Incas
Overview
Incas
The Inca empire was the central empire in South America. They swept the range of the Andes Mountains. The ability to establish a trade federation was important to establishing a powerful economic and political group in South America.
Learning Objectives
- Evaluate the differences between the different Andean populations.
- Analyze the impact of environment on the different Andean populations.
Key Terms / Key Concepts
Huaca: A large, pyramid-like structure made of adobe bricks and used as a palace, ritual site, temple, and administrative center.
vicuña: A wild South American camelid that lives in the high alpine areas of the Andes. It is a relative of the llama, and is now believed to be the wild ancestor of domesticated alpacas, which are raised for their coats.
Moche: A city in modern-day Peru, which is also where the Moche culture was centered.
quipus: Brightly colored knotted strings that recorded numerical information, such as taxes, goods, and labor, using the base number of 10 to record data in knots.
suyus: Distinct districts of the Inca Empire that all reported back to the capital of Cusco. There were four major districts during the height of the empire.
The First Peoples of the Americas
The first peoples of the Americas go by many different terms: Native American, Indian, Amerindian, Indigenous. The peoples of the Americas have many different cultures and backgrounds that span the geographic diversity of the Americas. The first peoples live in deserts, islands, woodlands, tropical rainforests, swampy marshes, plains, and even in tundra. In this textbook, the first peoples of the Americas will simply be referred to as the indigenous populations, which means the first people in a region. This is not specific to the Americas, but the term fits the most comfortably with our discussion. The diversity of indigenous populations and their ways of life demonstrate how complicated the peoples of the Americas truly are and that complexity is mirrored in their origin stories.
Archeologists believe that the first peoples of the Americas arrived approximately 15,000 to 13,000 years ago. Most of the archeological record points to peoples crossing from Asia, either by land bridge or boat, through the Bering Straight region of Alaska and Asia. Once entering the Western hemisphere, the peoples began their migration southward. Most archeologists agree that the first settlers of the Americas were following food and game that migrated and diversified as they moved further south. The archeological record points to migrants moving from the Alaska region and the northern Canadian Rockies to both south and east regions. The group that moved directly southward would become the group that moved the furthest south in the Americas, to the tip of the Tierra del Fuego in modern Argentina. The peoples of the Americas diversified as they migrated throughout the lands. They adapted to the environmental conditions and found a new way of life as they found their homelands.
Archeologists debate the number of indigenous people in the Americas by the 1490s CE. Some estimations are as low as 100 million people, others range as high as 350 million. These estimates are difficult because of the lack of records and archeological findings from the period.
Indigenous populations in the New World had a unique relationship with technology and production. In the Americas, because of limited resources and travel, this type of knowledge became very scattered and did not universally spread throughout the Americas. In many cases, indigenous groups would learn a technology or food and share it regionally, but very few of these technologies spread throughout the Americas. For example, corn production was widely known throughout the North American world. Yet, potatoes, which were a very important South American crop, did not spread beyond the region. This is due to a lack of trade resources and links north to south.
For 13,000 years, as indigenous populations moved throughout what would later become the Americas different types of societies emerged. There were several different groups that held empires and civilizations in the Americas during the ancient and Middle Ages. These groups would have a special impact on the later civilizations that developed in the Late Middle Ages period.
To here are three key indigenous groups in Latin American history that had the greatest impact on European colonization. The first was the Mayan, who lived in central America and developed a culture and agricultural style that was at the heart of trade in the Mesoamerican world. The second was the Aztecs of what is today Central Mexico. The third is the Inca of South America. These three groups were large, complicated empires during the Late Middle Ages and that had unique political and economic pull.
Andean Peoples
The Andean peoples consist of several groups that originated in the Andean world throughout the course of civilization. These include the Moche, the Nazca, andthe Inca,which are now the most famous. To build their civilization, the Inca drew from the cultural and political organizations of of the various Andes peoples.
The Andres peoples take their name from the mountain chain that was their home. The Andes Mountains run north to south throughout the South American continent, as if they were the spine of the continent. They are the longest continental mountain range in the world. They stretch approximately 4350 miles and have many high plateaus and tall peaks. The Andes are the home to the mountain that is the farthest from the earth’s center and are an average height of 13,123 feet above sea level. They are approximately double the height of the Appalachian Mountains in North America and three times the size of the Alps in Europe. The height of the Andes Mountains means that there are many elevation zones where there are a variety of plants and animals can live near the equator that would not normally live in such hot regions of the world.
Moche
The Moche (also known as the Early Chimú or Mochica) lived in what is modern-day Peru. Their civilization lasted from approximately 100 to 800 CE. The Moche shared cultural values and social structures within a distinct geographical region. However, scholars suggest this civilization functioned as individual city-states, sharing similar cultural elite classes, rather than as an empire or a single political system.
The Moche cultural sphere centered around several valleys along the north coast of Peru and occupied 250 miles of desert coastline that extended up to 50 miles inland. Moche society was agriculturally based. Because of the arid climate, they made a network of irrigation canals that diverted water into the dry region so that they could grow crops. The Moche are also noted for their expansive ceremonial architecture (Huaca), elaborately painted ceramics, and woven textiles. Moche textiles were mostly created using wool from vicuña and alpacas. Although there are few surviving examples of the original textiles, descendants of the Moche people have strong weaving traditions.
There are several theories as to what caused the demise of the Moche. Some scholars have emphasized the role of environmental change. Studies of ice cores drilled from glaciers in the Andes reveal climatic events between 536 and 594 CE, possibly a super El Niño, that resulted in thirty years of intense rain and flooding followed by thirty years of drought, which is thought to be part of the aftermath of the climate changes of 535 – 536. These weather events could have disrupted the Moche way of life and shattered their faith in their religion, which had promised stable weather through sacrifices. While there is no evidence of a foreign invasion, as many scholars have suggested in the past, the defensive works suggest social unrest, possibly the result of climate change, as factions fought for control over increasingly scarce resources.
The Inca
The Inca Empire, or Inka Empire, was the largest empire in pre-Columbian America. The civilization emerged in the 13th century and lasted until it was conquered by the Spanish in 1572 CE. The administrative, political, and military center of the empire was located in Cusco (also spelled Cuzco) in modern-day Peru. From 1438 to 1533 CE, the Incas used a variety of methods, from conquest to peaceful assimilation, to incorporate a large portion of western South America. The Inca expanded their borders to include large parts of modern Ecuador, Peru, western and south-central Bolivia, northwest Argentina, north and north-central Chile, and southern Colombia. This vast territory was known in Quechua (the language of the Inca Empire) as Tawantin Suyu, or the Four Regions, which met in the capital of Cusco.
Architecture illustrates the sophistication and technical skill typical of the Inca Empire. The main example of this resilient art form was the capital city of Cusco, which drew together the Four Regions. The Inca built their works without using adhesive to keep the walls together. This was important because they were so skillful with stone work, that they placed stones together so well that a knife could not be fitted through the stonework. This was a process first used on a large scale by the Pucara peoples to the south in Lake Titicaca (c. 300 BCE – 300 CE). The rocks used in construction were sculpted to fit together exactly by repeatedly lowering one rock onto another and carving away any sections on the lower rock where there was compression or the pieces did not fit exactly. The tight fit and the concavity on the lower rocks made them extraordinarily stable.
Machu Picchu is a rare example of this architectural building technique and remains in remarkable condition after many centuries. It was built around 1450 CE, at the height of the Inca Empire, dating from the period of the two great Inca emperors. Machu Picchu was probably built as a temple for the emperor. It was abandoned just over 100 years later, in 1572, as a belated result of the Spanish Conquest, possibly related to smallpox.
Textiles were one of the most precious commodities of the Inca culture; they denoted a person’s social status and often their profession. The brightly colored patterns on a wool tunic represented various positions and achievements. For example, a black-and-white checkerboard pattern topped with a pink triangle denoted a soldier. Because textiles were so specific to a person’s class and employment, citizens could not change their wardrobe without the express permission of the government. Textiles were also manufactured that could only be used for certain tasks or social arenas. A rougher textile, spun from llama wool and called awaska, was used for everyday household chores. On the other hand, a fine-spun cloth made from vicuña wool could only be used in religious ceremonies.
Although textiles were considered the most precious commodity in Inca culture, Incas also considered ceramics and metalwork essential commodities of their economy and class system. Incan pottery was distinctive and normally had a spherical body with a cone-shaped base. The pottery would also include curved handles and often featured animal heads, such as jaguars or birds. These ceramics were painted in bright colors, such as orange, red, black, and yellow.
The Inca required every province to mine for precious metals like tin, silver, gold, and copper. Fine silver and gold were made into intricate decorative pieces for the emperors and elites based on Chimú metallurgy traditions. The decorative pieces often included animal motifs with butterflies, jaguars, and llamas etched into the metal. Skilled metallurgists also transformed bronze and copper into farming implements, such as blades and axes, or pins for everyday activities.
The Inca culture boasted a wide variety of crops, numbering around seventy different strains in total; this makes it one of the most diverse crop cultures in the world. Some of these flavorful vegetables and grains included potatoes, sweet potatoes, maize, chili peppers, cotton, tomatoes, peanuts, oca, quinoa, and amaranth. These crops were grown in the high-altitude Andes by building terraced farms that allowed farmers to utilize the mineral-rich mountain soil. The quick change in altitude on these mountain farms utilized the micro-climates of each terrace to grow a wider range of crops. The Inca also produced bounties in the Amazon rainforest and along the more arid coastline of modern-day Peru.
Alongside vegetables, the Inca supplemented their diet with fish, guinea pigs, camelid meat, and wild fowl. And they fermented maize, or corn, to create the alcoholic beverage chicha.
Administration of the Inca Empire
Society was broken into two distinct parts. One segment was comprised of the common people, including those cultures that had been subsumed by the Inca Empire. The second group was made up of the elite of the empire, including the emperor and the kurakas, along with various other dignitaries and blood relations. The Inca Empire was a hierarchical system with the emperor, or Inca Sapa, ruling over the rest of society. Directly below the emperor, a number of religious officials and magistrates oversaw the administration of the empire. Kurakas were magistrates that served as the head of an ayliu—a clan-like family unit based on a common ancestor. These leaders mitigated between the spiritual and physical worlds. They also collected taxes, oversaw the day-to-day administration of the empire in their regions, and even chose brides for men in their communities. Some of the privileges kurakas enjoyed included exemption from taxation, the right to ride in a litter, and the freedom to practice polygamy. Education was vocationally based for commoners, while the elite received a formal spiritual education.
The Inca Empire utilized a hierarchical rule of law to oversee the administration of its vast population. There was no codified legal system for people that broke with the cultural and social norms. Local inspectors reported back to the capital and the emperor and made immediate decisions regarding punishment in cases where customs were not honored. Many times these local inspectors were blood relatives of the emperor.
The Incas created complex road systems. The Inca civilization was able to keep populations in line, collect taxes efficiently, and move goods, messages, and military resources across such a varied landscape because of the complex road system. Measuring about 24,800 miles long, this road system connected the regions of the empire and was the most complex and lengthy road system in South America at the time. Two main routes connected the north and the south of the empire, with many smaller branches extending to outposts in the east and west. The roads varied in width and style because the Inca leaders often utilized roads that already existed to create this powerful network. Common people could not use these official roads unless they were given permission by the government. These roads were used for relaying messages by way of chasqui, or human runners, who could run up to 150 miles a day with messages for officials. Llamas and alpacas were also used to distribute goods throughout the empire and ease trade relations. Additionally, the roads had a ritual purpose because they allowed the highest leaders of the Inca Empire to ascend into the Andes to perform religious rituals in sacred spaces, such as Machu Picchu.
The Inca utilized a complex recording system to keep track of the administration of the empire. Quipus (also spelled khipus) were colorful bunches of knotted strings that recorded census data, taxes, calendrical information, military organization, and accounting information. These “talking knots” could contain anything from a few threads to around 2,000. They used the base number of 10 to record information in complex variations of knots and spaces.
Trade and the movement of goods fed into what is called the vertical archipelago. This system meant that all goods produced within the empire were immediately property of the ruling elites. These elites, such as the emperor and governors, then redistributed resources across the empire as they saw fit.
Taxes and goods were collected from four distinct suyus, or districts, and sent directly to the ruling emperor in Cusco. This highly organized system was most likely perfected under the emperor Pachacuti around 1460. This system also required a minimum quota of manual labor from the general population. This form of labor taxation was called mita. The populations of each district were expected to contribute to the wealth of the empire by mining, farming, or doing other manual labor that would benefit the entire empire. Precious metals, textiles, and crops were collected and redistributed using the road system that snaked across the land, from the ocean to the Andes.
The Inca religious system utilized oral traditions to pass down the mythology of their Sun god, Inti. This benevolent male deity was often represented as a gold disk with large rays and a human face. Golden disks were commonly displayed at temples across the Inca Empire and were also associated with the ruling emperor, who was supposed to be a direct descendent of Inti and divinely powerful. Inti was also associated with the growth of crops and material abundance, especially in the high Andes, where the Inca centered their power.
Some myths state that this benevolent entity Inti had children with Mama Killa, the Moon goddess. Inti ordered these children, named Manco Cápac and Mama Ocllo, to descend from the sky and onto Earth with a divine golden wedge. This wedge penetrated the earth, and they built the capital of Cusco and civilization on that very spot. Royalty were considered to be direct descendants of Inti and, therefore, able to act as intermediaries between the physical and spiritual realms. The high priest of Inti was called the Willaq Umu. He was often the brother or a direct blood relation of the Sapa Inca, or emperor, and was the second most powerful person in the empire. The royal family oversaw the collection of goods, spiritual festivals, and the worship of Inti. Power consolidated around the cult of the Sun, and scholars suggest that the emperor Pachacuti expanded this Sun cult to garner greater power in the 15th century.
Conquered provinces were expected to dedicate a third of their resources, such as herds and crops, directly to the worship of Inti. Each province also had a temple with male and female priests worshipping the Inti cult. Becoming a priest was considered one of the most honorable positions in society. Female priests were called mamakuna, or “the chosen women,” and they wove special cloth and brewed chicha for religious festivals.
The main temple in the Inca Empire, called Qurikancha, was built in Cusco. The temple housed the bodies of deceased emperors and also contained a vast array of physical representations of Inti, many of which were removed or destroyed when the Spanish arrived. Qurikancha was also the main site of the religious festival Inti Raymi, which means “Sun Festival.” It was considered the most important festival of the year and is still celebrated in Cusco on the winter solstice. It represents the mythical origin of the Inca and the hope for good crops in the coming year as the winter sun returns from darkness.
Religious life was centered in the Andes near Cusco, but as the Inca Empire expanded its sphere of influence, they had to incorporate a wide array of religious customs and traditions to avoid outright revolt. Ayliu, or family clans, often worshipped very localized entities and gods. The ruling Inca often incorporated these deities into the Inti cosmos. For example, Pachamama, the Earth goddess, was a long-worshipped deity before the Inca Empire. She was incorporated into Inca culture as a lower divine entity. Similarly, the Chimú along the northern coast of Peru worshipped the Moon, rather than the Sun, probably due to the hot, arid climate and their proximity to the ocean. The Inca also incorporated the Moon into their religious myths and practices in the form of Mama Killa.
The Inca believed in reincarnation. Death was a passage to the next world that was full of difficulties. The spirit of the dead, camaquen, would need to follow a long dark road. The trip required the assistance of a black dog that was able to see in the dark. Most Incas imagined the afterworld to be very similar to the Euro-American notion of heaven, with flower-covered fields and snow-capped mountains. It was important for the Inca to ensure they did not die as a result of burning or that the body of the deceased did not become incinerated. This is because of the underlying belief that a vital force would disappear and this would threaten their passage to the afterworld. Those who obeyed the Inca moral code (do not steal, do not lie, do not be lazy) went to live in the “Sun’s warmth” while others spent their eternal days “in the cold earth.”
Human sacrifice has been exaggerated by myth, but it did play a role in Inca religious practices. As many as 4,000 servants, court officials, favorites, and concubines were killed upon the death of the Inca uayna Capac in 1527, for example. The Incas also performed child sacrifices during or after important events, such as the death of the Sapa Inca or during a famine. These sacrifices were known as capacocha.
The Inca practiced cranial deformation. They achieved this by wrapping tight cloth straps around the heads of newborns in order to alter the shape of their soft skulls into a more conical form; this cranial deformation distinguished social classes of the communities, with only the nobility having it.
Primary Source: Incan Creation Myth
Incan Creation Myth (1556)
Mythology holds the first truths of a culture and often may be the basis for gender roles in society. Set down in print around 1556, more than twenty years after the Spanish Conquistadors had overthrown the Inca Empire, this story was given to an Incan Princess and one of the Spanairds.
Thus our imperial city came into existence, and was divided into two halves: Hanan-Cuzco, or Upper-Cuzco, and Hurin-Cuzco, or Lower-Cuzco. Hanan-Cuzco was founded by our king and Hurin-Cuzco by our queen, and that is why the two parts were given these names, without the inhabitants of one possessing any superiority over those of the other, but simply to recall the fact that certain of them had been originally brought together by the king, and certain others by the queen. There existed only one single difference between them, ... that the inhabitants of Upper-Cuzco were to be considered as the elders ... for the reason that those from above had been brought together by the male, and those below by the female element.
Attributions
Attributions
Images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c7/Peru_-_Viewpoint_over_Machu_Pichu_city.jpg
Boundless World History
https://www.coursehero.com/study-guides/boundless-worldhistory/the-inca/
Primary Source:
Incan Creation Myth
https://web.archive.org/web/20000416033032/http://www.humanities.ccny.cuny.edu/history/reader/inca.htm