Situa
The situa or citua was the health and ritual purification festival in the Inca Empire. It was held in Cusco, the capital of the empire, during the month of September on the day of the first moon after the spring equinox, which in the southern hemisphere takes place normally on September 23. It was a very important festival whose rites are well described by the early Spanish chroniclers, in particular Cristóbal de Molina, Polo de Ondegardo and Inca Garcilaso de la Vega. The latter witnessed situas as a child after the Spaniards had reduced them to memorials of the actual Inca festival. The situa is also mentioned by Bernabé Cobo, who copied, most probably, its text from Molina, Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala, Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa and Juan de Betanzos.
Background
The festival was held when the rain season had just begun and many illnesses tended to occur. Rituals to the Creator-god were thus executed both in Cusco and in other lands conquered by the Incas in order to purify them and "send the evil away".The four days rites included offerings "rams", carefully chosen for their white color, to the deities, purification by bathing in the river water, lighting large straw torches and preparing and eating the ritual maize buns called sanco whose dough was often mixed with blood. All were allowed to drink chicha during the four days festival «without stopping». A great number of persons and beasts gathered in the main plaza of Cusco, which in Inca times was much larger than the current Plaza de Armas.
Figures of the deities from the huacas were carried to their respective temples they had in Cusco.
To obtain proper cleanliness of the city, all foreigners and those with physical defects were banished from the city for a distance of two leagues.
According to Molina, Pachacuti Inca was the sovereign who defined the way the festival had to be performed, giving rules to an ancient tradition.
Description of the situa
Preparation
According to Garcilaso, the priests could detect the equinox by observing the shadows of stone columns as projected though an east to west line and could discern the exact date of the situa.In order to obtain proper cleanliness of the city, all those who were not natives of Cusco were banished for a distance of two leagues. Moreover, anyone who had broken earlobes, all the hunchbacks and anyone who had a lesion or defect on their body were taken out of city, being considered as carriers of bad fate. Even the dogs were chased out of the city so that they would not howl. They could all return to the city at the beginning of the last day of the festival.
In the meantime, the population of Cusco prepared for this festival with fast and abstinence for three days. Children fasted just one day. On the night before the start of the festival, men, women and children gathered at the house of the eldest brother of the family and prepared the bread called sanco, made with corn flour and other previously toasted cereals, cooked with little water and some fat. This bread, prepared in buns the size of a small apple, was used in ceremonies as sacred food and it was left half cooked.
A variety of Sanco was additionally prepared with blood in the dough, which Garcilaso affirms was taken from children between five and ten, by bloodletting through a cut in the middle of the eyebrows,. The two kinds of sanco were cooked separately. Polo de Ondegardo reveals that the blood was in fact taken from sacrificed beasts. He also reports that the acllas, Virgins of the Sun, prepared a great amount of buns, which were also given to the foreigners in the last day of the festival, while even more buns were sent to the distant shrines and to the kurakas as a sign of confederation and loyalty to the Sun-god and the Inca. Sanco was also used to warm people, statues and mummies, rubbing it on the bodies so as to revitalize them. The chroniclers use the Spanish word calentar for this action.
Before dawn, everyone washed their bodies and took a little of the blood sanco and passed it over their heads and faces, chests and backs, arms and legs in order to cleanse their bodies of all diseases. The elder brother, lord of the house, smeared the threshold of the street door with sanco and left it glued to them, as a sign that the lavatory had been done and all the persons were cleansed.
The situa lasted four day as follows:
- the first day was dedicated to ritual bathing and purification by eating sanco;
- the second day was dedicated to the deities: Creator, Sun, and Thunder, with sacrifices for them and saying prayers for the Inca;
- the third day was for the Moon and the Earth, and sacrifices and prayers were performed to them;
- the next day all the nations subjected to the Inca entered the plaza with their huacas, dressed in the finest clothing of their lands, bringing a large amount of livestock.
Day 1
In the middle of the main plaza of Cusco there was a special ushnu which was shaped as a golden pillar and resembled a well. It was filled with chicha poured on top of it as a sacrifice, which everyone could drink.
Four hundred runner warriors, fully armed, were assembled and waiting around the ushnu; each group of one hundred was facing one of the four suyus : Chinchaysuyu, Antisuyu, Kuntisuyu and Qullasuyu.
When the priests form the Coricancha arrived, the four hundred warriors shouted a ritual cry and started running towards the four directions of the Inca empire. The runners, continuously shouting the ritual words, carried their weapons; after a quarter of a league they passed them to other warriors and so on until they were about "five or six leagues out of the city.
There the runners bathed and washed their weapons in the rivers at the places they had reached.
The warriors going to Collasuyu bathed in the Urubamba River near the modern town of Quiquijana, those going to Chinchaysuyu bathed in the Apurímac River below the modern town of Limatambo. Those who carried their shouts to Antisuyu bathed in the Urubamba River beside the modern town of Písac and those who went to Cuntisuyu washed at the Cusibamba River.
Molina states that: «the reason that they bathed in these rivers was because these are voluminous rivers they know lead to the sea, and so would carry the illnesses ».
While the warriors passed along the ceques, the sacred paths radiating from Cusco joining the huacas, people stood out of their houses shaking their clothes and blankets while shouting for the illnesses to leave the city and asking for a prosperous year.
Bauer points out that «during Inca times, the ritualized cleansing of evil ended with the four relays of warriors bathing themselves and their weapons in the major rivers of the region. In the later and more limited rituals witnessed by Garcilaso de la Vega, the situa festival ended with the runners sticking their spears “in the ground as a barrier to prevent the ills from re-entering the area from which they had been banished"». Moreover Garcialso states that a royal blood Inca, not necessarily the Sapan Inca, fully dressed and with a spear, run down from the Sacsayhuamán fortress to the Haucaypata, where four royal blood Incas awaited and then run towards the four suyus.
When the night came everybody danced, including the Inca.
Day 2
At dawn, people went to the rivers and springs to bathe, and ordered any illness to leave them.After bathing, they prepared and lit large straw torches, similar to large balls tied with ropes, called pancuncos or panconcos. The men went around playing and hitting each other with them. These torches interested the Spanish chroniclers and they gave different descriptions of the practice. Polo de Ondegardo states « they emitted great shouts, with torches in their hands, crying “Evil be driven out,” and hitting one another with the torches. These were called panconcos.» Garcilaso de la Vega states « they went out with great torches of straw woven like the jackets for oil jars in round balls. These were called pancuncu, and took a long time to burn. Each was fastened to a cord a fathom in length, and they used to run through all the streets trailing the torches till they were outside the city, as if the torches removed the evils by night as the spears did by day. The burned torches were finally cast into the streams that pass through the city, together with the water in which the people had washed the previous day, so that the running water might carry the ills they had driven out of their houses and out of the city down to the sea.» Felipe Guamán Poma de Ayala, who describes the situa in his manuscript El primer nueva corónica y buen gobierno, states «Men armed as if they were going to fight a war, throwing fire slings, saying in a loud voice: "Leave sicknesses and pestilences from the people and from this town! Leave us!"» Guamán provides a picture of the pancuncus.
After this, the men returned to their houses, to end the day eating sanco, which they also put on their faces and in places where they kept their food and clothes. They also threw sanco into the springs, wishing not to be ill and any illness to be kept out of their houses. Sanco was also given to the other members of the family and friends. The mummies of the dead relatives were warmed with sanco, so that they could enjoy the celebration. The day ended in joy, and everyone ate and drank the best foods they had; even the poorest persons had saved food for the festival.
During this celebration no one argued with one another, nor pronounced angry words, nor asked to be repaid a debt because they believed that if they had behaved badly in this day, they would have quarrels and difficulties all year long. That night the statues of the Creator the Sun and the Thunder, were taken out of their respective temples and the priests warmed them with sanco.