Tinku


 * Tinku **

 The idea of tinku comes from the word that describes the location of where two rivers meet together to form one (Moseley 2001:16). Tinku is placed on the idea of different societies or [|moieties]  coming together to form a “social whole,” but with the "fluidness" to be able to once again break up into their original states (Moseley 2001:16). This idea has been the “focus of elaborate rituals” for quite some time in the Andes (Moseley 2001:16). Documentation of this focus has been found since the [|Incan] times, but it is believed to have been practiced much longer (Mosely 2001:16). Tinku is meant to release the tension that is found bringing together opposing ideas of peoples (Moseley 2001:66). Tinku, as practiced by the Andeans of today, are ritual “fights between different communities, moieties, or kin groups” (Arkush and Stanish 2005: 12).

In order to understand what a modern Tinku is like, please watch the following You- Tube video: media type="youtube" key="sTSTojpCZhs" height="344" width="425"

 In Michael Moseley, //The Incas and their ancestors : the archaeology of Peru,// Moseley  informs the reader that for the Ancient Andeans “ritual was essential for maintaining collective solidarity, which was fragile at all levels of [|ayllu]  organization” (Moseley 2001:66). Just as the [|functionalist anthropologist] Max Gluckman proposes in his article, "The License in Ritual," in regards to cross cultural societies’ way of revealing tension through conflict, it is not an uncommon thought for Andeans and Ancient Andeans to relieve tension through ritual battles (Gluckman 1956 and Moseley 2001:66). In modern tinku, according to [|Arkush] and [|Stanish] in their article, "Interpreting Conflict in the Ancient Andes: Implications for the Archaeology of Warfare", it “includes the renegotiating of moiety identity through structural opposition, the fertility of the earth through the spilling of sacrificial blood, and marking territorial boundaries” (Arkush and Stanish 2005:13). It is believed that in Ancient Andean time that tinku was focused largely on the tension between unequal relationships that was caused by “senior king groups drawing resources from junior counterparts, but not vice versa” (Moseley 2001:66). This ritual combat of today’s tinku is often mirrored in the Ancient Andean iconography, suggesting that tinku took place even before the Incas (Moseley 2001: 66).

The greatest evidentiary site that represents this is Cerro Sechin  in the Casma Valley.