Tupu (pin)

This metal object is a tupu, the Quechua term for pin (pithu in Aymara and alfiler in Spanish). Women in the Andes wear such pins in order to fasten textile garments. As part of a pair, tupus may be used to join the ends of the acsu, a large rectangular cloth made of camelid wool that wraps around the body. Smaller versions of tupus, sometimes referred to as ttipqui, may be worn individually in order to fasten the lliclla, a textile that wraps around the shoulders (for more information on the uses of tupus, please see Metropolitan Museum of Art 64.228.702).

This particular example of a tupu shows a pair of birds at rest. They comprise the finial or head of the tupu. Each has a long pointed beak and circular eyes that slightly project from the sides of the head. The body and wings of each bird are indicated by an element that wraps around the neck, and the tail is flat and points slightly downward. Each bird has two roughly cylindrical legs, and these connect to a rectangular bar. The stem of the tupu emerges out of this bar. Moving farther from the finial, the stem narrows until its end where it terminates in a point. When a person threaded the tupu through their acsu, the end point of the stem likely would have appeared at top and the birds below. An alternative is that a person wore this tupu horizontally on their body, fastening the lliclla. Unlike many other tupus (e.g., 64.228.702), no perforation is visible in the finial, although the surface corrosion may be concealing such a feature. This perforation may have been the location where a cord was tied, connecting one tupu to another (see Bjerregaard 2007, 111-113, no. CMA 1795 for an early example of such a cord, and Rowe 1998 for this use in the 20th century). On some tupus, a loop is present at the back of the finial to enable threading or suspension (e.g., a tupu from Cusco with a llama-head finial in Boone 1996, fig. 111).

Metalworkers likely created the present example as one piece by lost-wax casting. The green natural corrosion across the surface of the entire object indicates that copper is present in the metal. The addition of another metal to copper tends to be better suited to casting than copper alone. This alloy, or mixture of metals, can help the flow of the molten metal during casting and the reproduction of details in the cast object. The birds and stem appear to be solid, so it is unlikely that a core was used in making this object. Thus, first, metalworkers prepared the bird finial and the stem in wax to form the model of the object. At this stage, a gating system may have been added in order to later facilitate the movement of the molten metal during the casting and to allow air to escape. Then, the artists surrounded the wax model with ceramic investment. After heating the entire apparatus and melting out the wax, they poured molten metal into the space once occupied by the wax. The metal solidified and the artists removed the ceramic investment, revealing the object.

This form of tupu is characteristic of Inca metalworking. At the same time, the design of the finial bears some resemblance to tupus and other metal objects produced in the Chimú tradition on the north coast of Peru in the Late Intermediate period (ca. A.D. 1000-1470).[1] From a total sample of 846 tupus from the Late Horizon (ca. A.D. 1400-1533), Owen (2012, fig. 2.3b) identifies eleven that are cast with animal-head finials. The geographic distribution extends from highland Ecuador to northwestern Argentina, but the highest number is from the Inca core in the Cusco Valley.[2] A tin-bronze tupu made by lost-wax casting in the Late Horizon shows two birds, likely parrots of the Cyanoliseus genus. This tupu can be found in the Museo Nacional de Etnología y Folklore in La Paz, Bolivia (no. 9452 in Fernández 2015, 74-75). Interestingly, like the example in the Metropolitan, the birds are side by side, and they rest on a rectangular base. A different feature of this tupu is the presence of a perforation on the stem just below the base, which would have allowed the pin to be suspended or connected to another.

Owen (2012, 88-89) views “tupus with cast animal heads” as an Inca hallmark, while recognizing antecedents of lost-wax casting in the wider Andean region. For example, a silver tupu with a bird finial was made by lost-wax casting in the Chimú tradition (Dumbarton Oaks PC.B.476) (see Lechtman in Boone 1996, 266-267). Birds with the appearance of those shown in the present example are seen on the finials of caleros from the Late Intermediate period (nine from the Museo Nacional de Arqueología, Antropología e Historia del Perú, Lima are shown in Carcedo et al. 1997, fig. I-75 and another [Dumbarton Oaks PC.B.485] in Boone 1996, pl. 71). Caleros are spoons that people may have used to scoop lime (cal in Spanish) and add it to a quid of coca to aid in its consumption. The caleros tend to be made of cast metal, and the finial usually consists of a single bird with a long beak and shown at rest. In short, the assignment of this object to fabrication in the Cusco Valley in the Late Horizon is tentative. The object, however, does appear to be part of an Inca tradition with Chimú antecedents.

The bird shown on this object, likely a hummingbird, quenti in Quechua and colibrí or picaflor in Spanish, is important to Andean peoples within and beyond Chimú and Inca societies. Today, in the Puno region of Peru, the appearance of the colorful bird signals the start of the cultivation season (Núñez and Castro 2011, 165). The colors of the bird’s plumage may suggest particular aspects of the cultivation to expect that season (for instance, whether tubers will be abundant). In the Vilcanota Valley in the Cusco region, people may place a hummingbird, specifically Siwar-K'ente (in Quechua) or Colibri coruscans, in a money container or behind a door in order to bring more business (Venero 1998, 207).

Another important aspect of the present tupu is that the birds appear as a pair. This duality may be a material manifestation of a wider Andean practice of pairing in terms of how communities are organized or the world conceptualized (see Ossio 2015, 122-123). The Andean ayllus participate in this pairing. An ayllu (a term in Aymara and Quechua) can be defined as a community of “humans and other-than-human persons” living together as kin and relating to one another on lands that they possess (Cadena 2015, 43-44). Groups of ayllus may form upper and lower collectives (referred to as hanan and hurin, respectively, in Quechua). These ways of organizing beings across space are embodied in material objects, such as the Inca production of pairs of drinking vessels or qeros (see Cummins 2015, 178, n. 14). Ritual practice, and the act of making offerings to particular beings, may be a way of mediating between two ayllus (see Mignone 2015, 82-83). It is possible that the pair of birds seen on this object participates in a much larger way of organizing the world and defining space. Notably, according to Spanish Colonial chroniclers, “quenti” is a name associated with Qollasuyu, the southeastern quarter of the Inca Empire (Núñez and Castro 2011, 165).[3] The birds’ presence on this tupu also may manifest some of the associations that people have for the quenti as noted above. In this way, the tupu, worn close to the body, takes on an active and creative role in political and daily life.

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

[1] It is important to note there are other pins that appear to have been made in the Chimú or Inca traditions that are part of this accession (e.g., Metropolitan Museum of Art 1987.394.549, 1987.394.550, and 1987.394.556).

[2] Certainly, the sample is limited. Based on the map in Owen (2012, fig. 2.3b), it appears that four of the 11 are from the Cusco Valley. Thus, caution is urged when referring to the relative prevalence of this tupu form in the Inca core region.

[3] Another example of the relationship between a pair of birds and Inca space is the painting of two condors (kuntur in Quechua) on a peak near Cusco known to Inca Garcilaso de la Vega in the late 16th century. The Inca ruler, Viracocha, supposedly commissioned this painting. One condor, with its wings closed and turned away from Cusco, represents his father, Yáhuar Huácac, who fled Cusco when it was threatened by the Chancas. The other, with its wings open and turned toward Cusco, represents Viracocha, who came to the city to defend it (Garcilaso de la Vega 1989, Book 5, Chapter XXIII, 292-293). While raising some questions about the accuracy of Garcilaso’s interpretation, Martínez (2010, 158) groups the painting with objects like qeros that served to “produce messages” (“producir mensajes”) and “reactive a collective memory” (“reactivar una memoria colectiva”) in the Inca world.

Further reading

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

Boone, Elizabeth Hill, ed. Andean Art at Dumbarton Oaks. Vol. 1. Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 1996.

Cadena, Marisol de la. Earth Beings: Ecologies of Practice across Andean Worlds. Durham: Duke University Press, 2015.

Carcedo, Paloma, Francisco Stastny, Eduardo Dargent, Luis Eduardo Wuffarden, and Felipe de Lucio. Plata y plateros del Perú. Lima: Patronato Plata del Perú, 1997.

Cummins, Thomas B. F. “Inka Art.” In The Inka Empire, edited by Izumi Shimada, 165-196. Austin: The University of Texas Press, 2015.

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

Garcilaso de la Vega, Inca. Royal Commentaries of the Incas, and General History of Peru. Translated by Harold V. Livermore. Austin: University of Texas Press, [1609] 1989.

Martínez C., José Luis. “‘Mandó pintar dos aves…’: Relatos orales y representaciones visuales andinas.” Chungara: Revista de la Antropología Chilena 42, no. 1 (2010): 157-167.

Mignone, Pablo. “Illas y allicac: La capacocha del Llullaillaco y los mecanismos de ascenso social de los ‘Inkas de privilegio.’” Boletín del Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino 20, no. 2 (2015): 69-87.

Núñez, Lautaro and Victoria Castro. “¡Caiatunar, caiatunar!: Pervivencia de ritos de fertilidad prehispánica en la clandestinidad del Loa (norte de Chile).” Estudios Atacameños 42 (2011): 153-172.

Ossio Acuña, Juan. “Dualism.” In Encyclopedia of the Incas, edited by Gary Urton and Adriana von Hagen, 122-123. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 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.

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

Venero Gonzales, José Luis. “Uso de animales en la cuenca del Vilcanota, Cusco (Perú).” Estudios Atacameños 16 (1998): 203-208.