stone-sized river cobbles—perhaps an allusion to Catequil, a weather god who
was believed to punish offenders by hurling bolts of lightning with his sling.
The Incas punished shrines whose predictions did not bode well, and shortly
before the Spanish invasion, Catequil’s prophecies did not favor the ruler
Atahualpa. Catequil foretold that Atahualpa would have an unfortunate end in
the war of succession with his brother Huascar, accusing Atahualpa of killing too
many people (see Wars, Dynastic). An enraged Atahualpa spent three months at
the sanctuary, directing its destruction. He climbed up to the sanctuary and cut
off the head of Catequil’s “idol” with a battle ax and then beheaded the old man
who served as Catequil’s oracular medium.
Further Reading
Topic, John R. “El santuario de Catequil: Estructura y agencia. Hacia una comprensión de los oráculos
andinos.” In Adivinación y Óraculos en el Mundo Andino Antiguo, edited by Marco Curatola Petrocchi
and Mariusz S. Ziólkowski, 71–96. Lima: Pontificia Universidad Católica del Peru, 2008.
Topic, John R., Theresa Lange Topic, and Alfredo Melly. “Catequil: The Archaeology, Ethnohistory and
Ethnography of a Major Provincial Huaca.” In Andean Archaeology I: Variations in Sociopolitical
Organization, edited by William H. Isbell and Helaine Silverman, 303–36. New York: Kluwer Academic
Press/Plenum, 2002.
■ADRIANA VON HAGEN
CENSUS
The census was the principal instrument of population accounting, surveillance,
and control carried out by the Inca state. Spanish sources inform us that the
census was the responsibility of the governor, tocricoc (seer/watcher), of each
province, who kept the figures up to date with the aid of quipu accountants.
Census figures were reviewed regularly at the provincial level and were reported
to the Inca ruler in Cuzco annually at the great festival of Raymi, which took
place at the time of the December solstice. Provincial census counts were
reviewed by inspectors, called tukuy-rikoq (the similarity to the title of governor
has caused much confusion), who were sent out from the central government on
inspection tours every three or five years (sources differ on the period).
The census formed the foundation on which tribute levels in the provinces
were assessed and assigned. As tribute was collected in the form of a labor draft,
the mit’a, which was reportedly, or ideally, organized in a decimal manner,
decimal accounting may have been employed in the census (see
Administration, Decimal; Labor Service). While we understand how decimal
accounting was applied in the organization of the labor draft, our sources do not
clarify exactly how the decimal principle may have been applied in census