Almost Like the Amazons the Masculine Woman Warriors in Central Andean Art and Tradition (Seventh Eighteenth Century CE)

Duality was and continues to be one of the most essential cultural and social foundations of Andean Indigenous societies.1 Gender duality, based on male and female complementarity, is an important manifestation of the duality concept that shapes a significant part of the Andean gender mechanism. However, there is clear textual and material evidence that the Andean gender structure contained more than two gender categories. In recent years, a small number of ethnohistoric and archaeological studies have incorporated queer theory into research on the ancient Andean past.2 These studies reveal more complex gender structures, including gender categories that were neither wholly feminine nor wholly masculine. In defining these categories, it helps to think of blends of two ingredients in different proportions: femininity and masculinity. The majority of these pioneering studies focus on male bodies with feminine performance. However, the present article proposes another angle of this gender complexity, analyzing female bodies with masculine performance and attributes.