Forbidden Love in the Andes: Murúa and Guaman Poma Retell the Myth of Chuquillanto and Acoytapra
2019; University of Chicago Press; Volume: 11; Linguagem: Inglês
10.1086/702752
ISSN2329-1249
Autores Tópico(s)Latin American history and culture
ResumoPrevious articleNext article FreeForbidden Love in the Andes: Murúa and Guaman Poma Retell the Myth of Chuquillanto and AcoytapraAlicia Maria HoutrouwAlicia Maria HoutrouwPDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmailQR Code SectionsMoreThe following coauthored indigenous tale about two lovers—an Inca ñusta (princess), Chuquillanto, and a humble shepherd, Acoytapra—was recorded around the turn of the seventeenth century in colonial Peru. The story’s meaning is layered, having been written and illustrated by two people of vastly different backgrounds: the drawings by a native Andean man and the writing by a Spanish friar. Although the images complement the text by illuminating events in the written tale, the artist applies his knowledge of the native Andean belief system and Inca visual culture by inserting additional meanings into the illustrations and communicating visually what the Spanish author cannot. Even though both authors eventually arrive at the same conclusion—that Acoytapra and Chuquillanto’s relationship is impossible—each values this outcome for distinct reasons. Their diverging interpretations of the legend help us to see how each author engaged with the story to further his own ideology and mission. Furthermore, the illustrator’s role in the retelling of this myth shows how an indigenous artist and author negotiated his relationship with Spanish authorities and asserted his indigenous knowledge in a colonial context.Below is a summary of the tale Ficción y suçesso de un famosso pastor llamado el gran Acoytapra con la hermossa y discreta Chuquillanto, ñusta, hija del sol (Legend and account of a famous shepherd named the great Acoytapra with the beautiful and discreet Chuquillanto, princess, daughter of the sun).1One day, as the shepherd Acoytapra was tending his herd, he was unexpectedly approached by two daughters of the sun. The eldest, Chuquillanto, was drawn to the shepherd, who wore on his forehead a canipu (silver pendant) with an image of two aradores (plowers)2 eating a heart. He told Chuquillanto it was called an utusi, which the narrator explains may be slang for the genital member, an old word invented by lovers. She was intrigued by his strange ornament and talked to her sister about the shepherd until arriving back at the palace.That night, Chuquillanto had no appetite and thought incessantly about the shepherd. When she finally fell asleep she dreamt that a nightingale flew to her lap and spoke to her. Chuquillanto explained to the bird that she could only be cured of what ailed her if she pursued her love for the shepherd, but that her father would kill her if she did. The nightingale told her not to worry, instructing her to go into the courtyard and sit in the center of the four crystalline fountains, which represented the four provinces of the Inca Empire (fig. 1). Once there, she was to sing out her woes, and if the fountains responded by joining in her song, the nightingale explained, then she could surely do as she wished. She awoke and immediately went to do as the bird counseled, and the fountains responded favorably.Fig. 1. Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala (Peruvian, d. after 1616). Chuquillanto’s dream between the four crystalline fountains. From Martín de Murúa, Historia del origen, y genealogía real de los reyes ingas del Piru, 1590, Galvin MS, fol. 145v. Private collection.Meanwhile, the shepherd was suffering from profound desire for Chuquillanto. After playing his flute sadly, he fell to the ground and cried. Sensing that he was ill, Acoytapra’s mother journeyed to his hut during the night. She arrived at sunrise to find her sleeping son bathed in tears. When Chuquillanto and her sister arrived that morning, seeking the shepherd, they found only the old woman (fig. 2, lower portion), as she had ordered her son to hide inside her walking stick when she saw the two ñusta (princesses) approaching. Chuquillanto, in her decency, did not dare ask to see him. While at his hut, Chuquillanto admired the mother’s cane, which was elaborately decorated and of special value, and asked to have it. The old woman obliged. Chuquillanto had no way of knowing that Acoytapra had hidden inside the stick.Fig. 2. Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala (Peruvian, d. after 1616). Chuquillanto and her sister arrive at the shepherd’s hut and find the old woman (lower portion); Acoytapra kneels at the foot of Chuquillanto’s bed (upper portion). From Martín de Murúa, Historia del origen, y genealogía real de los reyes ingas del Piru, 1590, Galvin MS, fol. 146v. Private collection.When Chuquillanto returned to her palace that night, the doormen searched her as they always did. The guards were cautious because they had heard stories of women sneaking their lovers into the palace in their belts or in the beads of their necklaces. But they thought nothing of the walking stick, and she was allowed to enter. As Chuquillanto lay in bed, Acoytapra recovered his human form and called to her (fig. 2, upper portion). Chuquillanto was startled but soon hugged him and covered him in her elaborate lipi blankets and cumbi (fine cloth).3The next morning, Chuquillanto and Acoytapra escaped toward the mountains, pursued by a guard (fig. 3). They ran until they were so tired that they fell asleep. Hearing loud noises in their dreams, they awoke and were almost instantly converted to stone. They formed part of the mountain range Pitusiray and can be seen today from the towns of Calca and Guallabamba (fig. 4).4Fig. 3. Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala (Peruvian, d. after 1616). Chuquillanto and Acoytapra escape the palace and are followed by a guard. From Martín de Murúa, Historia del origen, y genealogía real de los reyes ingas del Piru, 1590, Galvin MS, fol. 147r. Private collection.Fig. 4. Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala (Peruvian, d. after 1616). Chuquillanto and Acoytapra are converted to stone in the mountain range, Pitusiray, above the towns of Calca and Guallabamba. From Martín de Murúa, Historia del origen, y genealogía real de los reyes ingas del Piru, 1590, Galvin MS, fol. 147v. Private collection.This fascinating Inca tale appears in the final pages of Martín de Murúa’s Historia del origen, y genealogía real de los reyes ingas del Piru. De sus hechos, costumbres, trajes, y manera de gouierno (History of the origin and royal genealogy of the Inca kings of Peru, of their deeds, customs, clothing, and manner of governing), dated 1590 and known as the Galvin manuscript.5 The story predates the arrival of the Spaniards in Peru. It was sustained through oral tradition among the residents in and around Cuzco and continues to be told to this day. In the 1970s, Alfonsina Barrionuevo was informed of the continued existence of this tale in local myth among communities in the Sacred Valley.6 However, a detailed record does not exist, making this sixteenth-century illustrated account a critical document for understanding it.Until very recently, little was known about Murúa’s life outside of what is gleaned from the manuscripts described here. Thanks to a recent genealogical study, an astonishing quantity of details about Fray Martín de Murúa’s life and family has come to light.7 The friar was born and raised in the Basque village Eskoriatza, in the province of Guipúzcoa, in northern Spain to a family of average means. The exact date of his arrival to Peru is uncertain, though by 1588 he was in Cusco.8 His manuscript of 1590, now in the private collection of Seán Galvin in Ireland, is considered the initial draft for the 1613 volume, Historia general del Piru, that resides in the J. Paul Getty Museum’s manuscripts collection.9 Murúa does not offer an explanation for why he includes this legend (what he refers to as ficción) at the end of this manuscript, which otherwise details the history of the Inca kingdom before and after the arrival of the Spanish. He returned to Spain in 1615 to deliver the completed manuscript, but tragically fell ill and died only thirty-two days after returning to his hometown of Eskoriatza.10 The following year, his 1613 manuscript, Historia general del Piru, was received at the Palacio Real in Madrid.11The artist responsible for the beautifully hand-painted illustrations in Murúa’s 1590 manuscript was a native Andean named Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala (ca. 1535–ca. 1616). In 1615, Guaman Poma completed his own twelve-hundred-page illustrated chronicle of Peru, El primer nueva corónica i buen gobierno, in which he condemned the corrupt colonial government imposed by the Spaniards and recorded Inca history in light of the Christian beliefs he had adopted.12 The literary and cultural historian Rolena Adorno notes that as “a mestizo by culture (but not by race), Guaman Poma would have been known as an indio ladino, that is, as someone who was presumably proficient in Castilian, Christian in belief, and Hispanicized in custom.”13 Despite Guaman Poma’s biculturalism and familiarity with Western conventions, including command of European artistic techniques, he felt strongly about promoting his cultural heritage and championed certain traditional Andean social structures that, as I will demonstrate here, supported his personal agenda.Guaman Poma’s motives for creating Nueva corónica were multifaceted. On the one hand, his express reasons for writing the manuscript were for the greater good of his fellow Andeans and to end injustices committed by the colonial regime. The manuscript’s opening statement articulates his desire to produce a teaching document that can lead to greater harmony: “Said chronicle is very useful and beneficial, and it is useful for improving the life of Christians and infidels alike.”14 On the other hand, Guaman Poma had more personal motives. In an analysis of self-portraits in Nueva corónica by the art historian Lauren G. Kilroy-Ewbank, we see how Guaman Poma was personally invested in establishing his own elite status in order to prove to King Philip III that he was qualified to be a royal adviser in service to the Crown in the viceregal government and that he was the legitimate heir to territory he had lost in a legal dispute.15 Over several months in 1600, a decades-long dispute over territory in the valley of Chupas near the colonial city Huamanga (today, Ayacucho) ended unfavorably for Guaman Poma.16 He had claimed to be a cacique principal or kuraka (Andean lord) and rightful heir to the Chupas territory.17 In the end, he was exiled from Huamanga for two years and criminally prosecuted for falsely claiming he was a noble entitled to these lands.18 Guaman Poma’s lack of success in the legal dispute as well as in achieving his political aims largely resulted from his inability to prove his ties to royal ancestors.19 During the colonial period, the Spanish administration supported the pre-Hispanic kuraka system of hereditary descent from Inca royalty, making it all the more critical that Guaman Poma successfully make these claims.20 Kilroy-Ewbank demonstrates ways in which Guaman Poma cunningly weaves “biblical, historical, and genealogical information together [to position] his family as having social, political, and even ethnic advantage over those who could claim any lesser heritage.”21To write these comprehensive manuscripts would have required years of research and data collection as well as extensive travel to many parts of Peru, providing opportunities for the two authors to meet and begin collaborating.22 That Murúa was not the sole contributor to the Galvin manuscript is clear. An in-depth codicological analysis by Rolena Adorno and Ivan Boserup surveyed the production of the manuscript, identifying contributions of multiple hands, including that of Guaman Poma. His contributions to the manuscript are substantial—ninety-nine extant drawings, including the illustrations in the love story, are attributed to him, many of which he annotated with glosses in his distinctive cursive lettering.23Around 1600, the relationship between Murúa and Guaman Poma appears to have ended sourly.24 Neither author explicitly addresses having worked together or the reasons they parted ways, but we are acutely aware of Guaman Poma’s disapproval of Murúa from passages in Nueva corónica in which he describes the priest as abusive and corrupt.25 In one such instance, in a chapter on priests’ wrongdoings, Murúa is portrayed beating an indigenous elderly person over the head, with the accompanying caption, “Mercedarian Friar Morúa. They are so bad-tempered and strict and abuse the Indians and make them work by beating.”26Though Guaman Poma’s contribution to Murúa’s manuscript was mainly artistic, it is critical for interpreting the ficción of Chuquillanto and Acoytapra. His ostensibly simple illustrations each correlate to a moment in the narrative, and despite the fact that the text and illustrations suggest alternate interpretations of the myth, as discussed below, both Guaman Poma and Murúa ultimately conclude that the couple’s relationship cannot be sustained, as both the text and the images depict their conversion to stone. However, a critical look at Guaman Poma’s illustrations provides reasons for this outcome that are based on specific knowledge of Andean society and cosmology. In her pivotal work analyzing patterns in drawings in Nueva corónica, Rolena Adorno finds evidence of an Andean system of spatial signification in the compositions of Guaman Poma’s illustrations that adds layers of pictorial meaning.27 By applying critical findings from previous scholarship and by comparing the composition and content of Guaman Poma’s illustrations of Chuquillanto and Acoytapra—particularly their placement in relation to each other (see figs. 2–4)—with images in his own manuscript, Nueva corónica (explored below), we are able to gain insight into how gender and class were perceived in indigenous Andean culture, helping to interpret the outcome of this love story.According to Andean cosmovision, the universe was given human attributes and divided into two interdependent, sexed spheres.28 Gender typically assumed a right-left organization, in which the male occupies the right side and the female the left. This dynamic is noted in Joan de Santa Cruz Pachacuti Yamqui Salcamaygua’s 1613 representation of the Inca cosmos from an interior wall of the Coricancha (Temple of the Sun) in Cuzco (fig. 5).29 This diagram clearly depicts the conceptual or proper right side (viewer’s left) as masculine, represented by the sun, the planet Venus as the morning star, and the man (in that order from top to bottom); and the left side (viewer’s right) as feminine, represented by the moon, the evening star, and the woman.30Fig. 5. Joan de Santa Cruz Pachacuti Yamqui Salcamaygua (Peruvian, fl. early 1600s). Andean universe as depicted in the Coricancha in Cuzco. From Joan de Santa Cruz Pachacuti Yamqui Salcamaygua, Relación de antiguedades deste reyno del Pirú, 1613, fol. 13v, in Tres relaciones de antigüedades Peruanas (Madrid: Ministerio de Fomento, 1879), facing p. 257.Adorno argues that in his drawings in Nueva corónica, Guaman Poma routinely composed the pictorial space in accordance with the Andean cosmological worldview, including the male (right)/female (left) ordering.31 An illustration of planting customs, for example, shows the masculine-feminine binary by the presence of the sun and the moon in their respective places to the right and to the left, aligned with the man and the women directly beneath them (see fig. 7).32 However, Chuquillanto and Acoytapra do not represent an ordinary gendered pair, and this message is clear in the composition of the final image where the couple appears as mountains above the towns of Calca and Guallabamba (see fig. 4). Guaman Poma assures that the viewer sees that their relationship does not conform to the natural order of things by placing her on the masculine side and him on the feminine side. He is telling us visually what Murúa confirms in writing: this relationship cannot exist.The Inca idealization of the cosmos was also reflected in their political and social organization, in that all relationships had to be in harmony with certain spatial paradigms.33 Complementary relationships—oppositional forces with equally significant, yet different, functions—were of utmost importance. The Inca Empire, called Tahuantinsuyu (meaning “four parts together”), was divided into the four provinces of Chinchaysuyu, Collasuyu, Antisuyu, and Cuntisuyu, with the capital city Cuzco at the center. Cuzco was socially, conceptually, and geographically organized into hanan (upper) and hurin (lower), the former conceptualized as superior to the latter, though one did not supplant the other in importance because their simultaneous existence created a complementary relationship.34 In his map drawing Pontifícal mundo, Guaman Poma applies this spatial relationship to the distant kingdoms of Cuzco and Castile, expressing their inextricable relationship to each other, while situating Cuzco and its surrounding cities in the upper hanan position and Castile in the lower hurin position (fig. 6).Fig. 6. Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala (Peruvian, d. after 1616). Pontifical world: The Indies of Peru and the kingdom of Castile. From Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala, El primer nueva corónica i buen gobierno, 1615, GKS 2232 4°, fol. 42 [42]. Copenhagen, Det Kongelige Bibliotek.One of the best examples of how couples worked complementarily on specific tasks is seen in planting rites. Guaman Poma depicted planting as gendered through his use of symbolic spatial organization (fig. 7). Indeed, planting was one of the most important gendered activities in Andean society; the men used a special digging stick called a taki chaclla to make a hole in the ground, where the women then placed the seeds.35 This simple, yet critical, division of duties is the first step in the production of food, which sustains the community. Focusing on the creative potential of these planting rites, the art historian Carolyn Dean proposes that planting was a metaphor for sexual intercourse: as the cultivator, the man opened the (female) earth and the woman planted the seed.36Fig. 7. Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala (Peruvian, d. after 1616). Planting rites in December, the month of the lord, the Sun. From Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala, El primer nueva corónica i buen gobierno, 1615, GKS 2232 4°, fol. 1165 [1175]. Copenhagen, Det Kongelige Bibliotek.In the social realm of everyday life, preconquest Andean men and women had duties and responsibilities that were rigidly separated but balanced. Marriage served many crucial social functions among the Inca; it was the rite of passage into adulthood and represented the unity of two opposites coming together and forming a complete pair.37 Therefore, whether marriage united a poor or an elite couple, it created what was, at the foundation of Andean society, the basic social unit. Dean notes that Guaman Poma, like people living in the Andes today, “conceived of the conjugal pair as a complementary unit,” one “whose duties and conduct insured the continuity not only of their lineages, but of the community and—more broadly—the cosmos itself.”38In Adorno’s studies of Guaman Poma’s drawings in Nueva corónica, she found that the spatial division is not simply between left and right; it also involves the hanan and hurin principles of upper and lower. She argues that this diagonal relationship between the conceptual upper right (viewer’s upper left) and lower left (the viewer’s lower right) is a visual tool for showing hierarchical relationships, in which the figure on the conceptual right is in the dominant position.39 This hierarchy is expressed not only along gender lines, as in the planting drawings; relationships of religious authority, political dominance, and hierarchy in worship between gods and humanity are also portrayed.40 An example of this can be found in Guaman Poma’s illustration Avadez Maior (Head Abbess), which depicts a head nun standing piously over another nun who kneels in front of her, head bowed (fig. 8). The spatial composition described by Adorno in this illustration is evident, as the dominant figure occupies the upper left side of the image—the place of authority. Guaman Poma complements the composition with a gloss above the second nun’s head, which states obedencia, or obedience. Significantly, this composition is repeated in Guaman Poma’s self-portrait with the Spanish king, Philip III (fig. 9). In this image, titled Pregunta su M[ajestad], responde el autor (His Majesty Asks, the Author Responds), the Andean author kneels before the king in an imaginary in-person presentation of the completed chronicle.41 Guaman Poma uses this diagonal composition to show what he understands to be natural and respectable hierarchical relationships.42Fig. 8. Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala (Peruvian, d. after 1616). The abbess stands above a nun. From Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala, El primer nueva corónica i buen gobierno, 1615, GKS 2232 4°, fol. 482 [486]. Copenhagen, Det Kongelige Bibliotek.Fig. 9. Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala (Peruvian, d. after 1616). His Majesty Asks, the Author Responds. From Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala, El primer nueva corónica i buen gobierno, 1615, GKS 2232 4°, fol. 961 [975]. Copenhagen, Det Kongelige Bibliotek.We note a similar dynamic in the images of Chuquillanto and Acoytapra. In the upper portion of figure 2, Acoytapra kneels at the foot of Chuquillanto’s bed, clearly assuming the subordinate position in this drawing. His hands are even pressed together as if in prayer or supplication, evocative of countless illustrations in Nueva corónica depicting worship in either Christian or indigenous religious practices. The composition of this illustration would be ideal if the intention were to portray a commoner with a deity, but the hierarchical relationship depicting Chuquillanto in the hanan position of authority is problematic considering that they are supposed to be lovers on equal footing. Visually the point is made twofold: reversing the male/female positions signals they are not a complementary pair, while Chuquillanto’s placement in the upper-right quadrant indicates that she holds the power.43 Because Acoytapra is considerably poorer, and Chuquillanto is a ñusta and therefore a person of high status, there is no chance for a truly complementary relationship.44 He would always be below her, and she above him, therefore violating the social code. In fact, marriage outside of one’s social class was so preposterous that only marriage between social equals was legitimate.45Though not explicitly stated in Murúa’s text, Chuquillanto is not only a ñusta but also an aclla, a chosen woman or virgin of the sun. Together with other women, she lives in a guarded palace, which Andean audiences would have recognized as an aclla huasi, or “house of the chosen women.” When the two sisters first appeared before the shepherd, he was so stunned that he dropped to his knees, believing he was in the presence of divinity—a testament to the degree to which aclla were celebrated and admired across the region. Aclla occupied an important role in the Inca state religion. Often the daughters of nobility, they were hand-selected by inspectors who annually surveyed the provinces for chaste young girls to live semicloistered in service of the sun, the primary Inca god. There were different tiers of aclla; those at the very top were lifelong devotees to the cult of the sun, leading religious ceremonies as priestesses.46 There were also novices who lived among the aclla to learn their trades, particularly, weaving and the preparation of special foods. As Sir Clements Markham notes, princesses and daughters of nobles were often sent to be educated in the aclla huasi, and at the end of the three-year trial period, if they did not commit to lifelong service as an aclla, marriages were arranged for them. Markham goes on to explain that those who pledged to stay in service of the sun wore white with gold garlands on their heads and traveled with an armed escort.47 Chuquillanto’s ability to roam freely during the day and her attire of red and yellow with a checker-patterned tunic—as seen in Guaman Poma’s illustrations (see fig. 3)—suggest that she was not a consecrated aclla. It is plausible that Chuquillanto was in fact an Inca maiden of royal lineage, or a ñusta, as Murúa states, living among the aclla as a novice.While the union of a poor shepherd and a daughter of nobility alone would have violated a social taboo, Chuquillanto’s position among the aclla (novitiate or otherwise) makes their coupling even more forbidden. Guaman Poma visually communicates this socially uneven (and potentially unlawful) relationship in the illustration of Acoytapra kneeling beside Chuquillanto’s bed (see fig. 2) by reversing the composition so that she occupies the dominant upper right, and he the inferior lower left.From this pictorial analysis, we can see that Guaman Poma utilizes his knowledge of native traditions in order to communicate, visually, what Murúa cannot accomplish with his writing. A person who is unfamiliar with Andean thought can only speculate as to the reasons for the couple’s transformation to stone at the end of the myth. One may, for example, read it biblically, recalling the story of Lot’s wife in the Old Testament (Genesis 19). God converted her into a pillar of salt for looking back on the burning city of Sodom. By figuratively “yearning to return” to the sinful city, Lot’s wife was punished. Without the information provided by Guaman Poma, Murúa, a Catholic priest, might interpret Chuquillanto and Acoytapra’s outcome as a punishment for uniting out of wedlock or for sexual wrongdoing. However, from the artist’s visual cues we understand the cause of their conversion to stone to be both a disparity in social standing and a rupture of societal norms.Even if Murúa had understood the intricacies of the Inca social code and marriage practices that prevented a ñusta from being with a commoner and required that aclla remain chaste, it is unlikely that he understood this to be the reason the couple was punished. Throughout the text, Murúa makes sensual references hinting that the author was critical of the unsanctioned union of the couple. Although Murúa is arguably a priest with a keen interest in eroticism, having carefully described naked aclla earlier in the manuscript,48 the frequency with which he interjects sexual innuendos in this tale gives the impression that he is trying to make a point about premarital sex.One way Murúa does this is by using Quechua words that he may not fully understand. During their first meeting, Chuquillanto asks Acoytapra about a silver charm called a canipu that hangs from his forehead. The ornament contains a cryptic drawing of two plowers (people who plow the land) eating a heart. Chuquillanto has never seen this kind of adornment before and asks the shepherd what it is called. Acoytapra responds that it is his utusi, a word whose meaning the narrator admits he does not know but which he speculates might have been invented long ago by lovers to mean “genital member.”49 Then she holds his utusi and recalls it when she thinks of him longingly. This unexplained and seemingly gratuitous mention of genitals sets the tone for subsequent sexual references.On multiple occasions, Acoytapra is described playing his flute. In one such scene, he is thinking about Chuquillanto’s beauty and how badly he desires “to feel and enjoy the ultimate stages of love”50 when he decides to take out his flute and play it. When he is finished, he is overwhelmed by a tremendous sensation and falls to the ground and cries.51 This dramatic episode is an allegory for masturbation. But because in this moment Acoytapra becomes gravely ill, as readers we are to understand that his actions were wrong and, therefore, carry terrible consequences.By interconnecting sexual behavior with suffering, the Spanish priest is commenting on the immorality of Acoytapra’s desire for Chuquillanto and subsequent masturbation. Phallic references are made again when Acoytapra is later transported magically to his lover’s bedside by means of a stick that Chuquillanto holds in her hand. Finally, the night before they are turned to stone, they sleep together in Chuquillanto’s bed. In order to emphasize that the couple had sexual relations, Murúa repeats one last time that immediately before they were transformed to stone, they laid together to rest.Murúa’s objective to communicate that the couple was sexually involved is clear, and he likely would have construed the ending as punishment for “inappropriate” behavior. However, a native reading of these same events proves more complex, primarily because premarital sex in preconquest Peru was not only permitted but encouraged in most cases.52 Before couples married, they customarily lived together for a period of time. As the Jesuit priest Pablo José de Arriaga noted in his 1621 discourse on the extirpation of idolatry, “Another common abuse among the Indians of today is to have carnal knowledge of each other several times before marriage, and it is rare for them not to do so.”53 This “trial marriage” served an important social function: it was designed to ensure that a marriage succeeded both socially and reproductively.54 In the case of the aclla, however, virginity was a requisite, and violating this rule was so grievous that by some colonial accounts it was punishable by death. For example, in his 1553 account, the chronicler Pedro de Cieza de León describes four acllas sentenced to death along with their sexual partners, the four doormen tasked with guarding them.55 From a native reading, therefore, premarital sex alone is not enough to explain the couple’s punishment; rather, Chuquillanto’s disobedience and disrespect
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