Inca Star Mace

Origins

The Andes had a long tradition of fighting with clubs and maces before the Incas. Stone mace heads, some shaped like stars or rings, were made by earlier peoples such as the Moche and the Wari, and bronze mace heads appear in the later cultures of the region. In the fifteenth century the Incas of Cuzco conquered an empire, Tawantinsuyu, that stretched some 4,000 kilometers along the Andes from Ecuador to Chile, and their armies carried the weapons of the whole region: slings, bolas, spears, spear-throwers, wooden clubs and maces. The star-headed mace, called champi in Quechua, was one of the most typical.

Design & Construction

A star mace consisted of a heavy head fixed to the end of a wooden shaft, perhaps a meter long. The head was either carved from stone or cast in bronze, an alloy of copper and tin that Andean metalworkers mastered, and it was shaped like a star with five, six or more points around a central hole for the shaft. Some heads have simple rounded points; others have sharp, pyramid-shaped ones. The bronze heads were cast in molds, and many survive in museum collections, from Peru to Europe. The weight of the head was concentrated in a small area, so that a blow could break bone or crush a skull through a wooden or cloth helmet. Inca warriors also wore quilted cotton armor and carried small shields, and their officers carried maces of fine workmanship as signs of rank. Drawings by the Andean chronicler Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala, made around 1615, show Inca captains in battle with star-headed maces and shields.

Combat Use

Inca battles began with volleys of sling stones and then came to close quarters with maces, clubs and spears. The star mace served in the wars of expansion under Pachacuti and Topa Inca and in the civil war between Atahualpa and Huáscar that was ending when the Spanish arrived. At Cajamarca on 16 November 1532, Francisco Pizarro's 168 men ambushed Atahualpa's unarmed retinue and captured him. When the Incas rose against the Spanish under Manco Inca in 1536 and besieged Cuzco, they fought with every Andean weapon, and sling stones killed Juan Pizarro at the fortress of Sacsayhuamán. But maces and clubs could not get through steel breastplates and Morion Helmets, and the horse and the steel sword gave the Conquistadors a decisive advantage in close combat, just as they had against the obsidian-edged Aztec Macuahuitl in Mexico.

Legacy

The Inca resistance continued in the mountain state of Vilcabamba until 1572, but the conquest ended the Andean tradition of warfare. The star mace survives as one of the most recognizable objects of Inca material culture, and bronze and stone heads are held by museums and private collections. Because so many are found in graves and offerings, it is likely that some were made for ceremony and status rather than for fighting. They are a reminder of the Andean military tradition that the conquistadors defeated.