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Histories From The South - Memory, Frontiers, and Interaction in The Andes
Histories From The South - Memory, Frontiers, and Interaction in The Andes
Reviewed Work(s): Landscape and Politics in the Ancient Andes: Biographies of Place at
Khonkho Wankane by SCOTT C. SMITH: Southeast Inka Frontiers: Boundaries and
Interactions by SONIA ALCONINI
Review by: Jorge Gamboa
Source: Latin American Antiquity , September 2017, Vol. 28, No. 3 (September 2017), pp.
441-443
Published by: Cambridge University Press
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to Latin American Antiquity
441
a larger process of collective transformation obtained The encounter between Incas and Guaraní was,
through rituals and solemn (and festive) progressions. no doubt, one in which divergent forms of social and
The data-based definition of the site’s capacity to economic organization came together in a violent way.
decentralize its own agendas is one of the strengths The author starts her analysis of the politics of Inca
of the publication. That position is welcome, and the expansionism by conceptualizing the preindustrial
book joins a set of other new works that highlight empires and defining the agency of frontier commu-
the capacity of the public in ancient societies to criti- nities as based in their liminal physical and symbolic
cally examine official performances. The relationship position. The Incas reorganized the social and eco-
between the final phase of Khonkho Wankane’s history nomic institutions of numerous Andean peoples and
and the dynamics of the caravan routes is treated in created a multiethnic state. The transformation of the
the final chapter. Working on perspectives previously absorbed regions was carried out through a “language
advanced by Núñez, Dillehay, and Nielsen, the author of reciprocity” in which gift giving became central to
interprets the activity of the camelid caravans as vital to the legitimation of political asymmetries and compro-
the management of periods of climatic stress that in the mises. Other strategies included the resettlement of
past affected the altiplano’s peoples. The confluence mitmakuna and yanakuna groups in distant regions,
and dispute between locally devised goals and those among them the borderlands with the Chiriguano
based on contact with foreign groups were, for Smith, a groups.
means of local political practice. In his view, Khonkho The Guaraní entry to the Andes was, however, part
Wankane ideology and economy were interlocked in of larger population movements carried out across the
a cosmovision that equally privileged communal and South American lowlands. Alconini’s review of the
individual negotiation. economic and ideological motivations of that mobility
For Smith, the integration of landscape, settlers, does not omit analysis of ethnohistorical references
and memories was both source and end of the ambigu- in the search for Candire, the place or embodiment
ity and tension visible in local principles of authority. of abundance pursued by some Guaraní groups in
His reconstruction does not end there. According to constant peregrination—a mention that invites com-
Smith, the meeting between division and convergence, parison with similar cases in northern Mesoamerica.
secrecy and revelation, was instrumental to the con- The area invaded by the Chiriguanos was occupied
struction of Khonkho Wankane’s rules of power and by the Charcas societies and included the zone settled
social positioning. What about the deconstruction of by the Yampara, who would become allies of the Incas
those principles? For the author, as the experience of and defenders of the territory in conflict. The demogra-
place at the site became more centralized, the caravan phy and cultural patterns of the Yampara sector during
leaders looked for new alliances, recreating the process the period of Inca and Guaraní influence are examined
once more in new and different places. In time, through new data available for the Yampara sector
the human experiences in Khonkho Wankane were and especially for Oroncota, a main administrative
restarted in other spaces—particularly in Tiwanaku, and religious imperial center provided with prestige
one of the settlements that benefited from its fall. buildings and households for local and mitmakuna set-
The book by Alconini explores the southeast fron- tlers. The low frequency of ceramics from the eastern
tier of the Inca state and the collision from AD 1450 to valleys in the area is also contrasted with the ethnohis-
1532 between that expansive polity and the Guaraní- torical background, an exercise revealing the distance
Chiriguano ethnic groups. Mentions of that episode between the materiality of Chiriguano presence and
in colonial documents and travel narratives written in the mentions of their territorial advance in the written
the nineteenth century converted Inca rule in Bolivia’s records. Alconini’s characterization of expressions of
southern valleys and part of the Chaco into an accepted Inca power in the Yampara zone—with low disruption
fact in the memory and political discourses of several of native settlement patterns and selective forms of
Andean countries. That reconstruction of the past was adoption of foreign values—will be of particular
a simplistic one and promoted the idea of the clash interest to scholars of preindustrial colonialism.
between a civilization and some “savage” peoples in Cuzcotuyo, another fortified Inca settlement, was
a rhetoric similar to, if not inspired by, the idealized located in the Khosko Toro region, closer to the
history of Rome and its Germanic neighbors. Alconini Chiriguano lands. The final occupational phase of the
reveals a distinct and more complex reality related to site saw an increase in the use of vessels stylistically
the identities and purposes of groups that had acted in a related to the tropical valleys, something that for
constantly disputed territory since before the fifteenth Alconini suggests hospitality directed toward some
century. Her book is also placed within a wider context, allied or less belligerent Chiriguano groups. The final
that of frontiers as real and imagined contested spaces. section of the volume compares the model generated
by research in Oroncota and Khosko Toro with the Inca examine the site as a contested entrepôt that repre-
frontiers in Ecuador, Argentina, and Chile. Through sents the fragmented political and ethnic landscape
that exercise, the dynamics of the southeast Inca of the Postclassic period. In addition to the thematic
frontier are placed in a context that, given the extension parallels between the investigations, these two sites
of Tawantinsuyu, reaches a continental scale. were linked politically during the Late and Termi-
The biographies of places—such as those nal Classic Periods, with Ixlú using the Tikal/Mutal
of Khonkho Wankane and the southeast Inca emblem glyph and architecturally referencing Tikal.
borderland—are biographies of communities; at the Methodologically, while both volumes focus on the
same time, they have a direct relationship to our posi- results of archaeological excavations, they also inte-
tion regarding the ancient and modern societies that grate evidence from multiple sources: Haviland’s
we study. There are other aspects to be mentioned. The analysis includes information from hieroglyphic and
books by Smith and Alconini describe in detail sites iconographic sources, while Rice and Rice emphasize
and regions important to South American archaeology ethnohistory, in addition to glyphs and images, as
that are also impacted by modern occupations. Both integral to their interpretation.
works should be published in Spanish, in support of The Tikal report focuses on Group 7F-1, an
the preservation of that cultural heritage. Finally, these elite residential group located 1.25 km southeast of
works also bring us to reflect on the making in the downtown Tikal and occupied from the Early to
present of frontiers that, like those of the past, seem Terminal Classic periods; excavations in this area
destined to be as soon constructed, or proclaimed, as were conducted in 1957, 1963, and 1965. This group
surpassed. was initially occupied by lesser elite residents, then
abandoned. Toward the end of the Early Classic,
the group was refounded (“New Group 7F-1,” in
Haviland’s parlance). It seems to have been occupied
Documenting Change in Maya Excavations by the surviving family of one of Tikal’s Early
Classic rulers, Kaloomte’ Bahlam (Ruler 19), who
Excavations in Residential Areas of Tikal: Group 7F-1.
was interred within the group in a spectacular tomb
WILLIAM A. HAVILAND. 2015. Tikal Report
(Burial 160), according to Haviland. The royal fam-
No. 22, University Museum Monographs No. 141,
ily’s move to this group may have been the result of an
University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology
ignominious end to this segment of the ruling dynasty.
and Anthropology, Philadelphia. xiv + 138 pp., 43
Haviland suggests that the family then occupied Group
figures. $65.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-1-934536-81-0.
7F-1 until the Terminal Classic period, with periods
Ixlú: A Contested Maya Entrepôt in Petén, Guatemala/ of improved relations with the ruling dynasty in
Ixlú: Un Disputado Entrepôt Maya en Petén, Guate- Tikal. This apparent détente is seen through episodes
mala. PRUDENCE M. RICE and DON S. RICE. of elaborate ceremonial activity within the group—
KARLA CARDONA C., translator. 2016. University presumably sanctioned, and in phases characterized by
of Pittsburgh Memoirs in Latin American Archaeol- the absence of adult male burials, which may indicate
ogy No. 23, University of Pittsburgh Center for Com- reversion to their placement in central Tikal. Group 7F-
parative Archaeology/Universidad Francisco Marro- 1 is described as a typical elite residential group, with
quín, Museo Popol Vuh, Pittsburgh and Guatemala large vaulted masonry residences, a temple structure
City. xvi + 97 pp. 30 figures, 5 tables. $22.00 (paper), and associated platform, and service structures or
ISBN 978-1-877812-94-1. outbuildings located around a central plaza. Carved
monuments (Stelae 23 and 25), which may have been
Reviewed by Sarah E. Jackson, University of reset within the group, are associated with Group 7F-
Cincinnati. 1. This is notable, given its remove from the site core,
but further supports the group’s royal connection.
Despite clear differences in the size of the sites The volume is organized by categories of exca-
discussed and the scale of excavations undertaken, vated material (architecture, burials, caches and prob-
these two volumes are united by topic: Classic-era lematic deposits, artifacts, and monuments and mis-
Maya settlements located in the central Petén region cellaneous stones), with synthesis offered in the
that span important moments of political change, nego- concluding chapter; appendixes, including data and
tiation, and transition. For Tikal, William Haviland’s additional interpretations, and figures, including
in-depth study of Group 7F-1 documents material detailed captions, follow. The documentation of field
traces of changes in political power during the Early investigations is impressive and comprehensive, pro-
Classic period. At Ixlú, Prudence Rice and Don Rice viding a convincing foundation for the author’s