The Encyclopedia of World Religions

Inca religion S 213

who was known as the Inca, patronized temples of the various peoples whom he controlled. These peoples, in turn, sent objects to be offered in the temples at Cuzco. Sometimes they even sent their own children. The “four regions” in the Inca name for their empire were four quadrants—north east, southeast, northwest, and southwest—that extended from Cuzco and its central temple, the Temple of the Sun. The Inca—that is, the emperor—claimed to be the son of the Sun, the Inca god Inti. Inti was particularly associated with gold. His temple at Cuzco was the most important Inca shrine. It stood where two rivers met. The Inca may have thought that these two rivers resembled the Milky Way. Other Inca deities included: Mama-Kilya, the moon and the wife of the sun, to whom silver was sacred; Viracocha, who created much of the world and human culture; Pacacamac, who ruled over the lowlands and the sea; Pacamama, his wife, mother earth; and Illapa, who was responsible for the weather. To these and other gods the Inca presented sacrifices. Sacrifices to the sun took place every day. One of them was the clothing that the emperor wore. The emperor wore a new cloak each day, and each day it was burned in offering to the sun. The Inca also sacrificed at festivals. The two most important took place around the solstices in December and June. The Inca presented to the gods animals, plants, beer, cloth, statues—and, at times of extreme importance, human beings. Another important Inca practice was divina tion. The kind of sacrifice, the cause of a disease, the time for battle—all were determined by divina tion. Means of divination included taking oracles from sacred objects, observing spiders, “reading” coca leaves, drinking narcotics, and examining the lungs of a sacrificed llama. Special priests performed RITUALS of sacrifice and divination and tended the temples. Specially chosen women also served the temples. The Spanish vigorously tried to eliminate the religion of the Andean peoples. As a result Inca religion, that is, the religion of the empire, dis appeared when the empire fell. Local religious

respects similar to Aphrodite and V ENUS among the Greeks and the Romans. Inanna was a goddess of sexuality and fertil ity. Accordingly, her most sacred city, Uruk, was reputed to be a city of prostitutes. At times Inanna was also associated with the battlefield. Perhaps the best known story about her tells of her descent to the underworld, ruled by her sis ter Ereshkigal. As Inanna proceeds toward Eresh kigal, she loses articles of clothing one by one. In her sister’s presence, she becomes like a dead slab of meat. Revived by a servant, she returns to the Earth to find her alleged lover, Dumuzi, not mourning her absence at all. She has him hunted down and killed. Inca religion The religion of the people who ruled much of the Andes region in South America just before the Spanish conquest. In 1527 Fran cisco Pizarro first arrived in Peru. He found a sin gle power in control of the west coast of South America and the Andes Mountains, from what is now Ecuador to central Chile. This power, the Inca Empire, was called Tawantinsuyu, “region of the four quarters.” It ruled from its capital at Cuzco. The Incas were relative newcomers to power. They had ruled for only about a hundred years. In asserting their rule, they had conquered many different peoples, each of whom had their own cultures, languages, and religions. Inca religion, then, represents only a fraction of pre-Columbian Andean religions. Unfortunately, none of these peoples used writing. We know about Inca reli gion from two basic sources: archaeology ( see ARCHAEOLOGY AND RELIGION ) and accounts written after the Spanish conquest. The authors of these accounts were often people of mixed indigenous and Spanish ancestry. New discoveries continue to add fresh insights. For example, in 1995 climb ers discovered the preserved body of a young Inca woman, 13 or 14 years old, on Mount Ampato in southern Peru. She appears to have been offered there as a SACRIFICE . Religion was an important part of the way the Incas governed their empire. The emperor,