they weren’t attending ceremonies in the city’s main plaza or visiting their
country estates, attended by a woman who fanned away dust and flies (see
Mummies, Royal).
A ceremonial garden faced the hall of the Sun, linking the Sun and the reigning
Inca with maize, the empire’s most important ritual crop and source of chicha,
which was imbibed in great quantities at every ceremony. Three times a year—at
sowing, at harvest, and when noble Inca youths were initiated into adulthood—
the ruler cultivated this ritual garden, which had been planted with golden stalks
of maize.
Further Reading
Bauer, Brian S. Ancient Cusco: Heartland of the Inca. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2004.
Farrington, Ian S. Cusco: Urbanism and Archaeology in the Inka World. Gainesville: University Press of
Florida, 2013.
Hyslop, John. Inka Settlement Planning. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1990.
■ADRIANA VON HAGENCOSTUME
Like so many aspects of Inca culture, costume in Inca times did not differ
markedly from the attire of immediate pre-Inca peoples, nor from that of
contemporary societies conquered by the Incas. Rather, the Incas adopted
popular styles of clothing and headdress and added embellishments and
iconography as well as garments of a standardized size that distinguished the
costume as Inca. In fact, as noted by a well-informed Spanish chronicler,
Bernabé Cobo, the Incas required all peoples in the empire to wear their native
headdresses, which allowed their ethnic affiliation to be identified at a glance.
The bright colors and bold designs of Inca costume made it readily recognizable
and imbued wearers with prestige, especially if it was a gift from the ruler.
Aside from clothing unearthed in coastal Inca-period graves and the rare cloud
forest or highland cache, much of what we know about Inca costume is derived
from descriptions in chronicles, especially that of Bernabé Cobo, and from the
drawings in the illustrated chronicle of Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala.
In the highlands, women wore a dress called an acsu, composed of a
rectangular or square piece of fabric of cotton or camelid fiber wound around the
body under the arms; the edges of the fabric went over the shoulders and were
secured with tupu pins of gold, silver, or bronze. A wide cloth belt cinched the
dress at the waist. The design of the fabric was quite simple, usually composed
of color blocks woven in natural hues. Women also wore shawls, known as