Wakakuna and Warriors: An Ethnography of Ritual Warfare in the Huarochirí Manuscript (16th century)

This article analyzes the Huarochirí Manuscript and interprets it as a pioneering exercise in viceregal ethnography from an Amerindian perspective. Special attention is given to the descriptions of visionary (or “shamanic”) practices among the pre-Columbian nations of the Huarochirí region (central highlands of Peru), with emphasis on the relationship between the waka and warfare. As a text written by an Indigenous scholar, the information it provides offers an insider’s view of certain aspects of Andean ritual practices and cosmogonies. Despite the possible cultural pressures experienced by the author under the establishment of viceregal society and the campaigns to extirpate “idolatries”, the manuscript reveals a profound knowledge of ritual practices that connected human warfare with the waka.