Documentos de Académico
Documentos de Profesional
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QHAPAQ AN
The People of Tawantinsuyu Today
Colombia
EcuadorPeruBoliviaArgentinaChile
QHAPAQ AN
The People of Tawantinsuyu Today
Introduction
Qhapaq an, the Great Inka Road, endures, both as a concrete achievement of Inka civilization and as a metaphor for Andean cultural persistence. Five hundred years have passed since the destruction of the Inka Empire and the disarticulation of the Inkas historical and cultural processes, yet much of the Inkas pre-Western cultural patrimony lives on in the communities of the Andes. This project seeks to work with academics and Native communities to document that heritage and to present it to a wide audience through a major exhibit, associated public programs, and scholarly works. In scale alone, the Great Inka Road is one of the most monumental achievements in history, uniting Tawantinsuyuthe four regions of the Inka Empirefrom present-day Colombia in the north, through Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, to central Argentina and Chile. Built without the use of iron, the wheel, or stock animals, the Qhapaq an represents important milestones in the development of civil engineering technology, and communications. The roads creators employed impressive engineering strategies in response to the challenges presented by an aggressive landscape that ranges from coastal deserts to deep highland valleys and Amazonian rain forests. Even more significantly, the Qhapaq an stands as an instrument and symbol of Inka imperial power, a major pillar of Inkan and Andean society.
While much has been written by academics about the Qhapaq an and the organization of the Inka Empire, very little has been published that considers the experience of the people who engineered and built the road, or their descendants who keep it today. History, as it is taught today in schools and reflected in popular and scholarly books about the Inka, is based on the works of 17th- and 18th-century chroniclers, who wrote as representatives of European institutionsChurch and Crownwith European readers in mind. This history maintains Western points of view that can differ greatly from, though also sometimes coincide with, the way Native people see their past. Yet the testimonies of these indigenous people remain housed alongside bureaucratic documents in forgotten archives. Through Qhapaq an: The Legacy of the Great Inka Road and the People of Tawantinsuyu Today, the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) intends to resurrect perspectives on the Qhapaq an, both from the historical record and from contemporary Andean culture, which reflect the experience and perceptions of peoples of autochthonous identities, languages, and oral traditions.
The museum welcomes this opportunity to provide major national and international visibility on the U.S. National Mall to the six countries that encompass the Andean region and to their corresponding Native populations. Our collection from the region is substantial and includes tens of thousands of archaeological and ethnographic objects. Our standing as a Smithsonian museum hosting regional cultural offerings and presentations on important current events and issues promises to generate interest in the peoples and nations of the Andes and to stimulate compelling discussion. The contribution of the NMAI to the Qhapaq an project will be the organization of a major exhibit, scheduled to open in the summer of 2012, substantial symposia, and accompanying scholarly publications. Additional programming may include a film festival, music and dance performances, and production of a documentary film. We will also provide curriculum materials for schools. Our objective is to present new insight into the history and contemporary reality of Andean America through the story of the Qhapaq an and the living ways of Tawantinsuyu.
Consistent with the NMAIs philosophy, the Qhapaq an exhibit will present a Quechua perspective on Inka history and culture. The exhibit will be based largely on the interpretation of primary sources gathered from living Quechua communities, including archival documents and first editions of historic publications that record original ethnographic information on marketplaces along the road, indigenous wares, the bartering system, and ambulatory traders, as well as colonial records. These sources will be analyzed and filtered using the ethnographic analogy method. Oral history and contemporary testimonials will be collected in Quechua, the official language of the Inka state. Through these oral histories, ethnographies, current research on pre-colonial archaeology, and colonial records, we will recognize the Inka legacy among the people of Tawantinsuyu today, and illustrate the continuity of Inka traditions from the past to the present. We also seek to communicate the spiritual significance of the road, and and how the Qhapaq an is understood in Andean cosmology.
Combining scholarly research, new archaeological findings, and community consultation, the Qhapaq an project directly addresses the Smithsonians mandate to increase and diffuse knowledge. It also supports the NMAIs specific mission to advance knowledge and understanding of the Native cultures of the Western Hemispherehistoric and livingthrough partnership with Native and non-Native people, and to support the continuance of culture, traditional values, and transitions in contemporary Native life. Most of all, the Qhapaq an project is intended to explore the importance of the imagination to human development, and the universal qualities of invention and human resilience. It will illuminate a world defined by a system of ancient roads that embodies living conceptions of time, space, and sacred organizationan indigenous American civilization that arose in the past, yet still courses through the contemporary world.
Cosmological concepts rooted in pre-colonial cultures continue to be associated with the Qhapaq an through these communities. Roads that open from the crust of Pachamama (Mother Earth) are seen to be as sacred as she is, and are said to be alive like her as well. At apachetaspiles of stones erected at crossroads and passeseach passing traveler deposits a stone, accompanied with a few coca leaves or bits of wild plants, to ask for a safe journey, a practice that predates European contact and that continues to be observed today. The Spanish, keepers of Catholic tradition during a period of severe ethnocentrism, placed crosses atop the piles of stones when they came across them on the road. Early Spanish travelers decorated special landmarks along the road with chapels and shrines honoring Catholic saints. Despite these, and much more drastic, methods of Christianizing Native peoples, the Inka belief system continues to be a strong facet of the cosmology of Quechua communities today.
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The construction and maintenance of the Inka Road offers a way to understand historical and contemporary indigenous knowledge of climate and geography. The Inka were able to conceive of and build a road system covering some of the most challenging topography on earth. Only through their understanding of climate and terrain did the Inka create a highway along the length of the Andes, with countless transversal routes constructed to reach the lowlands of the Amazonian rain forest and the Pacific coastal deserts. The exhibit will also offer the opportunity to document contemporary indigenous knowledge through the testimony of living Quechua communities. For example, there is a hanging bridge some 80 meters long over the Apurimac River that is still traversed by people and animals. Since Inka times, using puna grass (ichu), neighboring communities have rebuilt the bridge every three years. Similarly, ferries, causeways over bodies of water, perforated tunnels, and drainage systems are communally maintained. The exhibit will highlight the experiences of those skilled specialists (camayuc) responsible for the conservation and supervision of the road system in all its complexities.
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One of the challenges will be to express the monumentality of the Great Inka Road as it moves through physical space. The Andes cover an immense and diverse area. Of the 106 different ecological niches existing on earth, 80 are present in the Andes. Consequently, the characteristics of the road are varied, as are the people who live along it. Yet all share a common thread as inhabitants of this region. The multicultural nature of the Qhapaq an will be illustrated by the Andean communities that have used the roads to trade and gift many goods and services among themselves. The exhibit will also demonstrate the Qhapaq ans role in the processes of agricultural production.
Archaeological, historical, and ethnographic data will be used to illustrate the road systems contributions to Inka economic achievement. Infrastructure associated with the road, such as provincial administration centers, tambos, chaskis wasis (courier posts), geopolitical landmarks, and hatus, will be featured. The exhibit will present the Qhapaq ans economic, social, and symbolic significance to the Inka Empire, its importance for colonial and republican administration, and its current role as a subsistence provider to more than 500 contemporary Andean communities.
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The museum also owns many textiles from both the Inka and Colonial Inka periods. Inka textiles, including the fine cloths known as kumpi, were highly prized by colonial society. As a result of their popularity, new textile designs emerged that included European flora and fauna, such as grapes, flowers, and horses. The traditional production of most other objects continued to follow the indigenous cultural, technological, and cosmological traditions, maintaining a consistency that persists today. In addition to the archeological collection, the museum has a rich collection of ethnographic objects dating mainly from the 20th century. These include textiles, weaving tools, musical instruments, clothing, and ceramics made by diverse Quechua communities throughout the Andes, though the majority of pieces come from Native communities in Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia. As the museum researches the exhibit, we realize we will recognize additional examples of art and material culture that exemplify the objectives of the exhibit. The museum will identify and acquire these objects with the assistance of Native curators and Quechua cultural leaders.
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Contemporary Andean priests remain very knowledgeable about Andean history and geography. Some will work on this project as community curators as recommended by their own communities. Through them, we will learn of the indigenous landscape within their own framework of terms. Their participation will be imperative to our understanding the design, construction, and cosmological dimensions of the Qhapaq an. The community curators will be an important asset in visualizing Inka history and the Qhapaq an system as they are traditionally understood. Through their role in the selection of objects to display in the exhibit, these curators will offer a perspective that compliments the anthropological, archeological, and historical view of the museum. The NMAIs methodology is consistent with standards of scientific and empirical knowledge It perceives indigenous, traditional knowledge as complementary to modern academic knowledge, and seeks to use both ways of understanding to explore the themes of the exhibit. The Qhapaq an exhibit offers an opportunity to display both types of knowledge, as well as to present the perspective of indigenous Quechua individuals and communities on Quechua history.
The project will be supported firmly by academics working on the theme of the Qhapaq an. We will turn to fellow academics who have published works on the subject or are currently carrying out research. It is our intention to include on our team at least one professional from each country involved in the Inter-American Development bank/UNESCO Qhapaq an Project.
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The study of Andean culture has been arbitrarily segmented into three separate phases of time, with each phase possessing its own methodology, theoretical framework, and nomenclature. The discipline of archaeology has assumed the task of studying ancient societies by using the material cultural remains as the basis for research, while historians have concerned themselves with studying Andean societies as they were following the European invasion. Historians have employed written documents as principal sources of investigation. The study of contemporary communities has been left to the discipline of ethnology, which collects information by observing and describing the activities of Native communities and documenting individual histories and information regarding Native cultures. Spanish chroniclers collected much information on Inkan government and administration, as well as on the customs and styles of indigenous social life. Some of these accounts were published for the European audience; others were reserved for bureaucratic aims, such as the control of tribute, the recruitment of laborers, and the management of public works, such as the conservation of the Qhapaq an. These administrative accounts are excellent sources that can be used to reconstruct the history of the indigenous community as it existed during the Spanish colonial period. Official information from the colonial period offers detailed descriptions of the Inka states provincial establishments, sacred places, and also of the road system. Documents collected by missionaries also depict knowledge of the continued practice of indigenous beliefs, which were carried out in secrecy out of their fear of being considered pagan by the Spanish. Even with the independence of the American republics from Spanish control, freedom for indigenous peoples was never fully achieved, and so the practice of ancestral rites and ceremonies continued to be performed in secret. Many of the sacred spaces where ceremonies are performed are linked to the Qhapaq an.
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The richness of the information that exists on Inkan history and culture within each phase of time offers an extraordinary opportunity to visualize the historic process from the indigenous perspective, taking into account the ethnographic information and oral history significant to the Quechua. The study of the Inka has created new disciplines, such as ethnoarchaeology, ethnohistory, and ethnographic analogy. The methodologies of these new disciplines will be used to develop this exhibit and to present the Qhapaq an and the vitality of Inka ideas. The Qhapaq an exhibit raises the challenge to research and present a subject that has long suffered from a lack of recognition and understanding. This exhibit provides an opportunity to those who were once part of this great empire, but who have become marginalized over the centuries since the Spanish conquest, to narrate their story in their language.
The experience of the projects lead curator, Ramiro Matos, regarding Inka culture and history, and the support of NMAI Assistant Director for Research Jos Barreiro guarantees the high quality of the exhibits content. Dr. Matos has focused his studies on provincial Inka culture for many years, and has published several works related to this subject. Dr. Barreiro has valuable experience with Latin American indigenous cultures. This project will also rely on information and advice offered by archaeologists who are currently conducting field research pertinent to the Qhapaq an. Ethnologists collecting information on this subject will also be consulted.
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A cornerstone of this exhibits success will be its focus on the progression of Inka history after the Spanish invasion in 1532. In order to gather information on the Inkas of the colonial period, we will depend upon the collaboration of a highly qualified historian. The historian will be familiar with the Andean historical process; have authored scholarly-level publications; be skilled in organizing bibliographical and archival information; possess significant knowledge of the periods of contact, colonization, the founding of the republics, and of contemporary Andean society; and be well-versed in historical and semiotic research methodology. The historian will be thoroughly familiar with the Archives of the Indias in Seville, Spain, as well as with national and local archives in each of the Andean republics, and will know well the historical literature from the 18th to the 20th centuries.
All of this information will be used in concordance with the community curators knowledge and agreement, and in congruence with the philosophy of the NMAI.
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Seminars
Two seminars on the Qhapaq an will be organized, the first in Washington, D.C., and the second in Cusco, Peru. We are exploring the possibility of organizing the Washington, D.C. seminar with other institutions affiliated with the Qhapaq an project, such as the Cultural Department of the Inter-American Development Bank. The topic of the seminar may be Investigations on the Qhapaq an through 2009. The seminar at Cusco may also be coorganized with local universities and cultural institutions. This seminar is tentatively set for 2010 and may be titled, Historians, and Quechua cultural leaders involved in the study of the Qhapaq an.
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Research Plan, continued 2. Archaeology and ethnology of the Qhapaq an It is important to contact the archaeologists in charge of the Qhapaq an Project in each country to explain the objectives and content of this exhibit in detail, the material that will be used, and the mission of the NMAI. Our goal is to maintain a cordial relationship of collaboration that also adds value to their work, and to recognize the knowledge that resides in relevant indigenous communities. a. After establishing contact with experts from each country and receiving their advice, formal contact will be made with government offices, like the National Institute of Culture of Peru, the National Institute of Cultural Patrimony of Ecuador, the General Direction of Cultural Patrimony of Bolivia, General Council of Monuments of Chile, and National Council of Archaeological Monuments of Argentina. The objective of making contact is to establish mutually collaborative, institutional relationships. With the assistance of archaeologists and anthropologists in each country, a list of indigenous communities associated with the Qhapaq an will be compiled, to include, if possible, candidates for Native curators.
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Research Plan, continued h. Audio-visual documentation of: 1) Caon de Colca, Arequipa, and continuing to Arica, on the Pacific coast. 2) The road from Warautampu (Cerro de Pasco) to Huanuco and Ancash. 3) The road from Achupallas to Ingapirca and Tomebamba in Ecuador. 4) The road between Cochabamba and Tarija in Bolivia. 5) The road from Catamarca to Salta and Jujuy in Argentina. 6) The road from Atacama to Calama and Arica in Chile. Field research will encompass the network of the Qhapaq an and the four Inka administrative regions or suyus: Chinchaysuyu: Colombia, Ecuador, Peru Collasuyu: Bolivia,- Argentina, Chile Contisuyu: Peru, Chile Antisuyu: Peru, Bolivia
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Ecuador: The road from Quito to Ingapirca and Tomebamba in Kaar:20 days. Peru: The road from Cajamarca to Ancash, Hunuco, Warautampu, Pumpu, Xauxa, Ayacucho, Cusco, Sacred Valley, and Lake Titicaca: 40 days. The road from Cusco to Arequipa, Colca, and Mollendo: 10 days. Bolivia: The road from Lake Titicaca (ChucuitoPacaje) to Potos, Tarija, Cochabamba, Inka llajta, Samaipata, and Ingawasi: 30 days. Argentina: The road from the Valle de Suipacha (Uma Porco) to Chagua, Condorhuasi, Noquera, Humaguaca, Jujuy, and Salta: 30 days. Chile: The road from Arica to Iquique, Atacama, and Calama: 20 days.
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Ramiro Matos, Lead Curator Jose Barreiro, Curator Wayne Smith, Project Manager Megan Son, Guest Curator Photo credits: Ramiro Matos & Laurent Granier Document prepared by Lucia Abramovich
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