Transitions in Power: Centralization of Wanka Political Organization under Inka Rule

Abstract

This paper uses documentary and archaeological data to examine the changes in the political organization of the Wanka ethnic group of the central Peruvian highlands that occurred as a consequence of their incorporation into the Inka Empire. In the last couple of centuries prior to the Inka conquest, Wanka society was comprised of a series of small, increasingly hierarchical polities competing over productive resources. Under the Inkas (I460-1533), selected ethnic elites were appointed to positions of rank within the state bureaucracy. As a result of the Inka policy of centralization of rule in the province, Wanka polities became substantially larger and their paramounts more powerful than before, a transition displayed in the conduct of their early relationships with the Spaniards. The explanation of increasing complexity in political forms is a central problem in the study of cultural evolution. The appearance of hierarchical decisionmaking organizations, centralized control systems, and segmented administrative institutions, for example, is generally treated as key to the emergence of complex society (e.g., Adams I966; Fried 1967; Flannery I97z; Service I975; Wright I977). Characteristically, studies of changes in the means by which power is attained and transferred have as their goal explanation of pristine developments. In comparison, considerably less theoretical attention is paid to the development of secondary political forms (cf. Fried 1975; Price 1978: I6i). This paper examines an instance of the latter phenomenon: rapid transformation of political relations in a series of complex non-state polities, triggered by the imposition of state control. The specific changes to be discussed occurred among the Wanka polities of the central Peruvian highlands following their incorporation into the Inka empire about A.D. I460. The impact of state expansion on the strategies of power relations among conquered peoples is often striking, since the rules for gaining access to power are redefined. Among the consistently rewarding areas of research are the Ethnohistory 34:I (Winter I987). Copyright ? by the American Society for Ethnohistory. ccc ooI4-I8oI/87/$I.50. This content downloaded from 157.55.39.191 on Tue, 11 Oct 2016 05:09:06 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Centralization of Wanka Political Organization strategies used to resolve conflicts between competing sources of power; contention between mutually exclusive roads to power, such as nepotism and merit; and allocation of power resources in unstable political climates (e.g., Eisenstadt 1963; Burling 1974; Haas I982). For instance, transitions in the relations between Rome and its client states and provinces (Luttwak 1976), the Aztec Triple Alliance and its tributaries (Gibson 1971; Litvak King 1971; Hassig 1985), and the Inkas and their provincial subjects (Rowe 1946; Murra I975, 1980 [I956]; Schaedel 1978) are repeatedly examined. In the core polities, military, economic, and political strategies and tactics are systemically related, shifting according to the exigencies of changing circumstances in subject territories and at home. Similarly, the reorganization of client and subject populations can be understood at least in part as a response to application of state demands and policies. The mutual adaptations between state and subject polities thus provide an intriguing area of study in the dynamics of early complex society. A central problem in these adaptations is the means by which individuals and groups gain access to power in the provinces. In imperial Rome, for instance, transitions in power relationships between the state core and the subject populaces created different stresses on the state that had to be met by changes in the disposition of power. Luttwak (1976) argues that the Roman empire passed through stages in which reliance on client kings gave way to conversion of allies into subordinates and of buffer states into provinces, as the clients became sufficiently powerful to threaten the core. In this paper, I will examine a comparable transformation in regional sociopolitical organization that resulted from the incorporation of the Wanka ethnic group of the Peruvian central highlands into the Inka state in the late fifteenth century A.D. During the seventy or so years that the Wankas were Inka subjects, the population became substantially more centralized politically, and certain kin groups became entrenched in power. The native polities were integrated into an imposed Inka bureaucracy that relied heavily on ethnic elites for implementation of state policy. As a result, larger Wanka political units were created that successfully aided the Spaniards in their overthrow of the Inka state in the I530s. The discussion will draw on data from archaeological and historical sources. While some early Spanish sources are useful for characterizing preInka Wanka society, the best of these (Toledo 1940 [i570]) recorded native oral history recounted at least one hundred years after the Inka conquest. To establish the necessary pre-Inka baseline (ca. A.D. I350-I460), I will rely in part on field data from the Upper Mantaro Archaeological Research Project, which since 1977 has been conducting investigations into the nature of Wanka society (Earle et al. I980; Earle et al. I987). Discussion of Inka period (ca. 1460-1533) changes in Wanka sociopolitical organization is also based on archaeological data and published historical documents. For this period, the 79 This content downloaded from 157.55.39.191 on Tue, 11 Oct 2016 05:09:06 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms

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