Habsburg and Inka Close-Kin Marriage in the Colonial Imagination

• In Event: Poder, género y negociación en los Virreinatos de Perú y México

Abstract

In 1558, in Spanish Peru, the Inca prince Sayri Thupa married his sister Kusi Warkay, with the blessing of the Catholic bishop of Cusco. In 1570, King Philip II of Spain married his niece Ana of Austria. Each marriage reflected a royal practice of close-kin marriage forbidden to ordinary people, in Peru just as in Europe. Together, these two dynastic traditions defined a political culture for colonized Peru. The Spanish invaders were fascinated with their opulent, pagan predecessors, the Inkas, admiring them as much as their indigenous and mestizo contemporaries; indigenous elites, meanwhile, considered themselves equal stakeholders in the Spanish monarchy. I examine Spanish and Andean political cultures of sacred kingship and royal sexuality, and the ways they entered into conversation with each other within a shared colonial space.

Author

• Jeremy R Mumford, Brown University