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The Inca, who called themselves the Tawantinsuyu, are not the oldest of the high Andean cultures. By the time the Incas arrived in Peru and Manco Capac founded Cusco around 1200 ACE, humans had been living along the coastline for thousands of years, weaving cotton, and, planting corn, squash, and beans, since before 3,000 BCE. Originally a tribe of warriors who lived in a semiarid area of the southern sierra, the Inca relocated to the fertile Cusco Valley. From about 1200 to 532 ACE, the Incas expanded their territory by conquest of other tribes, taking over the lands of other Peruvian cultures and integrating their cultural heritages with their own. Eventually, they had expanded their tribal domain until the Inca Empire stretched from Ecuador to Chile. Within two hundred years or so, the Incas, eventually integrated the tribal cultures from the coastal and mountain areas of Bolivia, Ecuador, and Peru; and, the northern areas of Argentina and Chile into a single society ruled by the Inca. The center of Inca culture was their capital city of Cuzco in the Peruvian Andes. They called it Qosqo which was Quechua for Navel of the World. In turn, the Incas were themselves defeated by the Spanish conquistadors with their armored cavalry, swords, and primitive firearms in 1533 ACE. Since the aesthetic tastes of the Incas were more functional than artistic, decorative accoutrements were minimal. The stone masonry of their buildings remained unornamented, retaining the precise simplicity of the trapezoid doors and windows, and, the Incas did not produce any large architectural sculptures or free standing statutes.
Religion and spirituality were important to all of the Peruvian cultures, both pre-Inca
and Inca, who all believed in immortality. Besides the creator God Vairacocha,
there were also a wide array of nature gods. Lakes, rivers, mountains, stones,
and agriculture fields all had huaca who were magical, holy spirits.
Temples were made from gathered huaca stones which transformed them into sacred
places. Religion was a practical part of daily life.
During the Inca Empire, more than one million people were subjected to the Inca theocracy ruled by a divine, emperor like personage descended from the Sun god, Inti, who had been selected by a royal lineage council of advisers. Below the Inca was an aristocracy comprised of royal family members which included his immediate family, as well as, all his concubines and children. Next in authority were the tribal heads of the clans, a council of elders who owed their allegiance to the Inca; while, the commoners were grouped into units of ten headed by a boss. As long as the commoners cooperated, their communities had enough to get by on, but, there was no opportunity for individual growth or advancement. All commoners except religious and state officials were subjected to a work tax called Mita, under which they were obligated to work a certain amount of time for the state. Work service included: cultivating fields and terraced farmlands; building bridges, forts, roads, royal residences, and temples, and mining. Male commoners could be summoned for military service on a moments notice. The Incas also imposed their language, Quechua, on all the peoples they conquered. Like the other ancient Peruvian cultures, the Inca did not have a form of writing. They utilized rememberers who kept the official records and folklore on different colored knotted cords called quipu which they used as a mnemonic tool. Since religion and state were one to the Inca, their empire ended when their last ruling Inca, Atahualpa, was executed by the Spanish in 1533.
Recent archaeological findings have also shed some further light on the religious
practices of the Incas. Thousands of five hundred year old mummies have recently
been retrieved from a site near Lima, Peru, along with animal skins, food, and
pottery. The mummified bodies come from all levels of Inca society, and, the
high ranking ones were adorned with feathered headdresses. At another Inca site
on top of Mount Ampato, an arrangement of statuettes dressed in feathers and
woolens was found where a female child underwent the mysterious practice of
capacocha (an honored ritual sacrifice to propitiate the gods)...Continue on
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Peruvian Ancient Civilization 
