A Calendrical and Demographic Tomb Text from Northern Peru

Abstract

The focus of this study is on a khipu—a knotted—string recording device-from the Chachapoya region of the northeastern Andes of Peru. The khipu was one of 32 khipus discovered, along with some 220 mummy bundles, in 1996 in a half-dozen chullpas (burial houses) built into a rock-overhang overlooking a lake, called Laguna de los Cóndores, near the town of Leymebamba (Department of Amazonas). The cultural materials found with the mummies and khipus date from the pre-Inkaic Chachapoya culture (ca. A. D. 800-1450), through the Inka occupation of the region and on into the early colonial era. It is argued that the khipus stored with the dead represented tomb texts, which contained information pertaining to the history of the mummies and the social groups descended from them. One of the khipu samples (UR6) is interpreted as a combined biennial calendar and census of the tribute payers in Chachapoya territory, around Laguna de los Cóndores, in late Prehispanic times. It is argued that khipu UR6 was the source of information from which the first colonial census in the region was drawn up by the Spanish administrators, in 1535.