Moon, Sun, and Devil: Inca and Colonial Transformations of Andean Gender Relations. (Volumes I and II).

Abstract

This thesis treats two major problems: (1) the ways in which the development of the Inca Empire affected the balance of gender relations in Andean society and (2) the impact of Spanish colonial institutions on the lives of Andean women. The first part of the thesis is concerned with how Andean structures which defined the relations between the sexes were transformed by the expansion of the Inca Empire. I begin with an analysis of the role of women in production. By exploring the ways in which the development of the Empire affected the sexual division of labor and social relations of production, I examine how the capacity of women to participate in Andean economic structures was altered. I then explore two principles of social structure which defined gender relations in the and es. The "conquest hierarchy", in which "conquerors" were symbolized as men and the "conquered" as women, ordered the ranks of descent groups in the pre-Inca ayllu. I examine how its transformation by the Inca nobility allowed men of the upper class to control the lives of women from conquered groups. On the other h and , structures of gender parallelism governed descent, inheritance, the succession to religious posts, as well as the Andean view of the universe. Moreover, this structure underlay a woman's hierarchy of politico-religious posts that extended from the queen to commoners. The second part of the thesis treats the impact of Colonialism on women of the Inca nobility and peasantry. I begin by studying the effects of Spanish economic and political institutions. Peasant women increasingly bore the brunt of Colonial pressures as indigenous structures were eroded. The image of women developed during the European witchcraze governed Spanish interpretations of the role of women in Andean religious practices. During the Peruvian witchhunts, women were hounded for encouraging indigenous idolatries. The thesis concludes with a discussion of how indigenous women, subverting the ideology imposed by the Spanish, played crucial roles in native resistance to Colonialism.