Culture Groups
Chachapoya
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The Chachapoya, sometimes called the Cloud Warriors in popular writing, were an indigenous culture of the northeastern Peruvian Andes's cloud forest region, flourishing roughly from 800 to their conquest first by the Inca in the late fifteenth century and then by the Spanish. They are known archaeologically for the monumental hilltop citadel of Kuelap, for round stone dwellings, and for painted wooden sarcophagi and cliffside chullpa mausoleums holding mummy bundles, several spectacularly preserved at sites such as Karajia and the Laguna de los Condores. The Chachapoya left no deciphered writing system, were substantially dispersed and assimilated under Inca and then Spanish colonial rule, and Spanish chroniclers who might have recorded their beliefs encountered them only after Inca conquest had already reshaped their political and religious life, so their own cosmology and deities are not confidently known from the documentary record.
Facts
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Principal Religious TraditionsNot confidently known. No Chachapoya religious text or deciphered writing survives, and Spanish chroniclers encountered the Chachapoya only after Inca conquest had already reshaped their political and religious institutions, so no reliable account of their own pre-Inca cosmology or named deities has come down to us. 1 Archaeologists can describe Chachapoya funerary practice, monumental architecture and material culture in detail, but the specific beliefs, deities and rites behind that material record remain unrecovered; this is a genuine gap in the documentary and archaeological record, not merely an unstudied question. Origins
Origin RegionThe Utcubamba river region and surrounding cloud forest of the northeastern Peruvian Andes, present day Amazonas region, Peru 1 Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
This source names Chachapoya directly: "Church and Adriana von Hagen on the Chachapoya culture of the northeastern Peruvian Andes, in Helaine Silverman's edited volume Andean Archaeology, published by Blackwell in 2004."
Inca, Cultures This source names Inca directly: "800 to their conquest first by the Inca in the late fifteenth century and then by the Spanish."
Sources
Open Questions (1 open question)
What Were the Chachapoya's Own Deities and Cosmology?
The Chachapoya left no deciphered writing system, and Spanish chroniclers who might have recorded their beliefs encountered them only after Inca conquest had already reshaped their political and religious institutions in the late fifteenth century. Their monumental architecture, sarcophagi and mummy bundles are extensively documented archaeologically, but the specific deities, cosmology and ritual meaning behind that material record are not confidently known from any surviving account.
What would resolve this Further bioarchaeological and iconographic study of undisturbed Chachapoya funerary sites, such as the Laguna de los Condores mausoleums, that could recover painted or carved religious imagery predating Inca influence, together with any Chachapoya-specific vocabulary that might survive embedded in later colonial-era Quechua or Spanish records of the region.
Andean archaeology and bioarchaeologyWarren B. Church and Adriana von Hagen, Chachapoyas: Cultural Development at an Andean Cloud Forest Crossroads (Church and von Hagen)
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