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[Spanish, from Quechua inka, ruler, man of royal lineage.]
For more information on Inca, visit Britannica.com.
A late Horizon cultural grouping centred on its capital at Cuzco, Peru, which in the early 15th century ad began expanding outwards through conquest and alliance to form the Inca empire. At its peak in the early 16th century, this empire stretched from northern Ecuador to south-central Chile, a distance of more than 4000km.
The period of Inca expansion began around ad 1410 under the semi-mythical emperor, or Sapa Inca, Viracocha, and was continued by his son Yupanqui (who assumed the name Pachakuti or ‘Cataclysm’), who defeated a series of neighbouring rival states and kingdoms including the Chanca, the Colla, and the Lupaqa. Pachakuti's son Topa defeated the Chimu in ad 1463, thereby removing the last serious obstacle to Inca dominance of the Andes. Topa became emperor in ad 1471 and proceeded to enlarge the Inca domain still further. Topa's successor Huayna Capac took more territory in the upper Amazon region and built a second capital at Quito.
The Inca empire was called ‘Tawantinsuyu’ by the Inca people, meaning the land of the four quarters. Each quarter was a large province which radiated out from Cuzco. The four provinces (Antisuyu, Collasuyu, Chinchasuyu, and Cuntisuyu) were each sub-divided into smaller regions, the boundaries of which broadly followed those of the conquered kingdoms.
At the head of the empire was the Sapa Inca who was believed to be descended from the sun god Inti. When a Sapa Inca died his body was mummified and thereafter became the focus of a cult. High-ranking officials in the Inca empire were recruited from royal lineages. Although the Incas generally left the social and political hierarchy of conquered kingdoms in place they required the rulers' sons to go to Cuzco to learn the Inca language, Quechua. Surprisingly, this was only a spoken language as the Inca did not use writing.
Sacred objects from conquered provinces were also taken to Cuzco to reside in the temple of the sun god or in some specially constructed shrine.
Over 30 000km of paved roads linked Cuzco with the provincial centres, facilitating the movement of troops and the transportation of luxury goods. It has been estimated that there were between six and twelve million subjects within the Inca empire, so administration was a major task.
Agricultural land was divided into three divisions: that belonging to the temples, to the state (i.e. Sapa Inca), and to the landowning commoners known as aylluses. Every ayllus had to spend time working on the state-owned land and temple land as labour tribute or mita. Food produced for the state was kept in great storehouses and used to feed the army, officials, and those engaged on state projects. The main crops were potatoes, maize, and other grain crops. Specialist craftsmen produced ceramics and metalwork. All luxury goods were produced and distributed by the state.
The Inca did not build cities. The population was essentially rural with numerous small villages and towns housing less than 1000 people. The capital, Cuzco, was occupied only by members of the Sapa Inca's court and priests. The architecture of Inca centres is impressive, as is the quality of the building work done.
The Inca empire came to an end in the mid 16th century. Internecine strife and a civil war between Atahuallpa and Huascar, the sons of Huayna Capac, between ad 1525 and 1532 weakened the empire considerably. Atahuallpa won the civil war but within weeks was captured at Cajamarca by a party of just 168 Spanish conquistadors led by Francisco Pizarro, and within a year Cuzco and the whole empire had been taken over by the Spanish.
Extent and Organization of the Empire
Centered at Cuzco, Peru, the empire at the time of the Spanish conquest (1532) dominated the entire Andean area from Quito, Ecuador, S to the Río Maule, Chile, extending some 2,000 mi (3,200 km). Although the Inca showed a genius for organization, their conquests were facilitated by the highly developed social systems of some of the kingdoms that they absorbed, such as the Chimu, and the established agrarian communities that covered the area of their conquest. The Inca empire was a closely knit state. At the top was the emperor, an absolute monarch ruling by divine right. Merciless toward its enemies and requiring an obedience close to slavery, the imperial government was responsible for the welfare of its subjects. Everything was owned by the state except houses, movable household goods, and some individually held lands. In addition to cultivating the land, the common people were drafted to work on state projects such as mining, public works, and army service. This obligation was known as mita. From well-stocked storehouses were drawn goods to support priests, government servants, special artisans, the aged and the sick, and widows.
The royal family formed an educated, governing upper nobility, which at the time of the Spanish conquest numbered around 500. To further increase government control over an empire grown unwieldy, all who spoke Quechua became an “Inca class” by privilege and became colonists. Lesser administrative officials, formerly independent rulers, and their descendants were the minor nobility, or curaca class, also supported by the government.
For purposes of administration the empire was divided into four parts, the lines of which met at Cuzco; the quarters were divided into provinces, usually on the basis of former independent divisions. These in turn were customarily split into an upper and a lower moiety; the moieties were subdivided into ayllus, or local communities. Much as it exists today as the basic unit of communal indigenous society, so the ancient ayllu was the political and social foundation of Inca government. When a territory was conquered, surveys, consisting of relief models of topographical and population features, and a census of the population were made. With these reports, recorded on quipus, of the material and human resources in each province, populations were reshuffled as needed. Thus transplanted, and dominated by Quechua colonists, the subject peoples had less chance to revolt, and the separate languages and cultures were molded to the Inca pattern.
Religion, controlled by a hierarchy similar to the government hierarchy, emphasized ritual and organization. Heading the Inca gods was Viracocha. His servants were the sun, the god of the weather or thunder, the moon, the stars, the earth, and the sea. The sun god was foremost among these. Divination, sacrifices (human only at times of crisis), celebrations and ceremonies, ritual, feasts, and fasts were all part of Inca religion.
Inca Agriculture, Engineering, and Manufacturing
Although the Andean area offered a diversity of plant domestication, the handicaps of terrain and climate presented severe obstacles. To overcome them, Inca engineers demonstrated extraordinary skill in terracing, drainage, irrigation, and the use of fertilizers. They lacked draft animals, but domesticated animals (the llama, the alpaca, the dog, the guinea pig, and the duck) were important to daily living; from the wild vicuña, fine wool was sheared.
Without paper or a system of writing, the architects and master masons who designed and supervised the construction of public buildings and engineering works in such cities as Machu Picchu and the fortress of Sacsahuamán built clay models and, in actual construction, employed sliding scales, plumb bobs, and bronze and stone tools. Without wheeled vehicles for transport, the huge polygonal stone blocks for fortress, palace, temple, and storehouse were emplaced by ramp and rollers and were fitted with extraordinary precision. Wall corners were always carefully bonded. Adobe bricks and plaster were common, especially along the coastal desert. Buildings were usually of one story.
One of the most remarkable evidences of Inca engineering skill was an elaborate network of roads, which in many places still survives. Streams were crossed by a log or stone bridge, placid rivers by balsa ferry or pontoon bridge, and chasms by a breeches-buoy contrivance or by a suspension bridge that might be as much as 200 ft (60 m) long. Road sections were maintained by the nearest village, as were the shelters and military storehouses that were spaced a day's travel apart; a village also supplied messengers for its sector. These men, serving 15-day shifts, relayed messages about every mile. About 150 mi (240 km) could be covered daily, a distance that later took the Spanish colonial post 12 to 13 days to cover.
In the manufacture of textiles the Inca utilized almost every available kind of fiber and produced elaborate multicolored tapestries. In ceramics they achieved a fine-grained, highly polished, metallic hardness that stressed functional and utilitarian design. Mining was fairly extensive. Of the metals, copper and bronze were for public use; gold, silver, and tin were reserved for the emperor, the temples, and the upper nobility. Metallurgical processes included the techniques of smelting, alloying, casting, hammering, repoussé, incrustation, inlay, soldering, riveting, and cloisonné.
History
The Empire's Growth
Since the Inca combined much Aymara mythology with their own, their origin myth is obscure. The most common belief is that the legendary founder, Manco Capac (who seems to have been a historical figure), brought his people from mountain caves to the Cuzco Valley. During the early Inca period (c.1200–c.1440) the tribe gradually established its hegemony over other peoples of the valley and under the emperor named Viracocha (the name also of the supreme creator in Inca cosmology) allied themselves with the Quechua. However, it was not until the reigns of Pachacuti (c.1440–1471) and his son Topa Inca, or Tupac Yupanqui (1471–93), that the Inca made their great conquests. The present Ecuador (the kingdom of Quito) was subjugated by Huayna Capac, giving the empire its greatest extent and power. At his death it was divided between his sons, Huáscar and Atahualpa, and a long civil war ensued from which Atahualpa emerged triumphant just as Francisco Pizarro landed on the shores of Peru and the Spanish conquest began.
Spanish Conquest
When Francisco Pizarro landed in South America in 1532, he was welcomed by Atahualpa. By strategem the conquistador lured the emperor into his camp, captured, and then executed him. Shortly thereafter (1533) Pizarro entered Cuzco. Although the Spaniards did not immediately subdue the Inca, the highly personal and centralized political structure of the Inca facilitated the Spanish conquest. Despite the heroic resistance carried on in many sections and the rebellion (1536–37) of Manco Capac, the conquest was assured. Under Spanish rule Inca culture was greatly modified and eventually Hispanicized. The natives were reduced to a subordinate status, and only in recent years have efforts been made to make the indigenous Peruvian population (about 50% of the total) an integral part of the national life.
Bibliography
See chapters on the Inca in the Handbook of South American Indians, Vol. II (1963). For accounts by early historians, see P. de Cieza de Léon, The Incas (tr. 1959) and G. de la Vega, The Royal Commentaries of Peru (tr. 1966).
See also W. H. Prescott, The History of the Conquest of Peru (1855, repr. 1963); C. R. Markham, The Incas of Peru (1910, repr. 1969); P. A. Means, Ancient Civilizations of the Andes (1931, repr. 1964) and The Fall of the Inca Empire (1932, repr. 1964); H. Bingham, Machu Picchu: Lost City of the Incas (1948, repr. 1969); V. W. von Hagen, Highway of the Sun (1956); L. Baudin, A Socialist Empire: The Incas of Peru (tr. 1961) and Daily Life in Peru under the Last Incas (tr. 1962); J. A. Mason, The Ancient Civilizations of Peru (rev. ed. 1968) and A. Métraux, The History of the Incas (tr. 1970); G. W. Conrad and A. A. Demarest, Religion and Empire; The Dynamics of Aztec and Inca Expansionism (1984).
The imperial Inca state was built upon thousands of years of cultural history and diverse elaborate statecraft of the Andean region of western South America, beginning in the thirteenth century C.E. Though the empire was short-lived (it was conquered by Spain in the sixteenth century), the Inca of the Cuzco valley brought together hundreds of groups, including speakers of many mutually exclusive languages from the dry western South American coasts to the verdant Amazonian foothills, from warm and moist valleys of modern Columbia to the dry Atacama Desert of Chile and the dry mountains of northwestern Argentina. They conquered this territory in less than sixty years. Among their many tools for statecraft were food production, storage, and feasting. When they conquered they divided the lands for the state, for the sun (the focus of their religion), and for local use. In this way the conquered people had to work all of the land, though most of the produce was for the Inca rulers; produce was taken to and stored in highly regularized storage buildings called qolqa placed at administrative centers (tambo) throughout the empire. Food had great cultural value and carried the histories of the consumers in every meal. The recipe and type of plant variety used identified a person's background, much as clothing did. The Inca encouraged these differences, to keep account of the groups that they codified in a hierarchical record-keeping organization, with the local leaders reporting to Inca administrators.
All social events were marked with food and gift exchanges. These feasting activities occurred at the conquest of new peoples, but also at the renewal of group allegiances and all religious ceremonies. John Rowe notes that the value of crops was so great that at the start of planting season, between September and November, when the rains began, the Sapa Inca (king) himself would join the religious assembly to make the first hole in the ground for maize (corn) planting in a sacred field of the religious authorities. While men had to make the holes in the ground, women had to place the seed in the earth. Singing accompanied this activity, recounting major military victories. After this planting was begun, beer was provided to all workers. The crops were tended throughout the rainy season, to keep animals from eating them, until harvest, which began around May when the rains tapered off. In the highlands, harvest was accompanied by large cooked meals, primarily of potatoes, in the fields, to repay helpers.
When the Inca arrived on the borders of a group they wanted to conquer, they would send emissaries ahead to ask if the group wanted to join the Inca state or would rather fight. If the group chose to join and not fight, a date would be set for a ceremony. On that date, the Inca military leaders would arrive in the territory bearing gifts of fine clothing, elaborate imperial ceramics, and jewelry, for the new local leaders to take on the emblems of the Inca state. If the local leaders accepted these gifts and their takeover, there would be a feast of beer and meat. These events focused on specific dishes, ceramics, and cuisine. Tamara Bray reports that there were three highly standardized receptacles to present food at these state occasions; a jar or arybaloid, a plate, and a cup or keru. The jar was to serve liquid, always a fermented beer called chicha in Quechua, the Inca language. This vessel shape is the oldest ceramic shape in the Andes. This beverage could be made out of many plant items, the strongest being the fruit from a leguminous tree of the warm valleys and coasts, Schinus molle, called molle. Chicha could also be made from quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa), an annual grain that grows in the high mountains, but the most common and of highest value was chicha from maize (Zea mays). (In fact, it is clear that the Inca made maize the state crop and focused much of their conquests on the warmer intermontane valleys and coasts.) This beer would be consumed in highly decorated tumbler-shaped cups made of ceramic or wood. This vessel probably became an important item used in ritual consumption in the earlier Middle Horizon states. The plate was an innovation for dry food presentation in the Andes. This would be how the dried camelid meat (charqui), boiled potatoes (papa), or toasted corn kernels (kamcha) would have been presented. Outside of the imperial Inca feasts such dried foods would have been presented on nicely woven cloth, as is still done in the countryside in the early twenty-first century. The Inca controlled hunting of large game, primarily two kinds of deer (loyco and taroka) and guanaco, for their pleasure, making these species a less common foodstuff than in earlier times.
Most of the populace typically ate something quite different. There were two main meals a day. The first was a thick soup eaten out of bowls in the midmorning after early tending of herds. It was made of potatoes, quinoa, or maize in the highlands, depending on the elevation of the farmer, and of lima beans or maize on the coast. The highland evening meal at dusk was consumed after a day in the fields and usually was solid food consisting of beans or boiled potatoes with a spicy sauce of chili peppers and wild herbs, eaten out of a common cooking jar with wooden spoons or on woven cloth. Meat was sometimes included, but it was usually only reserved for feast days. This would often be llamas or alpacas (camelids) in the higher areas, or guinea pigs (cuyes), and less often wild ducks, rabbits, and other small animals caught in the fields. Along the coast, fish, shellfish, and also seaweed would have been a common soup base as well as an addition to the evening meal, again spiced with chili peppers and wild herbs.
Bibliography
Bray, Tamara. "To Dine Splendidly." Paper presented at "The Culinary Equipment of Early States: The Political Dimensions of State Pottery Symposium" at the 65th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, Philadelphia, 2000.
Rowe, John Howland. "Inca Culture at the Time of the Spanish Conquest." In Handbook of the South American Indians, edited by Julian H. Steward. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1946–1959.
—Christine A. Hastorf
A Native American people who built a notable civilization in western South America in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The center of their empire was in present-day Peru. Francisco Pizarro of Spain conquered the Inca Empire.
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The Inca Empire (or Inka Empire) was the largest empire in pre-Columbian America. The administrative, political and military center of the empire was located in Cuzco. The Inca Empire arose from the highlands of Peru sometime in early 13th century. From 1438 to 1533, the Incas used a variety of methods, from conquest to peaceful assimilation, to incorporate a large portion of western South America, centered on the Andean mountain ranges, including large parts of modern Ecuador, Peru, western and south central Bolivia, northwest Argentina, north and north-central Chile, and southern Colombia. The Incas identified their king as "child of the sun."
The Quechua name for the empire was Tawantinsuyu[2] which can be translated as The Four Regions or The Four United Regions. Before the Quechua spelling reform it was written in Spanish as Tahuantinsuyo. Tawantin is a group of four things (tawa "four" with the suffix -ntin which names a group); suyu means "region" or "province". The empire was divided into four Suyus, whose corners met at the capital, Cusco (Qosqo), in modern-day Peru. The official language of the empire was Quechua, although scores if not hundreds of local languages were spoken. There were many local forms of worship, most of them concerning local sacred "Huacas", but the Inca leadership encouraged the worship of Inti — the sun god — and imposed its sovereignty above other cults such as that of Pachamama.[3]
The Incas had various origin myths. In one, Ticci Viracocha sent forth his four sons and four daughters (known as the Ayar brothers) from Pacaritambo to establish a village. Along the way, Sinchi Roca was born to Manco and Ocllo, and Sinchi Roca led them to the valley of Cusco where they founded their new village. There Manco became their leader and became known as Manco Capac.[4]
In another origin myth, the sun god Inti ordered Manco Capac and Mama Ocllo to emerge from the depths of Lake Titicaca. They were born in the lake and wandered north to establish the city of Cusco. They travelled by means of underground caves until they reached Cusco where they established Hurin Cusco, or the first dynasty of the Kingdom of Cusco.
These myths were apparently transmitted via oral tradition until early Spanish colonists recorded them; however some scholars believe that they may have been recorded on quipus (Andean knotted string records).[5]
The Inca people began as a tribe in the Cusco area around the 12th century. Under the leadership of Manco Capac, they formed the small city-state of Cuzco (Quechua Qusqu), shown in red on the map. In 1438 they began a far-reaching expansion under the command of Sapa Inca (paramount leader) Pachacuti, whose name literally meant "earth-shaker". During his reign, he and his son brought much of the Andes mountains (roughly modern Peru and Ecuador) under Inca control.
Pachacuti reorganized the kingdom of Cuzco into an empire, the Tahuantinsuyu, a federalist system which consisted of a central government with the Inca at its head and four provincial governments with strong leaders: Chinchasuyu (NW), Antisuyu (NE), Contisuyu (SW), and Collasuyu (SE). Pachacuti is also thought to have built Machu Picchu, either as a family home or as a summer retreat.
Pachacuti sent spies to regions he wanted in his empire; they brought reports on the political organization, military might and wealth. He would then send messages to the leaders of these lands extolling the benefits of joining his empire, offering them presents of luxury goods such as high quality textiles, and promising that they would be materially richer as subject rulers of the Inca. Most accepted the rule of the Inca as a fait accompli and acquiesced peacefully. The ruler's children would then be brought to Cuzco to be taught about Inca administration systems, then return to rule their native lands. This allowed the Inca to indoctrinate the former ruler's children into the Inca nobility, and, with luck, marry their daughters into families at various corners of the empire.
It was traditional for the Inca's son to lead the army; Pachacuti's son Túpac Inca began conquests to the north in 1463, and continued them as Inca after Pachucuti's death in 1471. His most important conquest was the Kingdom of Chimor, the Inca's only serious rival for the coast of Peru. Túpac Inca's empire stretched north into modern day Ecuador and Colombia.
Túpac Inca's son Huayna Cápac added significant territory to the south. At its height, Tahuantinsuyu included Peru and Bolivia, most of what is now Ecuador, a large portion of what is today Chile north of Maule River, where they met massive resistance by the Mapuche tribes. The empire also extended into corners of Argentina and Colombia. However, most of the southern portion of the Inca empire, the portion denominated as Collasuyu, was desert wasteland.
Tahuantinsuyu was a patchwork of languages, cultures and peoples. The components of the empire were not all uniformly loyal, nor were the local cultures all fully integrated. The Inca empire as a whole had an economy based on exchange and taxation of luxury goods and labour [citation needed] (it is said that Inca tax collectors would take the head lice of the lame and old as a symbolic tribute).
Spanish conquistadors led by Francisco Pizarro and his brothers explored south from Panama, reaching Inca territory by 1526. It was clear that they had reached a wealthy land with prospects of great treasure, and after one more expedition (1529), Pizarro traveled to Spain and received royal approval to conquer the region and be its viceroy.[citation needed]
At the time they returned to Peru, in 1532, a war of the two brothers between Huayna Capac's sons Huascar and Atahualpa and unrest among newly-conquered territories — and perhaps more importantly, smallpox, which had spread from Central America — had considerably weakened the empire. It was an unfortunate fact for the Inca that the Spaniards arrived at the height of a civil war, fueled almost certainly by the devastating diseases that preceded the European colonization.
Pizarro did not have a formidable force; with just 180 men, 1 cannon and only 27 horses, he often needed to talk his way out of potential confrontations that could have easily wiped out his party. The Spanish horseman, fully armored, had great technological superiority over the Inca forces. The traditional mode of battle in the Andes was a kind of siege warfare where large numbers of usually reluctant draftees were sent to overwhelm opponents. The Spaniards had developed one of the finest military machines in the premodern world, tactics learned in their centuries' long fight against Moorish kingdoms in Iberia. Along with this tactical and material superiority, the Spaniards also had acquired tens of thousands of native allies who sought to end the Inca control of their territories. This, combined with an audacious military attack by the Spaniards in Cajamarca, allowed them to capture the emperor and send the Inca elite into a huge and paralyzing political struggle. Atahualpa ordered the death of his opponent, Huascar, and the Spaniards skillfully manipulated the various factions within the Inca state. They also were able to continually increase their native allies and ultimately launched a successful attack on the capital city of Cuzco.
Their first engagement was the Battle of Puná, near present-day Guayaquil, Ecuador on the Pacific Coast; Pizarro then founded the city of Piura in July 1532. Hernando de Soto was sent inland to explore the interior, and returned with an invitation to meet the Inca, Atahualpa, who had defeated his brother in the civil war and was resting at Cajamarca with his army of 80,000 troops.
Pizarro and some of his men, most notably a friar by the name of Vincente de Valverde met with the Inca, who had brought only a small retinue. Through an interpreter Friar Vincente demanded that he and his empire accept the yoke of King Charles I of Spain and convert to Christianity. Due to the language barrier and perhaps poor interpretation, Atahualpa became somewhat puzzled by the friar's description of Christian faith and was said to have not fully understood the envoy's intentions. After Atahualpa attempted further enquiry into the doctrines of the Christian faith under which Pizarro's envoy served, the Spanish became frustrated and impatient, attacking the Inca's retinue (see Battle of Cajamarca) and capturing Atahualpa as hostage.
Atahualpa offered the Spaniards enough gold to fill the room he was imprisoned in, and twice that amount of silver. The Inca fulfilled this ransom, but Pizarro deceived them refusing to release the Inca afterwards. During Atahualpa's imprisonment Huascar was assassinated elsewhere. The Spaniards maintained that this was at Atahualpa's orders; this was used as one of the charges against Atahualpa when the Spaniards finally decided to put him to death, in August 1533.
The Spanish installed Atahualpa's brother Manco Inca Yupanqui in power; for some time Manco cooperated with the Spanish, while the Spanish fought to put down resistance in the north. Meanwhile an associate of Pizarro's, Diego de Almagro, attempted to claim Cuzco for himself. Manco tried to use this intra-Spanish feud to his advantage, recapturing Cuzco (1536), but the Spanish retook the city afterwards. Manco Inca then retreated to the mountains of Vilcabamba, Peru, where he and his successors ruled for another 36 years, sometimes raiding the Spanish or inciting revolts against them. In 1572 the last Inca stronghold was conquered, and the last ruler, Túpac Amaru, Manco's son, was captured and executed. This ended resistance to the Spanish conquest under the political authority of the Inca state.
After the fall of Tahuantinsuyu, the new Spanish rulers brutally repressed the people and their traditions. Many aspects of Inca culture were systematically destroyed, including their sophisticated farming system. The Spaniards used the Inca mita (mandatory public service) system to literally work the people to death. One member of each family was forced to work in the gold and silver mines, the foremost of which was the titanic silver mine at Potosí. When a family member died, which would usually happen within a year or two, the family would be required to send a replacement.[citation needed]
The effects of smallpox on Tahuantinsuyu (or the
Typhus (probably) in 1546, influenza and smallpox together in 1558, smallpox again in 1589, diphtheria in 1614, measles in 1618 - all ravaged the remains of Inca culture
The most powerful figure in the empire was the Sapa Inca ('the unique Inca'). Only descendants of the original Inca tribe ever ascended to the level of Inca. Most young members of the Inca's family attended Yachay Wasis (houses of knowledge) to obtain their education.
The Tawantinsuyu was a federalist system which consisted of a central government with the Inca at its head and four provinces: Chinchay Suyu (NW), Anti Suyu (NE), Kunti Suyu (SW), and Qulla Suyu (SE). The four corners of these provinces met at the center, Cuzco. Each province had a governor who oversaw local officials, who in turn supervised agriculturally-productive river valleys, cities and mines. There were separate chains of command for both the military and religious institutions, which created a system of partial checks and balances on power [citation needed]. The local officials were responsible for settling disputes and keeping track of each family's contribution to the mita (mandatory public service).
The Inca diet consisted primarily of potatoes and grains, supplemented by fish, vegetables, nuts, and maize (corn). Camelid (llama and alpaca) meat and cuyes (guinea pigs) were also eaten in large quantities. [citation needed]. In addition, they hunted various wild animals for meat, skins and feathers. Maize was malted and used to make chicha, a fermented alcoholic beverage. The Inca road system was key to farming success as it allowed distribution of foodstuffs over long distances. The Inca also constructed vast storehouses, which allowed them to live through El Niño years while neighboring civilizations suffered [citation needed].
The Inca believed in reincarnation.[7] Those who obeyed the Incan moral code — ama suwa, ama llulla, ama quella (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" [citation needed]. The Inca also practiced cranial deformation.[8] They achieved this by wrapping tight cloth straps around the heads of newborns in order to alter the shape of their still-soft skulls into a more conical form. Studies are needed to determine whether these deformations caused actual brain damage.
The Aqllawasi (Acllahuasi) which means "house of the sun virgins" was developed under the Incans in Peru at about 1438–1532 CE[citation needed]. Its central purpose was in the manufacturing of garments for the Inca royalty and the worship of the sun god, Inti.
Architecture was by far the most important of the Inca arts, with pottery and textiles reflecting motifs that were at their height in architecture. The main example is the capital city of Cuzco itself. The breathtaking site of Machu Picchu was constructed by Inca engineers. The stone temples constructed by the Inca used a mortarless construction that fit together so well that you couldn't fit a knife through the stonework. This was a process first used on a large scale by the Pucara (ca. 300 BC–AD 300) peoples to the south in Lake Titicaca, and later in the great city of Tiwanaku (ca. AD 400–1100) in present day Bolivia. The Inca imported the stoneworkers of the Tiwanaku region to Cuzco when they conquered the lands south of Lake Titicaca [citation needed]. The rocks used in construction were sculpted to fit together exactly by repeatedly lowering a rock onto another and carving away any sections on the lower rock where the dust was compressed. The tight fit and the concavity on the lower rocks made them extraordinarily stable.
Almost all of the gold and silver work of the empire was melted down by the conquistadores. Ceramics were painted in numerous motifs including birds, waves, felines, and geometric patterns. The most distinctive Inca ceramic objects are the Cusco bottles or ¨aryballos¨. [9] Many of these pieces are on display in Lima in the Larco Archaeological Museum and the National Museum of Archaeology, Anthropology and History.
A very important Inca technology was the Quipu, which were assemblages of knotted strings used to record information, the exact nature of which is no longer known. Originally it was thought that Quipu were used only as mnemonic devices or to record numerical data. Recent discoveries, however, have led to the theory that these devices were instead a form of writing in their own right [citation needed].
The Inca made many discoveries in medicine. They performed successful skull surgery, which involved cutting holes in the skull to release pressure from head wounds [citation needed]. Coca leaves were used to lessen hunger and pain, as they still are in the Andes. The Chasqui (messengers) chewed coca leaves for extra energy to carry on their tasks as runners delivering messages throughout the empire.
The Incas used weapons and had wars with other civilizations in the area. The Inca army was the most powerful in the area at that time, because they could turn an ordinary villager or farmer into a soldier, ready for battle. This is because every male Inca had to take part in war at least once so as to be prepared for warfare again when needed.
The Incas had no iron or steel, and their weapons were no better than their enemies'. They went into battle with the beating of drums and the blowing of trumpets. The armor used by the Incas included:
The Inca weaponry included:
Roads allowed very quick movement for the Inca army, and shelters called quolla were built one day's distance in travelling from each other, so that an army on campaign could always be fed and rested.
The major languages of the empire, Quechua and Aymara, were employed by the Roman Catholic Church to evangelize in the Andean region. In some cases, these languages were taught to peoples who had originally spoken other indigenous languages. Today, Quechua and Aymara remain the most widespread Amerindian languages.
In modern times the rainbow flag has been associated with the Tawantinsuyu and is displayed as a symbol of Inca heritage in Peru and Bolivia. Some people argued that there is no historical reference to an Inca or Tawantisuyo flag or banner until the early 1920s; but other specialists suggest that there are chronicles and some references that support the idea of a banner attributable to the Inca, many of them cite the chronicler Bernabé Cobo, who wrote:
...el guión o estandarte real era una banderilla cuadrada y pequeña, de diez o doce palmos de ruedo, hecha de lienzo de algodón o de lana, iba puesta en el remate de una asta larga, tendida y tiesa, sin que ondease al aire, y en ella pintaba cada rey sus armas y divisas, porque cada uno las escogía diferentes, aunque las generales de los Incas eran el arco celeste.
-Bernabé Cobo, Historia del Nuevo Mundo (1609)
The city of Cusco flies the Rainbow Flag, something that was initiated in the 1980s to please tourists by the mayor of the city[citation needed]. Furthermore, Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo (2001–2006) flew the Rainbow Flag in Lima's presidential palace as a political gesture since he is ethnically of indigenous origin. Nevertheless, the Rainbow Flag was taken down by President Alan Garcia in July 2006 on the very day he took office.
