The Influence of the Inca Empire on Modern Peru - Essay Example

The Influence of the Inca Empire on Modern Peru The Inca Empire grew between 1200 CE till 1535 CE and included twelve million people from Ecuador to northern Chile. Despite the enormity of this empire, it was able to be conquered by a relatively minuscule amount of Spanish soldiers. The Spanish colonized, assimilated, and converted the Incas to Christianity until there was very little left of their civilization. They were, however, impressed by the enormity of the empire that they had been able to construct: “Everywhere they traveled, the invaders saw the imperial imprint, whether it was in Cuzco’s grand architecture, the roads that traversed forty thousand kilometers of rugged terrain, thousands of provincial installations…or the government designed to manage the whole affair” (D’Atroy 3). However, such a large civilization could not be completely wiped out, and in modern day Peru there are still remnants of the old Inca culture and customs. While the empire does not exist in the ways it did from the thirteenth till sixteenth centuries, the influence of the Inca empire is undeniable. It is often times difficult to discern between myth and legends while researching the history of the Incas as their oral tradition often wove these together with facts: “None of Peru’s ancient cultures used the written word. They depended upon oral tradition, ceramics, painting” (Starn 15). While it is not certain exactly how much truth there is surrounding, it is generally believed that Manco Capac helped found the city of Cuzco after 1200 CE. Cuzco would grow to be the center of the entire Inca empire, but it grew rather slowly for several centuries. As far as the myth behind the origins of the Incas, Tici Viracocha is the creator god. Inti is the sun god, the son of Tici Viracocha. The sun was worshipped above everything else in Inca culture, and Inti was their highest god. The other gods included Mamaquilla, the moon goddess, Pachmama, the Earth goddess, Mamasera, corn goddess, Mamaqocha, and the ocean goddess. Tici Viracocha was supposed to have emerged from Lake Titicaca and destroyed the inhabitants of the surrounding regions of the lake after angering him. Tici Viracocha then populated the region with his own descendants. Nature was also worshipped in general, and more specifically animals such as jaguars and locations such as mountains were also worshipped. Sacrifices of food and animals were made to the gods, and human sacrifices were rather seldom in Inca culture, especially when compared to other empires such as the Aztecs. Inti, the sun god, held a position above all the other gods, and the highest point in every town was reserved for religious ceremonies, as the highest point in town was the closest to the sun. The Incas believed in three realms, earth, heaven, and hell, and reincarnation was also a part of their religious beliefs. Though the Spaniards attempted to replace the Inca religion with their own Christianity, it would appear as thought the replacement was incomplete; instead, a sort of hybrid was formed: “The aboriginal paganism of the highlands Indians continued to subsist under the guise of Catholicism long after the presumed evangelization of Peru had taken place” (Klaiber 507). In much the same way the Inca society adopted customs of those conquered, it continued to adopt aspects of its own conquerors’ religion. In this way, the influence of Inca religion can be seen on modern day Peruvian society. The leaders of the Incas were considered semi-deities and worshipped themselves. The highest position in the empire was called the Inca, the sun child, and only direct descendants of the original tribe could rise to this position. In fact, the Inca social structure was very rigid, and it did not allow room for any sort of social mobility. The Inca ruled from the central location of Cuzco, and there were appointed officials over the four regions of the empire. These regions were called suyus; Chinchasuyu was to the north, Callasuyu was to the south, Kuntisuyu was to the west, and Antisuyu was to the east. All four regions together was called Tahuantinsuyu. Below the high ruler in Cuzco and the four rulers of the regions, the Sapa, the high priest, ruled in each town. Directly below them were the immediate family members of the Sapa. Below this group were the temple priests, architects, and regional army commanders. The lowest groups were comprised of artisans, army captains, farmers, and herders. Social mobility wasn’t a possibility, nor was it a quality that was generally valued in Inca society. Though there was a taxation system, which was used to build the intricate road system, there was no formal monetary system or merchants. Gold was used for taxation, though it wasn’t considered to have much value in and of itself. It was considered valuable because it considered to be the sun god’s most treasured metal, and it typically was made into jewelry. This rigidity of the class system contributed to the ease at which the Spanish were able to conquer the entire empire, because all they had to do was to capture the ruling family of a region in order to take over. An aspect of Inca society that sounds odd to our modern day society was that the Incas had no prisons. This is because the Incas dealt severely with most any sort of crime. Murder, theft, and adultery were generally punished by death. Though harsh, this system discouraged much crime. A descendant of the Incas, upon learning about is ancestry, stated that “they talked to me at length about their laws and governments, and compared the new rule of the Spaniards with that of the Incas, contrasting especially the crimes and punishments and the severity of the latter were dealt with under the two regimes” (Vega 6). In order to keep the empire unified, the Incas also dealt harshly with rebellions. Examples were also made of territories that rebelled, as the people were either slaughtered or enslaved. Though strict, the Incas were very generous to conquered territories if they consented to accepting their new conquerors. The system of government was socialist in nature, and people were provided for in times of famine. If they vowed to follow the authority of the Incas, they were protected by the army, which the new territory would have to contribute to, and members of the local governments would be given positions of power in these territories, though they often tended to be little more than puppet rulers. To keep these territories unified, the Inca language Quechan was imposed upon new territories. The Quechan language can still be found in modern day Peru, even though the Spaniards attempted to impose their own language upon the former empire. The language of the Incas still plays a role in the culture of modern Peru. While the empire can trace its roots to the 1200 CE, it was not until the fifteenth century that the empire pushed for rapid expansion. As the empire expanded, it often incorporated ideas and deities into the expanding culture. One reason that the Incas expanded was because they saw their own culture as being elevated about others which they considered savage. In this way, much as the Spanish conquistadors would view themselves later, they saw themselves as bringing civilization and culture to uncivilized regions. They perceived it as their duty and right to expand their empire. In this way, coupled with the placing of local officials in power under the imperial system, those groups that were conquered were made to feel that they were in part able to keep their identity and benefited from being part of the empire. As the empire spanned from Ecuador to Chile at its height, a system of communication became necessary. For this, roads were built through treacherous terrain, and this often included the building of suspensions bridges over wide expanses. Some estimates of the Inca road system estimate that around 4,800 kilometers of road were built, making the Inca road system comparable to the Roman road system. The main difference was that the Incas did not have access to the wheel until the Spanish came. The roads were paved with flat stones and barriers to protect people from falling were also set up. The roads included bridges, tunnels, and even stairs carved into rock. All of this allowed for messengers to travel quickly through the empire. There were two mains roads that traversed the empire, and from these roads many smaller roads branched off connecting every single village to the empire as a whole. Huts for messengers, called chasquis, were built every ten to twelve miles along the roads, and in this way messages were passed along through this route from messenger to messenger. A message could possibly travel two hundred forty kilometers in a single day. Messages were carried in the form of quipa. This was made of a series of knotted strings. It has been much debated exactly how intricate of a system quipa was. At first it was regarded merely as a form of numerical date, but later evidence shows that it could have been an entire writing system. Regardless, this was the way in which messengers carried messages from one part of the empire to another. The road system also allowed the army to travel quickly. In this way the government was able to keep control of its vast empire through the use of its road system. More technologies were developed in order to sustain the empire. For example, intricate irrigation systems were developed to provide water to drier regions. Also, since much of the empire was in the Andes mountains, techniques were developed to utilize the most amount of land for farming. Terraced farmland was constructed into the sides of mountains, and guano was used as fertilizer. The main crops grown were corn, potatoes, sweet potatoes, squash, tomatoes, quinoa, and cotton. Llamas and alpacas were raised for transportation and meat. In modern Peruvian society, the food that is generally eaten is a combination of Spanish and indigenous influences. Besides farming and roadways, the Incas developed many other technologies. For instance, they were excellent architects who still astound modern archaeologists to this day. The Andes constantly had to deal with earthquakes, but the stone structures built by the Incas were able to withstand earthquakes. Intricately carved stones were put together in such a way that they did not even require any sort of mortar; they are so tight fitting that a person could not even fit a knife or razor blade between the pieces. Inca architecture and art is still a dominant influence upon the artistic stylings of modern Peruvians. The Incas also developed metallurgy, creating a bronze alloy that allowed them to create weapons which gave them an advantage in warfare. They created armor, such as helmets, shields, and tunics, which were generally made form wood, animals hides, and cloth. They also developed weapons such as edged spears, swords, clubs, slings, and axes, which were made from bronze, bone, wood, and stone. These weapons, however, proved to be inefficient when compared to the weapons used by the Spanish. Though their weapons did not measure up to the Spaniards weapons, one of the main reasons that the forty thousand person army of the Incas was able to be defeated by a force that numbered in the hundreds was because of disease which wiped out large portions of the population. In a matter a decades, the Spaniards were able to completely conquer the Inca empire which had taken centuries to construct. Though they attempted to replace the Inca culture with their own and replace the Inca polytheistic religion with Christianity, the assimilation of the Inca culture would never be fully complete. In 1780, there was an Inca led uprising against the Spanish by Jose Gabriel Tupac Amara II, a direct descendant of the original Inca tribe. This force was eventually defeated, though it left an impression upon the country. It is part of the cultural history of Peru, and even though it wasn’t successful, it reminds the people of the country of its past as the great Inca empire. In 2001, Alejandro Toledo became the first indigenous president of the country, showing that the people of Peru have not forgotten about its past as the Inca empire. While the conquering Spaniards of the time attempted to assimilate the Inca empire, modern day Peruvian culture shows the influence of its Inca past through its art, religion, language, and food. It can truly be said that the Inca empire still exists to some extent. Works Cited D’Altroy, Terrence, The Incas: Peoples of America. Blackwell Publishing, Malden MA, 2002. Klaiber, Jeffrey, “The Posthumous Christianization of the Inca Empire in Colonial Peru.” Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 37, No. 3 (Jul. - Sep., 1976), pp. 507-520 Starn, Orin; Degegori, Carlos I.; Robin, Kirk; The Peru Reader: History, Culture, Politics. Duke University Press, 1995 Vega, Garcilosa, de la; Spalding, Karen; Livermore, Harold V., The Royal Commentaries of the Incas And General History of Peru, Hackett Publishing, Indianapolis, IN, 2006 Read More