The founding legends
Two imaginary sources feed the story of the appearance of the Incas. The first one makes go back up their origin to Titicaca, the sacred lake. The Sun, supreme god, having drawn his two children, Manco Capác and Mama Ocllo, from the waters, entrusted his golden command staff to his son Manco Capác and ordered him to found a city at the place where it would penetrate the ground without resistance. The staff sinks into the fertile soil of the Cusco valley. The second legend, more complex, brings together four brothers, the Ayars, who emerged from the Tamputoco cave in search of a promised land. Each at the head of a tribe, the four brothers will fight battle after battle to establish their hegemony. In this game, the winner will be Ayar Manco or Manco Capác, the first of thirteen Incas who will administer the empire
It is thought that the Incas, Quechua people who imposed themselves on the ruins of the Tiahuanaco-Wari empire, came from the province of Cusco itself. In the sierra, the regional groups were more numerous and fragmented, and therefore more difficult to identify. The Collas and the Lupacas around the Titicaca lake, the Canas and the Canchis in the region of Cusco, the Huancas near Huancayo, the Collaguas in Arequipa, the Chancas of the Apurímac who attacked without truce the Incas, the Huaylas in the Callejón de Huaylas or the Pocras of Huamanga, the ancient Ayacucho. These proud warrior cultures were subdued and unified one by one.
The founding victory occurred in 1438 when several regional ethnic groups under the leadership of Pachacutec (1400-1471) won an essential victory over the Chancas confederation in Yawarpampa. It is to Pachacutec that we owe an empire in continuous expansion. His son, the 10th Inca Tupac Yupanqui (1471-1493) and his successor Huayna Capac (1493-1527) consolidated the territories. It was during this stage that the Inca civilization experienced the best expansion of its culture, technology and science, with its own knowledge of the Andean region and assimilating that of the conquered states
The Incas left a powerful anchorage in these lands. They knew how to respect the beliefs of each people and integrate them into their own, which probably explains why this heritage is still palpable. In spite of the Spanish domination, the conversion to Catholicism, the years of struggle for independence and governance, one sometimes has the impression that the Incas were still there yesterday.
A society that is hierarchical in the extreme
The Inca genius is also that of a very structured society that allowed to organize an empire and unify very diverse subjects. Here are the pillars:
The Inca or Sapa Inca. Sovereign reigning over the nobility and the people, who venerated him as the direct descendant of the Sun (Inti) and of Wiracocha, the creator god, the Inca exercised absolute power. Only the high dignitaries of the court could speak to him. In addition to his legitimate wife, the Colla, he had an infinite number of favorites. The Inca was elected from among the Panacas, royal lineages or ayllus . One of the tasks of the Panaca, when the Inca died, was to preserve the embalmed body and to transmit orally to his successor - the Incas did not know writing - his achievements and conquests.
The nobility. To enter the court of the Inca, it was necessary to be a member of the Imperial Panaca, to have been born or lived in Cusco and to speak Quechua, to belong to the upper caste of the groups subject to the empire, or to be granted this privilege by the Inca. The highest ranking officials were those in charge of the roads or the food depots, or the accountants, who used the quipus (a system of ropes with coloured knots) for their work.
Theayllu. This is the basic unit of society, prior to the Inca Empire. It is made up of families that had a common ancestor, owned a certain land, the marca, and recognized the authority of a chief, or curaca, in charge of sacred activities. The members of theayllu were not part of the nobility, but could accede to it for services rendered to the Inca. Each family in theayllu owned a piece of land divided into three parts: one for its needs, and the other two to pay taxes to the Inca and to the cult. The State could thus pay its officials and provide for the food needs of the people of the empire in case of calamities or natural disasters. In theayllu, the meadows and woods were communal spaces exploited in common. Agricultural work and the maintenance of infrastructure were collective. The minka is still practiced today in Andean village communities to maintain roads, canals... The inhabitants of theayllu owed each other mutual help and assistance.
The management of the workforce and the population. Thanks to the constant counts and inventories, the Inca knew perfectly well the affairs of the Empire. The count of soldiers, workers, the evaluation of the wealth produced by the work of the corvée and the resources necessary for the maintenance of the workforce were made possible by the quipus. The peoples who wanted to be incorporated into the empire received "technical assistance" through the mitimaes, technicians on mission outside their community. The peoples hostile to the Incas ran the risk of being sent to regions far from their territory. Thus, people from the Amazon were deported to the Andes, or vice versa. Each individual had to accomplish a specific task for the State for a specific period of time: the mita. Thus, the State was assured of having a workforce available for work such as road construction and military service
The power of religion. Religious power was exercised by the members of the nobility, among them the Willac Umu, a relative of the Inca in charge of the cult of the Sun at the Qoricancha. The religious hierarchy also included priests who communicated with the mummies, those in charge of sacrifices (of animals, rarely of men), diviners and magicians, and the acllas (women chosen for their great beauty, who resided in theacllawasi or "house of the chosen ones"). The mamaconas, who were over 50 years old, were in charge of making ritual clothes and chicha, the traditional drink (alcoholic or not) made from corn, which has survived to the present day. The supreme god of the Inca religion was Inti, the Sun, and the Earth(Pachamama) and the Moon(Quilla) were also worshipped, in addition to natural phenomena such as lightning, water, hills, etc., to which offerings had to be made. - To these, offerings had to be made under penalty of punishment. Every year Cusco revives its Inti Raymi, a festival in honor of the sun, in many other cities there are also raymi. The Yacu Raymi, the festival of water, is still alive in the central Andes. The Incas did not believe in heaven or hell, but in an afterlife. The Incas did not impose a new religion on the conquered peoples but made the cult of the Sun official
Builders of genius
When we think of the Incas, we have in mind these incredible fortresses melted into the landscape and dominating it at the same time, testimonies of a geological, physical and architectural knowledge and of a work of an extraordinary finesse. How can one not be fascinated by the cyclopean walls with stones at multiple angles (on the site of Machu Picchu, there is a stone with 32 angles!), perfectly adjusted, to the point that it is impossible to slip a sheet of paper into the interstices? The most beautiful example is given by the zig-zag walls of Sacsayhuamán which dominate Cusco. In the Qoricancha, the temple of the Sun of the imperial city, the stones cut in rectangles, with a polished surface, slightly convex, have resisted the earthquakes. The Sacred Valley also allows you to admire the terraces on the mountainside of Pisaq, the fortress encrusted in the rock of Ollantaytambo, the canals of Tipón. More secret, Choquequirao has not yet revealed all its secrets, partially covered by vegetation, but its 24 white lamas embedded in the Andean terraces are a work of unprecedented precision. Near Lima, the site of Pachacamac, which predates the Incas, has been preserved by them. There are many other sites to mention, but many are not adequately promoted or protected ( Huanuco Pampa, or Cumbemayo near Cajamarca, for example) or are barely emerging from the shadows(Waqrapukara in Cusco).
At the height of the Empire, the network of roads and paths reached 24,000 km (between 30,000 and 50,000 according to Hyslop in 1984). Thus, all the religious and military centres were connected, as well as the food stores and the cities. Designed for pedestrians and draught llamas, the paths were 5 to 10 m wide, and followed the Andean heights and valleys: this extraordinary network testifies to a perfect social and economic organization. The rectilinear nature of the route required the construction of numerous rope suspension bridges (of vegetable fibre or reed) and stairways. Some of these bridges have been maintained over the centuries according to ancestral know-how by the communities, such as the one at Q'eswachaka, south of Cusco. The chasquis, messengers who transported quipus and foodstuffs at a run, took turns to travel these paths (armies, administrators, judges, etc.). It is said that they could travel from Cusco to Quito in 5 days. Along the roads, there are tambos. The surplus of production was stored there to be redistributed to the people or armies that needed it. The territory of Peru is full of remains of tambos, and this term enters the composition of many names of places, recalling their Inca origin. In spite of the determination of the Spaniards to destroy all traces of the glorious past of the Incas, there are still many proud proofs of the genius of this empire constituted in less than a century. The remains of the Inca road network, dubbed Qhapaq Ñan, were inscribed on UNESCO's World Heritage List in 2014.
To learn more about the Inca genius, we can't recommend enough a visit to the Larco Museum in Lima, which showcases all pre-Columbian civilizations, and the Pachacamac Museum. Cusco has its Museo Inka with some interesting pieces and the Manuel Chavez Ballon Museum below Machu Picchu too. Apart from the quipus that have kept all their mystery and the qeros (traditional cups), the Incas were less dedicated to the work of crafts, ceramics or goldsmithing. The Incas are also and above all the heirs of previous know-how.
