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The Dead and the Drying: Techniques for

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ARTICLE in JOURNAL OF MATERIAL CULTURE NOVEMBER 1996
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The Dead and the Drying: Techniques for Transforming People and Things in the Andes
Bill Sillar
Journal of Material Culture 1996; 1; 259
DOI: 10.1177/135918359600100301
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1996 SAGE Publications. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution.
Articles
THE DEAD AND THE DRYING

Techniques for Transforming People
and
Things in the
Andes
BILL SILLAR
Department of Archaeology, University of Wales

Abstract
of a cultures technology, such as techniques, tools or raw
elaborated as metaphors or areas of meaning within the
cultures ideology. The choice of raw materials and the techniques used to
process them depend on the representation of these materials and techniques within society. Such technical representations play an important
role in the trajectory of social and technological change. Examples drawn
from present-day pottery making in the South-Central Andes are compared
to other subsistence activities in the area to show how techniques may be
used in a wide range of different social contexts. This has imbued the techniques with culturally specific meanings, which affects the choice of contexts within which they are considered appropriate. It is suggested that the
storage systems developed by the Inka were a reworking of the techniques
used in the burial tradition that emerged in the preceding Late Intermediate
Period. The previous context of death gave a meaning to the technique, a
meaning that was utilized within the techniques new application for state
Many aspects
materials,
are
storage.
; cultural change ; pottery ; storage ; technical
Key Words
representation ; technology.
INTRODUCTION
When we peel a potato, shave with a cut-throat razor, sharpen a pencil

with a pen-knife, or scrape the subcutaneous fat off a hide, we are using
very similar techniques in quite different contexts. It would be possible
259

tool for all these activities. Indeed, I expect that specialized, task-specific tools were only developed once these techniques were
consciously separated from each other with different people doing them
in different places at different times. We should not forget that most of
these activities could be achieved through other techniques. For
instance, potatoes need not be peeled at all, or their skin may be peeled
off by hand after boiling - a common technique in the Andes. Tweezers
can be used to remove facial hair. Animal skins can be cured with salt
and then rubbed with a stone.
The human propensity to borrow techniques from one area for
application to novel activities has been central to our cultural development. This is not simply a question of clever inventions that perform
tasks more efficiently. The perception of a problem in need of a solution and the choice of a particular technique or combination of techniques to surmount it is heavily embedded within wider cultural
perceptions. The invention of the pencil was only possible within a
culture that prioritized writing as a form of communication, and the
pencil could not have been developed if it were not already a common
practice to use a knife to whittle wood. In fact the European fascination with metal and blade technology has been central to much of the
regions social and technological development. This not only shaped the
techniques applied to vegetable processing, carpentry and tailoring; also
the central importance of aristocratic swordsmen to the development of
Iron Age and later feudal society partly came about through the manipulation of blade technology. I do not wish to privilege the mechanical or
functional aspects of these techniques, however, as it is as much the cultural meaning or significance of these tools and techniques as their
physical nature that has made them so important. Perhaps because
blade technology was considered prestigious and associated with
sharp ideas it was drawn upon and developed in novel directions. This
kept blade technology at the cutting edge of innovation. These
examples of word play may seem rather tangential to my argument, but
they are fundamental. The way that techniques and tools are conceived
of and used as metaphors within the language express fundamental cultural attitudes. When we talk of paring away superfluous material, or
using Ockhams razor to cut someones argument down to its central
point we are at the same time reinforcing the centrality of these techniques within our culture.
While many authors have investigated the choice of raw materials
and techniques used in terms of environmental restraints and maximizing efficiency (e.g. Arnold, 1985; Bronitsky, 1986; Schiffer and Skibo,
1987), several anthropologists have suggested that techniques may be
better understood as cultural choices that are as dependent on local representations as any ultimate scientific measure of functionality (e.g.
to
use
the
same
260

Latour, 1993; Lemonnier, 1986, 1992, 1993; Pfaffenberger, 1988). In this

paper I would like to add to the latter approach by suggesting that many
aspects of technical understanding are fundamental, and sometimes very
explicit, aspects of a cultures ideology. I shall begin by looking at several
features that recur in the processing of different materials in the SouthCentral Andes, particularly clay for pottery production. I suggest that the
potters have drawn upon techniques that cross-cut many spheres-of
Andean technology and that the techniques themselves have become
imbued with culturally specific meanings. I also suggest that it has been
precisely these culturally specific meanings that were utilized in deciding how to overcome technical problems in the past, and that they helped
shape the direction of technical and social change.
MAKING POTS
Pottery production is surprisingly consistent throught the South-Central

Andes both in terms of the techniques used as well as in the organization of production. All the pottery production I have observed is organized at the household level. Pottery forming usually involves the use of
a flat slab of clay to form the base, and large thick coils that are further
thinned by drawing the clay up to form the sides (Figures 1 and 2). The
firing normally involves placing the pots on a flat surface that has a low
protective wall around the base of the firing and then covering the
vessels with fuel, frequently dried dung.
This is not to say that alternative methods are not known about and
used - two-, three- and four-part moulds are used for slip casting in the
Pucara area, the potters wheel and kilns are used in both Pucara and
Huayculi, kilns are also used in Paracay and were being introduced to
Charamoray while I was there (see Figure 3 for these locations). But the
underlying grammar of pottery-making technology, described above,
appears to be characteristic of the South-Central Andes and is consistently reported by a number of authors (e.g. Arnold, 1993; Donnan, 1971;
Hagstrum, 1988; ONeal, 1977; Ravines, 1978; Ravines and Villiger,
1989; Tschopik, 1950).
These techniques can be compared with those from many other
areas of the world (c.f. van der Leeuw, 1993). In present-day Peru the
potters of the North Coast and North-Central Andes use paddle and anvil
techniques (e.g. Bankes, 1985; Sabogal Wiesse, 1982; Sosa, 1984) and
make substantial use of press moulds even for large forms (e.g. Ravines,
1989; Krzanowska and Kranowski, 1989). In the eastern lowlands of the
Amazon basin pottery is made using far thinner coils and pots are fired,
often only one vessel at a time, by placing them on top of thick wooden
branches that are used as the fuel (DeBoer and Lathrap, 1979; Ravines
and Villiger, 1989). These wide-ranging cultural traditions show
261

FIGURE i
The formation process for
cooking pot (manka)
in Machaca
underlying technical grammars that the potters have reproduced for

generations. In some cases these techniques are not unique to pottery
manufacture. For instance, the firing technique used in the Amazon
262

FIGURE 2
F I G U R E 3
Forming the base of a cooking pot (manka)
The South-Central Andes
in Machaca
showing locations mentioned in the
text
263

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264

basin is very similar to cooking methods used in the area. Indeed it is

perhaps inherent in human thought processes that we derive the solution to current problems by drawing upon areas of our prior experience
and knowledge that we consider analogous. This bricolage approach to
life is, perhaps, one of the defining features of human cognition. Particularly when craft production is embedded in the daily or seasonal
round of household activities each individual performs many different
tasks, and there is a substantial sharing of cultural know-how, techniques
and tools across different activities. By considering the application of
similar techniques in several different contexts we can come to a better
understanding of the cultural meaning of technology.
PROCESSING THE CLAY
AND
TEMPER
Throughout the Andes it is common to prepare clay by drying it out,

grinding it down, mixing it with other clays, tempers and water, and then
kneading the mixture in some way before forming pots with it. However,
not every community follows all of these steps in the same way. Table 1
shows some elements of the variation in paste preparation in 11 potterymaking areas. Men and women are equally capable of any of these tasks,
but there is an evident sexual division of labour, some aspects of which
appear to be more pan-Andean than others.
In many cases it is necessary to break down the clay and temper by
pounding or grinding in some way so that any large granules can be
removed or crushed. The most common method is to use an Andean
rocker mill - which works by rolling a curved stone (like a thick crescent moon in shape) over a flat, or slightly concave, base, thus crushing
the material underneath (Figure 4). The rocker mill is a widespread part
of Andean technology that has different names in different areas (e.g.
tunawa and maran in Cuzco, kutana and kutana una in North Potosi). It
is a very efficient way of grinding materials and is used to grind malted
grain used for brewing beer, as well as vegetables for cooking. Perhaps
it is because of the association of this object with cooking that when it
comes to grinding clays and tempering materials and lead for the glaze,
women often perform this task, even in communities where men normally form the pottery (Figure 5).
Another technique for sorting clays and tempers is to pound the
material with a pole and then sieve it. This technique appears to derive
from a method of processing grains and beans prior to winnowing. If
this is the case it may be of Indo-European origin, perhaps brought to
the Andes from Europe along with the crops. Spanish and/or Andean perceptions appear to have seen this aspect of crop processing as inappropriate for women, and wherever I have seen pounding used for crop or
clay processing it has been done by men.
265

F I G U R E
Grinding the clay using a tunawa
and
maran
in
Araypallpa
Huayculi, Cochabamba, Bolivia, and Charamoray, Cuzco,

men have to some extent specialized in processing raw
materials for other potters. In Huayculi a partially blind man would
pound and sieve the clay for others in return for a prepared meal and
some more food to take home with him. Exactly the same arrangement
existed for a completely blind man in Charamoray, who was taken
In both
Peru, blind
to the house of the
potter to
grind the temper Figure 6). In
Charamoray grinding the clay
using the rocker mill is commonly a womans activity, but it
would be a serious misrepresentation to suggest that this man
re-classified as a woman.
Evidently he and the community had managed to find
him a productive role.
was
Grinding lead for use in glaze at Charamoray; note that this uses a
ground in a circular motion. In front of the woman is the half-moon
shaped tunawa used in a rocking motion on the same maran base
FIGURE 5
flat stone
266

F I G U R E 6
Blind
man
TECHNIQUES AS
grinding clay in Charamoray, Department of Cuzco,
Peru
CULTURAL METAPHORS
used to prepare clay are common to other areas

technology, particularly the preparation of food. There is an
acknowledged crossover of technical know-how and terminology. In
many cases the same tools are used. What I think is more significant
about this sharing of techniques is that at a fundamental level it reflects
a particularly Andean perception of how to process materials, which
requires some things to be ground down before they can be productive.
This has been explored as an idea of cultural meaning in Platts (1987:
89-93) analysis of Bertonios ([1612] 1984) Aymara dictionary.
lVutuchana and llampuchafia can both be translated as to grind well,
which can be used to describe the preparation of flour, but can also be
used to describe the defeat of an enemy, who is literally ground down
with blows like flour in a mill. This concept is seen most clearly in the
term urcofia; which Bertonio ([1612J 1984) defines both as the half moonshaped stone used with an Andean rocker mill, and as a description for
a brave army captain. In this context it is instructive to note that preHispanic warfare did not utilize blades. The technology of warfare was
instead dependent on crushing blows and projectiles (Lechtman, 1984).
However, in the Andes crushing is not just a metaphor of destruction,
but is also a metaphor of enculturation and re-creation; after grinding
down, both the flour and the defeated people become productive
Many of the techniques

of Andean
267

to be utilized by the dominant culture. Indeed, given the sugthat

one of technologys primary roles is to facilitate communigestion
cation it is not surprising that techniques themselves should be
inherently rich in meaning. The central importance of grinding to
Andean perception is perhaps indicated by the carving of a raised border
forming a cross form6e on grinding slabs recovered at Early Horizon (c.
500 Bc) Chiripa sites in the lake Titicaca basin, which Chivez (1989: 21,
Figure 6) attributes to the Yaya-Mama religious traditon. The Inkas also
positioned some of their ceremonial structures around natural rocks
with hollows utilized for pounding and grinding, e.g. the Mortar Group
identified by Bingham at Machu Picchu and in the centre of the shrine
of Pulpituyoc in the Cusichaca valley (Kendall, 1983: 55).
resources
TECHNIQUES
IN
COMMON
specifically to Pumpuri, in the Department of Potosi,

is
Pumpuri a community of peasant agriculturists who are also
seasonally itinerant potters that take clay prepared in their home community down to warmer valley communities, where they make and fire
their pottery in order to be able to exchange their vessels for maize and
other agricultural produce that they do not grow themselves. I wish to
compare their clay preparation to the preparation of freeze-dried potatoes (c~M~M), which they also make.
In Pumpuri the male potters excavate five or six different clays that
must be broken up by hand and left to dry for a few hours. It is then
ground, both under foot (sarukana) and using a stone (hutana). The clay
is then left exposed on communally owned flat stone platforms to dry
out for two to three days. Each dry clay is taken down to the potters
household where the different dried and ground clays are mixed
thoroughly before loading (still dry) into sacks that will be taken to the
valley. In the valley the dry, pulverized clay is ground more finely by
rubbing between two stones, qhuna and qhuna una. This is a distinct technique from the more common use of the Andean rocker mill; here the
clay is ground between a flat base and a hand-held rubbing stone, which
is moved up and down the sloping base stone. The dried ground clay is
then heaped on a sack or animal skin and is mixed with water. The next
morning it is kneaded (tinkuchir) by hand prior to forming the vessels.
This technique of clay preparation can be compared with the technique and terminology used to describe the preparation of chunu, the
freeze-dried potatoes that form a major part of highland diet. The potato
crop is sorted, and the smaller varieties are used for making c/zMMM. These
potatoes are scattered one layer deep across the flat pampa and exposed
to the sun and night frosts for about three days until the potatoes have
become shrunken and shrivelled. They are then separated into small piles
We
now
turn
more
Bolivia.
268

can be trampled to squeeze out more of the juice. Chufiu can be

stored for up to two years prior to eating; it is a highly valued resource
that fetches high prices, and is sometimes taken down to the valleys
where it is exchanged for maize and other products. When preparing for
cooking, the chuilu is soaked for 12 to 24 hours, then split open by hand,
after which it only needs to be boiled for a few minutes prior to eating.
There are some conceptual similarities between potatoes and miner-.
als dug out of the earth. For instance, minerals are said to be like potatoes, which grow when fed the proper offerings lBouysse-Cassagne and
Harris, 1987: 41-2), and Cobo ([1653] 1988: 232) mentions that nuggets of
silver were referred to as papas (potatoes). What I wish to highlight here
are a few of the major elements that the processing of these, and other
materials, have in common: collecting from inside the ground, drying out,
grinding, soaking (see Table 2). In many ways this is not a very remarkable way to prepare a pottery paste - similar methods are used throughout the world (Rice, 1987: 115-24), although the use of this method to
process vegetables and meat is, perhaps, uniquely Andean. Within the
Andean context this technology has a culturally specific significance.
In many contexts dry things are considered dead. During the dry
season the earth is described as dry and white and in need of the wet rains
to revitalize it (Harris, 1982b) and the process of making chufiu is symbolically compared to the process of mummification of the ancestors
lallen, 1982; Arnold, 1988). In Qaqachaka dry dust is associated with the
dead, and long-dead ancestors are called laq&dquo;a achila and laga awilita,
meaning grandmother dust and grandfather dust (Arnold, 1988: 372).
However, these dried things are also considered a potential source of ferti-lity. Potato cultivation is used as a metaphorical idiom within which indigenous descent theory is described. Potatoes must be peeled because their
outer skin is considered the dried blood of ancestors and to eat it would
be a cannibalistic act (Arnold, 1988: 454). Yet from the eyes of the potatoes that are sown new potatoes grow that are referred to as wawas (babies)
(cf. Isbell, 1993) and chunu gives health and vitality as it is considered to
be more nutritious than fresh potatoes (Henry Stobart, pers. comm.).
Goses (1994) analysis shows how the drying out of the dead provides the
essential waters for cultivation. In Cuzco a young woman who has sex
with an older man partially reverses this process of dessication machu
chulluchi.
The processing of clays involves removal of material from the earth
(the domain of the mountain deities, the devil and the dead ancestors).
and
is overwhelmingly done by men, partly because the mines

that the clays come from are controlled by strong masculine deities. The
mountain gods (Apus) own the flocks of grazing animals and the minerals inside the hillsides (Nash, 1979; Sallnow, 1989). In many communities clay extraction can only be justified through the making of an
Clay mining
269

270

appropriate offering to these deities. In Pumpuri an offering is made to

clay mines on the first of August, in Raqchi the clay mines, temper
sources, patio work area and pottery markets are specifically mentioned
during the offering made on the night of San Luis (24/25 August).
HernAndez Principes account of 1622 described the offerings made by
the community of Recuay (Olleros), which consisted of two groups of
potters who made two capac huchas (human sacrifices) of children each
year by sealing them alive within deep-shaft tombs in order to ensure
good clay for their pottery (Zuidema, 1989: 130-5, 149-50).
In both Pumpuri and Raqchi the mined clay must always be fresh
and care is taken not to collect the dried clay on the surface, which is
lighter in colour than the deeper (damp) clay and is considered inappropriate. But once the clay has been mined it must be dried out thoroughly,
prior to being ground down. Only then can the dry clay be made productive, by mixing it with water. This is perhaps seen most explicitly in
the use of the word tinkuchir to describe the final kneading of the clay.
Tinku means the coming together and mixing of two things but is normally used in coritexts where that mixing is a productive, but often
violent, combining of them (e.g. where two canals come together, the
marking and mating of animals, or the battle between two communities
that is thought to bring fertility to the crops).
the
GENDER AND
TECHNIQUES FOR SHAPING SOCIETY
Ideas About what is
helps
to
shape
appropriate
work for different
genders
and ages
social organization and the material organization of these
activities (e.g. temporal and spatial separation of tasks). Differences in

male and female roles in pottery production are a part of the wider differentiation of such work roles. The choice of who performs particular
activities and learns the necessary skills is largely made through local
perceptions of appropriate action using the participants age and gender
as principles around which productive work is divided. Gendered activities are a perceived division of labour and not simply a lack of knowledge. But, because gender associations affects the learning of skills and
thus the mastery of certain motor habits (Mauss, 1979), certain actions
may be physically as well as socially awkward. (I am slowly learning
how to do the ironing, but I find it almost impossible to carry a large pot
of liquid on my back and usually hoist it up on to my shoulder, much to
the surprise and amusement of friends in the Andes.)
We should not be trapped into too rigid a conception of how gender
structures material practice. Although the same principle of gender
complementarity (ghariwarmi~ is expressed by households in most communities, the particulars of how a gendered division of labour is enacted
varies. Even where society is idealized as a highly gendered construct
271

there remains a degree of flexibility in the organization of material

practice. As the example of the blind men highlights, the household and
the community will search for productive roles appropriate to each
persons abilities. This is as important to an individuals identity as is
gender. It is precisely because gender is considered such a fundamental
aspect of society, and is expressed through so many areas (productive
activities, ritual roles, clothing, kinship and inheritance), that some cultural norms can be transgressed without threatening the perception of the
individuals gender. In the longer term the social construction of such
gender roles also helps to shape the direction of social and technical
change.
The gendering of activities is partly related to peoples cosmology.
Because the mountain deities are conceived of as masculine and particularly dangerous for women, men are the appropriate miners of clay,
whereas the fertile earth, Pachamama, is female and thus it is commonly
women who plant seeds. But it would be wrong to see such ideological
understanding as the primary source of meaning. It is also in the very
practice of activities that such cosmologies are conceived and reproduced;
it is just as true to say that because men mine and go over the mountains
on trading trips that the mountains are commonly considered to be male.
TECHNOLOGY
AS
PHILOSOPHY
Techniques develop alongside cultural principles. The conceptual understanding of the productive quality of drying things out and grinding them
down cross-cuts several different technologies, and is drawn upon as a
means of describing social relations (such as the nature of death or conquest).
Heather Lechtman (1979, 1984) has made a similar argument in connection with the development of pre-Hispanic Andean metallurgy where
a process of surface depletion of metal alloys was used to produce gold
or silver surfaces. Lechtman suggests that the reason for using tumbaga
(a metal alloy consisting mainly of copper with a small proportion of gold
and silver in it) was because for the object to have meaning within
Andean understanding its outer appearance must reflect some of its
inner essence: that which appears superficially to be true of it, must
also be inside it (Lechtman, 1984: 30) - therefore gold plating would be
inappropriate. Lechtman justifies this interpretation with reference to
Andean weaving technology, which appears to incorporate the same
ideal, that the superficial message of the cloth must be inherent in the
very structure of its construction - to remove the design requires the
cloth to be unravelled and destroyed, unlike techniques that involve
embroidery or painting on the cloth. She also draws attention to the
Quechua term hamay, which can be used to describe the act of infusing
272

life spirit into inanimate objects. This is the term most commonly used
to describe how the Inka creator god Viraqocha animated objects by
breathing spirit into them. Perhaps the notions of &dquo;technological
essence&dquo; - of the visually apprehended aspect of an object revealing its
inner structure - are related to these fundamental Andean concepts of
the divine animation of all material things (Lechtman 1984: 33).
It is possible that in the past the choice of micaceous clays and the
burnishing of pots was understood in similar terms to those suggested
by Lechtman for metal technology. Sara Lunt (1988: 493) has commented
that the mica that twinkles on the surface of Inka pottery results from
the polishing of the pots surface and the consequent flattening bf the
mica grains so that they present their shiny surfaces to the eye. While
Dean Arnold (1993: 208) has criticized pottery analysts for referring to
mica as a tempering material when it was probably an inclusion in the
clay collected by the potters, he also comments (1993: 113) that potters
do preferentially choose clays with the gold-like particles of mica.
Several authors (e.g. Arnold, 1988; Crickmay, 1993) describe how the
terminology and cosmology associated with weaving cross-cuts with that
of agriculture, building construction and kinship. This cross-cutting
framework of technical understanding and cosmology will affect the
direction of technical change, as it is drawn upon when people are confronted by technical and social problems. Indeed, the development of
the quipu (the knotted coloured strings used as the major Inka device for
record keeping) was presumably possible because weavings had such
rich meaning within Andean society due to their use as a major vehicle
for communicating status, kinship ties, cosmologies and reciprocal
relations. In this context it was perhaps natural to look to thread and
cloth rather than painting or inscription when developing a system of
notation. Similarly Andean woodwork did not develop in the same directions as Western carpentry. Western perceptions might explain this
deficiency as due to Andean peoples lacking the use of the saw as a
tool. However, it would be more accurate to explain that woodworking
was conceived of within local traditions of weaving rather than Western
approaches to using joints, glue or nails. Andean wooden structures were
constructed by drawing upon the repertoire of Andean weaving and basketry techniques to tie and bind wood together by twining cord around
it, a cultural perception that had an enormously wide-ranging influence
on tree husbandry, tool construction, building techniques and aesthetics.
Van der Leeuw et al. (1991) have suggested that in Mexico the
Michoacan potters conceptualization of how to make a pot using a
mould is constrained by their perception that the surface that eventually forms the exterior of the vessel should always be formed against
the inner surface of the mould. The importance of this insight is that it
helps to explain the potters unquestioned assumptions, which, the
273

authors argue, are actually what shape the continuity and direction of
change within this technical tradition. I would describe such technical
understanding not so much unquestioned as a kind of philosophy that
informs many aspects of the tradition. The understanding that turning
in a clockwise direction or moving from left to right is a constructive
and progressive ideal is, perhaps, a similar philosophy that underpins
many western technical choices. This informs not just the making of
clocks, but also long-playing records, the form of screws, the stirring of
tea and competitive track running - not least because our motor habits
are already shaped by this ideology. When designing a music system
with the volume increasing from left to right, or by turning the knob in
a clockwise direction, we do not consider this as an ideological construct, yet it has been informed by centuries of such deep meaning reinforced by daily practices such as reading. Perhaps this is best illustrated
in our conventional depiction of evolution as a line of people evolving
as they progress from left to right. In the example of desiccation and
grinding, the nature of death is partly understood through metaphors
drawn from material practice, and this way of understanding death, and
the dead, in turn influences what is considered appropriate technology.
Thus a web of interrelationships is set up between ideology, social
relations and material practice. It is precisely this embeddedness of
technological understanding that facilitates the reproduction of cultural
knowledge.
CULTURAL PERCEPTION AND THE DIRECTION OF
TECHNICAL CHANGE
use of settling tanks to sort and process clay has not been adopted
in many Andean communities, but this is not to say that such techniques
cannot be adopted. People are not shackled by their ideology. One Huayculi potter, who has tried using slip-casting techniques for pottery
making, did prepare his clay by making it into a slurry and then allowing it to settle before separating off the finer fraction of clay. Although
he considered the method effective, it was time-consuming and required
a lot of extra equipment so that, for the moment, he has returned to
The
his clay and making pottery on a wheel. However, settling

tanks are used to process clay in some households making slip-cast
pottery in Pucara, and it is also used in the government-sponsored
artisan centre in Quinoa (Arnold, 1993: 108-12). It would have been
possible to change clay processing techniques to the use of settling tanks
by drawing on techniques and material culture used when making beer
in the Andes (Sillar, 1994), and it is, I think, significant that in Huayculi
and Quinoa the large jars used to prepare beer have been reused for this
form of clay processing.
pounding
274

In all these instances where settling tanks have been tried out this
has been related to the introduction of new forming techniques due to
the active encouragement of external agencies. Like the introduction of
kilns in Charamoray and previously the introduction of wheel-made
pottery to South America, these techniques have been championed (evangelized ?) by people who are familiar with them and believe in the superiority of their technology. It is the way that technology is represented
within a culture that is fundamental to how it is conceived of and whether
or not it will be adopted (Latour, 1993; Lemonnier, 1993). I have only niggling doubts about the benefits of bringing electricity, tap water and
toilets to Andean communities. After all, these are some of the aspects of
my culture that I have been taught to value highly, as is expressed in innumerable metaphors concerning light and sanitation. Indeed the search for
and development of porcelain and white-wear pottery in Europe during
the 18th century may be better understood within the context of developing concepts of purity and cleanliness in European society. At a somewhat smaller scale we can think of the disputes that many businesses and
academic institutions have got involved in as different factions support
the computer systems and software packages that they are used to and
believe to be superior. Similarly the Inka state mobilized people to construct terraces and irrigation systems. The fine Inka stonework associated
with these agricultural improvements served as a visible marker of the
states presence; so much so that many fine masonry blocks appear to
have been hacked apart at Tomebamba, the newly established Inka
capital that was destroyed during the civil war immediately before the
Spanish conquest (Hyslop, 1993: 346). We might also think of the Luddites breaking up mechanical looms and sewing machines because they
saw them taking away their livelihood and their social position. The way
that a technology is represented within a culture is fundamental to how
it is conceived of, which innovations are considered possible or unacceptable by certain parts of the society, and whether or not it is considered
desirable to evangelize a particular technology amongst other populations. For the same reason some innovations that may now seem
obvious because of their functional or utilitarian advantages were not
always adopted rapidly in the past. For instance, during the Late Bronze
Age in Scandinavia iron was used as inlay and for razors or tweezers, but
it only made a very minimal impact and was not included in the large
ritual deposits of bronze. This apparent ignorance of the functional advantages of iron over bronze was because iron was not considered appropriate (desirable) when the main use of metal was as a decorative element
to express gender and status (Sorenson, 1989).
Both ovens and kilns appear to have been Spanish introductions to
the Andes. Prior to the Spanish Conquest cooking in the Andes was
largely done in pots or by using hot stones (wafiya), and pottery was
275

fired in open bonfires. But in the West heating up a covered chamber,

such as an oven, was a technique used for cooking, pottery firing and,
to some extent, the heating of buildings. Indeed there is an acknowledged crossover between these technologies in that the first-firing of
pottery is termed a biscuit firing. The cultural significance of this technology can partly be seen when we describe someone eccentric as halfbaked, or someone who is pregnant as having a bun in the oven. This
contrasts with the metaphors that are used in the Andes, where a
cooking pot or a toasting pan can be equated with the womb. A pregnant woman can be told not to heat her toasting pot too much or the
placenta will stick to the wall of her womb (Gifford and Hoggarth, 1976:
60), pregnant mothers are told not to place their spoon across the mouth
of the cooking pot or the babys arms will be outstretched and the birth
will be difficult (Vokral, 1991: 247) and, if there is a miscarriage, the
baby is said to have been overcooked in the womb (Lynn Sikkink, pers.
comm.). To some extent the significance of ovens relates to the importance of bread in Western European diets, not least because of breads
important symbolism in Christianity. So it is not surprising that much
of the land initially acquired by the Spanish was used to grow wheat,
and bread ovens were rapidly introduced after the conquest. Also in
areas where the Spanish set up pottery manufacture (partly to make
large jars for wine storage) they constructed kilns for the purpose.
Spanish ideology conceptualized their technologies as superior, not least
because each technology was embedded in a network of cultural meanings that bound a wide range of techniques and consumption patterns
together.
in artefact
because
are
frequently
precisely
they
already
production
imbued with cultural significance. For instance for the Inkas gold had
very deep cosmological significance, being linked to the sun god Inti, and
clay is conceived of as coming from the ancestors or mountain deities.
In India the Hindu potters, unlike Muslims, refuse to use donkey dung
to temper their clay as they consider it to be impure (Saraswati and
Behura, 1966). Why did British Neolithic and Bronze Age potters utilize
flint as a temper? This material needs to be heated in a fire to break it
up and then pounded or crushed in some way; to a present-day potters
mind it makes the pottery fabric awkward to use. Surely there was something in the way that flint was understood or represented that made it
seem appropriate to use in this way. Changes in pottery forms and fabrics
over time may be better explained if we consider how the techniques
utilized in their production and use were represented in the past, rather
than assuming that pottery has been constantly improving its functionality as it headed up the evolutionary conveyor-belt to Spode or Wedgwood.
The choice of
are
raw
materials, tools and techniques used

made
276

STOREHOUSES FOR THE DEAD
Technological developments are best understood within the social setting

from which they emerged. In the final part of this paper I suggest that
the storage systems used by the Inka developed out of a burial technique
that had emerged in the preceding period. This suggestion is made more
likely precisely because it accounts for a number of shared meanings
between the stored crops and the dead ancestors. Indeed, I think that
this novel form of storage was made possible because the cultural
meaning of the technique was appropriate within its new application.
Inka Storage structures (qollqas) occur throughout the area conquered and controlled by the Inka. Ordinarily these storehouses or
warehouses were built outside of town on a high, cool and windy place
near the royal road. The Indians put these storehouses in high places so
that what was stored in them would be kept from getting wet and humid
and from spoiling in any way (Cobo, [1653] 1988: 218-19; cf. LeVine,
1992). The dry highland air currents that moved through the storage
structures on these hillside locations kept the goods cool and dry (particularly important for potatoes, which are notoriously difficult to store)
but the thick walls and roofs of the qollqas prevented driving rains from
entering and spoiling the goods (Morris, 1992; Protzen, 1993). The main
role of the stores was to equip and feed large groups working on state
projects of agricultural production, construction and military expansion.
From documentary evidence it seems that the qollqas would have been
used for the storage of staple foods (maize, potatoes, chunu, quinoa,
charki, etc.) as well as the storage of non-foodstuffs (agricultural tools,
weavings, armaments, minerals, metals, wool, cloth, pottery, feathers,
etc.). At Huanoco Pampa (Morris and Thompson, 1985) and in the Xauxa
region (DAltroy and Hastorf, 1984) the archaeological evidence mainly
points to the storage of food produce, and Morris (1992: xi) has suggested
that this may be true of most centres with the possible exception of the
Inka capital of Cuzco itself.
It was commonly assumed that such state storage was also a feature
of the previous Wari and Tiwanaku empires, but recent excavations at
some of the main contenders for large-scale state storage during this
period, such as at Pikillaqta (McEwan, 1991) and Azingaro (Anders,
1991) have shown that the battery of cell-like blocks in walled compounds at these sites were used for domestic activities. At the major sites
of Tiwanaku and Wari themselves the excavators have not interpreted
any buildings as having a purely storage function, although rather
modest storage pits have been found (Kolata, 1993).
This poses a problem. Conventional wisdom suggests that Wari (if not
Tiwanaku) was some kind of Andean state, and that such states must be
able to store large volumes of material to support the state bureaucracy
277

and facilitate the redistribution of goods extracted from a diverse range

of ecological zones. There seem to be three possible conclusions: (a) Wari
was not a state; (b) We havent found the storage systems they used yet;
or (c) Its a state, Jim, but not as we know it! It may be that in presuming the large-scale manipulation of stores as a necessary prerequisite of
early states (largely drawing upon Polanyis (1957) redistribution model)
we are effectively putting the cart before the horse. Manipulation of largescale storage may be a later embellishment of state-level organization
rather than a precursor of it. This may also be true of early Aegean civilization. Strasser (1995) has recently argued that the storage potential at
Early and Middle Bronze Age sites, particularly the Minoan Palaces on
Crete, has been vastly over-emphasized. Strasser suggest that the so-called
grain silos could not have functioned as such precisely because they
were too big and too damp to be effective. Even the battery of large pots
lined up in the so-called store rooms that visitors see at Knossos today
were in fact collected together by Arthur Evans from a variety of locations
and periods (Hitchcock, 1995).
It is possible that the Inka took their idea of storage from the coast,
where there is evidence of large-scale storage from earlier periods
(Anders, 1981), particularly the storage systems of the contemporary
Chimu (Day, 1982). According to the history of the Inkas recorded after
the Spanish invasion, Pachacutec Inka constructed the first large-scale
storage in Cuzco shortly after the Chanca war (Rostworoski, 1976); if this
were correct it would be well in advance of the Inka conquest of the
Chimu. The survey and dating of sites in the Cuzco region is, as yet, too
inadequate to be certain about which storage structures predate the Inka
expansion beyond Cuzco and the sacred valley (cf. Huaycochea Nunez
de la Torre, 1994). However, even if the idea of state storage was borrowed from the Chimu, this still leaves a problem as the technique of
storage seen in the form and exposed position of the Inka qollqas is very
different to that of the high-walled enclosures seen at the Chimu sites of
Chan Chan. The evidence for pre-Inka storage in the highlands is limited
to possible storage in the upper floor (marka) or subsidiary buildings of
household compounds and pits.
Pits may well have been used for the domestic storage of seeds
throughout much of Andean prehistory. Pits of various sizes are found
within households and patios of all periods, many of them being reused
as burial sites. Today in Ayllu Macha, Northern Potosi, pits are dug out
shortly after the harvest; these are lined with grass [ichhuJ, filled with
seed potatoes and covered with soil until they are reopened some five
or so months later at the time of sowing, before the heaviest rains. After
pits have been emptied they may be back-filled if they are in an
awkward position (for instance in Pumpuri one storage pit [q&dquo;ayru]
located in an animal corral was back-filled when the rains started,
278

a young lamb had drowned in it) or they may

are
next needed. In good years several pits may
until
be left open
they
in
of
but
be needed,
poor harvest, or when the household has
years
access to less labour or land, then one pit may be sufficient. If this
occurs for a few years old pits may become forgotten or reused for
rubbish disposal.
For the immediately pre-Inka era (referred to as the Late Intermediate Period, LIP) there is no evidence for large-scale storage anywhere in the highlands (Parsons and Hastings, 1988: 210). This period is
thought to be one of instability and inter-group warfare, an assumption
largely based on the relocation of settlements to more defensive hilltop
locations. This move to hilltop locations characterizes a large area of the
Andean Highlands and it is, I think, significant that a new burial tradition that emerges during this period also spreads throughout much of
the highlands.
Chullpas are circular or square burial towers normally built out of
stone, although within what is now modern Bolivia many altiplano chullpas are built with adobe (Figures 7, 8 and 9). Due to their continuing
importance to local groups and to the fact that the majority of them have
been looted, archaeologists have not studied them as fully as they would
like to; however, those that have been investigated seem to date to the
LIP or later (e.g. Hyslop, 1977; Revista Pumapunku, 1993). Throughout
most of the South-Central Andes these structures are built on hilltop or
hillside locations, and indeed many of them are within the LIP settlements themselves. This change in burial practice must represent a significant change in the understanding of the dead and attitudes to them.
While the move of settlements on to rocky ridge-top locations may have
made it more difficult to dig pits, this is not in itself sufficient explanation
for such a radical change. Indeed, at most LIP and later sites we continue to find pit burials within settlements. Either the chullpas represent
a burial technique afforded to only a small (elite?) section of the community or they are an intermediate location for most of the dead, who
will eventually be buried. It is possible that the chullpas are using the
house structure itself as their model since many chullpas are smaller
than, but similar in construction techniques to, contemporary houses the dead being given their own households within the living settlement.
Whatever the initial cause this is only part of a long process of changing
attitude to the dead with a wide diversification in burial methods (e.g.
in caves, rock shelters and cliffside tombs). Within the chullpas the dead
were positioned above ground so that their bodies were preserved and
became dried-out mummies. Chullpas may have played an important role
in the emergence of the elaborate necropomp which the Spanish
encountered on their arrival in the Andes, where the mummified bodies
of the elite dead were paraded, offered food and drink, and, through the
although
not until after
279

FIGURES 7
Puno,
(ABOVE)
AND 8
(BELOW) Chullpas at Sillustani, Department of
Peru
interpretation of the living, played an active role in the

organization of society (Cobo, tl6531 1990; Guaman Poma, [1584-1615J
1988; Sillar, 1992; Zuidema, 1989).
intercession and
280

A somewhat idealized reconstruction of the interior of an Aymara

from
a drawing by Paul Marcoy (1875: 68) showing the circle of
chullpa
mummies that were preserved inside
F I G U R E 9
Towards the end of the LIP and
during
the
following
Inka
period
most settlements moved away from the more defensible hilltop locations
back on to flatter valley lands, a process that appears to have got
underway earlier in the Cuzco region than most other parts of the SouthCentral Andes (Bauer, 1992; Kendall et al., 1992). Some of the Late
Horizon dead continued to be placed in hill-side chullpas (e.g. Hyslop,
1977), frequently accompanied by Inka-style pottery and other grave

goods. This is the period when the Inka qollqa storage structures are
developed. Like the chullpas these are square and round stone-built strucare positioned on hillside locations. It seems to me that the
qollqas are drawing upon the form and function of the chullpas, using the
tures that
idea of hillside location and limited air flow to preserve their conquite possible that the Inka state qollqas are the elaboration of a domestic storage technique that developed during the LIP.
When investigating LIP sites at Juli, on Lake Titicaca, investigators found
it difficult to distinguish between houses, chullpas and possible qollqas
(Stanish et al., 1993: 87). Similarly, in the Mantaro valley it has been suggested that within the house compounds of LIP hilltop settlements some
same
tents. Indeed it is
281

of the structures may have been used for storage (Earle et al., 1988). If
the Inka qollqas are an elaboration of a previously existing domestic form
of storage it is, as yet, only when they are built in a regimented form
and are located outside contemporary settlements that we can be certain
of identifying them.
The qollqas and the chullpas share a common technical function to
store and preserve their contents. They also shared some cosmological
significance. The conceptual link between the dead and storage of seeds
may originate earlier, as witnessed by the use of pits as burial places,
and it continues in present-day cosmologies of the Andes. For instance,
Sallnow (1987: 128) records the digging up of fathers or grandfathers
skulls, which are kept in domestic storerooms to be decorated with
flowers and have chicha poured through their jaws during Todos Santos.
Today the connection of the dead to fertility is partly located in the
timing of this festival for the dead. Todos Santos is celebrated at the beginning of November, after the start of the planting and just as the rains are
beginning. Rain falling the few days before Todos Santos is said to be the
tears of the dead children (Andrew Orta, pers. comm.). Harris (1982)
notes that the dead who return to the community during Todos Santos
do not leave until the February Carnival, which marks the end of the
rainy season and the celebration of the harvest; thus the dead are present
as the crops grow, but absent during the period when the seed is stored.
As the mummified dead of the Inka were moved around the landscape
it is possible that they were only placed in the chullpas at particular
seasons of the year, much as crosses are taken from the churches to
shrines within the field systems today. These mummies are called mallki
in Quechua, the same word being used for a tree sapling, again reiterating the conceptual link between the dead and regenerative growth of
seed crops. Today chullpas are referred to as the houses of the Machu,
the somewhat ambivalent pre-Christian dead. The malevolent wind from
these burial places (Machu wayra) can cause sickness, and if a woman
dreams of the Machu she will bear his deformed child. Nevertheless, at
night the Machu cultivate the fields and help the potatoes to grow, and
although the Machu wayra causes sickness and death for people, it is
thought to be wanu (fertilizer) for the fields (Allen, 1988: 56).
If my understanding is correct the technological innovation of qollqa
storage was inspired by the experience of the chullpas, but this is not just
the transfer of a technique between two entirely separate spheres of
activity. The pre-existing link between the dead and storage would have
made the transfer of the technique conceptually possible and, in making
the link, the qollqas would have acquired some of the meanings of
regeneration and reciprocity with the ancestors that the chullpas
expressed. Both the qollqas and the chullpas represent a bond between
the people and the land, a continuing commitment to plough, to sow, to
282

fertilize and to offer some of the harvest in sacrifice. In using the language of the chullpas, which were such a widespread phenomena
through the Andes during the LIP, the Inkas may also have made their
extraction of produce from the local population more acceptable. The
qollqas are a visible statement of Inka commitment, a reciprocal bond
between the local community and the Inka state. The location of the
qollqas outside the confines of ~ the main settlement may reflect the
ambiguous ownership of the stores by both the Inka and the local population. This is a surprising conclusion to draw about installations put up
under state control, but it would help to explain why the storage system
in the Mantaro valley continued to function for some 20 or so years after
the execution of Atahullpa, with local leaders supplying the Spanish
army fighting the Inka (DAltroy and Earle, 1992a)...
CONCLUSIONS
cannot be understood if they are viewed purely in terms of
mechanical actions applied to material objects. Every technique is used
in a cultural setting that affects the way it is understood in that society.
Who performs the technique? What tools do they use? Where and when
is the technique applied? What is the intended purpose? All of these questions affect how the technique is socially constituted (Dobres, 1995) and
how the technique itself becomes bound up with associations that affect
how it is represented by society. For this reason technical traditions are
fully embedded within their cultural and historical contexts. Like those
described previously, many techniques cross over between several different spheres of activity and this affects how they become imbued with culturally specific meanings. Techniques of processing materials are even
used as metaphors through which people describe social relations. For
instance, I have described how warfare and death are partly understood
through metaphors drawn from material practices (cf. Tarlow, 1995).
Furthermore, this way of understanding death, and the dead, may itself
help to construct what is considered appropriate technology and who is
considered fit to perform various activities. These culturally specific
meanings affect the direction of both technical and social change.
By studying techniques as cultural choices that are embedded in
local perceptions we release technical studies from the ahistoric application of Western functionalist assumptions. This does not mean denying
that there are universal aspects to the physical, chemical and mechanical properties of a given material. Nonetheless, the way that these properties are understood and the applications that it is considered
appropriate, or acceptable, to put them to are not universal. Within
recent Western science this is perhaps clearest in the history and
development of reproductive technologies, but the work of Lemonnier
Techniques
283

(1993), amongst others, serves to illustrate to what

technical
choices have been shaped by cultural percepextent our own
tions and local representations of techniques. The uses of raw materials,
tools and techniques are always socially informed choices that draw
upon long historical traditions. When confronted by new problems it is
to this cultural knowledge that people turn to in a creative process where
concepts, materials, tools and techniques are constantly reworked in the
bricolage that is the life force of cultures. By critically considering this,
material culture studies can deepen our comprehension of that fascinating interdependence between the material world and cultural under(1992) and
Latour
standing.
Acknowledgements
This paper draws upon ethnographic fieldwork carried out in the Department of
Cuzco, Peru, and the Departments of Cochabamba and Potosi, Bolivia. That work
has been reported more fully in my doctoral thesis (Sillar, 1994), which was supervised by Sander van der Leeuw at the Department of Archaeology, University of
Cambridge. This research would not have been possible without financial support
from the following: Fitzwilliam Trust Research Fund, Cambridge University
(1990, 1991); The Anthony Wilkin Fund, Cambridge University (1991); CrowtherBeynon Fund, Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Cambridge University
(1990, 1991). I have received permission to carry out my research, essential letters
of introduction and support from the Instituto Nacional de Culturas offices in
Lima and Cuzco and the Museo Nacional de Etnografia y Folklore in La Paz. By
far my largest debt is owed to the communities in Peru and Bolivia who permitted me to live amongst them, who fed me, and gently educated me by allowing
me to participate in their activities and answering thousands of questions that
constantly betrayed my ignorance. This paper combines the contents of two
papers first presented at the Theoretical Archaeology Group Conference, Making
Culture Material: Ceramic Technology as Cultural Ideology, in 1994 and If
Youve Got It Flaunt It! Discrete Pits and Prestigious Storehouses in the Andes,
in 1995. Finally I would like to acknowledge the enormous contribution that discussions with Nathan Schlanger and Sarah Tarlow, as well as comments on this
paper from Mike Shanks and an anonymous reviewer, have had on this work.
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Tschopick, H., Jr. (1950)
BILL SILLAR is a research fellow at the University of Wales, Lampeter. He

has worked on archaeological projects in both Europe and South America. His
PhD (1994), from the Department of Archaeology, Cambridge University, examined the role of present-day pottery production, trade and use in Peru and Bolivia
with particular reference to: household organization and identity; the interrelationship between traditional exchange practices and capitalist economics; and
material cultures role in social reproduction. He is currently researching the
origin and development of Inca pottery in Cuzco. Address: Department of
Archaeology, University of Wales, Lampeter, Dyfed SA48 7ED, UK. [email:
snØ29@lamp.ac.uk]
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See

The Dead and the Drying: Techniques for

Available from: Bill Sillar

Journal of Material Culture

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THE DEAD AND THE DRYING

Department of Archaeology, University of Wales

When we peel a potato, shave with a cut-throat razor, sharpen a pencil

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Latour, 1993; Lemonnier, 1986, 1992, 1993; Pfaffenberger, 1988). In this

Pottery production is surprisingly consistent throught the South-Central

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The formation process for

cooking pot (manka)

underlying technical grammars that the potters have reproduced for

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Forming the base of a cooking pot (manka)

The South-Central Andes

showing locations mentioned in the

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Ic, n.w., ~ ns,

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basin is very similar to cooking methods used in the area. Indeed it is

Throughout the Andes it is common to prepare clay by drying it out,

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Grinding the clay using a tunawa

Huayculi, Cochabamba, Bolivia, and Charamoray, Cuzco,

to the house of the

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grinding clay in Charamoray, Department of Cuzco,

used to prepare clay are common to other areas

Many of the techniques

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to be utilized by the dominant culture. Indeed, given the sugthat

specifically to Pumpuri, in the Department of Potosi,

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can be trampled to squeeze out more of the juice. Chufiu can be

is overwhelmingly done by men, partly because the mines

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appropriate offering to these deities. In Pumpuri an offering is made to

TECHNIQUES FOR SHAPING SOCIETY

Ideas About what is

work for different

social organization and the material organization of these

activities (e.g. temporal and spatial separation of tasks). Differences in

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there remains a degree of flexibility in the organization of material

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his clay and making pottery on a wheel. However, settling

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fired in open bonfires. But in the West heating up a covered chamber,

materials, tools and techniques used

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STOREHOUSES FOR THE DEAD

Technological developments are best understood within the social setting

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and facilitate the redistribution of goods extracted from a diverse range

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a young lamb had drowned in it) or they may

not until after