Incans

6 Key excerpts on "Incans"

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  Culture and Customs of Bolivia

  • Javier A. Galván(Author)
  • 2011(Publication Date)
  • Greenwood

    (Publisher)

  The Inca spoke Quechua, a language that was adopted in many parts of the empire, including Bolivia. Today, the Quechua indigenous groups still make almost 30 percent of the national population of Bolivia. THE CONTEXT 15 Tiwanaku ruins near Lake Titicaca. (Courtesy of Javier A. Galva ´n) Despite their great organizational, military, and building skills, the Inca had a few flaws during their time. For example, they never really developed a good system of writing to chronicle their own history. They left a system of kipu ´s (a string of material with nods on them) as a way of recording information, but it did not evolve into a writing system. In addition, Inca control did not last very long; they were quickly defeated by the Spanish conquistadores who arrived in 1531. Consequently, the Inca Empire lasted only about 150 years. The Spanish Colonial Period (1535–1825) The arrival of the Spanish expeditions to South America is a crucial event of historic magnitude. The colonial rule of the area lasted almost 300 years from 1535 until 1825. The main Spanish conquistadores who arrived in Cuzco (the capital of the Inca Empire) were Francisco Pizarro, Hernando de Luque, and Diego de Almagro, together with 170 soldiers at their com- mand. They were well armed and better trained for war and battle than the Incas. Upon their arrival, they found out that the Inca leader, Huyna Capac, had recently died. As a result, they found the Inca Empire in a brutal civil war between two brothers—Huascar and Atahualpa—disputing who should be the next Inca ruler. Atahualpa eventually defeated his brother. So, the Spanish met with the winning party of Atahualpa, and then put him in prison. The loyal people paid a gold ransom for his return, but the Spanish killed him anyway. Over the next 300 years, more Spanish adventurers arrived in South America with the aim of becoming wealthy from the natural and mineral resources of the area.

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  History of the Conquest of Peru

  With a Preliminary View of the Civilization of the Incas

  • William Prescott, John Foster Kirk(Authors)
  • 2023(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Who this race were, and whence they came, may afford a tempting theme for inquiry to the speculative antiquarian. But it is a land of darkness that lies far beyond the domain of history. 2 The same mists that hang round the origin of the Incas continue to settle on their subsequent annals; and so imperfect were the records employed by the Peruvians, and so confused and contradictory their traditions, that the historian finds no firm footing on which to stand till within a century of the Spanish conquest 3 At first, the progress of the Peruvians seems to have been slow, and almost imperceptible. By their wise and temperate policy they gradually won over the neighbouring tribes to their dominion, as these latter became more and more convinced of the benefits of a just and well-regulated government. As they grew stronger, they were enabled to rely more directly on force; but, still advancing under cover of the same beneficent pretexts employed by their predecessors, they proclaimed peace and civilization at the point of the sword. The rude nations of the country, without any principle of cohesion among themselves, fell one after another before the victorious arm of the Incas. Yet it was not till the middle of the fifteenth century that the famous Topa Inca Yupanqui, grandfather of the monarch who occupied the throne at the coming of the Spaniards, led his armies across the terrible desert of Atacama, and, penetrating to the southern region of Chili, fixed the permanent boundary of his dominions at the river Maule. His son, Huayna Capac, possessed of ambition and military talent fully equal to his father’s, marched along the Cordillera towards the north, and, pushing his conquests across the equator, added the powerful kingdom of Quito to the empire of Peru. 1 1 Among other authorities for this tradition, see Sarmiento, Relacion, MS., cap. 3, 4,—Herrera, Hist. general, dec. 5, lib. 3, cap. 6,—Conq. i. Pob

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  Daily Life in the Inca Empire

  • Michael A. Malpass(Author)
  • 2009(Publication Date)
  • Greenwood

    (Publisher)

  INCA CONTRIBUTIONS TO MODERN ANDEAN SOCIETY The Inca, and pre-Inca, contributions to modern Andean culture can be discussed under the categories of agriculture, engineering, community organization, and religion. Agriculture Probably the most enduring aspect of pre-Hispanic culture is the wide- spread use of native plants and animals. Corn, beans, squash, potatoes, quinoa, ullucu, coca, llamas, alpacas, and guinea pigs all are still used commonly, although much more so in highland communities. In fact, if the Spaniards had not required wheat, barley, rice, grapes, apples, peaches, The Inca Contribution to Modern Andean Culture 135 cattle, sheep, and other common foods to be used as tribute payments, Spanish foods might be little used today. One of the Incas’ greatest contributions to modern agriculture was the development of large, irrigated terrace systems for growing crops. Studies in the Colca Valley of southern Peru have indicated that virtually all the agriculture today is practiced on field systems built or expanded by the Incas (Malpass 1987). Similar studies in other regions suggest likewise. The Incas were expert farmers who learned how to most effectively utilize local regions for agricultural purposes. That their systems are still serving today’s inhabitants is a testimony to their skill. Engineering In addition to the agricultural systems, which reflect engineering skills as well as agricultural ones, other aspects of Inca engineering remain in modern Andean culture. Many examples of Inca buildings still exist and are still used, despite over 400 years of earthquakes and other seismic dis- turbances. The foundations of the Church of Santo Domingo in Cuzco con- sist of the original Coricancha, the interior design of which was exposed in Inca stone foundation for a modern building in Cuzco. 136 Daily Life in the Inca Empire the last century by an earthquake. Many other major buildings in Cuzco also have Inca foundations.

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  Pre-Columbian America

  Empires of the New World

  • Britannica Educational Publishing, Kathleen Kuiper(Authors)
  • 2010(Publication Date)
  • Britannica Educational Publishing

    (Publisher)

  The Andean civilizations owe their existence to two agricultural circumstances in particular—their ability to exploit thousands of quite different ecologic pockets, each with its own microenvironment, and the use of daytime heat and nighttime cold to develop food preservation techniques. They also developed a set of values that soon was elaborated into an economic and political ideal. Every Andean society—be it a tiny, local ethnic group of 20 to 30 villages in a single valley or a large kingdom of 150,000 people, such as the Lupaca—tried to control simultaneously a wide variety of ecologic stories up and down the mountainsides. Some of them were many days’ march from the political core of the nation. If the society was small, the outliers (herders, salt winners above the core, and maize, cotton, or coca leaf cultivators in the warm country below) would be only three or four days away. When the political unit grew large and could mobilize and maintain several hundred young men as colonists, the outliers could be 10 or even 15 days’ walk away from the core.

  The Inca state, or Tawantinsuyu as it was known to its own citizens, was perhaps the largest political or military enterprise of all. The Incas expanded and projected on earlier, pre-Inca solutions and adaptations. In the process, many tactics that had worked well on a smaller scale became inoperative; others were reformulated in such ways that their original outline was barely recognizable.

  Beyond the strategic colonies set up on an expanded model, the Inca did not interfere too much with the lives of the many local groups that they had incorporated into Tawantinsuyu. Most of the cultures that existed in Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Argentina, and Chile before the Inca expansion can be identified. In fact, because the European invasion beginning in 1532 was mostly concerned with breaking the resistance of the Inca overlords, frequently more is known about the pre-Inca occupants than about Cuzco rule. Inca power was broken and decapitated within 40 years of 1532. The ethnic groups, many of which (like the Wanka or the Cañari) sided with Europeans against the Inca, were still easy to locate and identify in the 18th century.

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  Spanish America, Its Romance, Reality and Future, Vol. 1 (of 2)

  • C. Reginald (Charles Reginald) Enock(Author)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • Perlego

    (Publisher)

  "The people of pure Spanish blood in these upland communities are few, relatively, for in the course of time they have become so intermingled with the original inhabitants that they now form the real Mestizos, or people of mixed race. But they are, to all intents and purposes, as much Spanish Americans as the dwellers of the littoral provinces, their language being Spanish, and their customs principally of similar origin. They are a well-meaning class, desirous of progress and betterment, but kept backward by the isolation of their position, and the poverty of the country, and low standard of living consequent thereon.

  "But the main bulk of the population of these regions is formed by the original people who constituted the communities of the Inca Empire—the Quechuas and Aymaras. Whilst in general terminology these are called Indians, they must not be confounded with the savage tribes of the forest, from which they are distinct in every respect. They merge into the Cholos, with an admixture of Spaniard. They have, of course, absolutely nothing in common with the imported negroes of the coast, and are not necessarily dark-skinned—their complexion sometimes being relatively light—although they are beardless. The hair is worn in a queue. They are strong and hardy in constitution, and are much sought after as mining labourers, having a natural aptitude for this work. The mining regions, in some cases, are situated at very high elevations, from 11,000 to 17,000 feet, or more, and in the greatly rarefied air of such altitudes none but the actual sons of the soil—who have paid Nature the homage of being born there—can endure the hard physical exertion which mining demands.

  "The history of these people is a chequered and terrible one. At the time of the Inca Empire they lived in a condition of happy and contented enjoyment of the fruits of their toil—a quiet, pastoral life, ruled by beneficent laws and monarchs who had their welfare at heart in a manner such as has never been carried out among the subjects or citizens of any Christian nation. They inhabited their glorious uplands, wresting from Nature, with pleasurable toil, the means of their simple existence, until—in the inexplicable plan of Nature, which ever demands strife and change—Spaniards came sailing round the world, and substituted for that peaceful regime battle and bloodshed, and long and terrible oppression. A resulting fear of the invading white man inspired the distrust which to-day is one of their dominant characteristics—Spain's legacy in the Andes. This has induced a feeling of despair, which is imprinted on their melancholy countenances, and in the passive resistance which has become their habitual attitude towards progress and the administration of the Republic. But it would not be fair to cast the onus of this distrust upon the Spaniards alone, for the Cholos have been abused and oppressed by the Peruvians of the Republic, almost up to the present day. In times of revolutionary war their goods have been commandeered, and themselves made to serve as soldiers in strife in which they had no interest, whilst in times of peace they have been considered an easy subject for spoliation by the petty authorities and the wealthier Mestizo class.

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  The Myths of Mexico & Peru

  • Lewis Spence(Author)
  • 2020(Publication Date)
  • Librorium Editions

    (Publisher)

  at the valley of Chincha. It was constituted by an alliance of tribes under the leadership of the chief of Pucara, in the Huanca country. A branch of this confederacy, the Chanca, pushing southward in a general movement, encountered the Inca people of Colla-suyu, who, under their leader, Pachacutic, a young but determined chieftain, defeated the invaders in a decisive battle near Cuzco. In consequence of this defeat the Chanca deserted their former allies and made common cause with their victors. Together the armies made a determined attack on the Huanca alliance, which they broke up, and conquered the northern districts of the Chinchay-suyu. Thus Central Peru fell to the Inca arms.

  The Inca Monarchs

  Inca history, or rather tradition, as we must call it in the light of an unparalleled lack of original documentary evidence, spoke of a series of eleven monarchs from Manco Ccapac to Huaina Ccapac, who died shortly before the Spanish conquest. These had reigned for a collective period of nearly 350 years. The evidence that these chiefs had reigned was of the best, for their mummified bodies were preserved in the great Temple of the Sun at Cuzco, already described. There they received the same daily service as when in the flesh. Their private herds of llamas and slaves were still understood to belong to them, and food and drink were placed before them at stated intervals. Clothes were made for them, and they were carried about in palanquins as if for daily exercise. The descendants of each at periodical intervals feasted on the produce of their ancestor’s private estate, and his mummy was set in the centre of the diners and treated as the principal guest.

  The First Incas

  After Manco Ccapac and his immediate successor, Sinchi Roca (Wise Chief), Lloque Yupanqui comes third in the series. He died while his son was still a child. Concerning Mayta Ccapac, who commenced his reign while yet a minor, but little is known. He was followed by Ccapac Yupanqui, who defeated the Conti-suyu, who had grown alarmed at the great power recently attained by Cuzco. The Inca and his men were attacked whilst about to offer sacrifice. A second attempt to sack Cuzco and divide its spoil and the women attached to the great Temple of the Sun likewise ended in the total discomfiture of the jealous invaders. With Inca Roca, the next Inca, a new dynasty commences, but it is well-nigh impossible to trace the connection between it and the preceding one. Of the origin of Inca Roca nothing is related save that he claimed descent from Manco Ccapac. Roca, instead of waiting to be attacked in his own dominions, boldly confronted the Conti-suyu in their own territory, defeated them decisively at Pumatampu, and compelled them to yield him tribute. His successor, Yahuarhuaccac, initiated a similar campaign against the Colla-suyu people, against whom he had the assistance of the conquered Conti-suyu. But at a feast which he held in Cuzco before setting out he was attacked by his allies, and fled to the Coricancha, or Golden Temple of the Sun, for refuge, along with his wives. Resistance was unavailing, and the Inca and many of his favourites were slaughtered. The allied tribes which had overrun Central Peru now threatened Cuzco, and had they advanced with promptitude the Inca dynasty would have been wiped out and the city reduced to ruins. A strong man was at hand, however, who was capable of

  dealing with the extremely dangerous situation which had arisen. This was Viracocha, a chieftain chosen by the vote of the assembled warriors of Cuzco. By a prudent conciliation of the Conti-suyu and Colla-suyu he established a confederation which not only put an end to all threats of invasion, but so menaced the invaders that they were glad to return to their own territory and place it in a suitable state of defence.

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