yanakuna

{{Short description|Class of people in the former territories of the Inca Empire}}

Yanakuna were originally individuals in the Inca Empire who left the ayllu system{{Cite book | publisher = ABC-CLIO | isbn = 978-0-89789-891-1 | last = Lewellen | first = Ted C. | title = Political anthropology: An introduction | year = 2003 |pages = 38–39 }} and worked full-time at a variety of tasks for the Inca, the quya (Inca queen), or the religious establishment. A few members of this serving class enjoyed high social status and were appointed officials by the Sapa Inca.Childress, D. (2000). Who's who in Inca society. Calliope, 10(7), 14. They could own property and sometimes had their own farms, before and after the conquest. The Spanish continued the yanakuna tradition developing it further as yanakuna entered Spanish service as Indian auxiliaries or encomienda Indians.

Etymology and spelling

The word yana in Quechua, the main Inca language, means black, servant, and is possibly derived from the verb yanapa to help, Qosqo Quechua, yana, black, servant, partner, spouse, and paramour.{{Cite web|url=https://glosbe.com/|title=yana - Quechua cuzqueño-Español Diccionario|website=Glosbe|language=en|access-date=2019-05-22}} The -kuna suffix in yanakuna indicates the plural,Alan L. Kolata, Ancient Inca, Cambridge University Press, 2013 thus if yana is translated as "servant" yanakuna is "servants"Garcilazo de la Vega, Primera Parte de los Comentarios Reales de los Incas(1609), available [http://shemer.mslib.huji.ac.il/lib/W/ebooks/001531300.pdf online] or "slaves".Teofilo Laime Ajacopa, Diccionario Bilingüe Iskay simipi yuyayk'ancha, La Paz, 2007 (Quechua-Spanish dictionary) Hispanicized spellings of yanakuna are yanacona and yanaconas.

Inca Empire

In the Inca Empire yanakuna was the name of the servants to the Inca elites. The word servant, however, is misleading about the identity and function of the yanakuna.The Inca and Aztec States 1400-1800. Anthropology and History by George A. Collier; Renato I. Rosaldo; John D. Wirth. It is important to note that they were not forced to work as slaves.{{citation needed|date=May 2013}} Some were born into the category of yanakuna (like many other professions, it was a hereditary one), some chose to leave ayllus to work, and some were selected by nobles.Malpass, M. A. (1996). Daily life in the inca empire. (pp. 55). Greenwood Publishing Group. They were to care for the herds of the nobles, do fishing, and were dedicated to other work, like the making of pottery, construction, and domestic service. Yanakuna were sometimes given high positions in the Inca government. Mitma is a term commonly associated with yanakuna, but its meaning is different, as the mitmaqkuna were used as labor for large projects. Yanakuna were specifically not a part of an ayllu and were relocated individually instead of in large labor groups. An example of the differences of the classes is that mitmaqkuna were labor that built Machu Picchu, but yanakuna lived and served the Inca there.Bethany L. Turner, George D. Kamenov, John D. Kingston, George J. Armelagos, Insights into immigration and social class at Machu Picchu, Peru based on oxygen, strontium, and lead isotopic analysis, Journal of Archaeological

In Chile, the mapuche used this word to refer to alleged "traitors of their race". The concept of traitor was unknown to them, so when asked to translate the word from Spanish they referred to the Spanish native auxiliaries.

Spanish Empire

When the Spanish conquistadors arrived in modern-day Peru, the yanakuna assisted the Spaniards to take control of the empire. These people had their names used{{Clarify|date=October 2024 |reason="What does it mean to use their names?"}} by the Spaniards, during the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire, as one for the indigenous people they had in servitude, in encomiendas, or in military forces as indios auxiliares (Indian auxiliaries).{{Clarify|date=October 2024 |reason="Incoherent"}}

After the conquest, as craftworkers and laborers, the yanakuna played a significant role in a variety of both rural and urban production sectors in Peru's colonial economy.

= First decades of colonization =

The Spanish initially exacted tribute from the indigenous peoples of Peru through the ayllu-based encomienda system, by which native subjects were forced to contribute labor and goods (increasingly in the form of silver money) in service of the Spanish crown.{{Cite journal|last=Gil Montero|first=Raquel|date=2011|title=Free and Unfree Labour in the Colonial Andes in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries|url=https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020859011000472|journal=International Review of Social History|volume=56|issue=S19|pages=303–305|doi=10.1017/S0020859011000472 |via=Cambridge Core|hdl=11336/65922|hdl-access=free}} Yanakuna, however, were separate from this system of obligation, and often performed different tasks. While the indios de encomienda fulfilled the most menial jobs in the Potosi silver mines, for example, yanakuna served as skilled artisans.Gil Montero, "Free and Unfree Labour in the Colonial Andes in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries," 303–305. Some yanakuna did work in the mines themselves from their beginnings in the 1540s, but unlike the indios de encomienda, they worked as free wage laborers.{{Citation|last=Bakewell|first=Peter|chapter=Mining in colonial Spanish America|date=1984|url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-history-of-latin-america/mining-in-colonial-spanish-america/7CFC97CB096642C5CE6DB79EED7EB43C|title=Volume 2: Colonial Latin America|volume=|pages=127|editor-last=Bethell|editor-first=Leslie|series=The Cambridge History of Latin America|place=Cambridge|publisher=Cambridge University Press|doi=10.1017/chol9780521245166.005|isbn=978-0-521-24516-6|access-date=2020-11-30}}

= ''Yanakuna'' in mining and the ''mita'' =

Under the reforms imposed by Viceroy Francisco de Toledo (1569-1581), a system of draft labor known as the mita came to replace the encomienda system, by which villages within a several-hundred mile radius around Potosi had to send around one seventh of their male tribute-age population (from ages 18 to 50) each year to work in the mines. This change in labor organization occurred for a number of reasons: the Crown's explicitly stated preference for Peru to emphasize silver export and advances in mining technology increase the demand for labor; at the same time, the imposition of the mita allowed the Crown to push against the power of the encomenderos (Spanish recipients of encomienda grants), and offer native labor to non-encomenderos in Peru.Gil Montero, "Free and Unfree Labour in the Colonial Andes in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries," 298, 305–307, 317.Bakewell, "Mining in colonial Spanish America," 124.{{Cite journal|last=Sempat Assadourian|first=Carlos|date=1992|title=The Colonial Economy: The Transfer of the European System of Production to New Spain and Peru|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/156945|journal=Journal of Latin American Studies|volume=24, Quincentenary Supplement: The Colonial and Post Colonial Experience. Five Centuries of Spanish and Portuguese America|pages=58–59|jstor=156945 }}

With this shift, yanakuna retained their place within the colonial economy of labor, and even grew in importance. As indios de encomienda decreased in number at Potosi, yanakuna increased. And, though mitayos (mita labor draftees) filled an important role in completing tasks undesirable to free laborers, they did not constitute a majority of laborers at Potosi{{snd}}in 1603, for example, only 5,100 Indians out of 58,800 working at Potosi were mitayos.Gil Montero, "Free and Unfree Labour in the Colonial Andes in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries," 307–308, 314. The proportion of mitayos continued to decrease through the seventeenth century, as the proportion of yanakuna increased: in the latter half of the sixteenth century, yanakuna constituted less than 10% of tribute paying subjects, while they constituted about 40% of this population in the latter half of the seventeenth century.Ibid., 315–316.

A 1601 order from the Crown stated a preference for voluntary labor;Bakewell, "Mining in colonial Spanish America," 126. indeed, though the yanakuna may have been bound as servants, historian Raquel Gil Montero suggests that after the Toledo reforms, the tribute-paying yanakuna at Potosi could be considered "free laborers." It was to the natives' advantage to work for market-rate wages as a free laborer (as opposed to the below market-rate wages of the mitayos), considering the expectation of tribute in money form.Gil Montero, "Free and Unfree Labour in the Colonial Andes in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries," 299, 316.

= ''Yanakuna'' in other economic sectors and labor arrangements =

As Spanish settlers brought European agriculture to Peru, yanakuna labor supplemented that of mita draftees on farms. In this context, "yanakuna" referred to laborers who permanently resided at their place of employment.Sempat Assadourian, "The Colonial Economy: The Transfer of the European System of Production to New Spain and Peru," 60–61. As an alternative to mita draftees, Spaniards preferred yanakuna were to African slaves, as the former were familiar with both indigenous and European methods, and did not need to be purchased.{{Cite book|last=Stern, Steve J.|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/8176675|title=Peru's Indian peoples and the challenge of Spanish conquest : Huamanga to 1640|publisher=University of Wisconsin Press|year=1982|isbn=0-299-08900-2|location=Madison|page=141|oclc=8176675}} As in the mines, yanakuna labor in some areas represented a significant proportion of the labor force. The historian Steve J. Stern has written that Spanish colonials in the Huamanga region of Peru increasingly depended on contracted yanakuna labor as the mita labor draft became less reliable, especially for less politically influential settlers (in part due to resistance and evasion from within ayllus, as well as indigenous population decline). This was the case not only in farming and mining, but also in ranching and manufactures.Stern, Peru's Indian peoples and the challenge of Spanish conquest : Huamanga to 1640, 139, 142–143.

In these contract relationships, a yanakuna promised labor services to a master in exchange for subsistence, as well as land and credit. Labor arrangements mimicking this yanakuna form{{snd}}separate from the natives' ayllus{{snd}} proliferated through the early seventeenth century, as Spanish employers sought to secure a labor force. In some cases, factory owners brought laborers from their ayllus to reside in situ like yanakuna; in others, contracts with free wage laborers came to resemble yanakuna contracts in their duration and reciprocal guarantees. What Stern calls "yanacona-like" relationships developed as a way for Indian workers to repay debts to a Spanish employer. And, due to labor demand, Spaniard's sometimes sought to convince Indians to voluntarily enter yanakuna contracts on farms with attractive wage offers. The need for coercion to secure labor indeed decreased, as the monetization of tribute, the associated integration of a commercial economy, and the burdens of the mita made ayllus less self-sufficient, and induced Indian members to seek subsistence beyond.Ibid., 142–157.

Though separate from their ayllus, yanakuna were not completely dislocated from community. Many still owned land, and some of those working on farms lived their with families.Ibid., 143, 155. In general, like other colonial-era migrants, yanakuna moved with their families and spouses.{{Cite journal|last=Zulawski|first=Ann|date=1990|title=Social Differentiation, Gender, and Ethnicity: Urban Indian Women in Colonial Bolivia, 1640–1725|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2503781|journal=Latin American Research Review|volume=25|issue=2|pages=100–101|doi=10.1017/S0023879100023396 |jstor=2503781 }}

In urban areas, yanakuna owned and passed down real estate. Unlike many other urban Indian laborers bound in servitude, often in domestic work, urban yanakuna maintained a more privileged status working as skilled craftspeople. Here, they were also distinguished by their comparably greater degree of acculturation to Spanish custom and language. Some scholars argue that this integration into urban colonial society by yanakuna actually represented an extension into a new context of older Andean practices of migration meant to fulfill different ecological niches.Ibid., 99–104.

The term yanakuna also was used during the conquest of Chile and other areas of South America, like the New Kingdom of Granada.

Modern use

In modern times people in Chile use "yanacona" as an insult for Mapuches considered to have betrayed their people.{{Cite news|title=Audiencia en caso Mapuexpress: Querellante pidió censurar al medio a cambio de retirar la demanda|work=El Desconcierto|url=https://www.eldesconcierto.cl/2017/07/27/audiencia-en-caso-mapuexpress-querellante-pidio-censurar-al-medio-a-cambio-de-retirar-la-demanda/|date=July 27, 2017|access-date=September 4, 2019|language=Spanish}} Use of the word "yanacona" to describe people in the press has led to legal action in Chile. Héctor Llaitul, leader of the militant organization Coordinadora Arauco-Malleco, has declared that those Mapuche who work for forestry companies are "yanaconas".{{Cite news |title=Héctor Llaitul y ataque a equipo de TVN: 'Detrás de esto está la mano negra y siniestra de las forestale' |url=https://radio.uchile.cl/2021/03/30/hector-llaitul-y-ataque-a-equipo-de-tvn-detras-de-esto-esta-la-mano-negra-y-siniestra-de-las-forestales/ |last=González F. |first=Tomás |date=2021-03-30 |access-date=2022-10-01 |work=Radio Universidad de Chile |language=Spanish}}{{Cite news |title=La verdadera zona roja mapuche: Cómo es el lugar donde fue atacado el equipo de TVN |url=https://www.ex-ante.cl/la-verdadera-zona-roja-mapuche-como-es-el-lugar-donde-fue-atacado-el-equipo-de-tvn/ |last=Basadre |first=Pablo |date=2021-04-02 |access-date=2022-10-01 |work=Ex-Ante |language=Spanish}}

References

Sources

Ann M. Wightman, Indigenous Migration and Social Change: The Forasteros of Cuzco, 1570–1720, Duke University Press, 1990, {{ISBN|0822310007}}. pp. 16–18
Translation of Spanish Wikipedia Page
The Inca and Aztec States 1400–1800. Anthropology and History by George A. Collier; Renato I. Rosaldo; John D. Wirth.
Childress, D. (2000). "Who's who in Inca society". Calliope, 10(7), 14.
Malpass, M. A. (1996). Daily life in the inca empire. (pp. 55). Greenwood Publishing Group.
Bethany L. Turner, George D. Kamenov, John D. Kingston, George J. Armelagos, "Insights into immigration and social class at Machu Picchu, Peru based on oxygen, strontium, and lead isotopic analysis", Journal of Archaeological Science, Volume 36, Issue 2, February 2009, pp. 317–332, {{ISSN|0305-4403}}, {{doi|10.1016/j.jas.2008.09.018}}.
Stern, S. J. (1982). Peru's Indian peoples and the challenge of Spanish conquest. (pp. 30–55). Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.