Túpac Amaru II, the Legend Lives On

Garcilaso de la Vega

Cuzco seems to have its own set of traditions and history that plays a large role in the history of Peru as a whole. As much as I enjoyed the Textile museum today I gathered much more information from the Museo Histórico Regional.  This is possibly because the museum use to be the house of Garcilaso de la Vega who I have studied previously for another college course. Garcilaso had a very interesting point of view being the son of a spanish conquistador and an incan princess. He was able to write about the traditions that he had learned from his mother and the other incan elders while learning about the spanish heritage while he studied in Spain.

Túpac Amaru's attempted quartering

In the museum there was a whole section of information on Túpac Amaru II who led a rebellion against the spanish. He died an agonizing death in the town square (Plaza de Armas) where the spanish killed him by quartering, and then beheading. The quarter is shown in this artwork displayed in the museum.

Tocapu example

The tocapu (textile) that was on display showed how the inca people  used their history in their work. The textile displayed images of Túpac Amaru's quartering in the middle of the bottom of the display, as well as Amaru on a horse holding the Quechua flag.  The inca people idolize Amaru and made him into an almost god like figure. This idea is demonstrated in the textile where they combine the scenes of Amaru combined with the bird symbolism displayed in this repetitive pattern.   We believe this is the case since the combination of these images and the bird shows they could possibly believe that Amaru belonged in the upper division of the world reserved for god like beings that was represented by the condor. This isn't to hard to believe since he was even described in a godlike fashion in the poem by Alejandro Romualdo. This may just relate to how his legend will live on forever as if he were immortal, but there is no way to know for sure.

The textile also contained a vast amount of symmetry which we have been studying previously. It was interesting to be able to see how they combined the original patterns and symmetry with the history of their people to help record important people and or events that transpired (ex. making the legend of Amaru live on). This ensured that their history would never die. Which would have been important in the time of war and oppression.