Inca Civilization
Article

Taki Onqoy and the Nativist Movement of 1560–1565

The Taki Onqoy — literally “songs of sickness” in Quechua — was an explicitly nativist religious movement that swept the southern highlands of the former Inca Empire between approximately 1560 and 1565, calling for the rejection of Spanish rule and of Christian cult, and for the restoration of the huacas (sacred sites) of the pre-Columbian Andean religion. The movement was led by a series of messianic figures, most famously the pacaricuc (ritual specialist) Juan Chocne and the taqui oncoy dancers who traveled from ayllu to ayllu performing the taqui dances of the Inca period. At its peak in 1564, the Spanish authorities estimated that perhaps 80,000 people had joined the cult, and the movement constituted the most serious indigenous challenge to Spanish rule in the decades following the Spanish conquest of 1532. The Taki Onqoy was suppressed by the colonial administration between 1565 and 1567, with the execution of its principal leaders and the dispersal of its followers. The detailed treatment of the Inca music and festival tradition is given in the related article; the Inca religion and mythology is treated in the related article.

Origins and the religious background of the movement

The Taki Onqoy emerged in the context of a profound religious and social crisis in the southern highlands of the former Inca state. The Spanish conquest of 1532 had been followed by the rapid collapse of the Inca state cult: the Sapa Inca had been killed, the mallkis (mummified ancestors) of the dead Incas had been desecrated and buried, the Coricancha had been converted into the convent of Santo Domingo, and the principal huacas of the empire had been destroyed or had been replaced by Christian churches. The indigenous population of the highlands had been forced to attend Christian services, to pay tribute to the Spanish crown, and to perform the repartimiento labor obligation in the silver mines of Potosí and Porco.

The crisis of the indigenous religion was compounded by the catastrophic depopulation of the central Andes in the first three decades after the conquest. Smallpox, introduced to the Andes in 1524–1527, killed perhaps 60 to 80 percent of the indigenous population in some highland regions; measles, influenza, and other epidemic diseases struck repeatedly in the 1530s and 1540s; and the demographic catastrophe was compounded by the disruption of the ayllu and the mit’a systems and by the brutality of the encomienda system. The Taki Onqoy emerged in this context of demographic, religious, and social crisis, and the chronicler Pedro Cieza de León recorded that the movement drew substantial support from the highland ayllus, particularly in the southern provinces of the empire, where the demographic catastrophe had been most severe.

The religious content of the Taki Onqoy was, in substantial part, a recovery of the Inca state cult. The movement called for the restoration of the huacas — the sacred sites, mountains, and springs of the Andean religion — and for the rejection of the Christian god, who the movement’s leaders characterized as a foreign and hostile deity. The chronicler Martín de Murúa — the principal contemporary chronicler of the movement, who recorded the testimony of the movement’s leaders before they were executed in 1567 — recorded that the Taki Onqoy taught that the huacas were capable of defending the Andean people against the Spanish, and that the messianic restoration of the Inca state would soon be accomplished. The movement was, in this sense, both a religious revival and a political revolution.

The principal leaders and the structure of the movement

The Taki Onqoy was led by a series of pacaricuc — ritual specialists of the ayllu — and by a body of taqui oncoy dancers who traveled from ayllu to ayllu performing the taqui dances of the Inca period. The principal leader of the movement was Juan Chocne, a pacaricuc of the ayllu of Chupacas in the central highlands, who was executed by the Spanish in 1565. Other principal leaders included Diego Chambilla, a pacaricuc of the ayllu of Huamanga, and Juan Cuxi, a pacaricuc of the ayllu of Lucanas. Murúa also names Pedro Chami and Tomás Pinta, whose ayllus he associates with the Chinchaysuyu — a notable attribution, since the movement’s true heartland lay further south, in the central-southern highlands (Huamanga, Andahuaylas, Chanka country); the Chinchaysuyu connection is best read as the fringe reach of the cult rather than a core constituency. The chronicler Murúa recorded that the movement had a hierarchical structure, with the pacaricuc of each ayllu serving under the authority of a regional leader, and the regional leaders serving under a single national leader — identified by Murúa as Juan Chocne.

The movement’s ritual practice centered on the performance of the taqui dances — the taqui purucu (men’s dances) and the taqui warmicu (women’s dances) of the Inca period — at the huacas of the local ayllu. The dances were performed to the accompaniment of the quena and zampoña, the wankar (drum), and the churu (conch-shell trumpet), and were accompanied by the consumption of chicha and by the offering of llamas and coca. The chronicler Murúa recorded that the principal ritual of the Taki Onqoy was the capacmi (purification) of the participants, in which the pacaricuc performed a ritual of healing and of restoration of the participant’s relationship with the huacas.

The movement also had a substantial element of messianic expectation. The chronicler Murúa recorded that the movement’s leaders prophesied the imminent return of the Inkarri — the Inca king — and the restoration of the Inca state. The Inkarri, in the movement’s theology, was a messianic figure who had been killed by the Spanish and whose body parts had been scattered across the Andes, but who would return to restore the pre-Columbian order. The Inkarri mythology was closely related to the Andean tradition of tinkuy — the ritual combat of complementary opposites — and to the tradition of pachakuti — the cyclical destruction and re-creation of the world. The detailed treatment of the Inca religion and mythology and of sacrifice and ritual in the Inca Empire is given in the related articles.

The geographic spread and the social base of the movement

The Taki Onqoy spread rapidly through the southern highlands of the former Inca state between 1560 and 1564. The chronicler Murúa recorded that the movement drew its strongest support from the central-southern highlands — particularly the rural ayllus of Huamanga, Andahuaylas, the Chanka country around Vilcashuamán, and extending into the Collasuyu — and that it spread more weakly into Cochabamba, Tucumán, and the fringes of the Chinchaysuyu. At its peak in 1564, the movement was estimated by the Spanish authorities to have some 80,000 adherents, organized in perhaps several hundred local chapters corresponding to the local ayllus of the affected regions.

The social base of the Taki Onqoy was principally the rural population of the highland ayllus — the hatun runa, the mitma colonists, and the rural curacas of the southern provinces. The yanakuna of the imperial panacas and the urban population of Cusco and Lima were less affected, in part because the urban populations had been more thoroughly integrated into the colonial economy and the Christian church. The movement’s appeal to the rural ayllus was in part a response to the encomienda and repartimiento labor obligations imposed by the Spanish, and in part a response to the religious and cultural disruption of the conquest.

The Taki Onqoy drew some support from members of the panaca nobility of the former Inca state. The chronicler Murúa recorded that several of the surviving panaca nobles — most notably members of the panaca of Topa Inca — provided covert support to the movement, in the hope that a successful indigenous uprising would lead to the restoration of the Inca state. The support of the panaca nobility gave the movement a degree of political legitimacy, and the chronicler recorded that the movement’s leaders used the symbols and the regalia of the Inca state in their public ceremonies.

The suppression of the movement and the execution of its leaders

The Taki Onqoy was suppressed by the colonial administration between 1565 and 1567, in a campaign of repression that culminated in the execution of the movement’s principal leaders. The Spanish authorities, alarmed by the rapid spread of the movement and by the explicit messianic and anti-Christian character of its propaganda, organized a coordinated campaign of military action and of legal prosecution. The campaign was directed by the audiencia of Lima, with the support of Viceroy Lope García de Castro, and it involved the arrest, trial, and execution of the movement’s leaders in the principal cities of the affected regions.

The principal executions were performed in 1565 and 1567. Juan Chocne, the principal leader of the movement, was arrested in 1565 and executed by garrote in Huamanga in October of that year. Diego Chambilla was executed in 1566; Juan Cuxi, Pedro Chami, and Tomás Pinta were executed in 1567. The chronicler Murúa, who was present at the trial of several of the movement’s leaders, recorded the testimony of the accused in detail and noted that the leaders were unrepentant to the last, maintaining that the huacas would soon return and that the Spanish would be driven from the Andes.

The suppression of the Taki Onqoy did not eliminate the Andean ritual tradition. The colonial authorities’ campaign of repression destroyed the movement’s leadership, but it did not — and could not — destroy the rural ayllus’ attachment to the huacas and the taqui dances. The chronicler Murúa recorded that the indigenous population of the highlands continued to perform the taqui dances in secret throughout the sixteenth century, and that the Quinua Raymi and Huarucicu dances survived in the rural ayllus of the central-southern highlands and the Collasuyu at least into the 1580s. The detailed treatment of the Inca music and festival tradition and of Inti Raymi is given in the related articles.

The legacy of the Taki Onqoy in the colonial and modern Andes

The Taki Onqoy was a watershed in the history of the colonial Andes. The movement was the most serious indigenous challenge to Spanish rule in the decades following the conquest, and it shaped the colonial administration of the indigenous population in significant ways. The campaign of repression that followed the suppression of the Taki Onqoy led to a substantial increase in the presence of the colonial administration in the rural highlands, with the establishment of new corregimientos and curatos and the deployment of additional Spanish officials and missionaries to the affected regions. The movement also shaped the religious policy of the colonial church, leading to a more systematic effort to convert the indigenous population and to suppress the surviving elements of the Inca state cult.

The Taki Onqoy also had a substantial legacy in the colonial and modern Andean religion. The Inkarri mythology that was a central element of the movement’s theology persisted in the rural highlands of Peru and Bolivia into the twentieth century, and the taki onkoy dances were preserved in the carnaval and fiesta patronal cycle of the colonial and modern Andes. The detailed ethnography of the Inkarri mythology, performed by the anthropologist Gerald Taylor in Camac, camay y cascos (1987), has shown that the mythology has been preserved as a central element of the religious tradition of the rural ayllus of the central highlands. The detailed treatment of the Inca music and festival tradition and of the Inca religion and mythology is given in the related articles; the ayllu and the mit’a system and the Spanish conquest of Peru are treated in the related articles.