Tupu (pin)

This object is a tupu, a Quechua word for pin (pithu in Aymara and alfiler in Spanish). Women in the Andes wear tupus in order to fasten textile garments. Tupus usually consist of two parts: a head and a stem. In this case, the head is circular. Its shape is distinct from tupus like Metropolitan Museum of Art 64.228.702 whose head is more elliptical in shape. Another difference is that a perforation is not seen on the present example. Often, people may wear tupus and other ornaments or tools along a cord or ribbon (see Rowe 1998, fig. 132 and Vetter 2009, fig. 6 for recent examples of this way of wearing tupus and Bjerregaard 2007, 111–13, no. CMA 1795, for an Inca example). The stem of the tupu is circular in cross section. While its end does not appear pointed, corrosion may be masking the shape with which it was designed. The stems of other tupus (e.g., Metropolitan Museum of Art 1987.394.603) clearly become narrower farther from the head, and their ends are pointed.

The metalworkers may have started the process of fabricating this tupu with a rod of metal. Such rods may be blanks that were pre-fabricated for metalworkers to shape into different forms. Whether the rods were made of sheet or cast metal may depend on the tradition in which the artists were practicing. For instance, Lechtman (2014, 391) notes that central Andean metalworkers typically employed blanks made of sheet, while south central Andean metalworkers in the Tiwanaku region more likely used cast blanks. On the present example, an artist hammered the end of the pre-fabricated rod, thinning it and shaping it into the circular head that is seen today. They may have chiseled the edges of the head in order to refine its shape. The green natural corrosion across the surface of this object suggests that copper is present in the metal. On the obverse side of the head, there is a golden patch that sits beneath the corrosion, suggesting that gold is also present in the metal. It is uncertain whether the metal is an alloy of copper and gold, or whether the metal is copper that has been gilded. Copper is far more reactive than gold is, making it prone to the natural corrosion evident on much of the object.

Tupus with circular heads have a long tradition of fabrication in the Andes (for further discussion of this tradition, please see Metropolitan Museum of Art 64.228.703). The present example, though, is slightly different, having an overall smaller and more circular head than those of many other examples. It is similar in form to eight examples in gold made in the Tiwanaku tradition now held in the Museo Nacional de Etnografía y Folkore (MUSEF) in La Paz, Bolivia (see Fernández 2015, 30–33, with the exception of object 10297). Tiwanaku was a major urban center located in Bolivia on the southern edge of the Titicaca Basin. Starting around A.D. 500, people across a wide area of the south central Andes created or used works across media in styles associated with the Tiwanaku center, suggesting a wide cultural influence. At Tiwanaku itself, the population grew and agricultural production intensified over time. All eight of the tupus in MUSEF were reportedly recovered from Escoma near the Suches River in Bolivia, which has historically been used a source of gold. All are just over 10 cm in length, but they differ from the present example in having heads that are slightly larger and a single perforation in the head.

The example in the Metropolitan is similar to one whose head is illustrated as belonging to Type 1001 in Owen (2012, 280). The distinction between this tupu and others that comprise this type is the absence of a perforation in the former. Owen (2012, fig. 2.2a) has recorded 243 examples of this wider type from the Late Horizon (ca. A.D. 1400–1533). Their geographic distribution extends from highland Ecuador to north central Chile, but they are most densely concentrated in the southern Titicaca region. The present tupu is also highly similar to a tupu from the site of La Real, which was occupied during the Middle Horizon (ca. A.D. 600–1000). La Real is associated with the Wari culture, which extended across a broad area of the central Andes, mostly to the north of Tiwanaku’s reach. This tupu (Velarde et al. 2012, fig. 10.2, bottom left) is approximately 9 cm long and shows a circular head akin to that of the present example but slightly larger. The main difference is that the La Real tupu has a perforation.

Velarde et al. (2015, 178) propose that “Tiwanaku tupus look more like pins.” They cite two tupus made of a copper-arsenic-nickel alloy that show a stem with one end that is pointed, and the other end (the head region) that is slightly thicker and more bulbous than the stem (Lechtman 2003, fig. 17.21). Another tupu from Tiwanaku (Lechtman 2003, fig. 17.22) is quite different, however, and features a wide, elliptical head. It is thus difficult to associate a form of tupu with a particular cultural tradition (cf., the cast bronze tupus with animal heads that are typically Inca, such as Metropolitan Museum of Art 1987.394.546).

Based on the tupus documented by Fernández (2015) and Owen (2012), the cultural tradition and geographic area of fabrication and/or use of this tupu may be Tiwanaku and the wider southern Titicaca region. One source of information related to provenance could be the collector. Before being acquired by grocery magnate Nathan Cummings, this tupu was in the collection of Bruno Wassermann, who purchased and developed land on the San Blas Bay of Argentina. He amassed a set of objects, especially Peruvian ceramics, through excavations in which he participated while also acquiring objects through sales. Wassermann’s collection grew substantially between 1920 and 1948 (Sawyer 1954, 1, 4). The focus of his collection was Peru, but even this wide provenance cannot be assumed for this tupu. Another source of information would be further understanding of the patterning of tupus in terms of metal composition, fabrication technique, and form, following the work of Velarde et al. (2015). For now, Tiwanaku and the southern Titicaca Basin may be considered a likely possibility for this tupu’s fabrication and use, but other cultural and geographic affiliations (e.g., Wari, as noted above) are possible.

The absence of a perforation on this tupu makes it distinct from others of this general form and suggests it may have been used differently than these others. It still could have been worn along a cord. For example, the tupus on a cord shown in Guamán Poma de Ayala [1615] 1980, pl. 120 have perforations in their heads but appear to be connected to the cord on their stems. The question of use is important to consider for tupus because they actually have been employed in a variety of contexts, not only as tools for fastening garments.

Currently, in the ayllu Qaqachaka, in Bolivia, people use large tupus to make agricultural measurements, level out earth, build irrigation canals, and mark the boundaries of territories (Fernández 2015, 11). (For further discussion of ayllus, please see Metropolitan Museum of Art 1987.394.546). The tupus they use for these purposes are jatun tupu (Quechua) and jacha tupu (Aymara), while the tupus for fastening clothing are tantiyun tupu (in Quechua) and tantiyu tupu (in Aymara). Alternatively, Rinque (2012, 13) associates the meaning of tupu as measurement “with the standard used in exchanging the valuable dyes people used for wool” (“al patrón utilizado para el intercambio de las valiosas tinturas para el teñido de la lana”). This alternative meaning proves interesting given that the metal used to make many archaeological tupus was prepared into stock or blanks and then formed into the pins. Furthermore, this raises the question of how the metal used to make them was part of a wider network of exchange. Rinque (2012, 13) notes that Aymara and Mapuche peoples have historically traded dyes for other materials, including minerals.

Tupus are active objects, when they are worn or otherwise. People may choose to document the moments when the tupu is not worn in its usual position on the body. For example, a Vicús metal figurine, dating to ca. 200 B.C.–A.D. 200, shows a person holding a tupu in their right hand (see Illescas 1990, fig. 73). Finally, there may be especially large tupus that are greater than a meter in length, including examples in the Puruhas tradition, which extends from southern Cotopaxi to Azuay in Ecuador (Lleras 2015, 119). People may not have worn these tupus in daily life but reserved them for certain contexts, such as burial, as Lleras suggests. The present example is not only part of a tradition of making and using tupus as fasteners for clothing but a much wider sphere of practices that incorporate these objects. (For additional considerations of uses of tupus, please see: Chavez 1984–5, 4–6; Metropolitan Museum of Art 64.228.702; and Sagárnaga 2007.)

Bryan Cockrell, Curatorial Fellow, Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas, 2017

Further reading

Bjerregaard, Lena, ed. Chachapoya Textiles: The Laguna de los Cóndores Textiles in the Museo Leymebamba, Chachapoyas, Peru. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 2007.

Chávez, Sergio Jorge. “Funerary Offerings from a Middle Horizon Context in Pomacanchi, Cuzco.” Ñawpa Pacha: Journal of Andean Archaeology, 22/23 (1984–5): 1-48.

Fernández Murillo, María Soledad. Prendedores, topos y mujeres. La Paz: Museo Nacional de Etnografía y Folklore, Fundación Cultural del Banco Central de Bolivia, 2015.

Guamán Poma de Ayala, Felipe. El primer nueva corónica y buen gobierno, edited by John V. Murra and Rolena Adorno. Mexico: Siglo Veintiuno Editores, [1615] 1980.

Illescas Cook, Guillermo. La edad del cobre en el Perú. Lima: Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología, Ministerio de la Presidencia, 1990.

Lechtman, Heather. “Andean Metallurgy in Prehistory.” In Archaeometallurgy in Global Perspective: Methods and Syntheses, edited by Benjamin W. Roberts and Christopher P. Thornton, 361–422. New York: Springer, 2014.

———. “Tiwanaku Period (Middle Horizon) Bronze Metallurgy in the Lake Titicaca Basin: A Preliminary Assessment.” In Tiwanaku and Its Hinterland: Archaeology and Paleoecology of an Andean Civilization, edited by Alan L. Kolata, 404–434. Vol. 2. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2003.

Lleras Pérez, Roberto. Metallurgy in Ancient Ecuador: A Study of the Collection of Archaeological Metallurgy of the Ministry of Culture, Ecuador. Oxford: Archaeopress, 2015.

Owen, Bruce D. “The Meanings of Metals: The Inca and Regional Contexts of Quotidian Metals from Machu Picchu.” In The 1912 Yale Peruvian Scientific Expedition Collections from Machu Picchu: Metal Artifacts, edited by Richard L. Burger and Lucy C. Salazar, 73-189. New Haven: Yale University Department of Anthropology and the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History, 2012.

Rinque, Silvia. Platería Mapuche: Arte emblemático de una nación que vive. Buenos Aires: Editorial Artemisa, 2012.

Rowe, Ann Pollard, ed. Costume and Identity in Highland Ecuador. Washington, D.C.: The Textile Museum, 1998.

Sagárnaga M., Jédu A. “Genealogía y desarrollo del topo en los Andes circum lacustres.” In Metalurgia en la América antigua: Teoría, arqueología, simbología y tecnología de los metales prehispánicos, edited by Roberto Lleras Pérez, 83–100. Bogotá: Fundación de Investigaciones Arqueológicas Nacionales, Banco de la República, 2007.

Sawyer, Alan R. The Nathan Cummings Collection of Ancient Peruvian Art (Formerly Wassermann-San Blas Collection). Chicago, 1954.

Velarde, María Inés de, Franco Mora, and Justin Jennings. “Analysis of Metals from Tenahaha.” In Tenahaha and the Wari State: A View of the Middle Horizon from the Cotahuasi Valley, edited by Justin Jennings and Willy Yépez Álvarez, 166–180. Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press, 2015.

———. “Tupus y placas de metal: Expresión creativa e imagen de prestigio.” In ¿Wari en Arequipa?: Análisis de los contextos funerarios de La Real, edited by Willy J. Yépez Álvarez and Justin Jennings, 214-218. Arequipa: Museo Arqueológico José María Morante, Universidad Nacional de San Agustín de Arequipa, 2012.

Vetter Parodi, Luisa. “El uso del tupu en un pueblo llamado Tupe.” In Platería tradicional del Perú: Usos domésticos, festivos y rituales: Siglos XVIII-XX, 175–183. Lima: Universidad de Ricardo Palma, Instituto Cultural Peruano Norteamericano, 2009.