Below are two illustrations from Huaman Poma's "Nueva cronica buen gobierno" which show Inca standards. The first illustration shows a mourning ceremony. Three types of standards are depicted. One looks similar to an Inca shield, being a square about 30 cm a side with an "apron" of cloth hanging below. Another looks like a European flag with triangular tapers. The last is much smaller, again similar to a shield, hanging from a spear with decoration around the spearhead.
The second shows the Inca seated under a raised awning, surrounded by armed nobles. Two of the flag type standards are visible. It may be poor perspective in the drawing, but they look reasonably large.
The standards illustrated seem to have very little detail, in particular the flag-like ones. This may be because Poma did not know, or care to draw the detail, but one of the shield-like standards in the first illustration has quite a reasonable amount of detail. The most likely, but boring, interpretation is that these types of standards were plain.
Standards and flags are discussed in wargames articles and books. Chris Henry in "Inca warriors; costumes and weapons" (Navwar) states;
"Standards existed but again information is scarce, although they seem to have been carried on lances were square and stiff sometimes with the commander's coat of arms painted on them"
Henry also mentions the practice of bringing "religious standards" (huaca) to the battlefield, which could be mummies of ancestors , odd looking stones, ancient wooden posts, or images of "totem' animals.
Terence Wise in "The Conquistadores" (Osprey MAA101) writes;
"The various tribes had standards of birds, snakes and gods, which were carried on long staves. The standard of the Inca himself was small and square and bore a rainbow to indicate his decent from the Sun God, together with his personal device of a puma, condor, etc. It also had a cluster of coloured plumes at the head of the stave. Individual units also had small banners about 20 cm (8 in.) square, painted with insignia and carried on a spear." (p27)
Given the lack of information about patterns, etc., I would paint the banners with chequered or geometric patterns such as triangles. For example Huanya Capac's livery was green squares alternating with orange above, blue an white squares below. Manco Capac was red with three bands of tocapu (abstracted square designs). Certainly no one will be able to tell you they are wrong!
John Garvey
Began: 10/03/2000
Last Revised: