua de huanuco: diccionario del quechua del Huallaga con índices castellano e inglés.

Potential Foreign Connections/Coincidences

• Downes, T. (1925). NOTES ON INCISED DESIGNS SEEN IN A CAVE NEAR WAVERLEY. The Journal of the Polynesian Society, 34(3(135)), 252-258. Retrieved April 9, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/20702040
• pona
• tapona or tupona or tipona
• tiponapona
• aho ponapona

  • D'Urville spoke of natives in the vicinity of New Ireland as being voyagers to some extent. They made voyages of ten to twelve days to some land inhabited by people of a much lighter colour than themselves, and there obtained garments covered with designs. On one of these occasions they brought back one of these light-skinned folk, a woman, who tallied her days of absence from home by tying knots in some fabric that she wore round her neck. We know that the natives of the Caroline, Pelew, and Hawaiian Groups formerly employed the quipu, or knotted cords, as mnemonic aids to memory, and that the same aid was in use among Polynesians generally. The Rev. G. Turner remarks in his Samoa a Hundred Years Ago, “Tying a number of knots on a pice of cord was a common way of noting and remembering things, in the absence of a written language amongst the South-Sea-Islanders.” We also know that the Maori of New Zealand has a traditional knowledge of the quipu, known to him as aho ponapona.

• tau ponapona

  • A highly imaginative episode now follows. After the departure of Toi, the mother of Turahui further consulted the priests for news of her son. The priests decided to send Turahui's pet bird, a green-breasted cuckoo (wharauroa) named Te Kawa, to search for its owner. A string knotted to convey a message (tau ponapona) was tied around the bird's neck and it was sent on its way with a blessing. It reached Rangiatea and alighted on the roof of a house. Seeing its master below, it called down, "Are you Turahui?" Receiving an affirmative reply, the gifted bird alighted on Turahui's shoulder. Turahui removed the knotted cord and read the message, which ran as follows (81, pp. 84,105):
    
    Kei te ora koutou? Kei tewhea motu koutou?
    Are you alive? At what island are you?
    
    Another knotted cord was sent back with the bird with the following message, "We are all alive at Rangiatea." The bird flew off towards the east and the direction was noted.
    
    Whatonga, Turahui and their men with their wives and families set out in six canoes on the course indicated by the bird. They were met by the bird with another knotted message asking if they would return. The canoes finally arrived back at Hawaiki where they were welcomed with all the detail characteristic of Maori receptions. Whatonga asked the priests to create a solar halo (kura-hau-awatea) and a lunar halo (kura-hau-po) to inform the people of Rangiatea that they had arrived safely.

  • The use of a knotted cord to convey messages is somewhat startling. The Marquesans used a mnemonic device (ta'o mata) of sennit with a knot for each generation in a lineage much as the Maoris used a genealogical stick (rakau whakapapa) with knobs to represent the generations. The Hawaiian tax collectors kept a tally of the taxes to be paid in dogs, hogs, and other commodities by tying loops, knots, and tufts of various sizes and colours to lines of cordage. These three devices, however, were for numerical counts and could not convey any other form of message. The scribe (81, p. 104) who explained the technique of the knotted cord to Percy Smith, stated that knots spaced from the tip of the finger to the first joint, the second joint, the knuckle joint, and the wrist joint, conveyed four different messages.

• Niue Language Dictionary. (1997). Niue: Government of Niue.
• kupu