Inca Civilization
Article

Inca Nobility and the Royal Panacas of Cusco

The Inca nobility consisted of the royal panaca ayllus — corporate descent groups that held the mummy, the lands, the herds, and the retainers of a deceased Sapa Inca — together with a smaller stratum of provincial curacas who administered the local ayllus on behalf of the state. Of the two strata, the panacas were politically and economically the more important. Each panaca was headed by a senior relative of the dead Inca, often titled mallku or apu, and the panaca maintained the perpetual cult of its deceased sovereign from a palace in Cusco. At the height of the empire in the early sixteenth century, perhaps a dozen major panacas competed for influence in the imperial court, holding vast estates scattered across the four suyus and commanding forces of several thousand yanakuna each. The proliferation of these panacas is the immediate background of the civil war of 1529–1532 and of the Spanish conquest that followed.

The panaca as corporate descent group

The panaca (sometimes panaqa in the orthography of the Relaciones geográficas de Indias) was a form of royal ayllu — a corporate descent group tracing its line to a particular Sapa Inca and holding in common the mummy, the lands, the herds, and the retainers of that sovereign. The chronicler Sarmiento de Gamboa recorded that the panaca was founded on the day of accession of the new Sapa Inca: the new sovereign was granted a portion of state lands and a contingent of yanakuna sufficient to support the perpetual feasts and offerings of his panaca, and the panaca continued in existence under the leadership of his brothers or nephews after his death.

The panaca was not a lineage in the European genealogical sense but a corporate body. The mummy of the deceased Sapa Inca was the principal focus of the panaca’s identity: the mummy was consulted on matters of state, was carried in procession on the principal festivals of the year, and was the focus of perpetual offerings of chicha, coca, and food. The panaca’s territory was held in common and was worked by yanakuna; the produce was stored in the panaca’s own qollqas and used to maintain the feasts. The panaca’s members traced descent from the deceased Inca through a complex system of bilateral reckoning that, in practice, included the children of the Inca by secondary wives as well as by his principal coya.

The internal hierarchy of the panaca was headed by a senior relative of the deceased Inca, typically a brother or nephew, who bore the title mallku or apu. The mallku was supported by a council of senior panaca members (panaqa camayoc) and by a body of ritual specialists who maintained the cult of the dead Inca. The panaca’s yanakuna were organized into working units that tilled the panaca’s fields, herded its llamas and alpacas, wove its cumbi cloth, and produced the food and drink consumed at the perpetual feasts. The panaca’s territory, finally, was scattered across the empire: a single major panaca might hold lands in the Sacred Valley, in the Collasuyu frontier, and in the tropical lowlands of the Antisuyu, a pattern of dispersed territorial holdings that the anthropologist John Murra called the vertical archipelago.

The major panacas of late Inca Cusco

By the early sixteenth century, perhaps a dozen major panacas competed for influence in Cusco. The most prominent of them, in approximate chronological order of the Inca whose mummy they held, were as follows.

The Chima panaca was the panaca of Sinchi Roca, the second Sapa Inca of the traditional list. By the time of the conquest, the Chima panaca had declined in wealth and prestige, but it retained ritual preeminence in certain ceremonies of the Hanan moiety of Cusco. The Raura panaca held the mummy of Lloque Yupanqui, the third Sapa Inca, and was associated with a particular set of huacas on the Qhapaq Raymi ceque of Cusco.

The Aucaylli panaca held the mummy of Cápac Yupanqui and was one of the wealthier panacas of the late prehispanic period. The Sucso panaca held the mummy of Inca Roca, the fourth Sapa Inca. The Iñaca panaca held the mummy of Yáhuar Huácac and was associated with the Capac Raymi ceremonies of the December solstice. The Hanan Capac Ayllu held the mummy of Viracocha Inca, the eighth Sapa Inca, and was the most prestigious of the Hanan moiety panacas at the time of the conquest; the chronicler Murúa recorded that the Hanan Capac Ayllu controlled perhaps 10,000 yanakuna and held estates in every province of the empire.

The Hurin Capac Ayllu, the panaca of Pachacuti (r. c. 1438–1471), was the most powerful of the Hurin moiety panacas. Pachacuti’s panaca, founded on the day of his accession in 1438, had grown over the course of his long reign to control vast estates in the Sacred Valley, in the eastern lowlands, and in the southern Collasuyu. The panaca’s principal palace, the Quri Kancha or golden enclosure that the Spanish later converted into the convent of Santo Domingo, was the second-largest structure in late Inca Cusco after the Coricancha. The chronicler Betanzos, who was related by marriage to the panaca of Pachacuti, recorded that the panaca’s mallku in 1533 was a son of Pachacuti named Inca Paucar, who was a rival claimant to the succession after the death of Huayna Capac.

The panaca of Topa Inca (r. 1471–1493), often called the Tumebamba panaca after the northern city that Topa Inca developed as his capital, was another major panaca. The panaca of Huayna Capac (r. 1493–1527) was the most recently founded of the major panacas, but it had grown rapidly during Huayna Capac’s long reign and controlled a substantial portion of the empire’s northern territories. The panaca of Ninan Cuyochi, Huayna Capac’s eldest son who predeceased his father, was a smaller but ritually significant panaca associated with the cult of the dead prince.

The panacas in the politics of the late empire

The proliferation of panacas in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries is the immediate background of the civil war of 1529–1532. Each new Sapa Inca, on the day of his accession, founded a new panaca drawn from the state lands; the older panacas continued in existence under the leadership of his brothers or nephews; and the resulting network of royal kin grew thicker with each generation. By the time of Huayna Capac’s death around 1527, the royal panacas held a substantial portion of the empire’s agricultural land and commanded a force of perhaps 50,000 yanakuna; the principal curacas of the empire were clients of one or another panaca; and the imperial court at Cusco was divided into panaca-based factions.

The succession dispute of 1529–1532 was fought between two rival panacas: the panaca of Huáscar, based in Cusco and supported by the southern panacas, and the panaca of Atahualpa, based in Quito and supported by the northern panacas. The war was a contest for the control of the imperial mummies — the mummy of Huayna Capac, who had died of smallpox introduced by the Spanish in 1527, was the symbolic prize — and it ended with Atahualpa’s victory at the battle of Quipaipán in April 1532 and the execution of Huáscar. The Spanish arrival in 1532 and the capture of Atahualpa at Cajamarca in November 1532 destroyed the apex of the panaca system, but the panacas themselves continued to exercise influence in the early colonial period.

The provincial nobility: curacas and local lords

Beneath the royal panacas stood a provincial nobility of curacas — hereditary lords of particular ethnic groups and ayllus who administered their subjects on behalf of the state. The curacas were the most stable and the most locally rooted of the Inca nobility; in many cases they were descended from the ruling families of pre-Inca polities and had been confirmed in their positions by the Inca after conquest. The chronicler Murúa recorded that the most distinguished curacas had as many as 80,000 subjects under their jurisdiction, while the most modest held a single ayllu of a few hundred households.

The curacas collected tribute and dispatched labor for the mit’a, administered justice in the local courts, and represented the interests of their subjects in dealings with the provincial administration. They wore distinctive dress — a particular tunic, a silver tupu pin, and a small headdress — and they were entitled to use a llama litter in transit. They were exempt from the mit’a labor obligation that fell on commoners, and they were rewarded for good service by grants of land, of yanakuna, and of women from the aclla wasi. After the conquest, the Spanish confirmed the curacas in their positions by the New Laws of 1542 and by Viceroy Toledo’s administrative reforms of 1569–1575, and the curaca families of the colonial period became the ancestors of a substantial portion of the mestizo and criollo aristocracy of the Andes.

The relationship between the royal panacas and the provincial curacas was the principal political axis of the late Inca state. The panacas held the central political and ritual authority of the empire, and the curacas held the local administrative authority; the two strata were linked by a system of marriage, of ritual sponsorship, and of mutual obligation. The panaca of a deceased Inca might assign a portion of its estates to a particular curaca, and the curaca in turn would send his daughters to the panaca’s households and contribute labor to the panaca’s feasts. The chronicler Sarmiento de Gamboa recorded that the curacas of the empire’s most distant provinces traveled to Cusco at intervals of several years to renew their bonds with the panacas and to receive the ritual investiture of their office.