History, Historical Record, and Ceremonial Action: Incas and Spaniards in Cuzco

Abstract

In March 1534, the residents of Cuzco, the capital and sacred centre of the Inca empire, witnessed the last ceremony of royal inauguration and triumph to be celebrated in their city by an Inca ruler, Manco Inca Yupanqui.Pedro Sancho, An account of the Conquest of Peru (tr. P. A. Means, New York 1917), chapter 12, 111; Diego de Esquivel y Navía, Noticias cronólogicas de la gran ciudad del Cuzco (Lima 1980), vol. 1, 83. The author of this work belonged to a family of Cuzco notables, on whom see Bernard Lavallé, Le Marquis et le Marchand. Les luttes de pouvoir au Cuzco (1700–1730), Paris (1987). Eight months earlier, in July 1533, the Spanish invaders of the Inca empire, led by Francisco Pizarro, had executed Manco's brother, the Inca Atahuallpa. Shortly thereafter, they named Manco as the next ruler, while at the same time occupying the capital. Although, therefore, the victory being celebrated had been won under Spanish tutelage, some part of the traditional ceremonial was performed on this occasion, and affords a glimpse of the functioning of Cuzco as an imperial capital, of political relationships among the Inca elite, and of the vision of the past that gave meaning to these relationships.