Research Project: The Chosen Woman of the Incan Empire (posted by Annie)

Introduction

Acllas. Most people don't know about them. So I will try my best to explain the acllas.

Chosen woman, slaves to the Incan empire, whatever you want to call them, but I will be calling them the acllas. Before you ask, the acllas were women and girls in the Incan empire who were from small provincial towns, and they were chosen by the Incan officials for their beauty (Hunt, Karen, Summerville, Gose). Between the ages of 10 and 12, they (the soon to be acllas) were transported to Cuzco, the capital city, and they went into isolation. The Mamakuna (whom I’ll talk about later) taught them how to weave, cook, and brew chicha, the sacred corn beer. According to one of my sources, at the age of 14, they would have three choices: marry a newly conquered noble as a peace offering, stay in the aclluahuasi and become a priestess, or -- very rarely -- become human sacrifice.

The reason why I chose this topic is because my original question was “What roles did women have in maintaining the Incan Empire?" Then dad and I read R. Alan Covey's book The Inca Apocalypse and learned more about the acllas. Covey said that the acllas had a bunch of power in the Incan Empire adn I wanted to see if he was right. So I changed my topic to be about them. My question for Peruvian topic is, “To what extent did the acllas actually have power?”

Methodology 

To answer my question, To what extent did the acllas actually have power?, I read 6 books and articles with the help of my dad, such as:

• R. Alan Covey, a professor at the University of Texas.

• Ruth Karan, an author.

• Barbra A. Summerville, an author.

• Irene Silverblatt’s, a professor at Duke University.

• Peter Gose’s, a professor at Carleton University.

• Stella Nair, a professor at UCLA.

I also interviewed four people here in Peru.

• Yony, our guide in Ollantaytambo.

• Miquel, the manager of Andean Colors.

• Francisco, our guide in Saqsaywaman.

• Sergio, our walking tour guide in Cuzco.

I feel like the most exciting part of my research was visiting an ACTUAL acllawasi!!! When the Spanish came to Peru, they saw the acllahuasis and they decided to replace them with convents. The main aclluhuasi in Cusco become Saint Catherine's Monastery, which is now a nunnery and a museum. From the museum I learnt that a acllahuasi would most likely be a “vast area” and “contain passageways lined with rooms and workshops."

Section 1 

To see how much power the acllas had, I had to look at BOTH sides of the argument. After I read and interviewed my sources, some of them said the same thing -- the acllas had power. Two of my sources both emphasized that the acllas were the only women that got an “education,” such as learning how to weave, cook, and brew chicha (Covey, Hunt, Silverblatt, Yony, Gose). This gave them more power because in most cases, educated people are the ones in power.

Covey, one of the authors that I read, talked about the mamakunas, the powerful priestesses that taught the acllas. The mamakunas were powerful because, according to Covey, they had control over all the women and acllas. He said they were independent from men. The mamakuna taught the girls from the newly conquered places the “Incan” way of doing things to “fix” them. The mamakuna also taught the acllas how to cook Incan food, how to weave the Incan way, and, most importantly, brew the chicha beer (Covey, Hunt, Silverblatt, Yony, Gose)

Peter Gose believes that the acllas fed the men while they were doing mita. Mita is a system that the Inca invented. Since the Inca did not have any currency to pay taxes, the men had to do labor for several months of the year. They could help make roads, join the army, help make terraces, and much more. But while the men did mita, they did not have their wives to cook for them. So who did? The acllas, of course. This meant acllas gained power over the men serving as laborers, according to Gose. Some of my sources say this (Covey, Gose, Karen, Miquel).

Overall, I disagree. I believe that the acllas did not have power. I will tell you my reasons in section 2.

Section 2

The first reason that acllas did not have power is that they had no choice but to leave their family at age 10 - 12 and they might never come back. The Incan officials would go to the small towns and take the most beautiful girls. This was their way of getting into the heads of conquered families, by taking their daughters and as if saying, “You are Inca now”. That would be like Eliza and I having to leave Atlanta, and head to Washington, D.C. We would be forced into what would be like a nunnery and learn how to cook for the army and Congress, how to make clothes for the president's family, and how to make wine for church services. We could become second wives for the president, governors, and mayors. We would never be allowed to leave the nunnery and would never be allowed to see our families again. That's how bad it would be.

Stella Nair, a professor from UCLA, and Irene Silverblatt, a professor from Duke University, do not think that the acllas had much power. Nair wrote, “the Inca state, which advocated male lineage for its rulers, needed to find ways to control female authority" (Nair). Silverblatt said, “The Incas thought they were ‘goods’” and that they could also “distribute the ‘goods’ (Silverblatt).

The next reason that I don't think that the acllas had power is because if they had a lover, they would be executed. This means you could not have a love life what-so-ever. They could not even set eyes on a man for the rest of their lives, for they were seen as the wives of Inti, the sun god (Covey, Hunt). The final reason that I got from our first guide, Yony, is that they “belonged” to the royal family (Yony). Even their gravestones had the royal insignia. 

So, as you can see, the acllas obviously did not have any kind of power. That concludes section 2: No, the acllas did not have power. 

Conclusion

In my opinion, the acllas did not have much power. After I finished my essay, my dad asked me whether it is it right for people now to apply our moral standards to the Inca, who lived 500 years ago?

I feel like I’m on the fence. On one hand, no, we should not, because back then they did not know that no matter your gender, we should all have the same rights. On the other hand, yes, we should apply our standards of equality. I don't think that we should treat ten year old girls the way that they did by taking them away from their families.

Fran

Bibliogrpahy

Covey, R Alan. Inca Apocalypse : The Spanish Conquest and the Transformation of the Andean World. New York, Ny, Oxford University Press, 2020.

Francisco. 24 Aug. 2025.

Gose, Peter. “The State as a Chosen Woman: Brideservice and the Feeding of Tributaries in the Inka Empire.” American Anthropologist, vol. 102, no. 1, Mar. 2000, https://doi.org/10.1525/aa.2000.102.1.84. Accessed 2025.

Hunt, Sara. Woman of the Incan Empire. Southern Adventist University, 2015.

Miguel. 21 Aug. 2025.

Nair, Stella. "The Politics of Gendered Spaces in the Incan Empire." Traditional Dwellings and Settlements Review, 2018.

Ruth. Kingdom of the Sun. New York NY, Four Winds Press, 1975.

Saint Catherine's Monastery. 27 Aug. 2025.

Silverblatt, Irene. Andean Women in the Incan Empire. Feminist Studies, Oct. 1978.

Summerville, Barbara. Empire of the Incas. New York NY, Chelsea House, 2009.

Yony. 18 Aug. 2025