Collca y sapçi: una perspectiva sobre el almacenamiento inka desde la analogía etnográfica

Abstract

Collca and Sapçi: A Perspective on Inka Storage via Ethnographic Analogy

In the 1970’s Murra proposed studying post-Inka descendants of the Inka storage (qullka) system by following up the colonial term sapçi. Both Guaman Poma (1615) and the Huarochirí Quechua manuscript (1608) used this obscure word to denote stores for communal use. Today, the same villages in which the Huarochirí texts were gathered have buildings called Collcas, which contain storage deposits much like what Guaman Poma pictured under the name of sapçi. Ethnographic observation (1994-2001) at the Collca of Tupicocha suggests that modern local storage systems up to the 20th century bore significant likeness to the sapci, and lesser likeness to qullka. Like Inka warehousing, the Collca is associated with khipus. Like the colonial sapçi, however, the Collca architecturally fuses warehousing with the central structure of the nucleated village on the Toledan reducción model. Also like Guaman Poma’s sapçi, it administers intracommunal holdings rather than serving the state sector. The ritual regimen which governs the Collca, and which has allowed frequent changes in its design and functions, may offer an ethnographic analogy relevant to both Inka and colonial eras.