A Calendar Quipu of the Early 17th Century and Its Relationship with the Inca Astronomy by Laura Laurencich-Minelli & Giulio Magli (2008).pdf

A calendar Quipu of the early 17 th century and

its relationship with the Inca astronomy.

Laura Laurencich-Minelli

Dipartimento di Paleografia e Medievistica, Università di Bologna

Piazza S. Giovanni in Monte 2

40124 Bologna

Giulio Magli

Dipartimento di Matematica del Politecnico di Milano

Piazza Leonardo da Vinci 32

20133 Milano

1. Introduction: the Miccinelli Documents

The so-called Miccinelli documents are two secret Jesuit manuscripts: Exsul Immeritus Blas Valera

Populo Suo [The unjustly banished Blas Valera to his people], (here referred as EI)

and Historia et Rudimenta Linguae Piruanorum [History and elements of the Peruvian language],

(here referred as HR). The document EI, dated Alcalà de Henares (Spain) May 10th, 1618, was

written and signed by Blas Valera, a Jesuit scholar which was known prior to the discovery of the

documents because his works are cited as erudite sources in the chronicle written by Garcilaso de la

Vega. The document HR is instead a collection of writings, composed in Peru between 1600 and

1638 by the Italian Jesuits Johan Antonius Cumis and Johan Anellus Oliva (the second one was

already known as the writer of a chronicle, which did not obtain the imprimatur by the Company).

The two documents were presented to scholars between 1996 and 2001 and they have been recently

made available to scholars with an exhaustive publication 1 ; it is worth noticing that their

authenticity has been proved beyond any possible doubt. 2 The aim of the present paper is to discuss

in full details a calendrical document which is attached to EI; in order to focus better on this

document, we recall here briefly the contents of EI and HR.

Both the manuscripts deal with the surprising personal history of the mestice Blas Valera. He was a

very erudite Jesuit but his positions were very critical about the destruction of the natives and of

their culture due to the Spanish invaders. As a consequence, according to what both documents say,

the F. General of the Jesuit Order Claudio Acquaviva exiled him into Spain (1592). However,

Valera kept on spreading his critics on the Spanish invasion and on the resulting evangelization of

Perù which was carried out without respecting the culture of the natives. As a consequence,

Acquaviva imposed to him a “juridical “ death. Before this fictitious death, according to the

documents, F. Valera gave to Garcilaso de la Vega his personal work on the history of the Inca,

asking him to diffuse it respecting the Author; but Garcilaso wrote the Comentarios Reales twisting

Valera’s ideas with the aim of presenting the Incas as savages, in order to comply with the

Conquerors’ power; further, he acknowledged Valera’s authorship in a very incomplete manner.

However, according to both documents EI and HR, F. Muzio Vitelleschi helped F. Blas to go back

to Perù (1598) and let him write the defense of the natives called Nueva Coronica y Buen Gobierno

(here referred to as NC) that Valera wrote concealing himself under the name of the native Guaman

Poma de Ayala. On 1618, the same F. Muzio Vitelleschi, at that time General of the Order, helped

Valera to return to Spain, in Alcalà de Henares, where he died in 1619.

The detailed study of the three documents NC, EI and HR, reveals that their aim is the realization of

a kind of Inca Christian state in the Jesuitical Provincia Peruviana , within the Spanish kingdom.

The NC is indeed a wide “letter”, addressed to the king, which proposes the foundation of an Inca-

Christian realm submitted to the Spanish crown in order to save the natives from the destruction. It

is signed by the native Guaman Poma de Ayala, but Valera in EI as well as Anello Oliva in HR

credit Blas Valera as the real mind who conceived it, and furnish convincing proofs of this fact.

Besides, Oliva in HR gives the key for reading the symbols (named tocapus , see Sec. 2 below)

which are painted in NC, claiming that they contain some messages for natives.

The ms. EI, written in Alcalà de Henares and signed “Blas Valera”, is a bi-cultural document

written in Latin in Europian characters and in Quechua by using traditional writings (Quipus,

tocapus and pictography). The parts written in Latin are dedicated to F. Muzio Vitelleschi and

contain claims for the respect of the Indios as persons and the restitution of their lands in the name

of Christian fraternity, in order to establish a kind of Inca- reduccion within the Provincia

Peruviana . With this goal in mind, efforts are made to describe the religion of the Incas as the

product of the amautas , (a sort of philosophers) putting forward a supposed similarity between the

Inca culture and the new Church of the origins in Perù. In this way, the author defends the

introduction of Christianity among Peruvians trough discussions - i.e. Natural Philosophy - rather

than with fighting and destroying the pre-existing religion and culture. The feasibility of such a

project - at least in the mind of Blas Valera- appears to be based on the claim that the Inca religion

was only in appearance a polytheist religion, because its gods and cosmic forces could be expressed

in terms of “sacred numbers” which added themselves to form an unique “Divinity”. This concept is

synthesized in the sacred quechua chant called Sumac Nusta , which is reproduced as a capacquipu

signed Blas Valera in HR, and under the numerical form of a yupana (abacus) both in EI and in

NC. 3

The parts of EI which were written with the traditional systems are dedicated to the natives,

especially the Incas, and describe the new, Christian state of the Incas at Paititi (Bolivia), viewed as

the continuation towards the East, that is “towards the rising Sun”, of the last Inca Reign of

Vilcabamba (destroyed with the execution of Inca Tupac Amaru in Cuzco in 1572). The

Tahuantinsuyu (the “state of the four parts”, as the Inca named their empire) is hence seen as just

one suyu (part) Reign, the Antisuyu, whose center was Paititi, located at the confluence of two great

rivers (Madre de Dios and the Beni River) resembling as a “sacred geography” the former capital of

the Inca, Cusco. 4

From the point of view of the religion, EI asserts to the natives that the Christianity practiced in this

new Reign Inca has to be a sort of improvement of the ancient religion, in which the Inca gods

Pachacamac and Viracocha apparently play the role of Father God and of his son Jesus. From the

political and administrative point of view this ideal Inca state should be a diarchy between the Inca

and the King of Spain organized with the ceque system (system of radial lines) as was the Inca

capital Cusco. The official language of the state has to be the Quechua, written with the traditional

systems, i.e. Quipus, tocapus and pictography , and the passing of time has to be accounted for using

the traditional Inca calendar. Clearly, however, this last requirement would have been at high risk of

being considered as idolatry. As a consequence, rather than stating it explicitly, the author’s choice

is to present an example of such a calendar, referred to a pre-conquest “time”; actually, as we shall

se later, just the ”last time” of the Incas. In this kind of calendar, all the celestial events as well as

the cosmic time, the pacha , had (and should have in Paititi) to be projected on the "anthropized"

and “chequered” earth, Pachamama , which in turn is - through the yupana - transformed in a sort of

geo-shaman table. 5 With this procedure the shaman-astronomer ( amauta ) succeeds to predict - and

therefore to control - the celestial cycles 6 . The abovementioned example of such traditional

calendars is enclosed in EI in the form of a drawing: it is named Pachaquipu (the Quipu of the time,

i.e. a device made out of cords and knots) and it is the object of our study in this article.

Finally, the miscellaneous set of documents HR is an encrypted document of European type, written

in Perù (in Latin and in Italian) in subsequent periods of the first half of 17 th century by two Italian

Jesuits, Antonio Cumis and Anello Oliva, in order to testimony the development of the plan of the

Inca Christian state of Paititi and of the syncretism within the Christian religion. The document is

concluded by a short note added in 1737 by F. Pedro de Ilanes; in the note, written in Spanish, he

cautiously asserts that actually the entire plan of Paititi was put to an end because it was heretical.

In any case, it turns out clearly that at the beginning of 17 th century the Andeans practiced a form of

syncretism; the concept of divinity as described by Valera confirms the intuition by Valcarcel 7 that

the pre-Columbian Andean religion was in some sense monotheist but the missionaries did not

recognize it, because of their preconceptions of idolatry.

2. Description of the Pachaquipu

The object of our study, the Pachaquipu, is a single sheet of paper, which was originally enfolded

two times and inserted in EI c.18. On the rectum , by the same calligraphy and the same lamp-black

ink of EI, the author, Blas Valera, wrote a few sentences. These sentences are a reprimand to

Garcilaso de La Vega for his ignorance on the Quipus, and state that the drawing reported on the

other side is a Pachaquipu , a “Quipu of the time” which “regards the end of the Inca empire”

(supposedly the year 1532). Playing with the word “time”, Blas Valera recalls also, after his fictiuos

death and under a false identity, his trip back to Perù to write the Nueva Coronica and back again

to Spain, as well as the names of the ships who let him travel back and forth. On the versum we find

the color depiction of the Pachaquipu, together with two lines of writings and the initials “BV”,

which occur also in all the painted pages of the main document.

The drawing (Figs. 1 and 2) represents a Quipu composed by a main cord and 13 pendants. Each

pendant carries a certain number of knots, for a total of 365; between some of the knots smaller

cords are fastened, bringing some symbols, painted on small rectangular cartouches. From left to

right we encounter twelve pendants which represent 12 sinodic months, since each cord starts with

the symbol of the new moon (see below) and contains either 29 or 30 knots. The days are also

counted in groups of 15 each by the use of alternate colors (red and green) and in groups of 10 by

spacing the knots ten by ten. Thus, the Quipu contains a calendar of 12 months; the 1st,

3th,4th,6th,10th months are of 29 days while the others are of 30 days; there are “weeks” (periods)

of 10 and of 15 days which run independently but simultaneously with the month’s count, being

knotted on the same pendant . The periods of ten days are marked by groups of knots, and

correspond to the Inca weeks mentioned in NC (cc.255, 260) and to the decimal basis which was in

use in the Quipus; the periods of 15 days are alternately marked by red and green knots and

correspond to a division into two halves of the solar months of 30 days each. The two parts

correspond to the periods hanan (red knots) and hurin (green knots). In the last pendant, the 13 th ,

there are five green knots, which represent the days needed to bring the total to 360 (due to the

presence of 5 sinodic months of 29 days) and five red further knots representing additional

“epagomenal” days, needed to bring the solar count to 365.

All in all, it is clear that the calendrical structure is based on 12 lunar sinodic months. Above each

pendant there is a cartouche containing a symbol for the month, and over each symbol the name of

the month is also written, in Quechua language but in Latin characters. Many of the symbols can be

recognized as ticcisimi 8 which visualize the name of the months. In the description below we will

put in evidence when the symbols used in the documents are also ticcisimi used in the main

document EI, since, according to EI (add.III), they have a special sacred power that the amauta has

to catch and order under the aspect of a tocapu , i.e. in the corresponding huaca in the Pachamama,

to avoid the destroyer Amaru. In what follows we give the description and the likely interpretation

of each symbol, together with a comparison of the description of each month with the

corresponding month as described in the NC calendar of feasts (NC actually contains two

calendars, see Sec. 4 for details); this comparison is definitively worth especially in view of the fact

that the two documents should have been written by the same author. As a general observation it

has to be noticed that the order of the months is shifted between the two sources because, as we

shall show in next section, the Pachaquipu begins with the new moon before the winter solstice

while NC calendar of feasts begins with the new moon after the summer solstice; notice also that

the name of the months in NC have the attribute quilla (moon), while the present document reports

pacha (time) (for a complete discussion of the likely reasons of such differences see Sec. 4).

For a better understanding of the months of the Pachaquipu , we first describe the 13th pendant (far right)

and then proceed from left to right, describing the pendants 1 st to 12 th .

[13 th pendant] yntihuatapacyapanapacha [time necessary for the completion of the calendar year].

The cartouche is yellow, i.e. it is the ticcisimi ynti , the sun. The pendant, after the 5 green knots and the 5

red-ones of the additional days, contains a directory of symbols related to astronomical events to be

used for reading the calendar: we join here a very brief description of each symbol with its

explication, which is written in Latin letters at the bottom of the Pachaquipu .

- a square without color [the ticcisimi quilla = moon], the explication is: mosocquilla [new moon],

- a left-handed crescent, the explication is: pacaricquilla/vinacquilla [waxing moon],

- a white square, the explication is: pascaquilla [full moon],

- a right-handed crescent, the explication is: huañucquilla [waning moon],

- a yellow square [the ticcisimi inti = sun] covered by a bow [the ticcisimi tuta =night], the

explication is: hatuntuta [Midwinter, June solstice],

- a yellow square [the ticcisimi inti = sun] above the bow [the ticcisimi tuta =night], the explication

is: hatunpunchau [Midsummer, December solstice],

- a yellow square [the ticcisimi inti = sun] knotted with the bow [the ticcisimi tuta = night] which is

on the same level as the sun, the explication is: pituçuni [equinoxes],

- a rectangle 1/3 white and 2/3 grey [the ticcisimi yanpintuy =eclipse of the moon], the explication

is: yanpintuy [black sheet= eclipse of moon],

- a rectangle 2/3 grey and 1/3 yellow, the explication is: yntihuañuy [eclipse of sun],

- a rectangle containing a shining star with eight jags, the explication is: Collcacapac [the Pleiades]

As we shall see in next section, all these symbols are used, attached to days of the calendar, with the

exception of the sun-eclipse symbol. It must also be noticed that two further symbols appear in the

calendar but they are lacking both in the directory and in the explanation: a yellow C-shaped cord

(which must be connected to the sun, since the yellow color is connected to the sun according to the

“language of colors” discussed in EI) which holds two groups of days, one on the 5 th and the other

one on the 9 th pendant, and a single knot marked black, placed on the 6 th pendant.

[1° pendant] yntiraymipacha = time of the Feast of the Sun.

The cartouche contains the ticcismi tyana (c.5v, 6v) i.e. the throne; it is divided horizontally into

two fields: the lower one is yellow, the top one is white and greater than the lower-one. The yellow

field is composed horizontally by a rectangle on which it is drawn the sun-throne, i.e. a kind of

saddle between two "towers" of the same height at the sides of which lie some right-angles (two on

the right and one on the left). The fact that the “yellow” section is much smaller than the white is to

be put in correlation to the winter solstice occurring in this month, and therefore the longest night

of the year (=the biggest “space” for the moon, associated with white - compare months no. 4 and

7, containing equinox and summer solstice); perhaps the whole symbol contains also an allusion to

the view at the Cusco eastern horizon, with terraced fields and the pillars that were used as “seats

of the sun” to make astronomical observations (we shall encounter again such pillars later on).

In the NC (cc.246, 247) the same month is called Huaucaicusqui quilla (moon of the rest after the

harvest) followed however by the mention of Inti raymi, the fest of the Sun at the winter solstice.

There is therefore conceptual concordance between the two sources.

[2° pendant] pachacyahuarllamapacha = time of the 100 red llamas.

The cartouche represents 15 red llamas facing right, signifying a high number of such animals. The

chronicler Polo de Ondegardo (I: 213) tells us that every month the Inca sacrificed 100 llamas and

that those of red color where offered to the Thunder god to ask for rain.

The name of the month in the NC (cc. 248, 249) is: Chacra ricui chacha cunacuy chaua uarqum quilla

(the moon of the inspection of the lands, of the repartition of the lands) but the Pachaquipu is in accordance

both with the NC picture, representing a priest while burning an offering, and with the NC description

that mentions the sacrifice of the red llamas: i.e. there is conceptual concordance between the two

sources.

[3° pendant] yapuypacha =time to plow.

The cartouche contains the ticcisimi tacla , plow (EI c. 6r, 6V) that emphasizes the caption. The

name of the month corresponds precisely to that of NC (cc. 250, 251) ( Chacra yapuy quilla = the

moon of plowing the fields).

[4° pendant] coyaraymipacha = time of the Feast of the Coya (the Moon).

The cartouche contains again the ticcisimi tyana , throne, quite similar to that of the first pendant;

however the bottom field is white and equal in size to the top one. The fact that both fields have the

color of the moon instead of that of the sun probably emphasizes that the main festivity is devoted

to the moon, while the fact that the two fields are equal in size indicates the month of the equinox,

when night and day have the same length and the moon and the sun are considered to have the same

“strength”. The name of the month is identical to that of NC cc.252, 253 ( Coya raymi quilla = the

moon of the Feast of the Coya[the Moon]).

[5° pendant] paramañaypacha = time to implore for the rain.

The cartouche contains a black mask with red tongue. It corresponds partially to a figure of EI;

however in the latter the mask is red and grinds the teeth; the two figures might be two aspects

(positive and negative respectively) of EI’ Spiritus Vitalis , a sacred force of the fertility having a dual

appearance (destroyer and fertilizer-creator). The image recalls a “monster” of the Nazca culture

(Early Intermediate Period) whose body is however usually portrayed in flight. 9 (It should be noted

that the use of ancient cultural elements, apparently still alive in the 16-17th century, is frequent in

EI).

The name of the month in NC (cc. 254, 255) is Uma raymi quilla (the moon of the main feast); the

text mentions a song aimed to beseech the rain to Runa Camac , creator, Micocpac Runa , builder of

man, and Vari Vira Cocha , god of Wari. According to EI these are aspects of the same sacred

Spiritus Vitalis which are materialized on the earth in the form of huacas, and therefore controllable

by humanity. Thus, again, the two sources conceptually agree; in addition, they both allude, in a

form readable only by the indigenous peoples, to a cult whose practicing was, of course, very

dangerous at the times of writing of Blas Valera.

[6° pendant] ayamarcaypacha = time to carry the deads in a procession;

The cartouche, absent in the iconography of the main document EI, represents a red mask similar to

those used on the mummies of the Central Coast (Late Intermediate Period ); thus it means that the

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