Chronology, Succession, and Sovereignty: The Politics of Inka Historiography and Its Modern Interpretation

Abstract

Western scholars have long identified the existence of writing systems as a near-universal characteristic of high civilization, with Tawantinsuyu, the Inka empire, representing the only significant exception.¹ Although writing was absent in the pre-Hispanic Andes, there existed the means of recording administrative information and preserving narratives of the past. Inka imperial overseers and specialized record-keepers produced tribute levies, population counts, and assessments of provincial development potential, using a system of knotted cords (a khipu) as their principal device.² Such records fulfilled bureaucratic and administrative functions that were satisfied in other societies by writing; however, the maintenance of narratives of the Inka past contrasts with these practices in its hybrid use of oral tradition in consultation with similar record keeping devices.