Mallqui: The Mummy Bundles of the Inca Nobility
The mallqui, or mummy bundle, was the prepared body of a deceased member of the Inca nobility, wrapped in layers of fine textiles, seated in a flexed position, and venerated as a living member of the lineage. The mallquis of the Sapa Inca, the emperors, were the most important of these bundles, and they were kept in the Coricancha in Cusco, where they were visited by the priests, the royal family, and the public on the major festivals of the year. The mallquis of the lesser nobility were kept in the family home or in the local shrine, and the cult of the ancestors was a central element of household religious life. The Spanish chroniclers, particularly Garcilaso de la Vega (1609) and Bernabé Cobo (1653), describe the mallquis in considerable detail, and the post-conquest suppression of the cult by the Spanish authorities in the 1540s and 1550s marked a major break in the religious and political life of the Andean nobility.
The cult of the mallqui is closely related to the Inca mummification process and to the institution of the panaca, the royal lineage that maintained the cult of the deceased ruler. The mallquis were not kept in tombs in the European sense but were venerated in the home, in palace complexes, and in the Coricancha itself.
The Royal Mallquis in the Coricancha
The most important mallquis in the Inca state were those of the deceased Sapa Inca, and they were kept in the Coricancha in Cusco, in chambers specifically built for the purpose. The chronicler Garcilaso de la Vega, whose mother was an Inca princess and who was raised in the oral traditions of the royal lineages, described the chambers in considerable detail. The mallquis were seated on thrones, dressed in fine clothing, and presented with food and chicha at the major festivals of the year. They were consulted on important matters of state, including questions of war, of marriage, and of political alliance, and the chroniclers report that the mallqui of Tupac Inca Yupanqui was carried on campaign by his son Huayna Cápac to advise on military matters.
The mallquis were also paraded in public ceremonies, particularly at the festivals of the solar calendar, and were a visible sign of the continuity of the dynastic line. The festival of the dead, celebrated in the month associated with the autumn, involved the parading of the mallquis through the streets of Cusco, accompanied by feasting, dancing, and the performance of the traditional songs and poems of the lineages. The chroniclers report that the mallquis were seated on litters carried by members of the panaca, and that the people of the city lined the streets to pay their respects. The festival was one of the most important public celebrations of the Inca year, and it provided a focus for the religious and political life of the capital.
The maintenance of the mallquis in the Coricancha was a major economic and religious task. The chroniclers report that the temple contained large stores of offerings, accumulated over decades or centuries of ritual practice, and that a substantial staff of priests and attendants was required to maintain the bundles, to perform the prescribed rituals, and to receive the visitors who came to consult the oracles. The economic foundation of the temple was substantial, including lands, herds, and stores of offerings, and the Coricancha was one of the most important economic institutions of the empire.
The Mallqui and the Panaca
The cult of the mallqui was maintained by the panaca, the royal lineage that descended from the deceased Sapa Inca. Each Sapa Inca founded a panaca at his accession, and the panaca took its name from its founder, with the suffix “panaca” indicating the lineage. The members of the panaca were the descendants of the founder through the male line, and they had the obligation to maintain the cult of the founder’s mallqui, to perform the prescribed rituals, and to manage the property of the lineage.
The panaca was, in essence, a corporation whose principal asset was the mallqui of the founder and the lands, herds, and stores associated with it. The economic foundation of the panaca was substantial, and the panaca was responsible for the management of a large agricultural estate, the maintenance of the mummy bundle, and the performance of the rituals associated with the cult of the ancestor. The members of the panaca were supported by the estate, and the panaca served as a kind of religious endowment that provided for the descendants of the founder in return for their maintenance of the cult.
The panacas were also political bodies, and they played a major role in the politics of succession. The candidate for the throne was typically a member of one of the leading panacas, and the panacas competed with one another for influence and prestige. The Spanish chroniclers, particularly Garcilaso de la Vega and Cobo, list the ten principal panacas of Cusco, including the panacas of Sinchi Roca, Lloque Yupanqui, Mayta Cápac, Cápac Yupanqui, Inca Roca, Yáhuar Huácac, Viracocha, Pachacuti, Tupac Inca Yupanqui, and Huayna Capac (the Cusicancha). and they describe the political and religious obligations of each.
The Veneration of the Mallqui
The veneration of the mallqui involved a number of regular practices. The mallqui was brought out of its chamber in the Coricancha and presented with food on the major festivals of the year, particularly during the festival of the dead, and it was addressed in prayer on the occasions of important events, such as births, marriages, and harvests. The mallqui was consulted on questions of state, of war, and of personal fortune, and the responses were typically conveyed through the medium of a diviner, who chewed coca leaves and interpreted the distribution of the leaves.
The veneration of the mallqui was not limited to the royal family. Lower-status individuals were also mummified, and their mummies were kept in the family home and treated with similar care. The cult of the ancestors was, in essence, the cult of the lineage, and the proper maintenance of the mummies was a religious duty incumbent on all. The household cult of the mallqui was a smaller version of the royal cult in the Coricancha, and the principles of the two were the same.
The mallqui was also the focus of the Capacocha sacrifice, the most solemn of the Inca ritual practices. The chroniclers report that, at the accession of a new Sapa Inca, a Capacocha was performed in which a number of children were brought to the major shrines of the empire and sacrificed in honor of the apus, the sun, and the deceased emperors. The ceremony was understood to be a kind of tribute to the ancestors, and the children who were sacrificed were said to become companions of the mallquis in the afterlife.
The Suppression of the Mallqui Cult
The cult of the mallqui was a major target of the Catholic Church after the Spanish conquest in 1532. The first wave of conflict occurred in the 1530s and 1540s, when the Spanish authorities, on the instructions of the Viceroy Francisco Pizarro and the first bishops of Cusco, ordered the mummified remains of the deceased Sapa Inca to be exhumed and buried in Christian cemeteries. The order was deeply resented by the surviving Inca nobility, and the chroniclers report that many of the mallquis were hidden by their descendants and venerated in secret for years after the official interment. The mummy of Tupac Amaru, the last Sapa Inca of Vilcabamba, who was executed by the Spanish in 1572, became a particular focus of indigenous devotion, and his burial place remained a site of pilgrimage into the twentieth century.
The cult of the mallqui persisted in rural communities well into the colonial period, despite repeated attempts by the Church and the colonial authorities to suppress it. The syncretic combination of Inca and Catholic practices that resulted has been studied by a number of scholars, including Joseph Bastien, who documented the persistence of ancestor veneration among the modern Aymara of Bolivia, and Frank Salomon, who described similar practices among the descendants of the Inca in the highlands of Peru. The cult of the ancestors has, in some respects, never been entirely suppressed, and elements of the practice can still be observed in the rural Andes in the early twenty-first century.
The dissolution of the panacas was a major blow to the surviving Inca nobility. The panacas had been the principal political and religious institutions of the royal lineages, and their dissolution in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries marked a major break in the social and political structure of the Andean elite. The chroniclers report that the surviving members of the panacas were forced to abandon the cult of the mallquis, to convert to Christianity, and to participate in the Spanish colonial institutions of the empire. Many of them did so outwardly, while continuing to venerate the mallquis in secret, and the persistence of the cult is a testament to the durability of the Inca religious tradition in the face of conquest and evangelization.