Toasts with the Inca: Andean Abstraction and Colonial Images on Quero Vessels (History, Languages, and Cultures of the Spanish and Portuguese Worlds)

452 Pages·2002·55.97 MB·English

by  Thomas B. F. Cummins

History, Languages, and Cultures of the
Spanish and Portuguese Worlds
This interdiscipliuary series promotes scholarship
in studies 011 Iberian cultures and contacts from the premodern
and early modern. periods.
SERIES EDITOR
Sabine MacCormack, University of Michigan
SERIES BOARD
J. N. Hillgarth, emeritus, Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies
Peggy K. Liss, Independent Scholar
David Nirenberg, Rice University
Adeline Rucquoi, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales
TITLES IN THE SERIES
The Mirror of Spa;'" 1500-1700: The Formation of a Myth
J. N. Hillgarth
Bishops, Councils, and Consensus in the Visigothic Kingdom, 589-633
Rachel L. Stocking
Toasts with the Inca: Andem, Abstraction and Colonial Images
on Quero Vessels
Thomas B. F. Cummins
e
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Toasts with the Inca
Andean Abstraction
Colonial Images
AND
Quero Vessels
ON
THOMAS B. F. CUMMINS
Ann Arbor
THE llNIvERSITY OF MrcmGAN PREss
Copyright © by the University of Michigan 2002
All rights reserved
Published in the United States of America by
The University of Michigan Press
Manufactured in the United States of America
€) Printed on acid-fcee paper
2005 2004 2003 2002 4 3 2. 1
No part of this publication may he reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, or otherwise,
without the written permission of the publisher.
A CIP catalog record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Cummins, Thomas B. F., 1949-
Toasts with the Inca: Andean abstraction and colonial images on
quero vessels / Thomas B. F. Cummins.
p. em. - (History, languages, and cultures of the Spanish and
Portuguese worlds)
ISBN 0-47'-II05I-9 (cloth)
I. Queros. 2.. Inca 3rt. 3. Acculturation-Peru-Case studies.
l. Title. II. Series.
F2230.r.D75 C8S 2.002-
980' .or-dC2.1 2001006445
-
To Kyle, Ian, and Serge
Peru. Hay diversas opiniones sabre la etimologia deste vocabulo.
Algunos dicen ... que llegando los espanoles a aquella provincia
toparon a un indio y preguntandole que tierra eea aquella, respondi6
Beru Pelu, que ni el supo 10 que Ie preguntaron, nj ellos entendieron
10 que les respondi6. Pero de aqui conjeturaron que se llamaba Peru,
y asi Ie pusieron este nombre.
-Sebastian de Covarrubias Orozco, Tesoro de fa
Lengua Castellana a Espanola, 16II
Peru: Country in which everything is made of gold.
-Gustav Flaubert, Dictionary of Received Ideas
Et accepi calicem de manu Domini, et propinavi cunctis gentibus ad
quas misit me Dominus; Ierusalem etc .... Et regibus teer isularum
qui sunt trans mar etc.
-Jeremiah 25:17-nb, as cited by Christopher Columbus
in his Libra de fa profecias. 150I-2.
Acknowledgments
An attempt to repay a debt of thanks that cannot really be measured is
here offered to the many people who, through their friendship and
advice, sustained my efforts in developing this book. First and foremost
are my friends and companions from the beginning: Kyle Huffman,
Joan Weinstein, Serge Guilbaut, Carol Knicely, Tom Crow, Barry
Braverman, Jane Williams, Mimi Hall, Holly Clayson, Paula Braver
man, and Kathleen Corrigan. They formed part of a wonderful, raucous
community that we, although now dispersed across time and space, will
always share.
Without the intellectual support and warm friendship of Sabine
MacCormack, this book would not have seen the light of day. I cannot
thank her enough. Cecelia Klein saw the potential in the work at its ini
tial stage and was always encouraging. She nurtured the project with
insightful critiques and careful readings. Still another debt of thanks is
owed to Rolena Adorno, whose work, comments, and friendship have
deeply affected this study. I am also deeply appreciative of the support
I have received from Emily Umberger and Elizabeth Boone.
The community of Andean scholars has been tremendously generous
and receptive toward my work. Joanne Rappaport, Bruce Mannheim,
Gary Urton, Jorge Flores Ochoa, Juan Ossio, Tom Zuidema, Ramiro
Matos Mendieta, Franklin Pease, Frank Salomon, John Rowe, Alan
Kolata, Natalia Majluf, and Joanne Pillsbury are just some of those who
have contributed in various and important ways to my work.
I am also deeply grateful to my colleagues in the Department of Art
History at the University of Chicago. They embraced my area of
research without question and with an open mind and offered a truly
wonderful environment in which to teach and learn.
Research could not have been conducted on queros without access
to collections and archives in Peru, Europe, Ecuador, and the United
States. When I first undertook this project, permission was graciously
x Acknowledgments
given by Dr. Rojas, Director of the Museo Nacional de Antropologfa y
Arqueologfa, and by Roger Ravines, then Director of the Museo
Nacional de Cultura Peruana, to study and photograph the quero col
lections of their respective musewns. I thank the staff of the Museo
Arqueologico (now Museo Inka) in Cuzco, who allowed me to study
and photograph that musewn's collection. In Lambayeque, Dr. Walter
Alva, Director of the Museo Bruining, kindly allowed me to study and
photograph pieces in his musewn's collection. I also thank Senor Enrico
Poli Bianchi of Lima; Dr. Horacio Villanueva Urteaga, Director of the
Archivo Historico de Cuzco; and the staff of the Archivo Nacional,
Lima. In Quito, the director of the national archives kept them open
and allowed access even during the most difficult of times. Maria Con
cepcion Saez graciously made available the collections of the Museo de
America of Madrid. In the United States, my requests to study and pho
tograph museum collections were kindly received by Craig Morris at
the American Museum of Natural History in New York, and Diana
Fane, as always, made a trip to the Brooklyn Museum a wonderful
experience. Elena Ph ips at the Metropolitan Musewn of Art in New
York shared her time and profound knowledge of pre-Columbian and
colonial Andean textiles. Mr. and Mrs. Kuhn and Mr. Alfred C. Glasell
also graciously made their collections available for study.
Finally, I want to thank Matt Hunter and Carmen Fernandez, who
put the draft of this book intO shape, and Collin Ganio and Ellen
Bauerle, who were patient editors par excellence.
Contents
Introduction
I
CHAPTER I
Queros, Aquillas, and Cajamarca 14
CHAPTER 2
Andean Festivals and Reciprocity 39
CHAPTER 3
Mythical Origins and Inca Queros 59
CHAPTER 4
Conquest and Gifts 80
CHAPTER 5
Social Reorder: From Reciprocity
to Redistribution 99
CHAPTER 6
From Abstract to Pictorial Images II8
CHAPTER 7
Pictorial Invention and Political
Coercion 140
CHAPTER 8
Profane Images and Visual Pleasure:
Quero Imagery '73
CHAPTER 9
Commerce and Commodification of
Things Andean 197
CHAPTER 10
Colonial Drinking and Quero
Iconography 221
xii Contents
CHAPTER II
Images, Ritual, and Colonial Society 270
CHAPTER 12
Queros, Curacas, and the Community 297
Glossary 331
Bibliography 333
Index 369
Plates 379
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