Inca Empire

  General Description   The Inkas or Incas were just one of the multiple chiefdoms competing for power after the collapse of the Wari and Tiwanaku polities of the Middle Horizon. ^[1] And yet, they developed to become the largest indigenous empire in the Americas, known as Tawantinsuyu (’the four parts together’). ^[2] Growing from the Killke confederation, they started to expand in the Cuzco Valley and beyond over the late 14th and 15th centuries CE. ^[3] Over a short period from 1480 to 1532, three successive rulers ‒ Pachakuti, Thupa Inka Yupanqui and Huayna Capac ‒ pursued an expansionary policy which saw the empire stretch from southern Colombia to central Chile, covering most of the Andes. ^[4] Its geographical extent may have covered between 500,000 and 2 million square kilometres, ^[5] including dry coastal deserts, snow-capped mountains, and the fringes of the Amazon rainforest.
Because of their expansionary policy over huge swathes of land, the Inkas needed to establish adequate ruling strategies. They could exert indirect control through their hegemony over local allies. At Farfán in northern Peru, the blend of Chimú and Inka architectural styles may indicate that local elites were the vessel through which Inka rule was manifested. ^[6] Over the areas they conquered by force, the Inkas established new settlements and imposed their own regional administrators. Near Cañete, they massacred the local Guarco population and installed their own colonists at the site of Cerro Azul. ^[7] The dispersion and relocation of unruly people was one of their strategies to avoid uprisings, and could also serve to foster the empire’s productivity. Indeed, resettled populations could be clustered to create specialized centres of production, such as the weavers and potters of Milliraya, Bolivia. ^[8]
In addition to these violent methods, however, the Inka elite used ideological strategies to create a sense of community among conquered populations. Inka art employed a uniform geometric style, easily recognizable throughout the empire. Apart from the fine textiles and metals crafted for the royal lineages by chosen craftspeople, the rest of their ceramics and textiles were mass-produced and mass-distributed. ^[9] This meant that Inka identity could be easily replicated and grafted onto existing cultures. The Inka ’package’ included ceremonial vessels known as k’eros and aribalos, ^[10] used to distribute maize beer or chicha in state-sponsored feasts. The Inkas also reused previously important ceremonial shrines (wak’as) ‒ Muyu Orco, for example, was revered from the Late Formative period to the arrival of the Spanish. ^[11] ‒ and incorporated them into the network of shrines (z’eque) radiating outwards from Cuzco. ^[12] Every year, important state rituals manifested this state ideology on an impressive scale: the Inti Raymi or solstice festival was a grand state ceremony lasting for eight or nine days. ^[13] Cuzco acted as a great ceremonial centre with its sacred precincts; provincial administrators could be formally installed during the course of some of these rituals. ^[5]
The empire is also known for its elaborate infrastructure works. The royal highway, known as Qhapaq Ñan, was composed of two north/south axes linked by 20 east/west segments, and stretched over 40,000 kilometres. ^[14] Empire-sponsored storage facilities were located near every major town and village along the Inka roads. These units, known as tampus, were located no further than 15-25 kilometres apart, ^[15] a distance that corresponds to a day’s walk and facilitated the transport of armies and commodities throughout the empire. A highly efficient courier system was also in place, whereby messengers called chaski were stationed every 6-9 kilometres to relay messages, ^[16] allowing information and commands to travel 250 kilometres in a day. ^[17]
Population and political organization
The Inka empire was unprecedented in the Andean region in its ambition and scale. ^[18] Working backwards from colonial estimates, archaeologists and historians have estimated that its population in the early 16th century could have reached between 6 ^[19] and 14 million. ^[20] The capital, Cuzco, was a thriving city of 20,000 people ^[21] divided into two moieties, hanan and hurin, which represented both status divisions and geographical origin. ^[22]
At the top of the religious, military and administrative hierarchy was the the emperor, the Sapa Inka. Considered to be the Son of the Sun, he was believed to control supernatural powers. ^[23] After their deaths, Inka rulers were still venerated as mummies and their cults were managed by descendants from the same lineage. ^[24]
The Inkas used a 10-tiered administrative system, with 80 provinces administered by a governor in a local urban settlement. ^[25] They implemented a characteristic mode of production known as mit’a (’to take a turn’). ^[26] This built on Andean notions of reciprocal exchange to extract corvée service from heads of households for two or three months each year, ensuring that the state could rely on constant labour on a rotating basis.
The empire came to an abrupt end at the beginning of the 16th century. The Sapa Inka at this time, Huayna Khapaq, was stricken with disease ‒ possibly smallpox that had spread southwards from Central America, where it had been introduced by European invaders ‒ and died in 1528 CE. ^[27] His sons Waskhar and Atawallpa both claimed the throne, and the empire was soon weakened by civil war and disease. The Spanish. arrived in 1532 and conquered the Inka empire in a few years. It took several decades for them to assert their authority over the impressive geographical extent of the former Inka territory: by 1572, they had subdued the last bastion of Inka power at Vilcabamba. ^[28] However, indigenous resistance continued until Peru obtained its independence in 1821.

[1]: (D’Altroy 2002, 48) Terence D’Altroy. 2002. The Incas. Oxford: Blackwell.

[2]: (D’Altroy 2014, 2) Terence N. D’Altroy. 2014. The Incas. 2nd ed. Chichester: Wiley Blackwell.

[3]: (Farrington 2013, 25) Ian Farrington. 2013. Cusco: Urbanism and Archaeology in the Inka World. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida.

[4]: (D’Altroy 2014, 96) Terence N. D’Altroy. 2014. The Incas. 2nd ed. Chichester: Wiley Blackwell.

[5]: Alan Covey 2017, personal communication

[6]: (D’Altroy 2014, 382) Terence N. D’Altroy. 2014. The Incas. 2nd ed. Chichester: Wiley Blackwell.

[7]: (D’Altroy 2014, 100) Terence N. D’Altroy. 2014. The Incas. 2nd ed. Chichester: Wiley Blackwell.

[8]: (D’Altroy 2014, 374) Terence N. D’Altroy. 2014. The Incas. 2nd ed. Chichester: Wiley Blackwell.

[9]: (D’Altroy and Schreiber 2004, 267) Terence N. D’Altroy and Katherine Schreiber. 2004. ’Andean Empires’, in Andean Archaeology, edited by H. Silverman, 255‒79. Oxford: Blackwell.

[10]: (D’Altroy 2014, 443) Terence N. D’Altroy. 2014. The Incas. 2nd ed. Chichester: Wiley Blackwell.

[11]: (Bauer 2004, 44) Brian S. Bauer. 2004. Ancient Cuzco: Heartland of the Inca. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.

[12]: (Bauer 1998, 3-5) Brian S. Bauer. 1998. The Sacred Landscape of the Inca: The Cusco Ceque System. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.

[13]: (D’Altroy 2014, 262-63) Terence N. D’Altroy. 2014. The Incas. 2nd ed. Chichester: Wiley Blackwell.

[14]: (D’Altroy 2014, 5) Terence N. D’Altroy. 2014. The Incas. 2nd ed. Chichester: Wiley Blackwell.

[15]: (Hyslop 1984, 303) John Hyslop. 1984. The Inka Road System. New York: Academic Press.

[16]: (D’Altroy 2014, 370) Terence N. D’Altroy. 2014. The Incas. 2nd ed. Chichester: Wiley Blackwell.

[17]: (Marchetti and Ausubel 2012, 26) Cesare Marchetti and Jesse H. Ausubel. 2012. ’Quantitative Dynamics of Human Empires’. International Journal of Anthropology 27 (1-2): 1-62.

[18]: (Schreiber 1992, 282-83) Katherine J. Schreiber. 1992. ’Wari Imperialism in Middle Horizon Peru’. Anthropological Papers, Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan. 87.

[19]: (Cook 2004, 113) Noble David Cook. 2014. Demographic Collapse: Indian Peru, 1520-1620. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

[20]: (McEwan 2006, 96) Gordon F. McEwan. 2006. The Incas: New Perspectives. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO.

[21]: (Bauer 2004, 189, 227) Brian S. Bauer. 2004. Ancient Cuzco: Heartland of the Inca. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.

[22]: (Farrington 2013, 221) Ian Farrington. 2013. Cusco: Urbanism and Archaeology in the Inka World. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida.

[23]: Alan Covey 2015, personal communication.

[24]: (D’Altroy 2014, 176) Terence N. D’Altroy. 2014. The Incas. 2nd ed. Chichester: Wiley Blackwell.

[25]: (D’Altroy 2014, 354-55) Terence N. D’Altroy. 2014. The Incas. 2nd ed. Chichester: Wiley Blackwell.

[26]: (D’Altroy 2014, 395-96) Terence N. D’Altroy. 2014. The Incas. 2nd ed. Chichester: Wiley Blackwell.

[27]: (D’Altroy 2014, 107) Terence N. D’Altroy. 2014. The Incas. 2nd ed. Chichester: Wiley Blackwell.

[28]: (D’Altroy 2014, 21) Terence N. D’Altroy. 2014. The Incas. 2nd ed. Chichester: Wiley Blackwell.