Max Uhle’s Field Notes and Textile Collections from Chimu Capac, Supe Valley, Peru; Style and Cultural Affiliation During the Early and Late Middle Horizon

Abstract

In 1904 Max Uhle excavated Chimu Capac in the Supe Valley, Peru. He sent the collections with a catalog and report to Phoebe Apperson Hearst and the University of California, Berkeley, but he did not include his Supe field Notebook 67. The catalog listed six partial tomb lots. This article presents an English translation of Uhle’s field notebook that lists 320 objects found in 28 graves. The article focuses on the 87 textiles from the first graves and compares a portion to the larger collection of over 253 ceramics, sculpted and painted wood, and 287 textiles. The collection includes ceramics and textiles from Late Moche, Wari, and Wari-associated styles. The Casma style is represented in local, plain-woven cloth and the group of 155 painted textiles. This analysis identifies Middle Horizon textiles from different regions and different periods and indicates a strong stylistic connection between Casma and Chimu Capac in the representation of the celestial god.

En 1904 Max Uhle excavó Chimu Capac en el valle de Supe y envió sus colecciones con un informe y un catálogo a Phoebe Apperson Hearst y la universidad de California en Berkeley, pero no incluyó su cuaderno de notas de campo de Supe. En este artículo se presenta una traducción en inglés del cuaderno de notas de campo que especifica ajuares funerarios de los primeros 320 objetos en 28 tumbas. El artículo se enfoque en una porción de los 87 textiles de las primeras tumbas y los compara con la colección más amplio de 287 textiles. En la colección se encuentra material Moche tardío, Wari, y Casma se representa en la colección grande de 155 textiles pintados. El análisis identifica textiles tejido en diferentes regiones y en diferentes periodos del Horizonte Medio e indica una conexión estilística entre Casma y Chimu Capac en la representación del dios celeste.

Keywords:

• Middle Horizon textiles
• painted textiles
• Wari
• Casma
• Max Uhle
• Peruvian archaeology

Palabras Claves:

• Tejidos Horizonte Medio
• textiles pintados
• Wari
• Casma
• Max Uhle
• arqueología peruana

Acknowledgments

This analysis of Chimu Capac textiles began in 1989 with Nancy Porter who photographed the painted textiles used in this paper. Nancy’s family has allowed publication of her photographs. I appreciate the generous contribution of Heiko Prümers who translated Uhle’s Supe Notebook 67 and the Ibero-American Institute of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, Berlin who gave permission to publish Prümers’ translation. Two anonymous reviewers suggested attention toward the topic of Wari involvement at Chimu Capac that directed my focus on issues of production and cultural affiliation. I thank Liz Oakland who edited the paper and Alicia Mattera who produced the map. Leslie Freund made the collections available in the Phoebe Apperson Hearst Museum of Anthropology and more recently Michael Black and the PAHMA group helped secure permission for publication. In Peru I am grateful to Moisés Tufinio and Ceyra Pasapera for introducing me to Victoria Inoñaú and to Victoria for agreeing to teach me the northern spinning method. In Cuzco I thank Florentina Huaman Condori and Franklin Quispe Condori for allowing me to video and photograph their spinning techniques.

Notes

1 The Supe catalog identified objects in six tombs. Graves 1–3 are the first three graves that Uhle excavated. The last Graves 4, 5, and 6 in the catalog are now called 4/29, 5/30. And 6/31 to reflect the new numbers that follow the 28 graves in the notebook. Kroeber illustrated Wari ceramics from Grave 5/30 in five separate plates: Plate 72 a; Plate 73 e; Plate 74 l; Plate 76 m; and Plate 77 f-g. He illustrated Grave 6/31 ceramics together in Plate 77h-o.

2 Kroeber illustrates six ceramics for Grave 1 in Plate 78a-f, but “e” 4-7059 should be 4-7054 “pot with design relief” and 4-7061 illustrated in Plate 76o is also part of Grave 1.

3 Kroeber illustrates six ceramics for Grave 2 in Plate 78g-l, but there were only five ceramics in Grave 2 and there is no catalog number 7067 only 7067a and 7067b. Since Uhle catalogs “7067a Fragment of a vessel head of a cat”, that is the ceramic in Plate 78j listed only as 7067. Catalog item “7067b Fragmentary calabash, engraved” is not ceramic, so Kroeber’s ‘k’ 4-7067a is labeled incorrectly and is not originally part of Grave 2.

4 Braided headdresses made from plant material have been identified at Huaca Malena in men’s burials (Ángeles 2017: Figure 5), from the Huaca Cao (Oakland Rodman and Fernandez 2005: Figure 12) and from El Castillo in Huarmey (Prümers 1990, Band 2: Abb. 209, 212; 2001: Figure 26).

5 Ann Rowe (1977: Figure 79) describes a tunic woven in complementary warps with 3-span floats in alternating alignment and 2/2 horizontal color change “found on the Coast at Coyungo, but possibly made in the highlands” and she notes the other Chimu Capac examples 4-7279 and 4-7509a, b with discontinuous and dovetailed warps. Ángeles and Pozzi-Escot (2001: Figure 25) illustrate a similar complementary-warp manta from Huaca Malena.

6 Uhle excavated fragments and a complete small mantle woven in discontinuous, supplementary-weft structure at Pachacamac with the same design “found with mummy buried very deep” 29773 and 29767 and in the “gravefield, oldest part” 29769 and 29770 illustrated in Penn Museum online catalog. Long, narrow bands in the same structure and design were woven on the edges of women’s dresses at Huaca Pucllana (Chuchón 2012).

7 Vreeland (1986: 370–371) calls “parado” the yarn spun upright producing Z-spun yarn. He found that in 1986 spinners living in transitional zones between the highlands and coast spin in one or the other direction, but “one does note a close correlation between the S-spinning of cotton and the Z-spinning of wool often executed by the same spinner, who, in most cases, is of highland origin.” The spinner uses paired S-spun cotton yarns, but plies two Z-spun wool yarns by holding the spindle horizontally to produce “characteristic” Z2S yarns. He says “in the North Sierra and Coast, change in spin direction is usually achieved by changing the position of the shaft from vertical to horizontal, or vice versa, not by rotating the shaft in the opposite direction.”