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The Incas

Inca Life

Inca Religion

Inca Conquest

The Inca

Inca Roads

Andean History

Machu Picchu

Cuzco

Inca Religion and Culture

Religion was a strong part of the Incas’ lives. The Incas worshipped the sun, and believed that the ruling Inca was a direct descendant of the sun god. There were many regular festivals and events when communities gathered together to give thanks for the harvest or request good fortune for the coming year. Inca temples were impressive. They were decorated with dazzling displays of gold to mimic the sun’s radiance.

But religion also created the Incas’ harshest enemies. It involved gruesome sacrifices of people and animals. The sacrifice of someone young and beautiful was meant to ensure a long life and protection from illness for the ruling Inca. The sacrifice bestowed great prestige on the victim’s family – the victims were given great honours and came from privileged backgrounds. Victims were killed by burying them in a cave, or throwing them from the tops of high cliffs or mountains [footnote 1].

Newly conquered tribes were greatly opposed to these sacrifices and fought bitterly against them. More common was the sacrifice of animals. Strict rules governed the selection of animals to be sacrifices – their coats had to be plain and silky. Animal sacrifices were sometimes very big – there is a report of more than 10,000 llamas being sacrificed in a single ceremony at Cuzco.

The people of the Andes had other ancient traditions of worshipping other gods and huacas. A huaca represented many different things, but was usually a small temple or sacred place where people gathered or left offerings to the spirits which inhabited them. At one time, priests called orejones ("long-eared ones" because of their heavy gold earrings) wandered throughout the empire claiming to represent different gods and spirits. Worried about the increasing power of the orejones, Inca Pachacuti decreed that there should only be one all-powerful god, the Sun, who he represented. There was much debate within the empire, but it was the emperor who won and got his way.

As the Inca empire expanded, it encountered many other people with different religions and beliefs. These tribes were pressured into giving up their old religions, traditions, and language – and had to accept the Incas’ religion, traditions and language (Quechua).

Other Inca Traditions

There were other traditions within the Incas’ society. Many of these came from ancient beliefs pre-dating the Inca empire.

The Incas worshipped their dead ancestors in ways which we would consider strange and grotesque. They believed that the dead were still part of the community and should be included in celebrations and ceremonies. When important family members died, their bodies were mummified and preserved. Maintaining the goodwill of ancestors was so important that their bodies were presented with fine clothes, offerings of food and drink, and were provided with houses and palaces complete with servants. At important events, the dead were carried through the streets in processions, seated on golden chairs, and then taken to be feasted and entertained.

Another gruesome part of the Incas’ culture was the practise of skull deformation. This involved tightly strapping boards to some children’s heads when they were very young. The boards would be left in place, forcing the children’s heads to grow in an unnatural way, so that their skulls were deformed into an elongated (almost pointed) shape. This was regarded as a symbol of prestige and beauty [footnote 2].

Footnote 1
Ampato gained recent fame when American mountaineer/archaeologist Johan Reinhard, accompanied by Miguel Zßrate, climbed the peak in September 1995 and found that the eruptions of nearby Sabancaya had melted the snow off the summit, thus exposing an Inca girl who had been sacrificed there. She had been almost perfectly preserved by the icy temperatures for about 500 years. At least 10 similar Inca sacrifices have been discovered atop various Andean mountains since 1954. A month later, Reinhard returned with more climbers and discovered two more human sacrifices, one well preserved. All three are now stored in a freezer at the Universidad Cat≤lica in Arequipa. (from Lonely Planet Peru Guide).

Footnote 2
Many cultures around the world have ideas about beauty that we consider strange and brutal. In Chinese culture, small feet were considered to be very beautiful for women. This resulted in many young girls having operations on their feet, and having them tightly bound to ensure that they grew small and that the girls’ future marriage prospects were good. Unfortunately, these operations were very painful and made it difficult for the girls to walk. These practices are now outlawed. Some Amazon tribes deform their earlobes so that they can insert large wooden plugs, or insert large wooden plugs below their bottom lip (to make them look ferocious). Some African tribes think that long necks are attractive and tightly bind young girls’ necks to make them grow that way. English women once poisoned themselves by applying deadly arsenic onto their skin to make it turn white.