Los tocapus de Llullaillaco

Abstract

In the Llullaillaco contexts, the tocapu and cumbi designs are repeated in significant textiles worn by the sacrificed children and on the miniatures worn by the figurines that make up the offerings. Both the anthropomorphic metal miniatures (in gold and silver) and those of mullu (spondylus) are dressed with an uncu (tunic), yacolla (cloak) and llautu (headband). They carry a bag or chuspa with the same patterns as the clothes the children are wearing. Our understating of the meaning of tocapu is based on the descriptions of chroniclers. These descriptions are sometimes intimately linked to the idea of textiles, and at other times to the narrative of the designs, although we do not know yet a system that allows us to decipher its real meaning. Tocapu has been used radically differently in political, cultural and religious fields. They are defined by having a repetitive pattern sometimes, though not repetitive at other times, with abstract shapes composed of geometric figures and organized lines that represent a meaning. Tocapu is transhistorical, we can find it today in different regions linked to architecture, ritual symbols, to the Inca, and in later centuries influencing richly ornamental clothes and cloaks (for example, in the colonial period).