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Inca Empire

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Ancient History,
Classical History and Mythology; General history

   CAPTION: Tawantin Suyu
   Inca Empire

   Empire

   1197 —  1548 →

   Flag of Inca Empire

   Banner
   Location of Inca Empire
   Capital        Cuzco
   Language(s)    Quechua
   Government     Value specified for "government_type" does not comply
   Sole ruler     Sapa Inca
   History
    - Established 1197
    - Conquest    1548
   Area
    - 1527        2,000,000 km^2
                  772,204 sq mi
   Population
    - 1527 est.   15,000,000
        Density   7.5 /km²
                  19.4 /sq mi

   The Inca Empire was the largest empire in Pre-Columbian America, and
   one of the largest empires in the world at the time of its collapse.
   The administrative, political and military centre of the empire was
   located in Cuzco. It arose from the highlands of Peru in 1197; from
   1438 to 1533, the Incas used conquest and peaceful assimilation to
   incorporate a large portion of western South America, centered on the
   Andean mountain ranges, including large parts of modern Ecuador, Peru,
   Bolivia, Argentina, and Chile.

   In 1533, Atahualpa, the last Inca emperor ( Qhapaq Inka, also Sapa
   Inca) not being a puppet or freedom fighter, was killed on the orders
   of the conquistador Francisco Pizarro, marking the beginning of Spanish
   rule. The Inca Empire was organized in “señoríos” (dominions) with a
   stratified society, in which the ruler was the Inca. It was also
   supported by an economy based on the collective property of the land.
   In fact, the Inca Empire was conceived like an ambitious and audacious
   civilizing project, based on a mythical thought, in which the harmony
   of the relationships between the human being, nature and Gods was truly
   essential.

   The Quechua name was Tawantin Suyu which can be translated 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, Cuzco (Qusqu), in modern-day Peru.

   The official language of the empire was Quechua, although over seven
   hundred local languages were spoken.

   There were many local forms of worship, but the Inca leadership
   encouraged the worship of the Pachamama, or Mother Earth. Because the
   sun was very important in Inca mythology, there is a common misbelief
   that the foremost god was the Inti or sun god.

Origin stories

   A view of Machu Picchu, "the Lost City of the Incas," now an
   archaeological site.
   Enlarge
   A view of Machu Picchu, "the Lost City of the Incas," now an
   archaeological site.

   The Inca had three origin myths. In one, Ticei Viracocha of Colina de
   las Ventanas in Pacaritambo sent forth his four sons and four daughters
   to establish a village. Along the way, Sinchi Roca was born to Manco
   and Ocllo, and Sinchi Roca led them to the valley of Cuzco where they
   founded their new village. There Manco became their leader and became
   known as Manco Capac.

   In another origin myth, the sun god Inti ordered Manco Capac and Mama
   Ocllo to emerge from the depths of Lake Titicaca and found the city of
   Cuzco. They traveled by means of underground caves until reaching Cuzco
   where they established Hurin Cuzco, or the first dynasty of the Kingdom
   of Cuzco.

   In the last origin myth, an Inca sun god told his wife that he was
   lonely. She proposed that he create a civilization to worship him and
   keep him company. He saw this as a wise plan and carried it out. The
   Inca were born from Lake Cuzco and populated the Andes and worshipped
   their sun god.

   The myths are transmitted via oral tradition, since the Incas did not
   have writing. There probably did exist a Manco Capac who became the
   leader of his tribe. The archeological evidence seems to indicate that
   the Inca were a relatively unimportant tribe until the time of Sinchi
   Roca, also called Cinchi Roca, who is the first figure in Inca
   mythology whose existence is supported by physical evidence.

Legacy of the Incas

   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.

   The legend of the Inca has served as inspiration for resistance
   movements in the region. These include the 1780 rebellion led by Tupac
   Amaru II against the Spanish, as well as the contemporary guerrilla
   movements, Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA) and Sendero
   Luminoso in Peru and Tupamaros in Uruguay.

   In modern times a flag has been associated with the Tawantinsuyu and is
   displayed as a symbol of the Peru's Inca heritage.

Society

   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 Tahuantinsuyu 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 centre, 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. The local officials were responsible for settling disputes and
   keeping track of each family's contribution to the mita (mandatory
   public service).

   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 Machu Picchu constructed by Incan
   engineers. The stone temples constructed by the Inca used a mortarless
   construction process first used on a large scale by the Tiwanaku. The
   Inca imported the stoneworkers of the Tiwanaku region to Cusco when
   they conquered the lands south of Lake Titicaca. 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 in the frequent
   earthquakes that hit the area. The Inca used straight walls except on
   important religious sites and constructed whole towns at once.

   An important Inca technology was the Quipu, which were assemblages of
   knotted strings used to record numerical and other information.
   Inca tunic
   Enlarge
   Inca tunic

   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. 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 Inca diet consisted primarily of fish, vegetables, nuts, and Maize
   (corn), supplemented less frequently with the meat of cuyes (guinea
   pigs) and camelids. In addition, they hunted various 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.

   The Inca believed in reincarnation. 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. Others spent their
   eternal days in the cold earth. The Inca also practiced cranial
   deformation. They achieved this by wrapping tight cloth straps around
   the heads of newborns in order to alter the shape of their still-soft
   skulls. These deformations did not result in brain damage.

   Aqllawasi

   The Aqllawasi (Acllahuasi) which means "house of the sun virgins" was
   developed under the Incans in Peru at about 1438-1532 CE. Its central
   purpose was in the manufacturing of garments for the Inca royalty and
   the worship of the sun god, Inti.

Agriculture and food

   Amaranth was one of the staple foodstuffs of the Incas, and it is known
   as kiwicha in the Andes today. The Inca used terraces, a sophisticated
   approach to the problem of farming mountainous terrain. An abundance of
   potato farming allowed the Incan community to flourish in trade as
   potatoes were a new thing to eastern civilization.

   The Inca Empire was spread out over several extreme climates, requiring
   the use of a wide range of agricultural systems. Native Americans were
   responsible for some of the world’s most prolific crops, including
   tomatoes, peppers, lima beans, ancient ancestors to modern squash and,
   most importantly, the potato. Maize was also deeply integrated into
   Inca agriculture and daily life. However, the Inca Empire cultivated a
   large variety of distinctly Andean crops that were not appreciated or
   adapted by Pizarro or the Spanish. These crops included over a dozen
   different species of roots and tubers, several types of grain, three
   distinctive varieties of legume and many Andean fruits. Many of these
   crops were of great value to Inca society, like the grain called
   Quinoa, which was not only nutritionally superior to the grains of the
   western world, but thrived in cold, rugged terrain at high elevations.
   Other tubers, like Maca and Oca proved very hardy and were important
   staples in the Inca diet.

   The Inca Empire was quite ecologically diverse. The Empire started in
   the low coastal valleys along the Pacific Ocean and stretched over the
   second highest mountain range in the world, the Andes, all the way down
   into the cloud forests of the Amazon Rainforest. This vast
   environmental diversity was mainly responsible for the large variety of
   Inca crops as well as a continuous abundance of food. Inca farmers used
   this wide range of terrain to their advantage, planting crops at
   several different elevations, so if one harvest failed, another could
   very potentially flourish. This practice then helped different crops to
   adapt to a larger variety of environments. The Inca used this same
   concept on a larger scale throughout the whole Empire. By building an
   extensive and thorough road system, the Inca could grow different crops
   across the various climates and harvest them to feed the entire
   population. The Inca were also good at assimilating other food sources
   into their agricultural system. They did this by not only forcibly
   instilling crops from conquered neighbors, but by also moving the
   farmers who had originally grown the crop to help with its
   incorporation.

   The Inca had several original and inventive ways of turning their harsh
   landscape into an agricultural cornucopia. The first was the terracing
   of fields in the Andes Mountains. While terraced fields were widely
   used around the world, pre-Inca people developed their own rudimentary
   form of terracing that the Inca Empire then expanded upon to create
   more stable, aerated soil and efficient growing conditions. The Inca
   used guano, or bird dung, as fertilizer to help create bigger harvests
   on these terraced fields. Another Andean agricultural technique that
   made a huge difference in farming capacity was the waru waru, or raised
   fields. These fields were man-made platforms surrounded by canals,
   which provided a sophisticated irrigational effect, in which the canals
   provided water to plants’ roots during drought, and acted as drainage
   during heavy rains. These canals also created nitrate rich sediment
   which could be used as fertilizer, on top of helping regulate the
   temperature of the fields. There are remnants of raised fields
   surrounding Lake Titicaca that are at least two thousand years old, and
   recent studies have shown that the raised fields were actually more
   productive than modern day, fertilized fields.

   There were two reasons that the Inca Empire thrived agriculturally. The
   first was the aforementioned wide range of crops grown under
   resourceful agricultural systems, which consistently produced food for
   the Empire. The second reason the Inca never suffered from lack of food
   was their ability to preserve and store their crops. It is estimated
   that at any given time in Incan history, the Inca had three to seven
   years worth of food in storage. The Inca people had a unique way of
   freeze-drying root and tuber crops. In the high elevations of the
   Andes, setting these crops out in the dry days and cold nights would
   freeze-dry them in a matter of days. The farmers would help the process
   by covering the crops to protect them from dew, and by stomping on them
   to release the excess water quickly. In addition to fruits, vegetables
   and roots, the Inca also preserved meat by drying and salting it,
   making for complete nutritional stores. These food preservation
   techniques, combined with their far-reaching road system, allowed the
   Inca Empire to easily withstand natural disasters such as droughts and
   El Niño, as well as making the Inca capable of feeding a standing army.

   Cooking in the Inca Empire was simple and rather conservative. Because
   so much of the Empire was in the high mountains and barren costal
   plains, wood was saved as much as possible. The Inca used several kinds
   of grain to make bread, and they raised ducks, dogs and guinea pigs as
   supplemental meat when there was no wild game.

   Governors ate venison, roast duck, fresh fish, and tropical friuts
   (bananas, guavas). Peasants ate squash, vegetable stew, and fish if
   available. They also ate maize, potatoes, cassava, and a highland plant
   called oca. Both peasants and nobles drank chicha, an alcoholic
   beverage made from maize.

   Manners: Nobles ate and drank from wooden plates and painted beakers
   called keros. Peasants drank and ate from gourds.

   Tropical Menu: avocado pears, beans, tomatoes, chili-peppers, and
   guavas.
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