“Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come.”
By: José Tamayo Herrera.
The creation of the symbol
The creation of this heraldic symbol, the flag of the seven colors, and its enthronement as the flag of Cusco did not emerge in 1939 as Dr. María Rostorowski de Diez Canseco thought, but in the coming decades. It was in the decade of the 70s, of the 20th century (circa, 1975 – 1976), in the midst of the contemporary republican era, and it is the work of some Cusqueños, contemporaries, still alive and present, and not a phenomenon or issue that has its origin in the 19th century, and even less so in colonial times and even less so that it dates back to Incan times. This creation of the flag of Cusco, corresponds to the nativist ideological current, which springs from the Cusco mentality and is known as “Incaism” or Incanism “. The alleged flag of the Tawantinsuyu, is the work of the last 33 years of the history of Cusco. It is the creation of a modern sign or symbol, better we would say contemporary, of the identity of the Cusco people, of the “Second Modernization” of Cusco in the 20th century, and emerged in the last third of the previous century.
Throughout our research we always asked ourselves: In what person, in what mind did this alleged flag of the Tawantinsuyu originate as the insignia of the seven colors? Locating this origin was essential and very important.
Ever since our first report on January 15, 2007, we suspected that one of the hypotheses to be validated was the conjecture that this emblem of the seven colors was born in the “Folkloric Association, Danzas del Tawantinsuyo”, chaired by the Cusqueño broadcaster Raúl Montesinos Espejo, who was then in charge of staging the Inti Raymi in Saqsayhuamán, and one of whose most important artistic advisers was the famous Cusco painter Juan Bravo Vizcarra, whose mural paintings exoman the plaza and avenues of Cusco.
For this reason, we decided to interview Juan Bravo Vizcarra in Lima, a conversation that we held in the first days of August 2007 and this artist and intellectual told us: “Efraín Montesinos Velasco, former president of the CRIF” between 1957 and 1962, was the owner of an Inca “Uncu”, in which a small, colored “mascapaychas” was appreciated and in one of them the seven colors of the rainbow appeared ”(Juan Bravo Vizcarra, personal communication).
We continued investigating the family of Efraón Montesinos and we learned that the “Uncu” was sold to Enrico Poli and that it was in his museum, in Almirante Cochrane 466, Miraflores, where we could see it, as anyone interested in the investigation.
Indeed, the “Uncu” (on whose authenticity and antiquity the archaeologists had to pronounce, by means of radiocarbon 14), is an extraordinary piece. It has multicolored tocapus, in six horizontal lines with 23 symbols in each one and 18 lines of them in the shape of an inverted triangle, full of “tocapus” on the neck, as well as characters in number of ten, who look like apricots and two felines. The most important thing for our purpose is that in the lower part, there are twelve “mascapaychas”, among which, the lower one on the extreme left, represents different colors horizontally, colors quite similar to the rainbow, but that do not allow visualization. perfect because they are very small, just one, or one and a half centimeters.
Was it enough to see this “mascaypacha“, solitary, to deduce from it, the existence of a formal Inca flag, with its colors and its identity function? We believe that it is too audacious hypothesis, to be true and true.
Juan Bravo Vizcarra also told us that he had read in Bolivia, in one of the volumes of the work of the European archaeologist Arthhur Poznanski, (who investigated the culture of the Tiahuanacu and also the physical anthropology of the Bolivian Collas and Aymara), that this The author affirmed the existence of an Andean flag of the seven colors. We went to the National Library of Peru, to its Bibliographic Research Room and we found all the books and pamphlets of this author existing in it, without finding any reference to the alleged flag in any Paznanski book or pamphlet.
Likewise, the Cusco painter, whose opinions we comment, told us that the word “whipala” means flag.
Whipala, in effect, means flag, but not in Quechua, but in Aymara, as we can see in the Aymara Spanish Dictionary of the Puno Bilingual Education project. Bravo’s mistake was not noticing that this word appears in both languages: Aymara and Quechua, but it has different meanings in each one. In Cusco, Inca Quechua, the word “wiphala” means kerchief, kerchief, scarf, and by no means flag. In addition, in another common sense, it refers to an indigenous dance that is performed in circles, joyfully, waving handkerchiefs and scarves, as a sign of joy.
In addition, Juan Bravo Vizcarra, told us how he, who was his gray eminence, found out that Raúl Montesinos Espejo, who was a simple businessman, without greater historical or humanistic culture, such as the issue of the flag as his own, discovered and invented for him, violating Bravo Vizcarra’s copyright.
What Montesinos Espejo wanted to do with this idea of the flag of the seven colors of the rainbow, is proven with the only written document that happily exists on this matter.
It is the brochure called “Bandera del Tawantinsuyo”, published by Cervesur in 1998, on the occasion of the celebrations of the fourth century of the existence of Radio Tawantinsuyo, a station owned by Montesinos, in 1973.
In that document, which is proof and a definitive, written and indubitable testimony, it is shown that Raúl Montesinos wanted to celebrate the 25 years of that radio in a lucid and brilliant way, for which, at “some point his mind was illuminated with idea of the flag, thinking that in the Incan there must have been a flag, that symbol, which in modern nations represents the Homeland ”. (Montesinos, 1998: 5).
The broadcaster then adds with sincere naivety: “although none of the chroniclers speaks of the existence of a flag, as it is conceived today … nothing affirms that there was, as no one denies its possibility either (Montesinos, Doc. Cit).
As the same enthusiastic businessman says, very convinced of his invention, “nobody was opposed to the idea”, and for that reason, premunded by this silence, Montesinos decided, by himself and before himself, to have what could have been the flag Tawantinsuyu, with the financial backing of Cervesur, who contributed five hundred soles to make a gigantic flag measuring 14 meters by 8 meters, the same one that began to flutter in the Plaza de Armas, raised at the invitation of Montesinos, by the then mayor Jesús Lámbarri Bracesco on October 30, 1973 (Montesinos publishes a photograph of the lift with the Mayor in the foreground, who, unconsciously, fell into the trap and lent himself to the supercharía).
Montesinos Espejo adds, “which could have been the flag of the Tawantinsuyu, flamed with the total approval, acceptance and applause of the new symbol, from the large public, concentrated in the atrium and in the Plaza de Armas of Cusco (Montesinos: 1998: 6.7).
This abusive appropriation of an idea, no matter how scary, of the authorship of Bravo Vizcarra that Montesinos fraudulently did, caused stupor to the former and caused a marked disagreement between the two at that time.
As this whole issue of the flag did not have the support of any official resolution and was of an informal nature until 1978, there was one person who without mentioning the origin of the issue in the ideas of Bravo Vizcarra and the actions of Raúl Montesinos, nor his previous informal material concretion, without citing these sources or investigating the subject at all in the light of heraldry, in an outburst and by a simple motion on the agenda, which demonstrates its improvisation and the lack of a file to support it , proposed the current flag of Cusco of the seven colors of the rainbow.
It happened on June 9, 1978, with Mr. Gilberto Muñiz Capare being mayor of Cusco, when he issued Resolution No. 17, of June 9, 1978, which approved the Order of Business Motion presented by the councilor for culture Mr. Mario Cutimbo Hinojosa , proposing the creation of the flag of Cusco, presumably taking as a model the proposed flag of Tawantinsuyu. The flag of the seven colors of the rainbow was approved, starting with red, in horizontal stripes and ending in violet.
It should be hoisted in all official acts to the left of the national flag, red and white. Said Regidor gentleman, Mario Cutimbo Hinojosa, professor at the Sciences College, without any analysis or historical study – serious and prior heraldic, picked up this idea from Bravo, and from being a simple opinion he turned it into an official truth of the local government, making communion wheel from the mill to Mayor Gilberto Muñiz Capá, by making him approve this flag, claiming that it was the flag of Tawntinsuyu. The strange thing is that in the session of the Provincial Council, no councilor, nor the Mayor himself, made any observations or raised a more slow and serious study, before making such an important identity decision. It was perhaps due to the fact that they were all lay people in history, and that is why they unanimously and hastily approved the municipal decision.
What the chronicles say.
The motion of the councilor Mario Cutimbo, according to the letter of July 10, 2000 from former mayor Gilberto Muñiz Capá to Mayor Carlos Valencia Miranda, was supported by the coat of arms of José Gabriel Thupa Amaru, and that this shield of the Cameroonian hero inspires the new flag of Cusco, as it contained the Rainbow as a heraldic element.
This statement by Mayor Muñiz, also by Councilor Cutimbo, constitutes a gross error. The shield did not belong to José Gabriel Thupa Amaru, but to the mestizo Cusco cornista, Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, since the image of the rainbow, whose ends are supported by amarus or snakes, which are intertwined by the tails, belong to the image that Garcilaso published in his book “Royal Commentaries of the Incas” in 1609, in Lisbon, in its edition “Princeps” (130 years before the birth of Thupa Amru), as graphic and heraldic elements, to obtain the approval of the King of Spain of his own shield. The Inca Garcilaso, is the first chronicler to graphically represent the rainbow, but whose shield project containing this image was never approved by the Spanish monarch. It is also curious that such an imaginative and admiring chronicler of the Inca, whose memory he tried to vindicate at all times, says absolutely nothing about an alleged flag of the Tawantinsuyu.
Of the more than 100 chroniclers and authors of relations, major and minor, who wrote about pre-Hispanic Peru and about Tawantinsuyu in particular, pre-Toledo, Toledo, and post-Toledo of Dominican or Jesuit influence, only one Jesuit chronicler Bernabé Cobo, the year 1653 , 120 years after the Cajamarca surprise, in which Pizarro shot down Atahuallpa, who is a late, very late compiler of news and stories about the Incas, insinuates and speaks of a Tawantinsuyu flag with the seven colors of the rainbow According to Carlos Aranibar Zerpa, one of the best connoisseurs of the Andean chronicles. Cobo is a tiny minority, 1% compared to most of the other chroniclers: Spaniards, Indians and mestizos, who do not touch on the subject and are totally unaware of a probable Tawantinsuyu flag, if it existed. Cobo is a lonely and insecure chronicler on this issue. The only one that hints at the existence of this emblem of the Tawantinsuyu, against the sepulchral silence of 100 chroniclers, major and minor, immediate and mediate, and authors of less important local relationships.
The chronicler Juan Santa Cruz Pachacuti Yampi – Salcamaygua, in his chronicle, speaks of a symbolic element called “unancha”, of which there would have been two: the “aucaunancha” and the “qapaqunancha”, which would become the “Royal Banner”, according to Juan José Vega Bello.
However, it should be said that in colonial Quechua this Quechua word “unancha” appears in the Lexicon of Fray Domingo de Santo Tomás, as a banner in 1560 and not as a flag.
The indigenous Chronicler Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala, famous for his drawings and paintings, with which he illustrates in the modern way of the twentieth century his chronicle of 1613: “New Chronicle and Good Government” and who paints, illustrates and draws with great diligence, (a kind of Chambi of the seventeenth century) Inca and pre-Inca themes, totally ignores the theme of the supposed flag of the Tawantinsuyu or the Inca. In the supposed case of this or the empire having a seven-color flag, he would have drawn it, expressly, in detail and carefully, since this graphic chronicler par excellence, could not have missed such an important symbol or emblem.
The iconographic sources.
As the Incas seem to have had no writing, although the meaning and reading of the “Tacapus” and the “Kipus” have yet to be elucidated and could be historically revolutionary, other graphic material that constitutes a first-hand source is textiles, such as “Uncu” previously alluded to and the “Keros” or wooden vessels, of tradition from the 16th and 17th centuries, and from the “neo-Inca” Cusco paintings of the 18th century.
We have already investigated, for example, the “uncu” ¿Inca? From the Enrico Poli collection, which originated this process of the 70s. Now it is worth studying other graphic and material contributions of the Inca worldview. We refer to the “keros” or wooden vessels, of transition between the Inca and the Colony, from the 16th and 17th centuries. The authentic pre-conquest Inca keros were monochrome, striated, unlike the Keros or transition vessels, to cultured, syncretic, polychrome, painted with lacquer and historiated, highly graphic and expressive, to resemble small colonial paintings that continuously represent motifs heraldic symbols such as the probable coat of arms of Sayri Túpac, the war scenes between the Spanish and the Indians, the flora, fauna and customs of the descendants of the Incas.
Among the 300 or 400 “keros”, which he treasures in the Inca Museum of the University of San Antonio Abab del Cusco (the largest collection in the world), in the Almirante’s Palace in Cusco, there is none that represents any Inca flag, with seven colors, similar to the rainbow. Given the extraordinary polychromy of these chachacomo wooden vessels, a flag with the colors “quichi” or rainbow, a deity of the Inca pantheon, would stand out visually.
Despite the fact that the descendants of the Inca panacas and the colonial curacas perennialized their social memory and collective memory, (their own and particular way of “writing” history, as a glorious people, now defeated), in these ceremonial vessels we do not find anywhere “Kero” any flag of the Tawantinsuyu.
Another iconographic cultural manifestation from the end of the colony was neo-Inca painting, from the mid-18th century, prior to the Thupa Amaro revolution, in which the distinguished Inca nobles and curaras were painted by Indian and mestizo painters, ( already split, in 1688, from the Guild of European Painters by the nationalist pictorial movement of this year), with “cusmas”, “uncus”, “tocapus” and European heraldic elements, to affirm their social group and their nation, the Republic of Indians, from the time of the Hasburgs.
None of the paintings of civilian “neo-Inca” characters that exist in the Inca Museum of the Casa del Almirante, nor in Lima does any Inca flag appear with the seven colors of the rainbow.
Let’s explore the linguistic source.
Changing the scientific strategy and giving a different bias to the research, let us delve into the Andean languages, Quechua and Aymara, in the Quechua dictionaries, both colonial and contemporary, in the communication instruments that are based on orality, rather than on scribality or electronality (D´anens).
In the “Vocabulary of the Language of all Peru, the so-called Qquichua or Inca” from the seventeenth century by Diego Gonzáles Holguín, neither in his entries that Quechua nor in his entries in Spanish, does the word “unanchay” appear with the meaning of flag.
With which we can conclude that the word flag did not exist in the seventeenth century, and therefore, neither in the already defeated empire.
The most important thing is that in the entries in Spanish, the word flag does not appear anywhere, so we can provisionally conclude that the absence of the equivalent word in Quechua, of the name of the denomination, means with almost absolute certainty, the nonexistence of the thing, of the alluded object, in this almost, of the concept of flag.
In the Quechua-Spanish Dictionary of the Quechua Language Academy of 1995, the most recent and official one that reflects the Quechua of our time. The word “laphara” appears, with its Spanish translation as a flag (Pag, 251). It also refers to the word “Unanchay“, as a banner.
This word “Unancha” or “Unanchay, according to Mario Mejía Huamán, professor of modern Quechua at the Translation Faculty of the Ricardo Palma University, does not mean flag but banner, something like the Roman” labaro “with the Latin sign (SPQR) , “Senatus Papulus Romanum” and also means, symbol or sign.
We have already seen that the word “Whipala” means flag but in Aymara, not in Quechua, as the section of this research appears, in Quechua whipla does not mean flag at all.
The unfortunate and wrong life of the flag of the seven colors.
After in 1978, the mayor Gilberto Muñiz Capare, introduced and created the flag of Cusco, based on a monumental error, much water has flowed under the bridges of history. The presumed flag of the Tawantinsuyu or flag of Cusco, with its seven colors, has been held and usurped by the most incredible and terrifying human groups and social movements totally foreign to Cusco and its essences.
Victor Angle Vargas, Cusco Historian, on Inca and colonial themes, in a recent pamphlet of his authorship: “Urgent need to replace the flag of Cusco”, says: “The artist Gilber Baker, from San Francisco USA, in 1978 designed and he made a flag with six stripes representing the seven colors of the rainbow (SIC) as a symbol of homosexuality and pride of the lesbian community”, later Steven W. Anderson published in Miranda magazine, May 1993 (Page 25) that the most vivid of gay symbols is the rainbow flag that represents the diversity of our community. In November 1978, San Francisco’s first openly gay supervisor, Harvey Milk, was assassinated in the course of a gay movement demonstration parade. The homosexual community used to express its solidarity and its protest, the flag whose colors represent the rainbow (Angles s / f: 12, 13).