Recommended listening: Los Incas - Flutes de Andes
Story
In La Leche Valley, prosperity was flowing. People from all over the north coast of Peru had gravitated toward the great city of Sicán. Six families ruled this city of pyramids, casting themselves as gods in a grand cosmological story. Each family raised a pyramid to house its sacred dead, leaders who had passed from this world to become one with the god they represented. Known to archaeologists as the Sicán Deity, this god's image appeared everywhere in art, from lustrous black ceramics to golden masks that adorned the faces of the dead. From Sicán, the small elite controlled a vast trade network that stretched from Colombia in the north to Chile in the south and the Amazon in the east. Their monopoly on the trade of spondylus shells, valued across the continent for sacred imagery connected to the ocean, as well as their advanced metallurgical and ceramic technology, put them in a position to spread the veneration of the Sicán Deity - and his earthly avatars. Wherever their goods were traded by missionaries or merchants, they cultivated the cult of the Sicán Deity. They shared knowledge and technology in return for loyalty and labour, a conquest carried out through religious and economic overtures instead of military might.
The Sicán elite filled the power vacuum left behind by the decline of the Moche and Wari civilizations. On the north coast of what is now Peru, they led a multiethnic society that drew together people from diverse backgrounds. They were able to convince the people, for a time, that they had a direct line to the gods, one which allowed them to ensure agricultural and economic prosperity for the ruled. In exchange, they demanded incredible amounts of labour to build the adobe platform mounds that housed private temples on top and royal tombs below. On top of the back-breaking labour this required, hundreds of commoners were sacrificed to sanctify the construction of these imposing buildings. Nobles, too, were sacrificed to accompany the burials of important people, and mummies of ancestors were moved great distances to join their descendants in their resplendent new tombs.
A thousand years ago, the cult of the aristocratic families in Sicán had reached its height. It was a time that must have fostered a feverish devotional atmosphere in the city as rival families led ceremonies to mark all of the pyramid construction, including the ritual sacrifices that accompanied them. Family leaders, including both men and women, became the focal points of elaborate burial complexes incorporating people from all ranks of society. The preparations for these burials took months and required the labour of many people who lived in and around Sicán. One of the tasks that took place on the great plaza was the spinning and weaving of clothing for the relocated mummies and new burials. We know this because spindle whorls have been found in the temporary hearths that were set up by various groups around the plaza.
Images of people in Sicán art are dominated by male figures like the Sicán Deity, but there are images of women carrying out daily tasks woven into textiles. For thousands of years, textiles have been the art form par excellence of Andean women. Women from Sicán were masters at passementerie, creating elaborate tassels and three-dimensional borders to the clothing they made. Squid tails and bird heads, tree roots and flower petals - all leapt off the edge of textiles as if they were coming to life. Women depicted themselves in textile art too, showing themselves weaving at A-frame looms and spinning with drop spindles. The spindle whorls found at the plaza in Sicán demonstrate that women were deeply involved in the ritual preparations for an elite burial, weaving the dressings for mummy bundles as well as the clothes that their leaders would be buried in.
The women pictured here are based on images from a Sicán textile that was found at Pachacamac, a pilgrimage centre in the Andes. It was probably left there as an offering by pilgrims who had come from Sicán. The two women in colourful clothing use a drop spindle while standing, much as Peruvian women still do today. In Sicán's tightly stratified society, these women were probably in the wealthier half, but were not wearing the gold and silver jewellery that might mark them as members of the high elite. The distinctive style of hip cloths they wear is unique to the Sicán and unknown elsewhere in the history of Andean fashion. The botanical and animal motifs on their clothing, as well as wave patterns symbolizing the ocean, show off the women's creativity while rooting them in the landscape of the Peruvian coast. They have come to help out in the preparations for a grand burial focused on the pyramid that looms behind them, Huaca Loro. The two may be mother and daughter, carrying on family tradition - the Sicán traced their lineage through the maternal line.
While the climate is stable and the trade goods keep flowing, women like the ones pictured here are willing enough to contribute labour in order to glorify the souls of their leaders. But just twenty years later, things would start to change in Sicán. A drought began that would last three decades. For lords whose right to rule was rooted in their ability to bring the rains, this was a devastating turn of events. When the rains finally did come, it was in the form of torrential floods, part of a destructive El Niño event. The flood was a breaking point for the social balance in Sicán. The elite sacrificed two hundred of their own young men in a desperate attempt to regain favour with the gods and control over the land. When this did not stop the floods, the commoners of Sicán took matters into their own hands. With torches held in their fists, they marched up the pyramids and set the temples on top of them ablaze. Everything relating to the elite cults of the six families was destroyed, while the commoners' residences outside the city centre remained untouched.
Resentments might have been building before the climatic collapse that brought down the elite. In the span of just one or two generations, the six families had sacrificed over 1,500 people to be interred in their monumental tombs. In a city of about 20,000, there must have been many commoners who had lost a family member to this process. At the time, they may have accepted it as a necessary part of helping the lords of Sicán appeal to the gods in order to bring prosperity to the people. After all, no one could remember a time when La Leche Valley had been wealthier. But when the droughts came and then the floods, the people may have felt that their own people had been sacrificed in vain. Tired of propping up the ancestral cult of the six elite families, they wrought their vengeance with fire. With the sacred capital burnt, the elites abandoned Sicán for a new capital in Túcume. Many aspects of the Sicán culture continued there, but the Sicán Deity was never seen again.
In the year 1000, this future is unknown, and the Sicán elites are celebrating the apogee of their power. The women in this illustration will not only weave clothing for the elite's dead but sit and feast with them. At their hearths set up in the plaza, they will cook food and feed it symbolically to the dead in beautifully decorated ceramic vessels. Ceremonies like this bound the living and the dead together, making it clear that a reciprocal relationship existed between them. In addition to these funerary feasts, the six families regularly threw feasts for the locals, building loyalty while showing off their wealth and competing with the rival families. They only intermarried with each other, creating distance between themselves and the common people. Venerating the ancestors of the six families is what drew the people of Sicán together and maintained the power of the elite - but there was a price for that loyalty. When the Sicán Deity's representatives on Earth were no longer keeping up their end of the bargain, the people would not let their grievances go unheard. The women in this illustration, or their children, may very well become part of the angry mob burning down the temples of their overlords, forging in fire the next chapter in the story of Peruvian history.
The Sicán elite filled the power vacuum left behind by the decline of the Moche and Wari civilizations. On the north coast of what is now Peru, they led a multiethnic society that drew together people from diverse backgrounds. They were able to convince the people, for a time, that they had a direct line to the gods, one which allowed them to ensure agricultural and economic prosperity for the ruled. In exchange, they demanded incredible amounts of labour to build the adobe platform mounds that housed private temples on top and royal tombs below. On top of the back-breaking labour this required, hundreds of commoners were sacrificed to sanctify the construction of these imposing buildings. Nobles, too, were sacrificed to accompany the burials of important people, and mummies of ancestors were moved great distances to join their descendants in their resplendent new tombs.
A thousand years ago, the cult of the aristocratic families in Sicán had reached its height. It was a time that must have fostered a feverish devotional atmosphere in the city as rival families led ceremonies to mark all of the pyramid construction, including the ritual sacrifices that accompanied them. Family leaders, including both men and women, became the focal points of elaborate burial complexes incorporating people from all ranks of society. The preparations for these burials took months and required the labour of many people who lived in and around Sicán. One of the tasks that took place on the great plaza was the spinning and weaving of clothing for the relocated mummies and new burials. We know this because spindle whorls have been found in the temporary hearths that were set up by various groups around the plaza.
Images of people in Sicán art are dominated by male figures like the Sicán Deity, but there are images of women carrying out daily tasks woven into textiles. For thousands of years, textiles have been the art form par excellence of Andean women. Women from Sicán were masters at passementerie, creating elaborate tassels and three-dimensional borders to the clothing they made. Squid tails and bird heads, tree roots and flower petals - all leapt off the edge of textiles as if they were coming to life. Women depicted themselves in textile art too, showing themselves weaving at A-frame looms and spinning with drop spindles. The spindle whorls found at the plaza in Sicán demonstrate that women were deeply involved in the ritual preparations for an elite burial, weaving the dressings for mummy bundles as well as the clothes that their leaders would be buried in.
The women pictured here are based on images from a Sicán textile that was found at Pachacamac, a pilgrimage centre in the Andes. It was probably left there as an offering by pilgrims who had come from Sicán. The two women in colourful clothing use a drop spindle while standing, much as Peruvian women still do today. In Sicán's tightly stratified society, these women were probably in the wealthier half, but were not wearing the gold and silver jewellery that might mark them as members of the high elite. The distinctive style of hip cloths they wear is unique to the Sicán and unknown elsewhere in the history of Andean fashion. The botanical and animal motifs on their clothing, as well as wave patterns symbolizing the ocean, show off the women's creativity while rooting them in the landscape of the Peruvian coast. They have come to help out in the preparations for a grand burial focused on the pyramid that looms behind them, Huaca Loro. The two may be mother and daughter, carrying on family tradition - the Sicán traced their lineage through the maternal line.
While the climate is stable and the trade goods keep flowing, women like the ones pictured here are willing enough to contribute labour in order to glorify the souls of their leaders. But just twenty years later, things would start to change in Sicán. A drought began that would last three decades. For lords whose right to rule was rooted in their ability to bring the rains, this was a devastating turn of events. When the rains finally did come, it was in the form of torrential floods, part of a destructive El Niño event. The flood was a breaking point for the social balance in Sicán. The elite sacrificed two hundred of their own young men in a desperate attempt to regain favour with the gods and control over the land. When this did not stop the floods, the commoners of Sicán took matters into their own hands. With torches held in their fists, they marched up the pyramids and set the temples on top of them ablaze. Everything relating to the elite cults of the six families was destroyed, while the commoners' residences outside the city centre remained untouched.
Resentments might have been building before the climatic collapse that brought down the elite. In the span of just one or two generations, the six families had sacrificed over 1,500 people to be interred in their monumental tombs. In a city of about 20,000, there must have been many commoners who had lost a family member to this process. At the time, they may have accepted it as a necessary part of helping the lords of Sicán appeal to the gods in order to bring prosperity to the people. After all, no one could remember a time when La Leche Valley had been wealthier. But when the droughts came and then the floods, the people may have felt that their own people had been sacrificed in vain. Tired of propping up the ancestral cult of the six elite families, they wrought their vengeance with fire. With the sacred capital burnt, the elites abandoned Sicán for a new capital in Túcume. Many aspects of the Sicán culture continued there, but the Sicán Deity was never seen again.
In the year 1000, this future is unknown, and the Sicán elites are celebrating the apogee of their power. The women in this illustration will not only weave clothing for the elite's dead but sit and feast with them. At their hearths set up in the plaza, they will cook food and feed it symbolically to the dead in beautifully decorated ceramic vessels. Ceremonies like this bound the living and the dead together, making it clear that a reciprocal relationship existed between them. In addition to these funerary feasts, the six families regularly threw feasts for the locals, building loyalty while showing off their wealth and competing with the rival families. They only intermarried with each other, creating distance between themselves and the common people. Venerating the ancestors of the six families is what drew the people of Sicán together and maintained the power of the elite - but there was a price for that loyalty. When the Sicán Deity's representatives on Earth were no longer keeping up their end of the bargain, the people would not let their grievances go unheard. The women in this illustration, or their children, may very well become part of the angry mob burning down the temples of their overlords, forging in fire the next chapter in the story of Peruvian history.
Artist's Comments
I have LOVED learning about Sicán, a place I knew nothing about before but which is perfect for my project. Since most of the elite burials here happened right around the year 1000, there are so many different women from burials who I would like to draw. It was really hard to pick who to draw for my first Sicán picture, but I ended up being drawn in by the image of women using a drop spindle. You can bet I'll be back, though! There are stories to tell of women who were the consorts of important men, but also women who were family leaders in their own right. Their regalia will be really fun to draw! After I had already started drawing this picture, I also learned about an elite burial from Sicán that is probably of a transfeminine person. I've got to draw her in the future too! (As my friend Charlotte pointed out, the woman on the right in this picture is already wearing the trans pride colours!)
Thank you to my mom, for always inspiring me to draw Peru and for sharing her love of tassels; Kit, for sharing their knowledge of Andean drop spinning, including helpful pose refs; Charlotte, for sharing resources with me about the Sicán; and Izumi Shimada, for answering my email when I wanted to learn more about his archaeological research. Some of the women I hope to draw in the future are ones whose tombs Izumi Shimada excavated. I'm really excited to have shared my first story of Sicán with my readers today, and look forward to sharing more in the future!
This illustration is the 75th in my Women of 1000 series, which began six years ago in February 2018. What a run! And yet, I still have so many ideas of people I want to draw for the series. I'm also hoping to turn it into a book sometime in the near future. Thank you to everyone who has encouraged me and shared my excitement about historical women over the years. ~ February 27, 2024
Thank you to my mom, for always inspiring me to draw Peru and for sharing her love of tassels; Kit, for sharing their knowledge of Andean drop spinning, including helpful pose refs; Charlotte, for sharing resources with me about the Sicán; and Izumi Shimada, for answering my email when I wanted to learn more about his archaeological research. Some of the women I hope to draw in the future are ones whose tombs Izumi Shimada excavated. I'm really excited to have shared my first story of Sicán with my readers today, and look forward to sharing more in the future!
This illustration is the 75th in my Women of 1000 series, which began six years ago in February 2018. What a run! And yet, I still have so many ideas of people I want to draw for the series. I'm also hoping to turn it into a book sometime in the near future. Thank you to everyone who has encouraged me and shared my excitement about historical women over the years. ~ February 27, 2024
Resources
Want to learn more about the women of Sicán? Here are some recommended resources.
"Lambayeque-style Textiles in the Ethnologisches Museum, Berlin" by Lena Bjerregaard
This article has so many fantastic images of Sicán textiles, including the one with the two women spinning that inspired this picture. There are so many whimsical features like squids with fluffy tails and bird heads breaking through the fabric in three dimensions.
"mtDNA Analysis of Mochica and Sicán Populations of Pre-Hispanic Peru" by Izumi Shimada, Ken-ichi Shinoda, Steve Bourget, Walter Alva, and Santiago Uceda
Read this article if you'd like to learn more about matrilineality and the incorporation of multiple ethnic groups into the Sicán polity. I'd be interested to draw some of the Moche women from this study in a future illustration. For more analysis of the skeletons in Sicán tombs, see also "Middle Sicán Mortuary Archaeology, Skeletal Biology, and Genetic Structures in Late-Prehispanic South America" and to "An Integrated Analysis of Pre-Hispanic Mortuary Practices: A Middle Sicán Case Study." To learn more specifically about the human sacrifices around the time of the floods, see "Bodies and Blood: Middle Sicán Human Sacrifice in the Lambayeque Valley Complex (AD 900-1100)."
"Género, poder y estatus en las prácticas funerarias Sicán Medio (900-1100 DC)" by Gabriela Cervantes Quequevezana
Cervantes Quequevezana is the main author I've found writing specifically about gender among the Sicán. This article looks specifically at the burials in Huaca Loro. Textile implements are one of the major grave goods associated with women's burials in her analysis, including the intersex or transgender figure mentioned above. There's a lot in here that I want to draw on for a future illustration. The same author has a great YouTube talk about demographics in Sicán, which is where I got the figure that Sicán had a population of roughly 20,000 at its height.
"Who Were the Sicán? Their Development, Characteristics and Legacies" by Izumi Shimada
Fantastic overview of who the Sicán were from the archaeologist who has led the excavations of their sites for decades. For even more information, including many photos and diagrams from the excavations at Huaca Loro, see also his book Cultura Sicán: Dios, Riqueza y Poder en la Costa Norte del Peru. My reconstruction of the plaza and Huaca Loro in its prime came from an archaeological illustration by César Samillán included on p. 31 of this book.
"Eating and Drinking with the Dead: Commensal Hospitality for Integrating People in the Multiethnic Society during the Middle Sicán Period (ca. AD 950-1100)" by Go Matsumoto
This is the article that mentions the spindle whorls in the context of a larger discussion about the hearths found in the plaza at Sicán. Matsumoto explores what the archaeological evidence can tell us about ritual feasts that the Sicán held with the dead. He has another interesting article about gatherings in Sicán called "Was Huacas de Sicán a Pilgrimage Center?"
Museo Nacional Señor de Sicán
At this museum, you can see reconstructions of some of the tombs in Huaca Loro. There are lots of photos available online here. I find it interesting what while the museum seeks to reproduce the metal ornaments people wore with great fidelity, the textiles are plain and brown. That is so different than how Sicán people dressed - the textiles in the Berlin Ethnological Museum (discussed in the article linked above) are incredibly colourful!
Sican Archaeological Project on Flickr
On this official Flickr account for the Sicán Archaeological Project, you can see high-quality photos from the excavations.
"Lambayeque-style Textiles in the Ethnologisches Museum, Berlin" by Lena Bjerregaard
This article has so many fantastic images of Sicán textiles, including the one with the two women spinning that inspired this picture. There are so many whimsical features like squids with fluffy tails and bird heads breaking through the fabric in three dimensions.
"mtDNA Analysis of Mochica and Sicán Populations of Pre-Hispanic Peru" by Izumi Shimada, Ken-ichi Shinoda, Steve Bourget, Walter Alva, and Santiago Uceda
Read this article if you'd like to learn more about matrilineality and the incorporation of multiple ethnic groups into the Sicán polity. I'd be interested to draw some of the Moche women from this study in a future illustration. For more analysis of the skeletons in Sicán tombs, see also "Middle Sicán Mortuary Archaeology, Skeletal Biology, and Genetic Structures in Late-Prehispanic South America" and to "An Integrated Analysis of Pre-Hispanic Mortuary Practices: A Middle Sicán Case Study." To learn more specifically about the human sacrifices around the time of the floods, see "Bodies and Blood: Middle Sicán Human Sacrifice in the Lambayeque Valley Complex (AD 900-1100)."
"Género, poder y estatus en las prácticas funerarias Sicán Medio (900-1100 DC)" by Gabriela Cervantes Quequevezana
Cervantes Quequevezana is the main author I've found writing specifically about gender among the Sicán. This article looks specifically at the burials in Huaca Loro. Textile implements are one of the major grave goods associated with women's burials in her analysis, including the intersex or transgender figure mentioned above. There's a lot in here that I want to draw on for a future illustration. The same author has a great YouTube talk about demographics in Sicán, which is where I got the figure that Sicán had a population of roughly 20,000 at its height.
"Who Were the Sicán? Their Development, Characteristics and Legacies" by Izumi Shimada
Fantastic overview of who the Sicán were from the archaeologist who has led the excavations of their sites for decades. For even more information, including many photos and diagrams from the excavations at Huaca Loro, see also his book Cultura Sicán: Dios, Riqueza y Poder en la Costa Norte del Peru. My reconstruction of the plaza and Huaca Loro in its prime came from an archaeological illustration by César Samillán included on p. 31 of this book.
"Eating and Drinking with the Dead: Commensal Hospitality for Integrating People in the Multiethnic Society during the Middle Sicán Period (ca. AD 950-1100)" by Go Matsumoto
This is the article that mentions the spindle whorls in the context of a larger discussion about the hearths found in the plaza at Sicán. Matsumoto explores what the archaeological evidence can tell us about ritual feasts that the Sicán held with the dead. He has another interesting article about gatherings in Sicán called "Was Huacas de Sicán a Pilgrimage Center?"
Museo Nacional Señor de Sicán
At this museum, you can see reconstructions of some of the tombs in Huaca Loro. There are lots of photos available online here. I find it interesting what while the museum seeks to reproduce the metal ornaments people wore with great fidelity, the textiles are plain and brown. That is so different than how Sicán people dressed - the textiles in the Berlin Ethnological Museum (discussed in the article linked above) are incredibly colourful!
Sican Archaeological Project on Flickr
On this official Flickr account for the Sicán Archaeological Project, you can see high-quality photos from the excavations.