Identity Crisis:

Archaeological
Perspectives on Social
Identity
Proceedings of the 42nd (2010) Annual
Chacmool Archaeology Conference,
University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta

Edited by Lindsay Amundsen-Meyer, Nicole

Engel and Sean Pickering
 Published by:
Chacmool Archaeological Association
University of Calgary
2011
 Identiy Crisis: Archaeological Perspectives on Social Identity

Hybrid Objects, Hybrid Social Identities: Style and

Social Structure in the Late Horizon Andes
Cathy Lynne Costin
California State University, Northridge

ABSTRACT. By combining Imperial Inka vessel forms and design elements associated with
local, conquered populations, artisans communicated essential information about identity in the
Inka Empire. Using Peircean concepts of iconic, indexical, and symbolic modes of signification,
I demonstrate how the Inka communicated effectively with their diverse subjects about the
structure of the state generally and how social identity and social relations were conceptualized
in the increasingly heterogeneous world the Inka created.

The vessel illustrated in Figure 1 was among many recovered during the first excavation I took
part in in Peru, at Huaca Chotuna on the North Coast in the early 1980s (Donnan, in press). It
was — to an inexperienced first year graduate student working on Moche — odd; an Inka form
with a Chimú design. At the time — nearly three decades ago — I didn’t pay much attention to
what I thought to be an anomalous Late Horizon vessel in an intrusive burial. I didn’t think about
that pot for many years, until I began working with museum collections, recording information
symmetry patterns in Inka designs, hoping that the
design structure of Inka style pots made in the
provinces might tell me something about labor
mobilization in the Inka empire.

Although relatively short lived, at its height (c. 1460–

Figure 1. Chimú-Inka hybrid aríbalo
from Huaca Chotuna. Photo courtesy
Christopher Donnan.
1533 C.E.) the Inka empire was the largest of the pre-
Columbian polities, covering about 775,000km2 of
Andean South America and incorporating an estimated
10–12 million culturally and linguistically diverse
people (Figure 2). Because the Inka lacked a writing
system, material culture played a key role in
communicating socio-politically important
information. The Imperial Inka style was viewed by
archaeologists as highly standardized and the received
wisdom was that the state carefully controlled the
production of most forms of material culture to control
communication about state hegemony and access to
power, wealth, and prestige. I was curious as to how

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the state recruited and trained large numbers

of artisans to produce the items — pottery
and textiles — that carried potent messages
about identity and associated privileges and
prerogatives. Based on the premise that
underlying symmetry is at least partially
independent from motif, I hypothesized that
the symmetry patterns that underlay
standardized Inka designs in different parts of
the empire might reflect the degree of
diversity in the imperial workforce. But that
is another story (and another paper).

For a long time, Inka scholars held the

somewhat contradictory notions that the Inka
style was monolithic, but that material culture
associated with the empire could be
categorized as Imperial Inka, Provincial Inka,
and “Mixed-Inka.” The Imperial (or Cuzco)
Inka style was represented by objects that
scholars believed conformed most closely to
formal and stylistic canons characteristic of
the imperial heartland. While not necessarily
all made in Cuzco, these objects were likely
produced by artisans closely trained and
supervised by state personnel. The Provincial
Inka style was more heterogeneous,
exemplified by objects generally conforming
to imperial formal and stylistic canons, but
exhibiting a greater range of morphological,
design, raw material, and/or color variation
than Cuzco-Inka. It is generally accepted that
Figure 2. Map of the Inka Empire c. 1533 C.E.,
these vessels were manufactured throughout
with locations discussed in text indicated.
the empire by artisans recruited, trained, and
supervised by imperial personnel or their deputies. “Mixed-Inka” styles are the most
heterogeneous of the styles, as they combined Inka

In the process of recording “standard” Inka vessels in museum collections, I came upon drawers
full of pots that looked remarkably like that “mutant” pot from my early graduate days. These
were Inka forms, but they had been manufactured with Chimú technology and they bore
unmistakably Chimú designs. At that point, I was definitely interested in ceramic variability in
the Inka empire, and I was intrigued. If state production was so carefully controlled, where did
these well-made, but seemingly aberrant vessels fit in in terms of messages and state strategies
for controlling social status and identity in the empire?

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Table 1. Comparison of the attributes of Inka and Chimú pottery.

Chimu Inka
Formation technique(s) Mold made; paddle and Handmade - coiled
anvil
Firing treatment/color Smoked and/or reduced Oxidized bi-chrome or
blackware polychrome
Type of decoration Generally figurative Generally geometric
Decorative technique(s) Press-molded; modeled; Painted
paddle-stamped
Design Structure Scattered Ordered
Common Vessel Forms Stirrup spout bottle; round- Aríbalo; small plates
bottomed jar

Chimú-Inka hybrids are among the easiest to spot, because

the Chimú and Inka styles are so different from one another
— technologically, formally, and stylistically (Table 1). But
further investigation made it clear that Inka and local styles
were being combined — hybridized — in many other parts
of the empire as well (see, for example, Acuto A.
2010:Figure 5.8; Hyslop 1993:Figure 3; Menzel 1976:Plate
51.38).

What is more, the hybridization seemed to happen in a fairly

systematic way. The hybrid pots were not hodge-podge
vessels made by potters — even highly skilled Wones —
“playing around” with shapes and motifs. Moreover, local
forms almost never bore Inka designs. Rather, with just rare
exception, when local and Inka elements were combined, the
Figure 3. Typical Cuzco-Inka product was an Inka form bearing local designs. And,
aríbalo. equally intriguing, the hybrid vessels were almost all one
vessel form: the Inka aríbalo.

The aríbalo was a particularly potent object with which to convey ideas about social organization
and social identity across the vast expanse of the Inka empire because it employed different
modes of signification to communicate ideas about the imperial social and political order. Using
the Peircean concepts of iconic, indexical, and symbolic modes of signification (Preucel
2006:56–66), it is possible to consider both how the Inka communicated effectively with their
diverse subjects and make a plausible reading of the content of those messages. In understanding
how the aríbalo served as icon, index, and symbol of the state, we see first how these vessels
functioned generally to convey information about the structure of the state. Turning specifically
to stylistically hybrid aríbalos, we see additionally how social identity and social relations were
conceptualized in the increasingly heterogeneous world the Inka created.

The aríbalo clearly had an indexical relation to the Inka state: the Inka state had a clear, real
connection to this object. The indexicality of the aríbalo derives from the state’s direct
association with the presence, manufacture, and distribution of these vessels. The aríbalo is a

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distinctive form, with its tall neck, flaring rim, and conical base (Figure 3). It is associated only
with the Late Horizon Inka; no other Andean group made aríbalos. Find that particular flaring
rim, gracefully curving neck, or conical base and you know — even if the surface is so highly
eroded that you can’t recognize the surface treatment or designs — you’re dealing with an
“Inka” vessel. Thus, the aríbalo form is indexical of the Inka state, not only to archaeologists,
but, I would suggest, to Late Horizon Andean people as well. Although there are more than a
dozen vessel shapes characteristic of the imperial Inka style, only four are found outside of the
imperial heartland, in the provinces, in anything beyond miniscule numbers (Bray 2004). In
addition to the aríbalo, these forms are a short-necked bottle, a one-footed olla, and a small,
shallow plate (Bray 2003). All are forms associated with state ritual and feasting. The aríbalo is
by far and away the most common of these four forms, comprising more than 50 percent of
diagnostic Inka sherds in the provinces1. The total amount of Inka-style pottery varies quite
widely throughout the empire, but regardless of overall quantities, aríbalos are always the most
plentiful form.

The aríbalo was connected to the Inka state not only because its occurrence was co-terminus with
the physical limits of the state, but also because these vessels were manufactured and distributed
under the direct or indirect auspices of the state. State control (or at least patronage) of the
production of Imperial and Provincial Inka ceramics — those that employ both Inka forms and
Inka designs —– is well documented in the literature (see, for example, Costin 2001; D'Altroy
and Bishop 1990; D'Altroy et al. 1998; Hayashida 1995, 1998, 1999). Aríbalos were
manufactured in two sizes: large and small (Miller 2004). The large ones — which are relatively
rrare — were likely used to store and serve
a liquid, probably chicha (maize beer). The
much more common small ones probably
functioned as canteens, used to transport
and consume liquids. It is often argued that
the small aríbalos were distributed by the
state during feasts at which they feted
conquered rulers and local work parties
completing their tribute labor obligations
(e.g., Morris 1982, 1993; Morris and
Thompson 1985). Thus, both manufacture
and distribution took place under the
auspices of the state. The aríbalo, then,
served as an indexical sign of the presence
of the Inka state, tied directly to imperial
conquest, state hospitality and labor
control. It held additional meaning as an
iconic representation of the nature of the
state.
Figure 4. Inka aríbalo. American Museum of
Fundamentally, the aríbalo represented a
Natural History 41.1 8084.
body (cf. Bray 2000). These vessels often
had faces modeled on their necks, and their designs reproduce textile designs in a way that
suggests the aríbalo represents a dressed body (Figure 4). In the Andean world, the clothed body

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“located the individual within the social order” (Classen 1993:145). Throughout the Andes,
clothing was the primary marker of one’s social identity: style, cut, and design signaled ethnicity,
class, gender, and other aspects of social identity. At the time of the Spanish conquest, the Inka
state was highly stratified, with one’s place in the hierarchy defined by ethnicity, socioeconomic
status, and one’s role in the complex system of occupational specialization. As a concomitant of
this system — where social identity determined one’s social, political, and economic
prerogatives — the state was apparently deeply concerned with expressing and reinforcing the
social and physical place of subjugated populations in the empire. The ethnohistoric and
archaeological records suggest that the state was actively involved in maintaining rigid
distinctions of status and ethnicity through practices that regulated dress, residence, and the
consumption of material goods. It is generally agreed that textiles designs conveyed information
about social identity, although whether such information was genealogical, heraldic, ethnic,
hierarchical, and/or occupational is open to debate (Bray 2000; Cummins 2007; Durland 1991;
Rowe 1996; Stone 2007; Zuidema 1991)2. Among the Inka, using clothing to distinguish among
ethnic groups was established in their foundation myths and codified in their legal system. To
take a person’s clothing was to strip them of their identity altogether; 4000 plus years of Andean
political art indicates that the most devastating way to humiliate someone was to parade them
naked (e.g., Donnan and McClelland 1999:Figure 4.7; Lapiner 1976:Figures 627–646; Verano
1986:Figure 26). Political domination was demonstrated by confiscating and in some instances
trampling over the clothing of defeated groups (Betanzos 1996[1557]:89). Thus, the aríbalo, as
dressed body, had the potential to convey symbolic information about how social identity and
social relations were constructed in the empire.

Mary Douglas (1996) argues the body is a “natural symbol” for society, an idea echoed for the
Inka by Cummins (2007), who further suggests that the emperor could stand metonymically for
the empire. The Inka-style aríbalo doesn’t represent just any body. It is the embodiment of
“Inka” — as ethnic group, as class, and as the state. In sum, the form and decoration of Cuzco
and Provincial Inka aríbalos were highly significant, reflecting messages about the embodiment
of identity and the state.

What does this general understanding of how the Inka aríbalo conveyed meaning tell us about
hybrid vessels and the way they conveyed information about social identity and social relations
in the provinces? What does it mean when we find this vessel form decorated with locally
meaningful designs? If Inka style aríbalos reflect bodies dressed as Inkas, what does it signify
when the aríbalo bears local designs, that is, when you have the “Inka” body dressed — as I will
argue below — in local garments? There are several possible interpretations. First, the
ethnohistoric documents indicate that when the Inka emperor visited a conquered area, he
dressed in local clothing. Perhaps these vessels commemorated such visits, with the hybrid
aríbalo literally representing the Inka in local garb. Second, it is possible that these hybrid
vessels reflected the state’s standpoint on the incorporation of conquered ethnic groups into the
Inka social order, modeling how formerly autonomous groups were to be absorbed into the
imperial structure. A third possibility is that the vessels communicated local elites’ claims that
they, too, were legitimate members of the imperial “body,” warranting a secure place within the
social and political hierarchy. Such assertions might have reflected their acceptance of a new
social charter, or they might have represented resistance or protest on the part of former rulers at
least partially disenfranchised by the imposition of provincial rule. In the first case, local elites

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might well have sought to maintain or enhance their social standing in part by appropriating the
symbolic language of their new overlords and thereby signaling their willingness to participate in
the provincial bureaucracy. In the later, they might have co-opted the Inka’s own mode of
signification to assert their views. Or the local colonized elites might have been simultaneously
representing both their recognition of their subjugation and their resistance to the total authority
of the Inka Empire.

How are we to choose among these explanations? In this paper, I focus primarily on hybrid Inka-
Chimú vessels from the North Coast, but also bring in available evidence from other parts of the
empire. It is possible that hybrids had different significance in different parts of the empire,
given the great cultural, social, economic, and political variability among the peoples conquered
by the Inka. However, I suggest that the core signification was similar throughout the empire
because the “message” conveyed was apt in a wide variety of contexts. As with Imperial and
Provincial Inka aríbalos, I consider the indexical, iconic, and symbolic signification of the hybrid
vessels.

A key step in evaluating the various possible explications of these hybrid vessels is to determine
whether they had an indexical relationship to the Inka state similar to that of the aríbalos that
bore Inka decorative motifs. Although chronological control is somewhat tricky, it appears that
hybrid aríbalos — like Imperial and Provincial Inka ceramics — are found only in areas under
the direct control of the state. It is also necessary to consider under whose auspices the hybrids
were produced and distributed. The production of hybrid vessels in particular is difficult to
identify, given the nature of the data recovered at production facilities (mostly broken sherds and
misfired vessels whose form and/or decoration are often difficult to identify in the first place).
However, we do have some evidence for the context in which at least some hybrids were
manufactured. Smoked blackware aríbalos were probably being manufactured at the two Late
Horizon production locales that have been studied on the North Coast, as evidenced by the
recovery of molds and wasters for both Chimú and Inka forms at the same sites (Donnan 1997;
Hayashida 1999). There is also clear evidence that the state controlled the production and
distribution of hybrids in the Calchaquí Valley of northwestern Argentina (Acuto A. 2010; see
also Hyslop 1993). Because it is reasonable to conclude that the production of hybrids took place
under the auspices of the state, it is also reasonable to conclude that they communicated
messages of importance to the state, rather than messages originating among the local, conquered
population.

It also appears that the messages conveyed by the hybrid aríbalos were aimed at the local
population, particularly along the coast. Unfortunately, most of the vessels with which I have
worked have, shall we say, less than stellar provenience information. The few that come from
scientifically excavated burials, however, do share one feature: the individuals with whom they
were buried were locals, not “transplanted” Inka officials (Donnan in press; Menzel 1976).
Although the handful of burials for which we have data might not be fully representative, it
appears that none of the individuals buried with the hybrids also had Inka-style vessels with
them. But they were elites, not commoners.

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I turn now to the iconic and symbolic

signification of hybrid vessels. In deploying
these stylistically hybrid vessels among the
conquered populations, the Inka tapped into
pan-Andean tropes, Inka concepts and locally-
salient images. The particular way they
combined — hybridized — these elements
communicated politically and ideologically
potent ideas about the relationships among the
conquering Inka and various blocs within the
provincial, subordinate population.

The metaphor of pot as body is likely one the

Chimú and other conquered groups would
have understood; this appears to be a pan-
Andean association. The Moche ancestors of
the Chimú went so far as to intentionally break
anthropomorphic ceramic vessels when they
dismembered “real” human beings during their
sacrifices (Bourget 2001). Many of the hybrid
vessels’ designs are similar to those found on
textiles. As with the Imperial and Provincial
style Inka aríbalos, the hybrid aríbalos often
specifically reference dressed bodies. Thus, I
think the intent was to make reference to both
Figure 5. Late Horizon Chimú vessel with man ethnic identity and social status in the
in the form of an aríbalo. Photo courtesy decoration of the hybrid pots, just as with the
Christopher Donnan. Cuzco Inka and Provincial Inka style aríbalos.
Another vessel strongly illustrates this point. A Late Horizon Chimú vessel — found in burial
near the one where the Chimú-Inka aríbalo illustrated in Figure 1 was found — depicts a human
figure who has been “transformed” into a vessel by virtue of the placement of an aríbalo-like
flaring rim on his head (Figure 5). The clothing of this figure is carefully rendered depicting a
typical elite Chimú style tunic with zigzag design and lower hem fringe (see, for example, Rowe
1984:Plate 1, Figure 91). The association between clothing and identity was well understood on
the North Coast; the Chimú also paraded their captives naked (Lapiner 1976:Figures 627–646),
presumably to reflect the stripping of their personhood.

In general, the motifs on the Chimú-Inka hybrids have deep antiquity on the North Coast and are
distinctive of that place. Cummins (2007:292–293) suggests that Inka toqapu designs — found
on textiles, ceramics, and other objects — were “signifying devices” that represented territorial
units and the social groups that ruled them. Thus, the placement of North Coast symbols on
imperial vessels further emphasized the incorporation of Chimú territory and royalty into the
Inka social and political spheres. The nature of hybridization in ceramic art — placing Chimú
symbols with deep, local antiquity on Inka “bodies” — suggests how the Inka might have co-
opted Chimú genealogies into their own system in order to justify and legitimize the role of

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Chimú leaders in the imperial

structure. The Inka legitimized their
authority over conquered
populations by manipulating
general Andean ideologies of
kinship. As Moore (2004:84) points
out, “the Inka conceptualized social
order by extending a ramifying,
lineage-based system that allowed
for ranking and inclusion.” The
Inka themselves recognized human
“hybrids” in their social ranking,
recognizing the offspring between
ethnic Inka elites and their
“secondary” provincial wives as
occupying an intermediary
“kin”/status group (Silverblatt
1987:68; Zuidema 1990). More
broadly, after conquest, the Inka in
essence rewrote local origin myths
to unite them into a single
ramifying genesis, drawing local
mythohistories into large Inka
imperial ideologies (Cummins
2007; Zuidema 1982). Hybridity
can allow people to be part of two
groups at the same time (Gilchrist
2005), yet show the
interconnections among them. It is
to this notion of distinct but
conjoined identities that I suspect
the hybrid vessels refer; all are part
of the larger “body” of Inka empire,
but each people, each ethnic group,
maintains its separate identity.

Although the nature of Inka rule

Figure 6. Map of probable extent of Chimú and Inka varied widely throughout the
polities soon before the Inka conquest of the Chimú, Empire (cf. D'Altroy 1992;
c.1460 C.E. D'Altroy et al. 2000; Wernke 2006),
there was a need to express this “distinct but conjoined” relationship between the state and
conquered populations as a matter of governing principle in a variety of contexts. In the North
Coast case, consider the power balance between the Chimú and the Inka at the time of the
conquest and the Inka’s need to rely on local elites to govern the province. When discussing the
Inka Empire, we usually think about it at its full extent. However, at the time the Inka conquered
the Chimú, the two polities were roughly the same size in terms of territorial extent (Figure 6).

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Given that the coastal areas were more heavily populated than the highlands, it is plausible that
the Chimú Empire was more heavily populated at the time than the Inka Empire. Furthermore,
the Chimú had hundreds of years of administrative experience and a sophisticated political
economy. In contrast, the Inka were relatively young upstarts and there is little evidence for
complex administrative or economic institutions prior to their conquest of the North Coast. Thus,
rather than suggesting a situation where the Inka were immediately capable of dominating the
Chimú economically and politically, it is probable that the Chimú were both technologically and
politically more complex than the fledgling Inka empire, suggesting that the Chimú could have
had a strong impact on Inka material and political culture. Indeed it is widely accepted that large
numbers of highly skilled Chimú artisans were pressed into the state-sponsored production
system and that the Chimú imperial system might have strongly influenced Inka statecraft
(Conrad 1981; Rowe 1946; Shimada 2000; Topic 1990).

The Chimú, then, presented the Inka with a tremendous administrative challenge. The Chimú
were big, they were well-organized, and they had lots of stuff the Inka wanted: skilled artisans,
metal, intensive agriculture. Unlike other parts of the empire where the Inka constructed
provincial administrative centers in the imperial architectural style and imported quantities of
state style material culture such as pottery, there is a relative paucity of imperial style material
culture on the North Coast. This is usually interpreted as a sign of the Inka’s “respect” for the
Chimú and/or a reflection of the Inka practice of indirect rule. I think the relationship was more
subtle and more contentious, and I think the hybrids can help us understand how identity was
constructed and manipulated in the empire.

Although the relationship between the Inka and the Chimú was somewhat unique, the state
needed to make clear a similar relationship between itself and those who served it in a variety of
social and political contexts. Hybrids likely reflect a particular set of statuses/relationships within
the empire. Particularly in the highly stratified coastal provinces, the hybrids likely reflected Inka
strategies for co-opting elites as separate and not-quite-equal. In other areas, where conquered
populations were less stratified prior to incorporation into the empire, they might have reflected
other forms of service to the state. Hyslop (1993) notes that some hybrid ceramics are found far
from the territory of the local component of the hybrid style. For example, Inka-Diaguita hybrids
have been found on the eastern side of the Andes in present-day Argentina; the Diaguita are
indigenous to the western side of the Andes in what is present-day Chile. Hyslop argues that this
stylistically hybrid pottery pertains to mitmaqkuna, groups resettled by the state for a variety of
economic, political, and defensive reasons (D'Altroy 2002; Rowe 1982). Mitmaqkuna were given
land and other resource rights in the areas in which they were resettled, but were required to live
in their own communities, retain their own ethnic material culture, and not assimilate with the
local population. Early colonial court cases suggest they were viewed with suspicion — perhaps
as Inka “collaborators” by the people among whom they were settled (Murra 1978). Like local
elites co-opted into the state bureaucracy, mitmaqkuna occupied an interstitial position in the
local sociopolitical territories where they resided. While the mitmaqkuna served a different
function in the state than did local elites serving in provincial bureaucracies, the use of hybrid
vessels in both suggests that they were integrated conceptually into the empire in similar ways.
Alternatively, the “out-of-place” hybrids might represent non-ethnic Inka bureaucrats who
served as low-level state administrators outside their traditional homelands.

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Because I suggest that these hybrids were manufactured in state facilities, I think that it was the
state that was consciously acting to literally incorporate local claims to power and authority
while at the same time providing state authorization for the work of local elites, what is
sometimes called “authoritative hybridization” (Alonso 2004). We know that local leaders who
were co-opted into the bureaucratic system did not become Inka; this would violate the Inka
class system that based identity on ethnic origin as much as on sociopolitical status. What the
Inka did was pull cooperative local leaders into the constellation of imperial consiglieres, much
the same way the state co-opted the deities and huacas (sacred objects and places) of subject
populations as subordinate, but respected components of the imperial pantheon and ritual
structure. The nature of hybridization in ceramic art — placing Chimú and other ethnic symbols
with deep, local antiquity on Inka “bodies” — suggests how the Inka co-opted the genealogies of
other ethnic groups into their own system in order to justify and legitimize their role in the
imperial structure.

I hope that this paper has shown how analysis of how vessel shape and design schemes were
systematically hybridized can yield insight into how identity was conceptualized, constructed
and communicated in times of status and class redefinition during Inka imperial consolidation.
By conveying information about these newly constructed identities in three ways — iconocally,
indexically, and symbolically — the Inka ensured it would reach the broadest possible audience
in their multi-ethnic, multi-lingual society. Creating and promulgating new identities for some
conquered and co-opted groups — in particular local elites who worked in the provincial
bureaucracy but also commoners relocated for state service as mitmaqkuna — was part of the
Inka imperial strategy. Chimú and other non-Inka elites might have embraced or at least acceded
to these hybrid identities as offering them the most privileges and prerogatives after the
conquest, with connections to their local communities as well as to the imperial administration.
While pan-Andean constructs were used to communicate these new identities, the underlying
principles were Inka, reflecting the ultimate balance of power in the Late Horizon.

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Notes
1
Interestingly, aríbalos comprise under 30 percent of diagnostic Inka sherds in the Imperial
heartland, in large measure because the other forms are more plentiful.
2
Zuidema (1977) has argued that some designs might have had a calendrical meaning.

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