ABSTRACT
Ample archaeological evidence shows that both ancestral and enemy heads were guarded in niched containers as well as cached in pits in the earth. In this context, the quantifying aspects of these transactions illustrate the cultural practices of what we have called "power to", or "enabling power", when people become agents of change in their own right. In the study of the counting boards, Radicati di Primeglio describes how the 19th-century French traveler, Charles Wiener found two boards similar to that of Chordeleg in his trip to the department of Ancash, in the pre-Hispanic ruins of Chucana, and in the ancient apacheta, or mountain shrine, of Mount Huauyan. In this case, the transformation and consolidation of power thought to take place during the counting of tributary payments, territorial reorganization, and the new administration of territory are illustrated in a detailed iconography of conquest.
