For some thirty years María Rostworowski has continued to make significant contributions to Andean history. At first she centered her work on materials provided by the eyewitnesses of the European invasion, but soon she shifted to an efficient use of administrative and ecclesiastic sources from both peninsular and Peruvian repositories. She was also one of the first to inquire into the distribution and functions of local ethnic groups. Between 1970 and 1982 she studied coastal polities and brought forth several monographs that opened a new and wider door to our understanding of the range of Andean civilizations. Her systematic collaboration with archaeologists is unique among coastal historians.

In recent years María Rostworowski has been a staff member of the Instituto de Estudios Peruanos, an organization which she helped found in 1963. The advantage of this situation consists in prompt publication of her results; the drawbacks include some of the titles with which the Instituto has labeled Rostworowski’s monographs (for example, Etnía y Sociedad, which turns out to be a study of the valley of Lima in the early decades of European rule); also, the precipitate manner of sending a draft to the printer.

The present work is a return to María Rostworowski’s earlier interest in the European sources about Andean states. Despite the inadequacy of the familiar sources—most of them available before 1900—we must use them if we are to understand such topics as dual authority (if the ruling Inca were always two, as has been claimed, what happened when one of them died?) or matrilineal descent (if such filiation was decisive at some point in the political process, when did one assert one’s patrilineage?). If so many gods were feminine, what happened to them when state structures became omnipresent? The chapters in the present book are rehearsals of the evidence that is available even now, in preparation for a new synthesis of Andean statecraft, still to come.

To those who are not inclined to follow her to the archives, she argues: “Los forjadores del ‘imperio’ Incaico no pueden ser considerados como personajes inexistentes porque no coinciden con nuestra ideología.… En la ‘historia Inca’ debemos acostumbrarnos a manejar situaciones y pensamientos distintos a las actitudes clásicas y no por eso negarles validez. Es imperativo ahondar en las raíces puramente andinas a fin de comprender mejor las culturas del antiguo Perú.”