Page 267 - Perú indígena y virreinal

phenomena. Although the lives of the majority of the population continued to be rural and village-based, the theocratic groups formed centres of public service (ceremonial centres) featuring larger residential areas, thus forming the basis of Andean cities. The Andean urban centre, the city of Ancient Peru, consisted of a residential area inhabited by the “lords” and their permanent or provisional associates, all employed in the productive service of the State.
However, the urban centre signified something more than just a series of temples and dwellings. The essential foundation of its existence and maintenance resided in its role as a store for food and manufacturing reserves. The wealth of the urban centre lay in its storerooms, which served as a security system for the purposes of consumption and distribution, forming the very basis on which the State was maintained.
Urban centres organized in this manner competed in the task of producing better and more sophisticated woven materials, more beautiful and more numerous adornments and a select range of pottery items. They possessed sufficient resources to support extensive groups of skilled silversmiths, goldsmiths, potters and weavers. The latter were capable of producing costly fabrics such as those of Paracas (during the early Nasca period), which, in today’s terms, must have required several months of skilled craftsmanship in order to create each piece. Little mention is needed of the considerable effort and labour required in raising the immense buildings that served for worship or as dwellings in places such as Moche (Huaca del Sol and Huaca de la Luna), Pacatnamú and Pañamarca on the north coast, Pachacamac and Maranga in Lima, Kawachi in Nasca and many other centres dispersed throughout Peru during this period.
The development of Titicaca deserves special mention. This region was not influenced by Chavin as the others were, its formative stages finding inspiration in other sources, such as those of Qaluyu and Marcavalle, which stretched from Cusco to El Desaguadero, resulting in a stage of development known today as Pucara, in which enormous ceremonial centres were established, quite as important and complex as those of Moche and Nasca. Various archaeologists have suggested that this process was driven by the intensive traffic of handcrafted goods between the high plateaux and the coast. In fact, this was only part of the exceptional dominion established in the high plateau areas, both in terms of agriculture and livestock. The rich farmlands and lakes in this region— still one of the most densely populated in Peru and Bolivia today—and its especially rich resources for metal-working, weaving and the production of items for worship and adornment (especially semi-precious stones), were accompanied by a high level of technology in terms of irrigation, featuring multiple methods of production and the creation of an extremely varied agrarian infrastructure, one that included the employment of terracing, camellones and cochas, in addition to various forms of irrigation. Camellones constituted a form of irrigation by means of flooding, whilst cochas were a form of protection from frosts at high altitude. From these developments emerged a social and economic system known by the name of Tiwanaku.
It is true that the regional developments presented their most evident manifestation in the artistic styles of items produced in all kinds of materials. A very diverse range of works of art were produced, with the best-known items appearing under the heading of pottery and woven products, presenting a specific iconography, even though this may have been based on shared themes. Moche pottery was essentially sculptural, although its plain design stood out for its sobriety and naturalness; Nasca pottery was pictorial and enhanced by the use of many colours and a shift away from a naturalistic style towards a style that was explicitly symbolic. The Recuay and Lima styles adopted an intermediate position, even though they are clearly distinguishable due to the Recuay preference for “negative” painting and the Lima preference for multi-coloured creations. The Tiwanaku style, presenting strong geometric features, was also multi-coloured.
All the evidence indicates that the urban centres, dominated by the temples and their priests, formally established local states of varying extension and power. The technology of war progressively gave way to an entire worship-based paraphernalia in order to enable the rulers to manage and sustain power. In around the third or 4th Century AD, the overall picture was one of warring states and certain centres pitted against others, with the peasants serving as the booty of conquest.
THE WARI EMPIRE
Within this context, the 6th Century AD presented an outlook of general conflict, featuring a kind of battle for the acquisition of prestige and power on the part of the urban centres. Technological development had raised production levels to hitherto unimaginable levels: the valleys were crossed by complex irrigation networks; previously desert-like areas were cultivated through artificial irrigation; channels linked certain valleys with others, etc. The harsh Peruvian landscape had been transformed by the hand of Man, to the extent that in extremely dry regions such as Ayacucho, the Huarpa had converted scarcely sheltered slopes hardly moistened by rain into veritable hanging market gardens, not by using water from the rivers or springs, but the very little water provided during the rainy season between January and March. They did this by using water-capturing, damming and distribution mechanisms that were extremely ingenious and practical, although punishing in terms of the labour required to work them.
It was under such conditions, precisely in Ayacucho, that the city of Wari witnessed unstoppable growth. In just a few years, between the 4th and 5th Centuries, the Wari created their own economic and political system that was naturally based on the exploitation of the region’s raw materials (especially for the textile and pottery industries) and on the existence of an important agricultural chain of considerable productive capacity in the Valleys of Huanta, San Miguel and Pampas. Powerful Wari lords, with organized armies, began to conquer the neighbouring peoples and then others further afield, until they established a grand Imperial State that ruled over the inhabitants of Peru stretching from Lambayeque and Cajamarca in the north to Arequipa and Cusco in the south. The Wari overcame any obstacle that stood in their way, imposing a uniform pattern on the previously regional set-up. The gods of Wari, of ancient Ayacucho, Nasca and Tiwanaku origin, occupied altars all over Peru and their image appeared on very fine textiles and delicate pottery, replacing the local or regional gods, who were forced to cede their place. The similarity of some Wari icons to those of Tiwanaku has led some archaeologists to believe that all this was the product of expansion on the high plateaus. However, we now know that Wari and Tiwanaku, in addition to being contemporaneous, constituted two processes of distinct scope and nature, featuring very precise territorial limits that neither hardly dared altar. The border crossed through Sicuani, to the south of Cusco, and the Valley of Sihuas and El Colca to the north of Arequipa.
Wari was not a state that imposed a notable pattern of agricultural development, even though we can observe an increase in irrigation channels and hydraulic works in the lands they conquered. Wari was a state that promoted an urban model of life, featuring a strong emphasis on manufacturing production.
The Wari imposed an urban pattern of life on the areas within their influence, which means that we can find residential and/or administrative centres of Wari type in areas ranging from Cajamarca to Cusco, in addition to substantial changes in the urban organization of peoples as highly developed as those of Moche, including the mass production of textiles and pottery, not to mention an intense long-distance trade in luxury goods such as precious stones, silverware, fine wood and other items.
Everything leads us to believe that the nature of the process generated by the Wari in Peru was very similar to the one imposed by the Incas years later. The Wari initiated the extensive networks of Chinchaysuyo roads (from Ayacucho to Cajamarca), through the north and Pachacamac and Nasca through the west, extending towards the Inca area of Cuntisuyo (from Ayacucho to Colca) and Cusco (from Ayacucho to Raqchi in Vilcanota) to the south, whilst we can also find evidence of its extension towards the east, beyond the River Apurímac. The Wari established a system of large groups of deposits in the dependent territories (such as the qollqas of Pikillaqta in Cusco and those of Viracochapampa in Huamachuco). All of this was accompanied by the employment of mass production techniques, the introduction of items made of clay and wood for domestic use and, even more notably, the recording system known as Quipu or Kipu, consisting or cords and knots, which the Incas of Cusco also developed later on.
Wari ruled Chinchaysuyo between the end of the 5th Century and early 10th Century, that is to say, almost four centuries. This was time enough to establish a certain standardization of Peruvian life based on the Wari model. That is why, when a new period
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