Encyclopedia of the Incas

authority. The Coya stood at the apex of a political structure composed of
women, stretching from Cuzco into the hinterlands.
According to Inca tradition, a Queen-divinity introduced the cultivation of
maize, the empire’s most cherished crop, into the Cuzco valley. Veneration of
Mama Huaco—one of the founding, mythical Incas (see Myths, Origin)—was
in the hands of the Coyas who, mirroring women’s work in the ayllu, were noted
for their concern for the quality of crops. Much has been written about Inca
mastery of irrigation and terracing—male pursuits; much less about the role of
women in agronomy. Women’s agricultural tasks included the selection of seeds,
and full-time specialists, with the knowledge, training, and resources needed for
agricultural experiments, would, by Andean measures, be women from the Inca
elite. Very probably, Inca queens supervised special fields used as agricultural
laboratories for refining strains of cultigens. Most likely, Cuzco noblewomen, in
the course of imperial rituals tying Cuzco to the provinces, transmitted this
knowledge to others.
But gender parallelism existed with other gender configurations and the
consolidation of Inca rule heightened paradoxes inherent in gender parallelism
and between it and another gendered structure of power. The “conquest
hierarchy,” contrary to parallelism, expressly used gender symbols to represent
political subjugation. Here, “the conquerors,” portrayed as male, were of a
higher rank than “the conquered,” conceived of as female. Throughout the
Andes, ayllus linked maleness to the thunder/mountain gods who, in myth,
claimed superiority over local, “female” shrines (see Acllacuna; Deities,
Religion).
The association of men with warfare is tellingly expressed in the Andean
division of labor. If weaving and planting were considered exemplars of
women’s labor, plowing and combat were the iconic tasks of manhood. Of
course, men did much more than that: they weeded, helped in the harvest, carried
firewood, and herded llamas; men wove in their communities and
cumbicamayoc wove textiles that were esteemed throughout the empire.
Nonetheless, the division of labor was expressed figuratively in the association
of women with textile manufacture and men with implements of force: women
were buried with their spindle whorls, men with their weapons. Even though
there was very little that either gender would not do, pairings of women with
textiles and men with weaponry grounded figures of Andean collective
understandings and ideologies of personhood.