Inca Empire

The society of the Inca Empire was centered in what is now Peru, from AD 1438 to AD 1533. The Inca used conquest and peaceful assimilation to incorporate a large portion of western South America, centered on the Andean mountain ranges.

One of the reasons the Inca empire expanded so much over a short period of time is because of a unique belief. This belief states that the Inca continues to rule over his lands, even after he has died. Any one ruler only becomes rich and powerful if he owns his lands. This means that in order to obtain lands that were his alone, each new ruler must conquer more territory.

The Inca empire proved however to be short-lived, when by AD 1533, Atahualpa, the last Inca emperor, was killed on the orders of conquistador Francisco Pizarro, marking the beginning of more than 300 hundred years of Spanish domination.

Andean Mythology and Religion

The vast domains the Inca controlled between the 13th and 16th centuries are nowadays divided into three countries. In Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru, amid other languages, Quechua --the language native to the Inca culture-- is still spoken. Of these Andean countries, Peru is, without a doubt, the country where the Inca (or Quechua) ancient cultural legacy continues to have the most impact. Of the 22 million inhabitants of modern Peru 2 million are monolingual Quechua speakers and over 3 million are bilingual speakers of Quechua and Spanish.

The belief system of the Incas was polytheistic. Inti, the Sun God, was the most important god, which the Incas believed was the direct ancestor of the Sapa Inca, the title of the hereditary rulers of the empire.

The Incas 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. They also believed in mummifying prominent personages. Mummies would be provided with an assortment of objects and buried in a sitting position pointing to the east.

Arts and Architecture

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 stone temples constructed by the Inca used a mortarless construction process first used on a large scale by the Tiwanaku. 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, making them extraordinarily stable during frequent earthquakes that strike the area.

The Incas also sculpted the natural surroundings themselves. One could easily think that a rock along an Inca trail is completely natural, except if one sees it at the right time of year when the sun casts a stunning shadow, betraying its synthetic form. Rope bridges were also used to transport messages and materials by running messengers.

The terraces of Moray are a spectacular example of Incan terracing. It has been suggested that they were used to develop new strains of crops as large temperature differentials between the top and bottom terraces have not been observed, or they may have been purely decorative.

Medicine and Coca

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. Recent research showed that, contrary to popular belief, the Inca people were not addicted to coca.

Other practices

The Inca practiced cranial deformation in order to mark different ethnicities across the Inca Empire. They reshaped their heads 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.

Cuisine

Around 200 varieties of Peruvian potatoes were all first cultivated by the Incas and their predecessors. It is estimated that the Inca cultivated around seventy crop species making South America one of the historic centers of crop diversity (along with the Middle East, India, Mesoamerica, Ethiopia, and the Far East). Many of these crops were widely distributed by the Spanish and are now important crops worldwide.

The Incas cultivated food crops on dry Pacific coastlines, high on the slopes of the Andes, and in the lowland Amazon rainforest. In mountainous Andean environments, they made extensive use of terraced fields which not only allowed them to put to use the mineral-rich mountain soil which other peoples left fallow, but also took advantage of micro-climates conducive to a variety of crops being cultivated throughout the year. Agricultural tools consisted mostly of simple digging sticks.

The Incas also raised llamas and alpacas for wool and meat and to use them as pack animals.They build a road system that allowed distribution of foodstuffs over long distances that comunicated a vast system of storehouses, that allowed them to live through El Niño years in style while neighboring civilizations suffered.

The Inca diet consisted primarily of fish and vegetables, supplemented less frequently with the meat of guinea pigs and camelids. Maize was malted and used to make chicha, a fermented alcoholic beverage.

Modern day Incan descendants

The vast domains the Inca controlled are nowadays divided into three countries. In Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru. Quechua, the native language to the Inca culture, is still spoken. Of these Andean countries, Peru is, without a doubt, the country where the Inca ancient cultural legacy continues to have the most impact.

The daily life of the Andean people has remained much the same through the centuries. Some of them speak Quechua and perform traditional curing ceremonies in treating the sick. Farming methods in the highlands also resemble those of the Inca.