Empire of the Incas

By Steve Nelson

Most explorers of South America during the early 1900s were looking for treasure. One man, Hiram Dingham, set out to find the lost capital of the last Inca ruler. In 1911, he discovered Machu Picchu, situated high in the Andes mountains of Peru. This discovery provided another piece to the puzzle of the Incan empire.

At the time of the initial invasions by the Incas, small feuding kingdoms dominated the scene. The empire of the Incas started as just one of a great many chiefdoms in the Andes mountains. Toward the mid-1400s, the Incas began to take over neighboring kingdoms under the rule of Pachacuti. Pachacuti was the first of the Inca rulers who was an able military strategist. He successfully put down an invasion by a neighboring tribe. This inspired him to go on to take over other territories. Some territories were taken by force, while others peacefully allied with the Incas. The conquered kingdoms were allowed to retain their individual cultural identities (the official Incan language was Quechua), though they were subject to Inca labor taxes. The most important conquest was that of the wealthy Chimu kingdom in what is now Peru. Only smaller territories remained to be taken over. By the time of the Spanish conquest led by Pizarro in 1532, the Incas controlled about 12 million people along the entire length of western South America.

The territory of the Incan empire was a diverse mix of deserts, fertile valleys, mountains, and tropical forests. Because the Incas were so successful at building a civilization in such a forbidding environment, archaeologists want to understand such aspects of Inca culture as farming techniques in order to determine whether ancient agricultural practices are relevant today. Also of tremendous importance is understanding how the Incas were able to administrate such a vast empire.

Although the Incas had no form of writing, they developed an ingenious system of record-keeping. The quipu were complex color-coded bunches of knotted strings on which the Incas counted by the decimal system. They used these cords to keep an accurate account of their stored goods, the available workforce, and important items like maize, from which they made ceremonial beer. Every economic aspect of the vast empire was adequately managed by the quipu. The people who kept the records were called quipucamayocs.

The Incan administrators had to travel great distances in order to ensure the stability of their empire. The Incas constructed nearly 12,000 miles of roads, most of which were paved with flat stones. Perfectly engineered bridges spanned rivers. Two roads, running the length of the empire, were built solely for use by the rulers. At two locations along the highlands road the Incans constructed huge administrative centers with more than 3,000 buildings.

The wheel was not used by the Incas, so administrators traveled on foot. Llamas carried cargo. Way stations along the route provided shelter. It was necessary to maintain a stable food supply along the route, so the Incas constructed a series of storehouses to fill this need. Some of these facilities could hold as much as a million bushels of grain. The Incas discovered they could use the natural fluctuations in temperature in the Andes to "freeze-dry" the stored food, thus preserving it for long periods.

Andean traditions provided the bases for Incan economy and politics. In order to financially support the empire, the Incas developed a system of labor taxation similar to modern Socialism. On a rotating basis citizens, including children, were required to serve in various labor capacities, whether it be farming, construction, or in the home. Two-thirds of a farmer's crops (over 20 varieties of corn and 240 varieties of potatoes) were given to the government. In exchange for labor performed, the government gave them what they needed in the way of shelter, food, and clothing. One of the incentives was free ceremonial beer. A certain open area within the center at Huanuco Papas was used by Inca bureaucracy as a social center where the citizens could gather to celebrate and drink ceremonial beer. The ability of the Incas to efficiently organize the population into a unified workforce was an astounding achievement.

Incan cities were occupied by government administrators and the craftspeople who created artwork for the temples. The majority of the populace lived in small villages outside the cities, and would venture into town for ceremonies or to fulfill labor obligations. Soldiers were housed in barracks outside the city limits.

Some communication was performed by means of fires and smoke signals, but most communication between cities was facilitated by young men called chasquis. Trained from the time they were boys, hundreds of chasquis formed a relay chain that connected the cities from one end of the empire to the other. Messages were delivered orally, and if a message was inadvertently altered even slightly along the chain, a severe punishment was administered.

Because of the sheer size of the Incan empire, there was no central government. Instead, the state was made up of a collection of groups with varying political, ethnic, and linguistic characteristics. Fear of military reprisal is probably what served to maintain administrative policies. One ingenious method the Incan government employed to maintain control over the many villages of the empire was to transplant a group of loyalists from one region to another. This helped ensure political stability and also aided the economy, since people knowledgeable in organization and construction could cultivate previously undeveloped areas.

The Incas demonstrated a high degree of engineering ability in the construction of roads, bridges, farming terraces, and cities. Buildings were single story, and composed of perfectly joined slabs of stone. The cities were structured around a central open square surrounded by government buildings and temples. At Cuzco, broad avenues radiated in a grid pattern to the main plaza where the Temple of the Sun was located. In the center of the main plaza was a sacred stone, the ushnu, which was covered with gold. Huge gateways, including the Gateway of the Sun, were erected at numerous locations. The avenues and gateways were rigidly laid out, guaranteeing a high degree of control over access to the city and the movement of the people within its walls. It has been suggested that Cuzco was constructed in the shape of a puma. In fact, the area between its two rivers, the Tullumayo and the Saphy, is known as puma chupan, or "tail of the puma."

Incan decorative art employed repetitive bold geometric patterns. Pottery included the aryballos, a curving, long-necked vessel. Wooden drinking cups called keros also abounded. Ceremonial costumes were made of gold, silver, and the feathers of Amazonian birds.

Incan farming techniques were nothing short of amazing. The Incas worked with the forbidding terrain by creating terraced fields on mountainsides and by irrigating dry valleys. The chief crop was maize, but cotton, potatoes, an edible tuber called oca, and a grain called quinoa were also cultivated. Coastal peoples grew gourds, squash, chili peppers, fruit and legumes. Fish was plentiful along the coast. Fishing from boats, the people used hook and line as well as nets and harpoons to gather marine life.

The Inca lived in extended families. Inca social life was based on status, which was set for life. A group of families was called an ayllus. The members of an ayllus jointly owned a tract of land. The head of the ayllus gave each family enough land to grow its own food. Incan nobles practiced polygamy. Sometimes, a man who had done the emperor a special service was rewarded with a wife of extraordinary beauty and intelligence. These women were known as chosen women. Husbands and wives equally shared work-related tasks. Although girls and boys were initiated into manhood and womanhood around the age of fourteen, they were not considered adults until they were married and began paying taxes.

Inca emperors, called Sapa Incas, were considered divine descendents of the Sun god. Though Cuzco was the primary seat of the Sapa Inca, there were palaces for him in every city of the empire. Under him was a council of governors who oversaw the provinces of the empire. Priests played an important role in Incan society, performing ceremonies and maintaining the temples. Priests performed the divinations by which the Incas planned every detail of their lives, from determining when to plant certain crops to when to wage war. The chief priest and the generals of the army were usually close relatives of the Sapa Inca.

Sons of Inca nobles were given a four-year education in Cuzco. Teachers called amautas trained them in Quechua, Incan history, religion, the quipu, and fighting.

Incan religion centered around the Sun god. Gold was used by the rulers for ritual purposes because the metal was symbolic of the Sun god. Textiles were important to the Incas, and were sometimes burned to appease the gods. Cloth was also important politically and economically. One of the administrative buildings at Huanuco Papas was used to house a number of chosen women who wove cloth and remained virgins in order to serve some sort of religious purposes. Clothing made of the wool of alpacas or llamas was worn by the people who lived in the mountain regions. Cotton clothing was preferred by residents of the coastal desert area. Royalty wore clothes made of fine materials. Male citizens wore loin cloths and tunics, while women wore long dresses and shawls called mantas.

Animals, chiefly llamas, and crops were offered as sacrifices. The Incas also sacrificed children in a mysterious ritual known as Capacocha. Once sacrificed, a child became a deity, so it was considered an honor to be offered up to the Sun god. Very often, a chief's child was sacrificed in order to ensure the connection between the chief and the emperor, who was considered a deity. Children were chosen according to their degree of physical perfection. Once a child was chosen, a huge ceremonial procession took place between the child's home village and the capital of Cuzco, where the Incan emperor resided. While this was going on, a sacrificial tomb was being constructed on a mountain peak. The procession ascended to a point some distance below the summit. Ritual celebrations took place while the child was being prepared for sacrifice. The child was taken into the tomb and surrounded with religious artifacts. All the skulls found at these sites show fractures, indicating the children were rendered unconscious by a blow to the head before being sealed in the tomb.

The empire finally collapsed when ruler Huayna Capac died. A civil war ensued in which his two sons, Atahualpa and Huascar, vied for control. Atahualpa won the war, but the Incas allowed the recently arrived Pizarro and his soldiers to enter the capital at Cajamarca, where they captured and held Atahualpa for ransom. Ransom was paid in the form of gold and silver. Nevertheless, the Spaniards executed Atahualpa. Without an emperor and a governing body, there was little resistence to the Spanish conquerors. The empire quickly disintegrated. A traitorous half-brother of Atahualpa was set up as a puppet ruler by the Spanish. He eventually left and founded an outpost in a remote area of the jungle, where he attempted to reestablish the Incan empire. The attempt failed. The old empire was gone forever.

Though the empire of the Incas faded into history, many of the ancient traditions lingered. Today, the Andean people still speak the old Incan language, Quechua. Curing ceremonies are still used in the treatment of the sick. Many of the clothing styles worn by modern Andean people are descended from the ancient Incas. But many of the innovations in farming and organization were lost through the years. Probably the greatest loss to the modern people of the Andes was the loss of the ability to administrate large-scale operations, which was the most important asset of the Incas.

The following are some facts about the Incas taken from the 1997 Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia:

"The Incas called their land Tawantinsuyu, which in Quechua, the Inca language, means the 'four parts'."
"It is theorized that, though still expanding when the Spanish arrived, the Inca empire was approaching a series of geopolitical limits that would preclude further expansion."
"...the principles of Inca economics and politics were derived from old Andean traditions and were very different from European ones."
"Leaders maintained their power by providing gifts of luxury goods and elaborate entertainment."
"An annual cycle of religious festivals was regulated by the extremely accurate Inca calendar, as was the agricultural year."