INCAN CULTURE

Inca culture was formed from the evolution of various Andean cultures that can be traced back up to twenty thousand years ago when hunters and Neolithic agriculturists lived there.

The ancient Inca Empire developed in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries C.E. and spanned more than 2,000 miles from Ecuador to Chile at the time of the Spanish arrival in 1515. Hereditary lords ruled the empire. The basic social unit of the Inca was the ayllu, a collective of kinsmen who cooperated in the management of land and camelid herds. Common ancestors gave ayllus their ethnic identity. Ruling over the local ayllus were karacas. Lords and karacas claimed close kinship ties with important deities and ancestors and acted as intermediaries between heaven and the earth, interceding with the supernatural forces on behalf of their subjects' well being. The countryside was viewed as being alive with supernatural forces, solar deities, and ancestral figures. Even today the indigenous Quechua and Aymara people of the Andes see the land animated with these figures.


RELIGION

The Incas believed they were the children of the sun, Inti. The exaltation of Inti was basic to the creation of an imperial cult. Inti became the deified royal progenitor, and his role as dynastic ancestor is described by early Spanish scholars. In each imperial city a temple to Inti was built and served by special priests.

Inti was represented by a golden disc having in it a human figure. Wiracocha was associated with water and the foam of the lake Titicaca. The huacas, which were anything sacred, could be among other things a stone, or a mummy bundle.

The Inca worshipped the dead, ancestors, founding culture heroes, their king whom they regarded as divine, nature and its cycles. The worship of nature and its cycles suggest that for them time and space were sacred, and consequently the calendar was religious and each month had its own festival. The most important cult was directed to Inti the god sun who nourished the earth and man with his rays. The most important feast was the one dedicated to Inti, called IntipRaimi. This rich ceremony, with its splendid costumes, and gold and silver offerings and decoration, was opened by the Inca emperor, his family and the curaca. After the opening the emperor made a libation to the sun and drank chicha (a maize drink) with his family, then led a procession, followed by every one into the sun temple, where the imperial family made offerings of precious vessels or images to the god. Following this, omens were read and llamas were sacrificed. The ceremony ended with eating and drinking.

Another important cult was directed towards Pachama who was the mother of the earth. Wiracocha was also a very important god, and though some scholars may explain his importance due to the Christian influence, others emphasize his importance as a culture hero that transformed, and as a god that created, claiming that his full name was "Con Ticci Wiracocha-pachaya" which means: the ancient foundation, the Lord and Instructor of the world.

They conceived the world as composed of three aspects. In their representation of the cosmos, for example they used the three words: UKU PACHA (the past and the interior world), KAY PACHA (the world of present and of here), HANAN PACHA (the future and the supra world).








CERAMIC
Almost all of the gold and silver work of the empire was melted down by the conquistadors. Ceramics were painted in numerous motifs including birds, waves, felines, and geometric patterns. The most distinctive Inca ceramic objects are the Cusco bottles or ¨aryballos¨. [6] Many of these pieces are on display in Lima in the Larco Archaeological Museum and the National Museum of Archaeology, Anthropology and History.