A quipucamayoc, or quipu master, discusses
storehouse inventory with the Inca ruler Topa Inca
Yupanqui in this drawing by the Native chronicler
Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala. Guaman Poma
de Ayala, Felipe. El primer nueva corónica y buen
gobierno. Edited by John V. Murra and Rolena
Adorno, 309/335. Mexico City: Siglo Veintiuno,
1980 [1615].Subsequent work has modified this model of a storage-feasting-gifting
complex, moving it in several new directions while maintaining the political
economic focus on the broader mechanisms of Inca state power. Many scholars
have commented on the ideological aspects of storage buildings as materialized
expressions of state power, as well as the ways in which the spatial organization
of collcas may have been a means of inscribing particular forms of state
accounting into the landscape. Others have emphasized the key role that