Names as Reputations: Constructing Memories in Inca Peru PDF

Names as Reputations: Constructing Memories in Inca Peru By Susan Elizabeth Ramírez Native Andeans in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries depended on oral traditions for their sense of the past and their identitie...

Names as Reputations: Constructing Memories in Inca Peru By Susan Elizabeth Ramírez Native Andeans in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries depended on oral traditions for their sense of the past and their identities. Each important lineage named specialists charged with remembering major events and reciting them in narratives that were often sung at ritual events throughout the year. Protagonist- centered tales of expansion, construction, and diplomacy passed down the generations. These tales populated by folk heroes had names that, in time, became paradigms of courage and virtue and emulated standards for social values, such as hospitality. The storytellers’ tales served as both propaganda and instruction. Andean rulers sometimes spent considerable time listening to the narratives. Guayna Capac*1, the last Inca ruler to exercise hegemony over peoples living from southern Colombia, across Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, the northern half of Chile and northwestern Argentina in the sixteenth century just before the Spanish explorer Francisco Pizarro invaded from the north, visited the royal lineages to hear narrative recitals to learn tips on governance and the standards by which he would Because Quechua, one of the languages of the Andean people, was not written, Spaniards wrote them phonetically, leading to a variety of spellings for the same word or name. I have standardized the spellings in this paper. 1 be measured, at the time he came to power. He, no doubt, heard the name of Manco Capac, one of the four brothers who founded the ceremonial center of Cuzco. The warrior Sinchi Roca may have been mentioned. Pachacuti, the great reformer, surely held his attention. Two decades after the Spanish arrived, an interpreter married to an Inca Princess, likewise heard the narratives. The relatives of the wife (Doña Angelina Cusirimay) of this interpreter, Juan de Betanzos, retold stories they had learned from their elders in Quechua. He translated the stories that he heard into Spanish and his notes on these narratives became the basis for his history of the Native rulers, Suma y narración de los Incas. The details confused him. As he, himself, admits in his history, the narratives were repetitious and contradicted each other. So, in the end, hopelessly befuddled, he decided to order his account by lineage, earliest to most recent, and put his information into a form that his readers would understand. He used the European dynastic model as a paradigm. He wrote about a dozen or so rulers, starting with Manco Capac, and noting Guayna Capac’s death and the succession war between his sons, two half-brothers named Huáscar and Atahualpa. This translated and re-formulated version of the stories that Betanzos heard introduced distortions and constituted a reformulation of Andean memories. Betanzos’ sequence of kings became the standard. Later chroniclers, with a few exceptions, accepted his version as fact. Table I shows that the most important 2 early chroniclers, in the rewriting, confused the names. Mayta Capac and Capac Yupanqui were sometimes switched. Inca Yupanqui is mentioned by only Betanzos and Sarmiento. Agreement among the chroniclers increases the closer to the date the narratives were recorded. Table I: Comparative Roster of Inca Kings Unimaginable to the early chroniclers was an alternative way of remembering the past which explains the repetitions and contradictions of the oral narratives heard by Betanzos. It is an institution called by one of its observers in south central Africa in the 1940s as “positional inheritance”. In its most concise outline, positional inheritance is a system that assigns individuals to names sequentially as they age. Each name registers a position within the social unit. Thus, a baby would be given one name and possibly a second one about the age of six. Subsequently, he would take a name that was vacated by an older person, his senior. The names of important people like a lineage founder would always be bestowed upon another who was judged able to fulfill the role and carry out the responsibilities of the position. Lesser names might in time be lost. As names passed from one individual to another their collective deeds were preserved in oral narratives, recited and sung, sometimes along with dancing and portrayal. Over time, reputations were built that accrued not to the individual but to the name. 3 Through repetition, a famous and even legendary name became a title, though the sequential series of individuals occupying the title and the position were forgotten. Each occupant endeavored to maintain the status inherent in the title and enhance it by showing valor and wisdom during his tenure. Nostalgia was not involved. In populating the various positions of a Native hierarchy, the participants were recreating the sociopolitical structure at the beginning of the group’s existence. The ritual conveying the title reminded participants and viewers alike of the stories of the group’s past and invited them to re-live their histories. They thus used ancestral names to support collective memories, forge identities, and evoke the past. As boys and adolescents took adult names and sometimes ascended, in time, in status to take the name of the lineage leader, they learned what amounted to the biography of the name and recounted it on ritual occasions in the first person. The defining features of the positional inheritance naming system as described for mid-twentieth century south central Africa are: 1. A hierarchy of named positions; 2. The importance of perpetuating names, especially those that refer to the first person to have held or created a position; 3. The practice of taking more than one name during a lifetime; 4. The desirability of moving into vacant, senior named positions; 4  5. The perpetuation of relative positions based on kinship or quasi fictious kinship relations between the original holders of the names; 6. The collapsing of history into two dimensions -- the then and now; and 7. The absence of any institutional history of a wider lineage, tribe or region. Thus, the keys to the memories were the names and titles of their leaders. Individual names had “content”. Names became the repositories of lineage and group knowledge. As individuals succeeded, they claimed the position, status, and accomplishments of their predecessors. Name-taking was important because it secured respective ranks and bestowed rights and responsibilities. It also confirmed relationships with other nearby groups, underscoring their identities. The past was constructed in a patterned, cyclical way that conserved what they considered important. Positional inheritance preserved the relations that gave meaning to collectivities of various sizes through kinship ties. Consequently, it organized memory and power. Ideally, history was repeated and society, at first glance, might seem unchangeable. There could, nevertheless, be discrepancies in the telling of tales and their performances. The transmission of the past could be manipulated, negotiated, distorted, telescoped, and possibly lengthened to fit current designs. Oral traditions facilitated their refashioning and variation until they were supplanted and fixated by persons who would record them in writing. The Northern Andean Case 5  Positional inheritance also characterized societies in the Andes. Two examples will suffice – one from an ethnic group in the north and the other from the dominant Inca rulers headquartered in the south. The northern example comes from the court records over the labor of a large ethnicity, headed at the time of Pizarro’s invasion in the 1530s by a paramount lord called Jayanque (later, Jayanca). This lord or curaca had subjects living scattered over a river valley situated between the Spanish colonial cities of Piura and Trujillo. Another several hundred families lived in the highlands immediately to the east and inland from the main group. Another smaller group of fisherfolk lived on the seacoast. The large number of Jayanque’s followers (who still numbered at least 4,000 families in 1540) made the polity prosperous and the chieftain a major personage. He was described by a Spanish traveler in the 1540s as The lords of these valleys [writing as he traveled through the Valley of Jayanca] were respected and venerated by their subjects: those who remain still are treated in this way: and they go along accompanied and well served by women and servants. And they have their own porters and guards. A forty-five-year-old Spanish merchant who had lived in the area since c. 1550, testified in 1570 that the curaca was the “direct descendant” of the founder 6 of the polity. A direct bloodline (not necessarily through the male line) from the apical ancestor was considered one mark of a legitimate ruler. Under the curaca, Natives differentiated between principales (nobles) and mandones (leaders of smaller lineages), saying that the former gave orders “without being subject to any other noble” while the latter were subjects of other nobles. Mandoncillos (leaders of extended family groups) “commanded the common Indians and were themselves subject to the mandones and principales, as shown in Table 2. Table 2: Ranking Hierarchy of the Jayanca Curaca and his Followers Curaca Principal Mandon Mandoncillo The paramount lord, Jayanque, baptized by the Spanish as Don Francisco, had approximately thirty principales serving him and recognizing his suzerainty before 1532. These subordinates either tilled a piece of ground for him or, in the case of the fishermen, supplied him, his family, and retinue with all types of ocean fare. Numerous testimonies indicate that Natives, both commoners and lords, on the North Coast and elsewhere, took on more than one name sequentially during 7 their lifetime and some of these names signified ranked positions and were not unique to one individual. The practice of changing names in life was not unique to the Jayancas. Don Diego, a self-denominated and self-promoting “cacique” (or lord, actually, a noble or principal) of the lineage of Sontubilico, was also recognized by the name of Xeco in 1570. In the polity called Saňa one principal in 1542 was known as Ponoa and by another name, Achachea, or occasionally, Principal Ponoachachea. In another case, a lord of the Jayancas appeared as don Pedro Chipporef in one citation and don Pedro Falquen in another. One name might have been a personal one, while the other might have designated the lineage under his control. A few years later and farther inland, don Alonso Caruatongo also used the name Chuplingon as the curaca or chieftain of the Cajamarca people. Yet another example comes from a notarial document from 1579 in which Diego Limo identified himself to authorities also as Don Diego Allaucan. Documents from the mid-seventeenth century still identified Natives who admitted to or were identified as having two names. In certain ceremonial contexts, the authorities not only took the name of the founding ancestor but also embodied his animating force (kamaq) and spirit. In so doing he became another and was rendered a sacred being, the essence of positional inheritance. 8  The jurisdictional confusion between two Spaniards who both claimed the labor of the same group stemmed from the fact that lords changed names when they ascended to the top office. Individuals then jettisoned the name they had used to take the name or title of the position that they were about to occupy. In this litigated case, both claimed the stewardship of a group of fisherfolk under a lord called Minimisal, who held the rank of principal in the hierarchy of lords that ruled over the commoners. The principal Minimisal, the main object of the lawsuit between the two Spaniards in the 1560s had a second name: Enequesiquel. Witnesses explained that Native men discarded the name or names of their youth when they succeeded to the named position of a predecessor. One witness declared in 1563: that from that time [1530s] until now, … the principal who oversaw the principality of Minimisal in April 1536 was called Enequisiquil and the parcialidad and lands where the said Enequesiquel and the lineage over which he ruled was called Minimisal and by this name … this witness knows the lineage and has seen with his own eyes that three lords that he has known of the said jurisdiction of Minimisal who have each succeeded at the death of the previous one said that they had inherited the said jurisdiction of Minimisal even though they 9  have their own names such as don Hernando, which was the name of two of them. He continued that don Francisco, the curaca, told him in 1556, speaking of the principal Minimisal, The lords who rule each have their own name … Enequesiquel was the given name of the principal who ruled in the past the lineage of Minimisal and the said Enequesiquel lived for a long time in that jurisdiction. Another long-term Spanish resident who had lived five years in the early 1550s among the Jayancas, Pácoras, and Túcumes testified in 1563, explaining The said name of Minimisal is the name of the jurisdiction and whoever succeeds in that jurisdiction, even though he has a given name, they call him by the name of the jurisdiction and the name Enequesiquel is the name of the person who ruled, and this witness has heard from the lords of the Jayancas and Pácoras that said Enequesiquel was the principal of the said lineage of Minimisal at the time that the said Marques [Francisco Pizarro] divided the population [among his Spanish followers]. A Native subject of the principal Minimisal, reiterated this, testifying that 10 Enequesiquel Minimisal was subject to the paramount lord of the Jayancas, he paid him part of the tribute he had to give the Spanish … at the death of said Enequesiquel his successor became subject to the paramount lord of the Jayancas, and the reason why the said principal was called by two names was because his first name was Enequesiquel and the name of the jurisdiction was Minimisal and thus the person who is principal at present because of the death of said Enequesiquel, in addition to his given name he was also called Minimisal being the last name of the jurisdiction, and he has heard from the elders that the predecessors of said Enequesiquie, in addition to their first names, they also took the surname of the jurisdiction Minimisal as their last name. Another Native clansman, born into the lineage of Minimisal, stated that Enequesiquel was the principal lord of this witness, he was also the principal lord of the lineage of Minimisal in which this witness originated and during his lifetime there was none other; Minimisal is the name of the lineage and Enequesiquel was the name of the person in charge of said lineage of Minimisal; this witness knows because he saw that when the Spaniards entered these lands in 1532 he was in charge of the said lineage of Minimisal; … Enequesiquel … was the 11  principal of the lineage of Minimisal … that was subject to the paramount lord of Jayanca during the time of the Incas [< 1532] and after the arrival of the Spaniards, and at all times that this witness can remember he has always seen that this witness and the rest of the Indians of the lineage of Minimisal have been and are subjects of the said paramount lord of Jayanca. Thus, the names used by lords that were the subject of the dispute between the two Spaniards were not the personal name of an individual Native but the designation of a jurisdiction over a lineage or group of lineages. Another informant, a Native of the neighboring fishing lineage under the principal named Mocochomí (today Mochumi), reiterated this, saying He knew the lord called Enequesiquel who ruled the lineage of Minimisal at the time that the Spaniards arrived in the land , and the said name of Enequesiquie was the name that the said lord had since childhood and Minimisal is the name of the lineage and principality and not of the person. He continued The aforementioned Lord Enequesiquel is lord of the lineage that they call Minimisal and he was during the time the Spaniards entered this land , and this witness knew him as an old man and lord of the 12  said lineage and that the name of the lord who was lord of Mininisal was Enequesiquie his given name and because of his jurisdiction he was called Minimisal and the same name is given today to the lords of the said lineage, even though they have a given name they call him Minimisal. Yet another Native fisherman, subject to the lord Muchumí, testified in 1564 that he Knows the lord Minimisal and he also knew his father whose name was Enequesiquie, said Enequesiquel died after the Christians entered this land [>1532] and was named Minimisal Enequesiquel because that was the name of his father. So, Spaniards, Native Jayancas, including those under the principal Minimisal, and members of another fishing lineage – that of Mochumí-- all agree on the practice of taking on a new name as one moved up the hierarchy of positions, leaving personal names behind. The “name” that they took was the name of the lineage and jurisdiction. The last quote suggests that the Minimisal in power in 1564 had inherited the name from his antecedent, be he his biological father (or grandfather) or not. This successor-to-successor pattern of name inheritance held at the curaca level as well. In 1532 the curaca’s personal name was Pincuisoli or a variation of it. He had 13 become Jayanque upon succeeding to office in or before 1536. He was followed by his “son” (classificatory or biological?) who had been baptized by the Spanish as don Fransico of Jayanca, possibly christened with the name after the Spaniard who protected him at the time and following the fashion of Spanish kings who were known by their first names and a number (e.g., Philip II). Should this be true, his name (Don Francisco) would have identified him with service to the Spanish. His successor, another baptized don Fransico, suggests an attempt to maintain the practice by taking the Christian name of the previous holder. He already held the position in the mid-1550s and he was succeeded by his “son”, don Juan, the third leader after Pincuisoli, who held the position in 1570 as shown in Table III. Table III: References to the Curacas of Jayanca Additional independent records, like administrative and juridical papers, demonstrate that after Don Juan’s stint in office, one or more don Francisco Puiconsolis led the people of Jayanca to at least the year 1596. An early twentieth century scholar and longtime resident of the region, found that the name Puiconsoli endured as the last name of the curacas of Jayanca almost to the end of the seventeenth century. These records identify don Juan not as a curaca but as a governor. This is a key distinction, because at this time the Spanish used the term governor to identify a Native interim office holder who was recognized not to be the legitimate one. He 14 served temporarily when the legitimate successor to the position was considered inept – for reasons of preparation, personal characteristics, or, more likely in this case, tender age. The don Francisco who took office from don Juan was born c. 1553, making him a youngster or adolescent at the time that don Juan’s name surfaces in the records as leader. In other records of the time, don Juan appears as a principal, brother, uncle, lieutenant or conoseque (lord of a 1000 households). This case study illustrates several points. First, it shows that different individuals moved into positions of leadership at the curaca and noble levels as the preceding incumbents died or otherwise left or were removed from office. All the legitimate successors to the curacaship used the same name after Puiconsoli – probably a survival and adaptation of the previous practice but now in Christian guise. This rule held at the noble level as well. All of these lords began using the inherited positional name as a surname, perhaps reflecting growing Spanish pressure to use last names to distinguish individuals. Second, the inheritance pattern, if it worked as in Africa, explains the varying number of “widows” who served the leading Andean lords. Each successor would have inherited his predecessor’s ex-wives along with his named position. This explains why one early seventeenth century Native writer wrote that the Inca married his mother. Third, the relative positions of the various names and hierarchical levels were perpetuated according to the original relationship between the names. Jayanca is always 15 paramount. Pácora, as a lord of a lineage, is subordinate to Jayanca; and Neptur is indicated to be of less status than Pácora. The same positional inheritance as indicated by naming practices is found elsewhere in the Andes. Don Francisco of the Latacunga peoples (in what is now Ecuador) had changed his name to Hati upon assuming the chiefdomship. Subsequent censuses reveal that he had done nothing unusual. The lord’s sons were always listed under surnames other than Hati and did not assume the name Hati until they inherited the chiefdomship. The Puentos, the Native rulers of Cayambe, followed a similar practice. The Chimu peoples had leaders who took the surname Chayguac(a) between 1530s to 1781. Further south, Chauca rimah or Chinca cuica (also auca) was the name of the paramount lord of the linage of Lurin Chilca (holding jurisdiction over peoples living near the villa of Caňete in the colonial era) at the time of first contact with the Spanish. His son, don Pedro de Chauca, the first Christian paramount lord of the lineage who served as early as 1560, was confirmed by Viceroy Francisco de Toledo in 1579. His successors preserved Chauca as a surname into the nineteenth century. Finally, the name Sivi Paucar continued to be used among the highland Chancas between 1539 and (at least) 1694. Elsewhere in the south, Garcilaso de la Vega writes that Cari was one of the rulers of the Lupaqas in Chuquito. The name Cari was the same as that of the 16 ancestors from the very beginning. Their successors wanted to keep the memory through the name, inheriting it one from another. Thus, it appears that the rulers of the Lupaqa accepted the name of the apical ancestor and, in so doing, kept the memory of his deeds and those of the successors alive. Many Andean peoples likened their first ancestor to a god and took its name. A Spanish Jesuit missionary identified with the extirpation of idolatry, wrote that “all the old names of the populations are those of their principal god” and Each lineage, or ayllu, has a main god, and other lesser gods …, and from them many of the ayllu members usually take its name. Some of these consider them protectors and advocates of their populations, and besides the given name they call them Marcaapárac or Marcachárac. In sixteenth-century Quechua parlance, Marcaapárac or Marcachárac meant a rich lord, where “rich” identified an authority with a large following or, alternatively, he who founded a lineage. In the sixteenth century, both words llaca and marca referred to a people or lineage. One Jesuit chronicler wrote that Andeans worship their ancestral names, no doubt referring to the revered and sacred connotation of what or whom the names represented. Another chronicler wrote in 1574 that in memory of the first, they made idols giving each god the name of their founder. Note that one of the many names of the chief of the Sañas was Ponon çeque, which translates as “Stone idol” or “Stone Leader” where ponon is “stone” and çeque is 17 “leader” or “idol”. In many of the lineage origin stories the founding ancestor becomes a stone or mountain to guard his people. A high Spanish ecclesiastical authority reiterated this, writing in the 1640s that all the lords have the names of some of their gods and they customarily have big festivals when they give these names to them; they call this “Baptize him again” or “Give him a name”. Such names with their sacred connotations and local representations gave a people an identity and taught them what was appropriate behavior: how to deal with different situations. Such names became the basis for distinctiveness. On the north coast a local historian wrote that ayllus identified with the name of their gods; they took the name of their ancestor or guardian spirit of the group. Thus, kin groups carried the name of their gods. The Incas The Incas or the Cuzcos, as they were alternatively called, also practiced positional inheritance. Individuals took several different names during a lifetime, each signifying a changed identity and social function. Name changes usually occurred at age 2 to five when birth names were discarded for another. Puberty was another occasion for a change. A male could also use a new name when he accomplished some noteworthy deed. A military captain, for example, could take the name of the people he subjugated as a nickname, epithet or surname. Some 18 observers note that some Natives were careful to retain the names of their father and grandfathers. The king-elect had an additional occasion to take a new name. When he succeeded to the emperorship, he left behind his personal name, which was considered too sacred to commonly utter. Instead, followers frequently addressed the emperor by a variety of praise names or titles meant to suggest the shared characteristics of the holder and his predecessors. Oral traditions relate how the person of Topa Inca Yupanque talked to sacred idols (which also could talk) and knew of the coming of the Spanish (whom he called Viracochas, after the Andean creator god). Thereafter, attendants called him “Viracocha Inca” or the “omnipotent Inca”. Atahualpa, after receiving the insignia of office and the title of “the Cuzco”, received the name Caccha Pachacuti Inca Yupangue Inca, literally Idol of Battles (caccha); and the name World Changer or Reformer (Pachacuti). The name Inca Yupanque commemorated his great grandfather and meant worthy of esteem, invaluable or Venerated Lord. Inca was synonymous with king. Such titles or appellations, should the person possess the qualities and powers inherent in the words, made persons forget first names in such a way that in all parts they forgot the first names to call him by these. One scholar summarizes the issue declaring that the names of the kings served more as titles and indicators of hierarchical positions than as proper names. 19  “Cuzco” was another name or title for the king that was inheritable from one generation to the next. Evidence exists that the appellation Cuzco was the name or label of the lordship or jurisdiction or position and that each of the last three rulers before the Spanish invasion took the name upon succession to the leadership of the empire. Guayna Capac was the “Cuzco Viejo” (old Cuzco) and his son, Huáscar, was the “Cuzco joven” (young Cuzco). At the death of the latter, his half-brother, Atahualpa, assumed the title. The practice of perpetuating the title of Cuzco was all-important because it referred to the center – the biological center of a mega-lineage of “one birth” and “under one law” that the emperors were in the process of creating. Each ruler took multiple wives, including their biological sister who became the primary spouse. Ethnic groups offered up as secondary wives their sisters and daughters whose children would in time provide the blood and kin connections to the Inca, thus uniting them with the imperial genealogy. This mega-lineage lived under the “one law” imposed by the Inca as the link between the living and the ancestors. Each king progressed throughout the Andes to reinforce personal ties and kinship that bound the empire together. As each king and high court traveled from one administrative-religious center to another, his stops became identified as another ceremonial center of the Cuzco. At these way stations, his person stood as the administrative, political, and religious center of a peripatetic court and, ultimately, 20 of all the peoples of the realm. He was the font of in/justice; the origin of important economic concessions and gifts; and the direct link to the deities believed to be responsible for all life and the good (and bad) around them. On the eve of the Spanish invasion, the Cuzco oversaw a hierarchy of positions, described by decimal rank, as shown in Table 4. Individual titles indicated status and relative strength. This fixed hierarchy of positions, was occupied by different persons – the essence of positional inheritance. The data suggest that persons taking certain names of predecessors exhibited the qualities, characteristics, and traits of the persons who originally held the name. Each new “king” defined the positions of his own blood kin from his own central perspective after assuming his new superior place. Even if a newly elected king was a younger son of the former king, his older brothers would still be redefined by him as son, grandson, nephew and so on. A living brother could be called great-great- grandson, because of his low status and not because of a real generational distance. Table 4: Inca decimal rankings: Officials in the Decimal Hierarch Title of the official Size of jurisdiction (Heade of households) Hanu curaka 10,000 Pichka-waranqa curaka 5,000 Waranqa curaka 1,000 Pichka-pachaca curaka 500 Pachaca curaca 100 Pichka-chunka kamayuq 50 21 Chunka kamayuq 10 The number of a king’s descendants and followers was important for preserving his name’s collectively constructed story. A wealthy person was one who had many adherents. To be poor was to be an orphan, an exile or alone, a sole survivor. Only by amassing a personal following could an Andean ruler hope to provide for a lineage that would be charged with perpetuating the memory of his name after he died. Followers would work to support his direct descendants, who assumed the responsibility for preserving his mummy, reciting the poems, and singing the epic accounts of his name’s triumphs and accomplishments every chance they got. A Hierarchy of Sequentially Assumed Names In sum, positional inheritance fits the Andean data. The practice continued among relatively isolated peoples, like the Jayancas, for a century or longer after first contact, while the greater contact that the surviving imperial elite had with the Spanish invaders, with their imposed power structures and Iberian laws in the then re-founded Spanish city of the Cuzco, quickly transformed the practice. The chroniclers did not have the undisguised familiarity with Native culture that the witnesses in the Jayanca records had, many of whom were Natives or Europeans who had lived among the indigenous peoples for years. In the south, the Spanish gleaned the names of past rulers from the Natives’ oral traditions. They translated 22 the information both literally and culturally and placed it into a dynastic structure that Europeans, their audience, could understand. Thus, close association undoubtedly influenced Native thinking and the memories they selectively shared with their Spanish overlords, who fixed it on paper and perpetuated their own European views. The most important implications of these findings are three. First, they discredit and call for the revision of the standard or classic list of twelve or thirteen kings of the dynastic sequences and chronologies shown in Table 1. It is improbable that a dozen or so individuals could have wielded power from the origins of the Inka political ascendency in perhaps as early as twelfth century as some archaeologists argues to the mid-sixteenth century.the Andean empire in the twelfth century to the mid-sixteenth century. Instead, dozens of individuals are likely to have taken an ancestral praise name and ascended to the top of the Inca and ethnic religio-administrative hierarchies. The list of over one hundred Inca rulers left by a colonial chronicler and the numerous early references to “the Cuzco” that we know was a title taken by at least three or four individuals suggest this. Second, scholars must discard the European prevailing view of inter-generational succession, the patrilineal model of a son succeeding his father. Local records from the late sixteenth century prove that non-lineal, brother-to-brother, always with preference to the man who was judged most apt, succession occurred. Finally, and as 23 important as the rest, is the warning that these findings signal against taking sources literally, without considering the biases and worldviews of the authors. A consideration of the socio-religious context in which sources were written, the prevailing climate of opinion of the author and the society in which he lived, and an account’s intended audience no doubt affected significantly the narratives left for posterity. 24  Suggested Readings Betanzos, Juan de. Narrative of the Incas. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1996 Brüning, Hans Heinrich. Estudios monográficos del Departamento de Lambayeque. Chiclayo: Sociedad de Investigación de la Ciencia, Cultura y Arte Norteño, 1989 Covey. R. Alan. Inca Apocalypse. New York: Oxford University Press, 2020 Ramírez, Susan Elizabeth. In Praise of the Ancestors: Naming, Memory and Identity in Africa and the Americas. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2022 Vega, Garcilaso de la Vega. Royal Commentaries of the Incas. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1987. 25