Inca religion

 

The belief system of the Incas was polytheistic. Inti, the Sun God, was the most important god, and was believed to be the direct ancestor of the Sapa Inca, the hereditary ruler of the empire.

The Incas

Inca religion Inca mythology

Inca history

Francisco Pizarro

Temples

The Inca civilization, similar to the Mesoamerican civilizations, built many temples to their deities. The best-known Inca temples include the Sun Temple in Cuzco, the temple at Vilcashuaman, the Aconcagua (the highest mountain in South America) and the Temple of the Sun at Isla del Sol. The Inca built the Sun Temple in Cuzco from exquisitely matched and joined stones. It had a circumference of over 1200 feet, and housed a great image of the sun. One part of the temple, the Qoricancha/Coricancha ("Golden Enclosure"), held gold models of cornstalks, llamas and lumps of earth. Portions of the Incas' land were allotted to the sun and administered for the priests.

Pantheon

see Inca mythology

Sacred sites

Huacas, or sacred sites, were widespread around the Inca Empire. Huacas were deific entities that resided in natural objects such as mountains, boulders, streams, battle fields, other meeting places, and any type of place that was connected with past Incan rulers. Spiritual leaders in a community would use prayer and offerings to communicate with a huaca for advice or assistance.

Priesthood

Priests lived at all of the important shrines . They functioned as diviners of the lungs and as sorcerers, confessors and healers. Young girls of the nobility or of exceptional beauty had the option of becoming acllas who spent four years in the provincial capitals brewing chicha or weaving textiles used by the Inca and the priests. Some learned these skills at Aqllawasis (feminine schools). They then had the privilege of becoming mamaconas, dedicated to a life of chastity serving the sun god, or of becoming the wives of Inca nobles.

Divination

The Incans also used Divination. They used it to inform people in the city of Social events, predict battle outcomes, and drive away demons. They also used it to figure out what to sacrifice to what god.

Sacrifice

Animal sacrifices accompanied many important Inca occasions. Human sacrifice was reported to have occurred in times of natural disaster, to stop Supai), the god of death from bothering them, and other great times of distress. In these important and rare occasions, children were often chosen to be sacrificed. More than 100 kids were reportedly sacrificed a year to the rain god.

In order for a child to be designated, he had to be perfect and be free of any blemishes. Usually the finest young children were taken from each village to Cuzco to meet the emperor, and were then taken to the highest mountains and then sacrificed, most often with a blow to the head. The children were elaborately adorned with fine clothing, and jewelry. This process left mummies, the most known being "Juanita", which is now kept in a museum at Arequipa, Peru. While most of these victims died violently and relatively quickly , scientists have occasionally found some who died slowly due to the freezing mountainous temperature.

The Spanish missionaries often reported child sacrifice, called capacocha, but until the 1980s there was no physical evidence to support this.^[1] Although it now seems certain that some child sacrifices did occur, their numbers may still have been grossly exaggerated by rivalling native tribes and the European conquerors, who had much to gain from painting the Inca in a negative light.

Festivals

The Inca calendar had 12 months of 30 days, with each month having its own festival. The Incan year began in December, and began with Capac Raymi, the magnificent festival.^[2]

Gregorian month	Inca month	Translation
January	Camay quilla	Fastening and Penitence
February	Hatun-pucuy	Great Ripening
March	Pacha-puchuy	Earth Ripening
April	Ayrihua or Camay Inca Raymi	Festival of the Inca
May	Aymoray quilla or Hatun Cuzqui	Great Cultivation
June	Inti Raymi	Feast of the Sun
July	Chahua-huarquiz, Chacra Ricuichi or Chacra Cona	Ploughing Month
August	Yapaquis, Chacra Ayaqui or Capac Siquis	Sowing month
September	Coya Raymi and Citua	Festival of the Moon
October	K'antaray or Uma Raymi	Month of crop watching
November	Ayamarca	Festival of the dead
December	Capac Raymi	Magnificent festival

(Von Hagen, p. 93)

Inca religion and socialism

Inca religion is one of the main counter arguments in the debate regarding the notion that the Inca state was an early 'Socialist Empire' (Baudin, 1928). These facts, however, have little to do with the Inca economy, which, with its large-scale central planning; vast system of grain-houses; and mandatory work periods, does closely resemble many features of modern socialism, although there were markets, catus, where barter was practiced without any regulation. (Von Hagen, p. 91)

See also

• Child sacrifice in pre-Columbian cultures

References

• Inca Religion

• 'Victor W. Von Hagen' (1961). "Realm of the Incas, Revised Edition". "Mentor (New American Library)". 

Notes

Pre-Columbian Civilizations and Cultures
North America	Ancient Pueblo (Anasazi) – Fremont – Mississippian
Mesoamerica	Huastec – Izapa – Mixtec – Olmec – Pipil – Tarascan – Teotihuacán – Toltec – Totonac – Zapotec
South America	Norte Chico – Chavín – Chibcha – Chimor – Chachapoya – Huari – Moche – Nazca – Tairona – Tiwanaku
Main civilizations
	The Aztec Empire	The Maya civilization	The Inca Empire
Language	Nahuatl language	Mayan languages	Quechua
Writing	Aztec writing	Mayan writing
Religion	Aztec religion	Maya religion	Inca religion
Mythology	Aztec mythology	Maya mythology	Inca mythology
Calendar	Aztec calendar	Maya calendar
Society	Aztec society	Maya society	Inca society
Infrastructure	Chinampas	Maya architecture	Inca architecture (road system) Incan agriculture
History	Aztec history		Inca history
People	Moctezuma I Moctezuma II Cuitlahuac Cuauhtémoc	Pacal the Great Tecun Uman	Manco Capac Pachacutec Atahualpa
Conquest	Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire (Hernán Cortés)	Spanish conquest of Yucatán (Francisco de Montejo) Spanish conquest of Guatemala (Pedro de Alvarado)	Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire (Francisco Pizarro)
See also
Indigenous peoples of the Americas – Population history of American indigenous peoples – Pre-Columbian art

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