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A panaca or panaqa, or panaka (, , ) was a family clan of the Sapa Inca, the kuraka or emperor of the Inca Empire. The panakas were formed by the descendants of a Sapa Inca or his wife. The basic social institution of the Incas is the ayllu. An ayllu is a group of families that descended from a common ancestor, united by culture and religion, in addition to the agricultural work, livestock and fishing of the same territory. The ayllu concept transcended into nobility, so that the royal kinship could establish a lineage, called panaca or royal house.
The panaca excluded the auqui (in Quechua awki), the crown prince, who would succeed him. When the designated successor became emperor, he would leave his original panaca and form his own one.
The panakas made up the Inca's court and formed the aristocracy of Cusco. They maintained multiple sacred shrines, performing ceremonies in the name of the ruler-founder emperor of the panaka, and maintaining the memory of the deceased emperor and his mallki (mummy), through songs, and paintings that were transmitted from generation to generation.Rostworowski, María (1988). Historia del Tawantinsuyu (Historia Andina 13)- Instituto de Estudios Peruanos (IEP) - Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (CONCYTEC). Lima. - Lima.
In the spatio-temporal ceque system, in which each region, both Hanan (high), Antisuyu and Chinchay Suyu, and Hurin (low), Kuntisuyu and Qullasuyu, had groups of three ceques, symbolic lines or pathways, the panakas were represented by the Payan ceque.
Panacas performed ceremonies in the name of the Inca and took care of the goods and alliances made during his reign. Each panaca owned holdings across the realm, including Inca royal estates and palaces in the sacred valley and the capital city of Cusco: the city core was composed principally of palatial enclosures known as Inca kancha, some of which were owned by the panakas.
Moreover each panaca had the task of maintaining one or more of the sacred shrines along the Ceque system, imaginary paths irradiating form Cusco towards the four Suyus (provinces) of the Tawantinsuyu (Inca Empire).
The members of a panaka made up the Sapa Inca's court which was also supported by their deceased ancestors who acted through their descendants, as if they were still alive. The panakas formed the aristocracy of Cusco, and represented factions and alliances capable of exerting influence in the decisions in the politics and conflicts of Inca history In this sense the panacas, particularly female ones, since the Incas had a long matrilineal tradition, influenced, among other things, the appointment of successors to the Sapa Inka position,Hernández Astete, Francisco (2012). La sucesión entre los Incas - Chungará, Revista de Antropología Chilena - Vol. 44 - (4) pages 655-667 -Arica elected by the law of the "most capable".
The panakas of Pachacuti Tupac Yupanui were the most important: due to the early expansion of the empire they were owners of great extensions of land with innumerable laborers and servants ( yanakuna) in charge of their care and of their social status.
The panakas were associated with both the ceque system and the irrigation of Cusco, and there existed a particular relationship between the panakas and the Cusco lands through the identification of each panaca with a system of chapas (agricultural spaces). This distribution was related to the existence of an Andean socio-territorial and spatio-temporal geographic division, based on ceques, imaginary lines starting from Cuzco and linking together 328 huacas (divinities, ancestors, and constellations personified in the landscape) Each panaka was in charge of one or more ceque and several shrines.Zuidema, R. Tom (1964). The Ceque system of Cuzco, The social organization of the capital of the Inca - E.J. Brill - Leiden
The priest and chronicler Cristóbal de Molina, in his manuscript Relación de las fábulas y ritos de los Incas (Account of the fables and rites of the Incas) of 1575 describes the situa (situwa raymi in Quechua), the solemn festival of health and purification that was celebrated by the Incas at the spring equinox, in September. During this festival the nobility of Cusco that gathered in the main square was divided into ten panakas only, instead of eleven, each associated with one of four suys (or provinces) of the Inca empire. Molina does not mention the Tumipampa Ayllu, the panaca of Wayna Qhapaq.Bauer, Brian S.; Smith-Oka Vania; Cantarutti, Gabriel E. (editors) (2011) Account of the Fables and Rites of the Incas by Cristóbal de Molina - With an introduction by Brian S. Bauer - University of Texas Press
Panacas from the Hurin Qusco moiety:D’Altroy, Terence N. (2015). The Incas - Second Edition - Blackwell Publishing
Panacas from the Hanan Qusco moiety:
In addition to the recorded panacas, the chronicles sporadically mention other panacas that possibly played an important role in earlier times and that were overwhelmed by groups with more importance. From Hanan Cusco two panacas were excluded from the official list and from Hurin Cusco three. Huascar and Atahualpa did not found a panaka during their short reigns.
María Rostworowski writes that, before the 16th century, ayllu and panaka were synonyms. The characterization of the term panaca to designate the kinship group of the Sapa Inca, would be a post-Conquest introduction induced by the early Spanish historians.Rostworowski, Maria (1983). Estructuras andinas del poder. Ideología religiosa y política. Instituto de Estudios Peruanos - Lima
According to Hernández Astete, Qhapaq Ayllu and Hatun Ayllu may have never existed as established panakas. According to this historian, Qhapaq Ayllu was the generic name of the high nobility, while Hatun Ayllu would correspond to the descendants of the nobles of non-Inca women who, in order to access power in Cusco, established kinship ties with the Incas.Hernández Astete, Francisco (2010). La élite incaica y la articulación del Tahuantinsuyo Tesis doctoral - Universidad Complutense de Madrid - Facultad de geografía e historia - [1]
Hernández Astete puts writes that the word panaka is associated only with noble women with whom they are " panas", since they had kinship ties with some of the earlier Incas, then only those men and women who descended from a "pana" constituted the Inca nobility. The men of the group, including the Inca, also had children with women who were not part of the highest nobility of Cuzco. Thus, a man could be part of the "royal lineage" –the nobility– only if he was the son of a "pana", thus the "pana" granted noble status to their direct descendants since, as far as it is known, polygamy was a male prerogative. For their part, all the women of the elite, even daughters of noble parents, called themselves "panas" and constituted kinship groups associated with each of the sectors of power in Cuzco. The ayllus formed by these groups of women would be what historians have called "panacas". This interpretation of a panaca as a group of sisters of the Inca would mean that the panaca preceded the ruler and that the ruling Inca was chosen from among them.
A study carried out by Donato Amado, historian from the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru,Amado Gonzáles, Donato (2015). Sistema de tenencia de tierras de ayllus y panacas incas en el valle del Cusco, siglos XVI-XVII. In TRIBUS Sonderband / Special edition I "Perspectives on the Inca I 2015 - Edited by Monica Barnes, Inés de Castro, Javier Flores Espinoza, Doris Kurella, Karoline Noack - International Symposium from March 3rd to March 5th, 2014 - Linden-Museum Stuttgart, Staatliches Museum für Völkerkunde refers to documents issued by the Real Audiencia (Royal Court), preserved in the Archivo Regional de Cusco (Cusco regional Archive) which include records of purchase and sale of land, reports of inspections by the Spanish authorities, lawsuits, demarcation and land marking in the 16th and 17th century. They somehow contrast with the information from the Chroniclers of the same period in that the owners of the Hanan lands were male descendants of the Sapa Inca, while owners of the Hurin lands were female descendants. It appears from property litigations and the court rulings settling them, that there is a demarcation between the lands owned by the panacas and the lands owned by the ayllus in the Cusco valley: they are not mixed but clearly divided in two parts: the Hanan (higher) or north part of the lands are property of ayllus while the hurin (lower) or south are property of panacas. Moreover the owner of the Hanan lands were all men, while the owner of the Hurin lands were all women. The latter statement is also supported by a sentence by Inca Garcilaso de la Vega who wrote: «when our imperial city began to be populated, it was divided into two halves … The King wanted those he summoned to populate Hanan Cozco, and for this they call it the high one, and those that the Queen summoned were to populate Hurin Cozco, and for this reason they called it the low one. This division of the city was not so that such as the one half would gain an advantage over the other half in exemptions and pre-eminences, but that all were equal as brothers, children of a father and a mother». In practice, those who were part of the kinship of a male line lived in the hanan Cusco sector, while the family bond established by the coya, the Inca's wife, lived in the hurin Cusco sector.
Cusco was the center point of the empire (the navel as Inca Garcilaso states.) and the four suyus –provinces– stemmed from it. As a result the study confirms that male children of the ruling Inca formed Hanan Cusco, whose lands extended over the Chinchaysuyu and Antisuyu parts, mostly north of Cusco) while the daughters together with the qoya (inca main wife) made up the panaca and were from Hurin Cusco, which is why they occupied the sector of Qullasuyu and Kuntisuyu, mostly south of Cusco. For these reasons, according to Amado, the kinships of Hanan Cusco were identified as royal ayllus, while those of Hurin Cusco were called panaca or better panaca ayllu. This supports the assumption that ayllu and panaca were not synonyms.
Finally the Peruvian linguist Rodolfo Cerrón Palomino who contributed to the investigations on the Quechua languages proposes a new interpretation of the word panaca, suggesting its origin from the Puquina language. He states that research «carried out on the basis of the respective philological examination, shows that the word cannot be affiliated with either Quechua or Aymara, but rather with Puquina, a language in which the verb paña- meant 'to come down, descend'».Cerrón Palomino, Rodolfo (2019). La tesis del quechuismo primitivo y su efecto distorsionador en la interpretación del pasado prehispánico. In El estudio del mundo andino, edited by Marco Curatola - Lima - Fondo Editorial PUCP
On the contrary the philologist and linguist César Itier suggests a new etymology for the word "panaca" basing on some early colonial writings, particularly those by José de Acosta (16th century Spanish Jesuit missionary and naturalist) and Juan Pérez Bocanegra (author in 1631 of a booklet for the religious teaching to the Inca people). He states that they both of them translate the term panaca as "vicar", "governor", "lieutenant" and "pontiff". Thus meaning that the interpretation given by the early chroniclers was wrong: the word "panaca" did not mean a royal clan (royal ayllu) but was used by the quechua speaking locals to let the chroniclers know that some vicar was in charge of representing the royal clan. According to Itier the royal ayllus were never called panacas.Itier, César (2011). Las panacas no existieron – in "Estudios sobre lenguas andinas y amazónicas Homenaje a Rodolfo Cerrón-Palomino" Willem F. H . Adelaar, Pilar Valenzuela Bismarck and Roberto Zariquiey Biondi editors
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