The Amautas: Sages and Teachers of the Inca Empire
The amautas (from the Quechua amawt’a, “he who teaches”) were the philosophers, scholars, and ritual teachers of the Inca Empire. The most famous amauta was the chronicler and poet Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala, whose illustrated letter to the Spanish king in 1615 remains one of the most important sources on Inca society. The amautas were the keepers of historical memory, the instructors of the Sapa Inca’s children, and the specialists trained in the interpretation of the quipu.
The amautas worked alongside other specialists of the imperial court, including the quipucamayocs (keepers of the quipu records), the willac umu (priest-diviners), and the village ritual experts known as paqos in Quechua and yatiris in Aymara. Together these scholars and specialists formed an intellectual class that was distinct from, but closely tied to, the political and religious hierarchies of the empire.
The Yachaywasi and Inca Education
The principal training institution for the amautas was the yachaywasi (the “house of teaching”), a residential school in Cusco to which the sons of the Inca nobility, and in some cases the most able children of common families, were sent to receive a rigorous education. According to the chroniclers, the yachaywasi housed several hundred students, who were trained for four years in the use of the quipu, the traditions of the empire, Inca religion, astronomy, the calendar, coca leaf divination, and the recitation of historical narrative.
The most able students became quipucamayocs (keepers of the quipu), who served the state as record-keepers and accountants. Others became priests and diviners. The most brilliant became amautas, the philosophical teachers and authors of the hymns (called taki) and ritual speeches that were central to Inca religious life.
The Inca system of education was so successful that the chronicler Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa remarked that the sons of the Inca could speak with a philosophical precision that exceeded many Spanish students of the same age. Garcilaso de la Vega, himself educated in part by amautas, recalled the precision and elegance of the formal language used in the yachaywasi.
The Amautas and the Transmission of History
The amautas were the principal keepers of Inca history. The most famous among them was Chhipaya (or Quipucura), an amauta who served at the court of Huayna Capac and who, after the conquest, transmitted the dynastic lists and the origin myths to the Spanish chroniclers. Without the testimony of the amautas, much of what we know about the pre-conquest Inca would have been lost.
The amautas transmitted knowledge by means of memorized narrative, formalized speech, and the quipu. Songs, hymns, and ritual speeches were committed to memory in their entirety. The ability to recite the entire dynastic list of the Inca rulers — about fifteen generations — was considered the mark of a fully trained amauta. The Inca regarded this kind of memory as a sacred skill and attributed it to the inspiration of Viracocha.
The Decline of the Amautas After the Conquest
The Spanish conquest destroyed the yachaywasi and most of the amauta class. The Spanish banned the cult of the apus and the ritual use of coca, persecuted the amautas as idolaters, and replaced the Inca education system with Catholic mission schools. Many amautas went into hiding or were forced to take on the dual role of village teacher and Christian catechist.
In spite of this, fragments of the amauta tradition survived. The chronicler Guaman Poma de Ayala preserved many of the older teachings in his Nueva corónica y buen gobierno. The rural Andean communities continued to consult elders trained in the old tradition for coca leaf divination, healing, and the recitation of local history. Some of these traditions still survive in the highland communities of Peru and Bolivia, where amauta-like ritual specialists continue to play a central role.