Hunefeldt C., Harris B. A Brief History of Peru

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scheme, money and markets were unnecessary, and this form of cultiva-

tion reduced risk: If one crop at a certain altitude failed, communities

could always fall back on crops grown at other altitudes.

Even though local groups had some leeway and strived to be self-suf-

ﬁcient, the Inca economy was essentially state run, and the central

authorities controlled a very large share of the empire’s labor force. The

Inca attempted to strictly control economic production and distribu-

tion, all the way from potatoes to gold, coca, vicuñas, and spondylus

shells. (Spondylus princeps are the red seashells that served as a trade

medium and wer

e highly valued for their use in religious rituals.)

Following the example of their Chimú predecessors, the Inca com-

bined two systems to exploit local produce and labor: the mit’a, which

was draft labor

, and the tribute, which could be paid as labor or in

kind. Laborers (mitayos) were drafted for public work, such as road

building and repair

, stone storage building construction, or military

service. Tribute was also usually paid in the form of labor, thus plac-

ing a huge pool of human economic resources in the hands of the cen-

tral imperial authorities.

Another source of labor recruitment rested in the mitimaes, large kin-

ship gr

oups of people from the provinces, sometimes entire ethnic

groups from as far away as modern-day Ecuador, who were transferred

wholesale to the Cuzco area. Not only did this practice of “importing”

laborers provide a work force for the empire’s capital city, but it also ful-

ﬁlled another function: By transferring large groups of people, the Inca

reduced the size of potentially disruptive ethnic groups, and at the same

time teaching them, while in Cuzco, Inca customs. It was a way of paci-

fying and acculturating conquered ethnic groups. The counterpart was

the practice of settling loyal ethnic groups in the territories from which

mitimaes had been removed.

Economic Exchange and Reciprocity

At the height of the empire, the Inca tried to regulate economic

exchange by applying the criteria of need and reward. For example,

when a locality or settlement experienced a bad harvest, the central

Inca government would provide relief from surpluses held in storage

from previous years. And, when a local leader served the Inca state well,

he might be rewarded with ﬁne vicuña clothes or jewelry produced by

specialists in Cuzco—and sometimes even with a concubine chosen

from the acllahuasi, the house of religious women (acllas) devoted to

upholding and suppor

ting the state religion.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF PERU

However, there were some forms of economic activity outside the

strict control of the state. In some parts of the empire groups set up

their own markets for trade and exchange. For example, local mer-

chants used balsa rafts to trade along the Chincha coast, and they even-

tually also traded inland to Cuzco and as far away as parts of what is

today Bolivia. When traveling north, Chincha merchants took copper

with them; returning to Cuzco, they brought spondylus shells.

In a society where money and the notion of private property were

unknown, social relations often regulated the economy. Many ethnic

groups in the highlands did not use markets and merchants, but devel-

oped their own methods and traditions based on barter, a system sus-

tained by the basic principle of reciprocity, which also embodied an

intrinsic notion of equality. Exchange between groups was based on a

shared sense of balanced giving and taking and was sustained through

kinship relations involving local ayllus.

During the early stages, when the ruling Inca’s power was still far

from absolute, r

eciprocal exchange was vital to building the empire.

The Inca had to beg curacas to help him expand the state’s infrastruc-

ture. In return for their help, the Inca promised them concessions or

future beneﬁts. At this stage, the Inca had no choice but to show a high

degr

ee of generosity on his side of the reciprocity scheme.

The supreme Incas originally had elicited labor from Cuzco’s curacas

with booty seized from the Chanca, and Incas continued gradually to

incr

ease their power using such mechanisms and resources. Eventually,

they were able to build fortresses and storage houses and to accumulate

enough wealth to support further military expansion. Apparently, the

only individuals or groups excluded from a reciprocity scheme were

yanas (assigned laborers) and the mitimaes.

Reciprocity also operated at the level of the Incan state’s relationship

to local ayllus and ethnic groups. In this case, the chances of unbal-

anced exchange wer

e high, since the state apparatus and the ruling

class of high-ranking Inca nobles usually sought to tip the balance in

their favor. As time went on, the Incan imperial state began regularly to

substitute religious rituals for goods in offering something for

exchange. Instead of returning a bag of potatoes for a bag of potatoes,

the Inca state returned a prayer for a bag of potatoes, thus distorting in

terms of real value the principle of reciprocal exchange.

The conquering Inca tried to use local curacas to administer new parts

of the empire whenever possible and to pull new groups into the system

of r

eciprocity, but the emperor also used coercion and cultural blackmail.

In order to encourage compliance with imperial demands, the Inca took

THE INCA: THE BUILDING OF AN EMPIRE

possession of local huacas (tombs, mummies, representations of deities,

and sacred objects) and moved them to Cuzco, where they were held

hostage. The Inca threatened reprisals against the huacas should the con-

quer

ed people attempt to rebel against Inca rule. Similarly, local curacas

might be taken to Cuzco to learn Incan ways and to become emissaries

between the conquer

ed ethnic group and the Inca state.

Religion

Religion was a key element in the structure and the functioning of the

Inca Empire. The supreme Inca’s fundamental power to rule the empire

rested on acceptance of the belief that he descended from the sun god

Inti. The Inca was supported by a very elaborate hierarchical structure

in which specialized priests served a variety of religious functions. The

highest-ranking religious authority in the Inca Empire was the villac

umu, considered the servant or slave of the Sun and a blood relative of

the ruling Inca. Below the villac umu in the religious hierarchy were the

guacarimachic, priests who were car

etakers of holy places and objects

known as the huacas, and the ayatapuc, priests who talked to the dead

A BRIEF HISTORY OF PERU

Inca Bridges

ew societies anywhere in the world during the 15th century could

boast of road and bridge network as extensive as that of the Inca.

Their system covered 10,000 miles and had been knit together from roads

originally built by the Chimú and Tiwanaku and extended by the Inca.

Chroniclers and European visitors in later centuries wrote detailed

descriptions of the many Incan bridges, their sizes, the materials used,

and the variety of their design and construction. Most bridges were

built using locally available raw materials, such as twisted grass ropes,

stones, and twigs.

One special kind of bridge was the oroya, a long double rope reach-

ing from one side to the other with a hanging basket in which passen-

gers sat to be pulled across. In the Lake Titicaca region, balsas (rafts)

made out of reeds were tied together to form a bridge.

The Inca stationed groups of maintenance workers near bridges and

along the roads that connected the empire. These caretakers also

counted the people using the roads and bridges and thus increased the

potential of the central government to control local movements.

and prophesied the future by reading portents from the pulsating hearts

and bowels of sacriﬁcial llamas. There were also specialized diviners,

called the caviacoc or huatuc, who predicted the future while intoxi-

cated. These priests wer

e the pillars of Inca religious rituals and the

mediators between the earthly and the divine.

Women called the mamaconas and acllas were recruited from all over

the empir

e to offer support services for the state religion. They lived in

the acllahuasi; prepared the chicha, a potent corn-based liquor, for reli-

gious celebrations; and wove the Inca’

s ﬁne clothes. Rituals and cere-

monies for the Moon and the soil were carried out by the Inca’s wife,

known as the coya, and the women of the Cuzco nobility. However,

these wer

e not their only tasks. Acllas were often given, if the Inca so

decided, as wives for deser

ving subjects as a way to satisfy the chain of

reciprocity obligations.

Religion was a key element that held hierarchies and social order in

place. It provided the ideological underpinnings of the empire. More

worldly affairs were judged by three basic principles: ama sua (no steal-

ing), ama llulla (no lying), and ama quella (no idling). Transgressions

to these principles were seen as an offense to the deities and severely

punished. Respecting the social order was key to appeasing the gods. In

the same vein, when the Inca became sick, it was believed that some-

thing was wr

ong in the empire, and vice versa.

Much of the Incan economy and the exchange of produce was linked

to the function of temples or sanctuaries to which people made regular

pilgrimages. In recent years archaeologists have uncovered some of

these impressive sites. For example, the Huaca Pariacaca, located in the

central eastern cordillera, attracted many people from the coastal areas.

Similarly, the temple of Pachacamac, located near the town of

Pachacamac on Peru’s coast, was regularly and frequently visited by

people from the highlands. Pachacamac had several local smaller

shrines among various ethnic groups, and there were shrines dedicated

to the children and wives of the idol as well. Chroniclers also point to

the existence of important huacas throughout Incan territory. Another

such huaca site is Choque Ispana, located close to the Paciﬁc Ocean

(today’

s Huacho), which probably dates back to the Chavín period.

Here, too, people from the highlands and the coast joined their prayers

and probably used this sacred space to exchange goods as well.

Quite recently an astrophysicist, D. S. Dearborn, and a historian-

archaeologist, Brian S. Bauer, teamed up to uncover some of the most

stunning ﬁndings concerning Incan religion, especially by uncovering

the connections between astronomy and the ritual, social, and political

THE INCA: THE BUILDING OF AN EMPIRE

organization of the Inca Empire. Following the movements of the Sun

was an important expression of imperial religion, so the team con-

cluded that Incan astronomy was a key to understanding how the

indigenous population interpreted the movements of the heavens

through a native calendar. This understanding helps to explicate the

social and ritual organization of the imperial capital at Cuzco by which

the elites held their power.

Aside from the Sun, the Inca people and local ethnic groups also

observed other stars, in which they saw night skies inhabited by animal

images often associated with reproductive processes. Other natural

phenomena were also observed: eclipses, thunder, lightning, meteors,

and rainbows. As in other cultures, some of these phenomena inspired

fears, worries, or joy. When an eclipse occurred, people began scream-

ing and crying, and they would beat their dogs to make them howl. The

appearances of several comets during the reign of the Inca Huayna

Capac were interpreted as premonitions of his death, and Huayna

Capac himself is said to have had dreams and visions about the annihi-

lation of his people and his empire. The Indian narrator Juan de Santa

Cruz Pachacuti recorded that when the Inca was asleep, he saw himself

surrounded by large numbers of his soldiers who had been killed in

previous battles. Later, Huayna Capac saw a stranger who gave him a

closed box and rapidly disappeared. The box contained diseases that

were to kill himself and his people.

A basic aspect of Inca religious and political life was the careful

preservation of the mummies of their ancestors. Mummies were con-

sistently a part of almost all indigenous cultures of the region, where

the ultra-dry climate facilitated mummiﬁcation of both humans and

animals. The Inca, like many previous cultures, respected and vener-

ated the mummiﬁed remains of their forebears, especially the royal

mummies, which were lavished with attention and care by their own

extended royal family groups, or panacas. When a new ruling Inca was

enthroned there wer

e celebrations with prayers, sacriﬁces, and fasting

during which the mummies of the new ruler’s predecessors (called

mallqui) were brought forth by their caretakers and seated ar

ound a

table where they were talked to and fed. The dead were regarded as an

ongoing part of life and a part of the Incan vision of the cosmos, which

was divided into three spheres, the hanaq pacha (the world above, the

sky), the kay pacha (the ground and humankind, the here and now),

and the ujqu pacha (the world beneath, the dead). All three worlds com-

municated thr

ough the divine Inca, and it was important to maintain

the unbroken line of authority that was represented by the mummies.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF PERU

An elaborate ritual calendar commemorated each deity and each

mummy. Each year counted 12 moons and the beginning of the year

was during the December solstice. Each year was divided into two

halves of six months, the semester of the Inca and the semester of the

Coya (the wife of the Inca), and the most important religious festivities

were the Coya Raymi in September, Capac Raymi in December, and the

Inti Raymi in June. In the Southern Hemisphere these months coincide

with the preparation of the soil for cultivation, the planting, and har-

vest. The religious calendar was closely knit into the agrarian cycle.

THE INCA: THE BUILDING OF AN EMPIRE

The Death of Huayna Capac,

According to the

Chronicler Father

BernabÉ Cobo

Shortly after this first arrival of the Spaniards in this land [c.

1525], while the Inca was in the province of Quito, smallpox

broke out among his subjects, and many of them died. Being fear-

ful, the Inca went into seclusion to fast as was the custom in such

times of hardship. . . . Then the Inca said that he would die, and

later he got smallpox. While he was very sick, his servants sent

two relay teams to Pachacama to ask what should be done for

the health of their lord.The sorcerers, who spoke with the devil,

consulted the idol, which answered that the Inca should be taken

out into the sun and then he would get well.This was done, but

with the opposite result, for when the Inca was put into the sun,

he died at once.

His death was deeply felt by all of his vassals. Funeral rites were

held for him with much weeping and solemn sacriﬁces; a thousand

persons were killed for his burial; they were to serve him in the other

life [as they believed], and its is stated that he was held in such high

esteem that these people were content to die, and besides those who

were designated, many others offered themselves of their own free

will. This is because [according to what could be ascertained] this

Inca was adored as a god in his lifetime, differently than others; and

never for any of his predecessors were such ceremonies held as for

him. . . . The heart of Huayna Capac was buried in Quito, and his

body was taken to Cuzco.At ﬁrst it was in the temple of the Sun, and

later in Casana and other places....(Cobo, in Hamilton 1993,

160–162).

Given the strong religious roots of Inca society, it is not surprising

that when the Spaniards witnessed the display of mummies and what

they considered to be idolatries—aside from believing, of course, in the

superiority of their own god—they did everything they could to dis-

mantle the Inca belief system. Such dismantlement involved the

destruction of religious sites, the burning of mummies, and unyielding

persecution, to the point that today’s archaeologists and historians ﬁnd

it hard to trace Inca religion and rituals. The Inca belief system was

closely related to nature, and by eliminating its physical and geograph-

ical references, the Spanish in a sense unanchored the visible sites of

Inca religion. In many places new churches of the Christian god were

literally built upon the ruins of Inca temples.

Succession to Ofﬁce and the Brothers’ War

Most Spanish chroniclers simply assumed that the Inca process of suc-

cession to high ofﬁce followed European patterns. Today we know bet-

ter. Depending on the level of succession (from the low-level curacas to

the Inca himself), a variety of criteria functioned to deﬁne a successor

Quite frequently several criteria were at work in a single ethnic group.

In the earlier stages of Inca expansion, leaders (called sinchis) were

A BRIEF HISTORY OF PERU

The Santo Domingo Church in Cuzco, built by the Spanish in 1534 on top of an existing Inca

sun temple and using Inca-cut stones

selected according to their military skills. The elected leader may have

been the son of the chief most loved by his people. Sometimes the

brother of the chief would be chosen before the son came to power. In

some cases the most able man was chosen even if he was not related to

the chief. The successor may have been chosen after the chief died, but

sometimes the new leader was put in place while the chief was still in

command in order to beneﬁt from the old chief’s experience and to

improve the new chief’s governing skills. Local succession patterns may

have been in place, but on occasion, the Inca himself would impose a

successor. In some places female and male descendants could claim to

succeed their fathers or mothers. Only persons with experience and

merit and, when available, close to the Inca were eligible, and every

appointment needed the supreme Inca’s ﬁnal approval.

As the Inca Empire reached consolidation, stricter rules applied to

succession. Rulers were interested in better deﬁning the qualiﬁcations

of a successor and the mechanisms through which a new Inca could

take power. Only by doing so could the supreme Inca prevent the con-

tinued and prolonged ﬁghts for succession resulting from the multiple

and varied sets of possibilities. Many criteria meant many candidates,

and many candidates meant political uncertainty. This was one of the

reasons why the death of an Inca was kept secret until it was clear who

would succeed him.

The predominant rule of succession among the Inca was to designate

the son of the supreme ruler’s “sister.” This “sister” was not necessarily

his blood sister but could also be his half sister, cousin, or any woman

from his lineage. Thus, succession followed a matrilineal logic, and

panacas and women in these royal clans were key to understanding polit-

ical life in the city. What we know about the brothers Huáscar and

Atahualpa, the last two independent Incas who died in the wake of the

Spanish conquest, helps to illustrate patterns of succession to high of

ﬁce.

While in the north attempting to subdue a rebellion by a non-Incan

ethnic group, the ruling Inca, Huayna Capac, died from disease in

1525. He was apparently the victim of a European illness that spread as

an epidemic among the native population, even before the Europeans

themselves appeared. (Deadly, unknown germs were the ﬁrst messen-

gers of Spanish presence in northern coastal Peru.) One of the Inca’s

sons, Atahualpa, had been with him in the north when the ruler died;

a second son, Huáscar, was in Cuzco. Unfortunately, when Huayna

Capac died, the line of succession had not been clariﬁed. Subsequently

there were many misunderstandings between the two half brothers,

made worse by political conﬂicts among vested interests in the Cuzco

THE INCA: THE BUILDING OF AN EMPIRE

A BRIEF HISTORY OF PERU

Machu Picchu

ocated about 50 miles from Cuzco, Machu Picchu is the best known

of all Incan historic sites in Peru and one of the most famous archae-

ological sites in all of South America. It had largely receded from outside

notice until the summer of 1911, when Hiram Bingham III, a history pro-

fessor at Yale University in the United States, was led to the site by

Indian guides. His subsequent writings about the magniﬁcent buildings

and location popularized the place as a “lost city,” although Bingham’s

ideas about it have proved to be in error.

Bingham thought variously that Machu Picchu was the original center

of Inca civilization, the last stronghold of a 16th-century supreme Inca who

had resisted the Spanish conquerors, or perhaps an exotic residence for

ritual Inca virgins. Modern researchers have concluded that the story is

probably less romantic than any of Bingham’s explanations. Based on stud-

ies of artifacts, skeletal remains, and written records, the current opinion

holds that Machu Picchu was a

personal vacation estate of Inca

Pachacútec, and that it probably

never had a large population

and was likely all but abandoned

after the Inca’s death.

Whatever the exact nature

of its historic role in Inca times,

the complex was a marvel of

engineering, which included

extensive reforming of the

landscape as well as the more

obvious examples of superb

Inca stonemasonry and archi-

tecture. Today Machu Picchu is

a popular tourist destination,

and thousands each year trek

along the Inca Trail to reach the

city or take packaged tours to

experience the awe-inspiring

beauty of the site.

Machu Picchu, about 50 miles from Cuzco

in the Andes

(Photofrenetic/Alamy)

panacas and the generals who aligned with one or the other of the

brothers. The result was a year-long war that divided and completely

unsettled the empire. The Inca political and administrative system

relied on speciﬁc orders and directives from the supreme ruler, but dur-

ing the so-called Brothers’ War, no one knew who the supreme Inca

was. There were several battles between huge armies, and with the last

of these military clashes, Huáscar was in prison. The victor, Atahualpa,

carried out cruel revenge against Huáscar’s panaca in Cuzco.

Huáscar’

s mother was Raura Ocllo, a sister of Huayna Capac in Tupac

Yupanqui’s panaca, the Capac Ayllu. As her son, Huáscar was consid-

ed to belong to this extended royal family. On Atahualpa’s orders, all

members belonging to the Capac Ayllu, including male and female ser-

vants, were killed, and their belongings were conﬁscated. The mummy

of their ancestor, Inca Tupac Yupanqui, was burned. Among the Inca,

the burning of the mummy of an ancestor was considered the worst

punishment anyone could suffer. Atahualpa’s actions underline that

Inca lines of descent were not traced through patrilineal kinship ties, as

in Europe and elsewhere, but were matrilineal, that is through the ayllu

or panaca of the Inca’s mother. Descent from the paternal side did not

establish a kingship tie. Had Atahualpa considered himself a descen-

dant of T

upac Yupanqui, he would not have taken revenge against

Huáscar by dishonoring the mummy of his paternal grandfather.

THE INCA: THE BUILDING OF AN EMPIRE