For the Love They Bear Them: Clandestine Burial and Caring for the Dead in Colonial Peru

Osborn J.; Milton E.B.P.; Bongers J.L.; Espino Huaman R.; Weinberg C.; Ricketts B. · International Journal of Historical Archaeology (2026) · DOI: 10.1007/s10761-025-00800-x

Resumen

Following the Spanish invasion and the collapse and overthrow of the Inca Empire, millions of Indigenous Andean people died from diseases, famine, and violence. Simultaneously, the twinned forces of Spanish evangelization and treasure hunting caused widespread destruction to Andean cemeteries and legally prohibited traditional Indigenous mortuary practices. Such prohibitions severed the mutual relationships of care and nurturing (uyway) between the living and the dead that underpinned social order and continuity within Andean communities. In response, some Indigenous people began to clandestinely inter their dead outside of sanctioned cemeteries. This behavior, however, is currently underrecognized in the Andean archaeological record. New archaeological data from the site of Jahuay on the Peruvian south coast, paired with new consideration of previously excavated burials from nearby sites, suggests clandestine burials were a widespread mortuary practice in colonial Chincha. We propose that this practice is best understood not as a form of resistance nor a rejection of Christian evangelization, but rather a form of community care to aid the continued survival of both the living and the dead. © The Author(s) 2025.