The State as a Chosen Woman: Brideservice and the Feeding of Tributaries in the Inka Empire

Abstract

The Inka state was gendered in complex and apparently contradictory ways. In military contexts, it became masculine, emphasizing conquest us the basis of men's individual matrimonial claims and the Inka sovereign's right to "give" them women. However, in its civilian tributary system, the Inka state assumed a female guise, providing food, drink, and clothing to dependent tributaries as an expression of its political‐economic power, according to the Andean idiom of mink a. By extending Collier and Rosaldo's notion of brideservice. this paper explores how these "opposed" genderings of the Inka state actually implied each other and formed a single complex, [gender, consumption, labor, state. Andes]

Provisioning Inka feasts at Tiwanaku, Bolivia: the geographic origins of camelids in the Pumapunku complex

“…Inka imperial subjects provided regular tribute of labor and goods and in return were invited to participate in periodic feasts sponsored by the empire, in which copious amounts of food and drink, particularly the maize (Zea mays) beer called chicha, were provided (Bray, 2003a(Bray, , 2003b(Bray, , 2009Gose, 2000;Murra, 1980). While couched in notions of reciprocity and mutual obligations, feasts revealed the differences in power between imperial hosts and their subject guests, and reinforced the legitimacy of the Inka Empire (Bray, 2003a(Bray, , 2003b(Bray, , 2009Gose, 2000;Murra, 1980). A number of different lines of evidence indicate the central role of feasting in Inka political economy.…”

Studies of Gender in the Prehispanic Americas

“…Gender is now seen as a primary means by which power was shared (through studies of gender complementarity) as well as contested. The concept of ''complementarity'' is well documented in much of the scholarship on ancient cosmologies of the New World, from studies of dual-gender creator deities (Bassie-Sweet 2002;Gustafson 2002;Klein 2001b) to the way states influenced female and male gender roles to cement productivity and ideal values (Crown 2000b;Gose 2000;Joyce 1996Joyce , 2000aVogel 2003). Studies of female deities McCafferty 1994, 1999;Milbrath 1995;Rodríguez 1996) and the ideological basis for female power (Ardren 2002b;Hamann 1997;Hays-Gilpin 2000a;Koelher 1997;Trocolli 1999) are also very common, although relatively few studies have examined the role of queens in the ancient states of the New World, despite the vast scholarship on divine kingship (see Bell 2003;Hewitt 1999;McCafferty and McCafferty 2003).…”

“…Food production and distribution remain a central topic of research (Bray 2003;Crown 2000c;Gose 2000;Habicht-Mauche 2000;VanderWalker 2002), as does cloth and textile production (Beaudry-Corbett and McCafferty 2002;Costin 1998;Hendon 1997;Kehoe 2000), since these are two crucial productive activities centered in the home that were often keyed directly to gender roles and expectations as well as the productive demands of society. Broader studies of the sexual division of labor and associated cultural expectations of each gender also are common and have greatly improved the ability of archaeologists to speak meaningfully about household economic production and the connections between work and status (Brumfiel 1998;Claassen 2002;Crown 2000b;Fish 2000;Fritz 1999;Gillespie and Joyce, 1997;Hegmon et al 2000;Mills 2000;Shaffer et al 2000;Thomas 2001;Williams and Bendremer 1997;Zeanah 2004).…”

Sorcery and Morality in the Andes: Illness, Healing, and Brujería in Kañaris (Lambayeque, Peru)

“…Newly conquered peoples were not exterminated or dispossessed, but instead obligated to share their "agricultural resources and women with the conquerors" (Gose 2008: 19). That is, they had to provide tribute in the form of material and social resources that made the administration of the Incan empire possible (see Gose 2000).…”

“…Mountain spirits took on the roles of provision and mediation with higher levels of political administration, which the local lords and founding ancestors had fulfilled in pre-Columbian times. For example, lords gathered tribute on behalf of the Inca, and redistributed products and resources to commoners (see Gose 2000;Murra 2002: 47ff;Rostworowski 1999: ch. 6).…”