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Segmentary State Formation and the Ritual Control of Water Under the Incas

Bibliographic Data

ID2107935
AuthorsPeter Gose (University of Lethbridge, corresponding author)
Year1993
Volume35
Issue3
Pages480-514
Publication date1993-07-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueComparative Studies in Society and History (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0010-4175 • E-ISSN: 1475-2999
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0010417500018557
OpenAlexW2121796756
LanguageEN
Citations received55
References cited38

There is a strange and unacknowledged paradox in the historiography of the Incas. On the one hand, few would deny that theirs was a typically theocratic archaic state, a divine kingship in which the Inca was thought to.be the son of the Sun. On the other hand, the standard descriptions of Inca political structure barely mention religion and seem to assume a formal separation between state and cult.1I believe that these secularizing accounts are misguided and will show in this essay that the political structure of the pre-Columbian Andes took form primarily around a system of sacred ancestral relics and origin points known generically ashuacas. Each huaca defined a level of political organization that might nest into units of a higher order or subdivide into smaller groupings. Collectively they formed a segmentary hierarchy that transcended the boundaries of local ethnic polities and provided the basis for empires like that of the Incas. However, these huacas were also the focus of local kinship relations and agrarian fertility rituals. The political structure that they articulated therefore had a built-in concern for the metaphysical reproduction of human, animal, and plant life. Political power in the pre-Columbian Andes was particularly bound up with attempts to control the flow of water across the frontier of life and death, resulting in no clear distinction between ritual and administration

Archaeology · Genealogy · Geography · Historiography · Monarchy · Political anthropology · Political science · Political structure · Politics · Power (physics · Sociology · State (computer science · State formation · Theocracy · Anthropology · Historical Studies in Latin America · History · Latin American history and culture · Law

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Unique citing works55
Citations per year1,83
Citation span1996 - 2026 (31)
Citation velocitycurrent
Highly citedNo
Citation typesNeutral: 55
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