An Aymara Kingdom in 1567

It is common in contemporary studies of the Aymara to find expressions of disappointment at the spare mention made of this people in the European chronicles dealing with the Andes (H. Tschopik 1946; LaBarre 1948). The area occupied by Aymara speakers in pre-European times was much larger than it is today; their numbers could be counted in the hundreds of thousands, if not millions (Rowe 1947). While no overall Aymara political cohesion can be documented today, sizeable kingdoms are recorded: the Lupaqa, who are the subject of this paper, reported more than 20,000 households on what they alleged to be the last Inca khipu record (Table I). While some Aymara kings found their way into the chronicles, Tschopik was right when he complained (1946:512) that the important [16th century] literature dealing with the Aymara is