Acllacuna- Inca GroupCollective"Servants of Inti"

Mama Ocllo's Gift

The institution traced its origins to Mama Ocllo, the founding mother who taught women to spin fiber and weave cloth at the beginning of Inca civilization. The Acllacuna were the continuation of that divine instruction.

Imperial officials called apupanacas traveled through the provinces to inspect girls around the age of eight to ten. Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala's drawings depict the scene: an official examining young girls while their families look on, some with visible distress. The selection was compulsory. Chosen girls were sent to the nearest acllahuasi and removed permanently from their birth communities.

Behind the Walls

The greatest acllahuasi stood in Cusco, adjacent to the Coricancha. Garcilaso de la Vega described an enormous complex housing more than fifteen hundred women, with workshops, storerooms, and living quarters. No man except the Sapa Inca could enter. Any man who breached the walls faced death.

Within the compound, senior women called mamaconas trained the girls over four years. They learned to spin vicuña fiber into cumbi cloth on backstrap looms and to prepare chicha by chewing maize kernels and fermenting the mixture. The cumbi they wove was reserved for the Sapa Inca and for offerings to the gods. The Spanish noted with puzzlement that the Incas valued fine cloth above gold.

The Sacred Fire

Among their most solemn duties was the maintenance of Inti's fire within the Coricancha. This flame was kindled at Inti Raymi using a concave golden mirror that focused the sun's rays. Fire born from the god's own light. Once lit, it could not be allowed to die until the next Inti Raymi, when it would be extinguished and rekindled. If the fire went out during the year, it portended cosmic disaster, and the yurac acllas who tended it faced death.

Capacocha

Young acllas could be selected for capacocha, ritual sacrifice offered at the death of a Sapa Inca or a severe earthquake. Those chosen were dressed in cumbi cloth and given chicha and coca to ease their passage.

Death came by strangulation or exposure to the killing cold of the high peaks. The victims were interred on the summits of the Andes, placed in stone chambers with offerings of gold and silver. The "Ice Maiden" found on Mount Ampato in 1995, a girl of approximately fourteen preserved by cold for over five hundred years, still wore the cumbi textiles and feathered ornaments described in the chronicles. Similar discoveries on Llullaillaco confirmed that capacocha victims were brought from across the empire, their journeys sometimes covering hundreds of kilometers.

The Looms Fall Silent

The Spanish conquest destroyed the acllacuna. When conquistadors entered the acllahuasi compounds, they violated the prohibition against male intrusion. Some acllas were seized as concubines. Others were distributed among soldiers. The sacred fires were extinguished and never relit. The cumbi looms fell silent. The sun continued to rise, but no one tended his fire.