An Inca Account of the Conquest of Peru (6 page)

We will return to both Titu Cusi's invocation of the concept of primogeniture and to Sarmiento de Gamboa's invocation of the notion of bastardry in regard to the question of succession in a moment. Here, some general remarks about the cultural nexus of legitimacy and historiography in the pre-Hispanic Andes are
first in order. Inca understanding of genealogy was based on norms of kinship that were quite different from those of Europeans. Although millions of people lived in the Tahuantinsuyu, only about 40,000 of those people were considered to be “Inca,” that is, identified as members of the ethnic group that had originated and expanded their culture from Cuzco some time during the early fifteenth century. The non-Inca subjects of this empire came from other ethnic groups who had been subjugated to Inca rule, owed tribute in labor, and were generally considered to be provincials. While the Inca rulers could be ruthless in dealing with ethnic groups who resisted their expansion or those who rebelled against their rule, they were generally liberal and diplomatic with those who submitted to their supremacy, granting local lords substantial privileges and offices in the hierarchy of imperial administration and incorporating provincial deities into their own pantheon. Frequently, Inca women were married off to local lords of such provincial groups to ensure their loyalty. The Native chronicler Guaman Poma de Ayala, for example, was the offspring of such a union. By Inca cultural norms, however, offspring such as Guaman Poma, as well as the offspring of an Inca man with a non-Inca woman, would not have been considered “legitimate” Inca nobility.

Although those defined as “Inca” thus formed a privileged nobility in the empire—frequently called
orejones
(big ears) by the Spaniards because of their enlarged ears from wearing certain jewelry—not everyone in this nobility could make a legitimate claim to supreme rulership. As Catherine Julien has pointed out, legitimacy to rule was determined by an Inca noble's closeness to the hereditary line of Manco Capac, the legendary founder of the Inca dynasty. A claim to supreme rulership was thus determined by what she calls an individual's “
capac
status” (23). Hereditary descent was reckoned in Inca culture, as in European culture, patrilineally. However, as the Incas, unlike the Europeans, practiced polygamy, each new Inca ruler established his own patrilineal royal descent or kinship group, called a
panaca,
that was distinct from that of his father.
²⁸
At a given ruler's death, the members of his panaca were responsible for preserving his mummy, memory, and reputation. Each Inca oral history tradition was therefore not a general history of the Inca dynasty or realm, as was commonly aspired to by European chroniclers in sixteenth-century imperial Spain, but rather a partisan history particular to a specific panaca. Intent on exalting different founders and different descent groups that competed with one another for prestige, Inca oral traditions could thus be at great variance with one another. As Julien points out, the purpose of Inca historiography was not only to recall past glory, but also to “locate . . . members of the Inca descent group with relation to one another and to the other residents of Cuzco” (35). It is in this light that we must also see Titu Cusi's historical narrative of the Conquest, which places his father at the center of events from the very beginning, even though most other histories are in agreement that Manco Inca, because of his young age, was a relatively insignificant figure at the time of the Spanish arrival. Titu Cusi's historical account (relación) of the conquest is cast in the mold of his father's “life history,” which Julien identifies as one of the two major genres of Inca oral history (91–165). By the same token, much of what Titu Cusi tells us about himself in his instrucción to Lope García de Castro revolves around his position in relation to that of Manco Inca—the primary purpose of the other major historical genre identified by Julien, which she calls the “genealogical narrative” (49–90).

6. The newly reigning Manco Inca in his ceremonial throne in Cuzco. From Guaman Poma de Ayala,
Nueva corónica y buen gobierno
. By kind permission of the Royal Library at Copenhagen (GKS 2232 4to)

How does Titu Cusi's account as a genealogical narrative and life history aim to establish both his father's and his own legitimacy as rulers? It is interesting here to consider, first, Titu Cusi's claims about Atahuallpa and Huascar. In regard to Atahuallpa, Titu Cusi says that he was “older” than Manco Inca “but a bastard” (p. 60). Although it is not entirely clear here what he means by “bastard,” he later says that neither Atahuallpa nor his halfbrother
Huascar were “legitimate heir[s]” because, despite being “sons of Huayna Capac,” their mothers were “commoners” whereas “my father had pure royal blood” (p. 61). The argument that Atahuallpa and Huascar were illegitimate because of the birth status of their mothers is significant. As Julien points out, despite the patrilineal order of reckoning descent in Inca culture, the mother's panaca, or descent group, had an important role to play in the assessment of legitimacy for rulership. Beginning with Topa Inca, the father of Huayna Capac (and grandfather of Atahuallpa, Huascar, and Manco Inca), the Inca rulers had started (or resumed) a legendary ancient tradition (allegedly already initiated by Manco Capac) of marrying only full sisters, even though they continued to have children with other women, both Inca and non-Inca. As a result, the degree of legitimacy of a potential successor relative to his (half-) brothers came to depend not so much on the descent group of his father (which would have been a given) but rather on that of his mother. The least prestige would hereby be accorded to an Inca ruler's offspring with a non-Inca mother; further up on the scale would be his offspring with a woman who was ethnically Inca (i.e., from a line originating in Cuzco) but without a claim to having descended from the line of Manco Capac; still more prestigious would be his offspring with a woman who was a coya; finally, most prestigious would be a ruler's offspring with a woman who was both coya and his full sister. The status of coya identified a woman who could, through the line of her father, claim descent from one of the eleven rulers (and, thus, from Manco Capac). It is therefore not parallel to the European “queen,” who depended either on being the wedded wife of a king or on inheriting rule from a father (Julien, 35). Thus, by “commoners” Titu Cusi most likely meant that their mothers were ethnically Inca but not coya. In other words, their sons were “illegitimate” not in the European sense—that is, offspring produced with women other than a ruler's wife—but in the Andean sense of offspring produced
with women whose independent hereditary status was considered to be deficient for rulership.
²⁹

In light of Titu Cusi's claims about the illegitimacy of Atahuallpa and Huascar as rulers based on their mothers' hereditary identity, it is significant that he provides no specifics about Manco Inca's mother except that she was, supposedly, responsible for his “pure royal blood.” Nor does he tell us anything or make any claims about his own mother, except that she was in Cuzco with him while he was in Spanish custody and that she was brought to Vilcabamba with him after both had been abducted by Manco Inca's messengers. Who was Manco Inca's mother? And who was Titu Cusi's mother?

With regard to the former, Juan de Betanzos writes that “[a]lthough he [Manco Inca] was not the son of a mother who was of the ladies of Cuzco, he was the son of an important woman from the town of Anta [Jaquijahuana] which lies three leagues of the City of Cuzo” (278). The people of Anta were Incas but they had no claim to being descendants of Manco Capac. Although Manco Inca was a son of Huayna Capac, his pedigree was by Inca standards, as Julien points out, “less than ideal” (43). Yet, his pedigree was still the best among all of the living sons of Huayna Capac. Both Atahuallpa and Huascar were dead; and his brother Paullu's mother was not Inca at all but a woman from the province of Huaylas. It is for this reason that Paullu was considered a “bastard” by Guaman Poma—based on the Andean understanding of the term (Julien, 43). Also, it is possibly for this reason that Pedro Cieza de León reports that the orejones of Cuzco reacted generally positively to Francisco Pizarro's crowning of Manco Inca, replying that “they were content, and according to the ancient custom, Manco was received as Inca, and he took the fringe” (350).

As far as Titu Cusi's mother is concerned, we don't know her identity for certain. Hemming writes that she was a wife of Manco Inca “other than his full coya” (300), meaning his sister
wife. Apparently he hereby follows Sarmiento de Gamboa, who is the only sixteenth-century source I am aware of that is explicit on this question (although he, too, does not give any details beyond what's already been quoted above). Sarmiento's claims in these matters, however, must be taken with a grain of salt. He wrote in 1572 on commission of Viceroy Toledo, who had his own political agenda in trying to make a case not only that the Incas were usurping and tyrannical upstarts (and therefore not “natural lords” of Peru) but also that the last “legitimate” ruler of the dynasty had been Huascar—who had, conveniently, died on orders of his brother before ever meeting any Spaniard face-to-face. This claim implied, of course, that the Spaniards had not usurped rulership from a natural lord of Tahuantinsuyu but merely filled a void that already existed upon their arrival, hereby justifying Toledo's order to have the last Inca ruler, Topa Amaru, executed. Along these lines, Sarmiento claimed that not only Titu Cusi but also his father, Manco Inca, and his uncle, Paullu, were “bastards.” All three were “the lowest of all,” he wrote, “for their lineage was on the side of their mothers which is what these people look at, in a question of birth” (193). Sarmiento's statement that the “side of the mother” is what “these people look at, in a question of birth” suggests that he was well aware of women's importance in Inca succession.
³⁰
Nevertheless, his claim that both Titu Cusi and his father, Manco Inca, were “bastards” and “illegitimate” rests on the Spanish paradigm of monogamy as the foundation for an offspring's legitimacy—an idea alien to traditional Andean concepts of kinship.

However unwarranted Sarmiento's claim of Titu Cusi's bastardry was by Andean cultural norms, Titu Cusi's silence about the hereditary identity of his mother suggests that she was probably ethnically Inca but neither a coya nor Manco Inca's full sister. We must therefore assume that Hemming's inference that she had little to contribute to Titu Cusi's claim to legitimacy is warranted (even though a status of coya would not necessarily
have depended on her being either Manco Inca's sister or wife). Thus, in light of the surviving information about Titu Cusi's mother, his claim to be the legitimate (“natural”) ruler (based only on his patrilineal descent) appears indeed to have been rather weak by the traditional Inca succession rules. It is in this context that we must see Titu Cusi's assertion that he was “the one legitimate son, meaning the eldest and first-born, among the many sons whom my father Manco Inca Yupanqui left behind.” His claim to rule on the principle of primogeniture is based on a Spanish, not an Inca, logic of succession.

Interestingly, Titu Cusi invokes the traditional Inca logic of succession in order to establish the legitimacy of his father—who had “pure royal blood” whereas his older brothers Atahuallpa and Huascar did not because their mothers were commoners (even though Titu Cusi does not tell us who, exactly, Manco Inca's mother was); by contrast, he invokes the Spanish logic of succession (primogeniture) to establish his own legitimacy. Ironically, his invocation of the primogeniture principle to establish his legitimacy would have been less than fully persuasive to his Spanish audience, who would have judged him (and indeed did judge him) as illegitimate, based on the European notion of bastardry. By European standards, legitimacy for succession depended on the identity of a mother only insofar as she was a ruler's wedded wife, not on her independent patrilineal descent from previous rulers. Therefore, despite Titu Cusi's and Sarmiento de Gamboa's evident awareness of this cultural difference, neither one was entirely successful in the act of translation.

It is difficult to determine with certainty who is responsible for these contradictions and ambiguities in Titu Cusi's account. On the one hand, it would not have been inconceivable for Titu Cusi to change traditional Inca rules of succession in his text in order to make a case for his own legitimacy. Even though Titu Cusi stressed the rules of birth (albeit not purely the traditional Inca rules) in his narrative, the Spanish envoy Diego Rodríguez
de Figueroa reported that on another occasion Titu Cusi had explained to him that birthright was not ultimately of primary importance to his claim to legitimacy as ruler and that his legitimacy was based rather on merit and pragmatics: “he was in possession and was recognised by the other Incas; they all obeyed him, and if he had not the right they would not obey him” (quoted in Hemming, 300). Indeed, previous disputes regarding succession were reportedly settled by displays of strength and valor rather than strictly birthright. Thus, the ninth ruler, Inca Yupanqui (1438–1471, according to the traditional scheme of succession) had usurped the throne from his father, Pachacuti, before the latter's death after the son had successfully defended Cuzco against the invading Chanca while the father had abandoned the capital (see Rostworowski, 22–28). Moreover, the privilege accorded to the offspring of an Inca ruler and his own sister and the implications for succession resulting from this seem to have been a rather new innovation (or renovation) in Inca culture. In other words, changes in kinship practices had happened in Inca culture relatively recently before the arrival of the Spaniards and must not, therefore, necessarily and exclusively be ascribed to European colonialism.