The Incas

Anthro 101 -- Mandy Busby
Written Assignment #1
Tuesday, October 14, 2008

The Inca civilization originated from the Andes Mountains in South America. This civilization was strictly organized when it came to its’ political government. They way their beliefs were, only a descendent of a god could be worthy of having authority over them. The Inca civilization was one that had no system of writing but on the contraire they had an immaculate record keeping system. The whole reason they began this kind of system was to keep inventory of everyone and everything in each region. This civilization was a target for the Spanish imperials; they grew ambitious of the gold and silver deposits that the Inca had settled upon. The Inca were truly a wealthy civilization from an organized government to great resources in their settlement. The downfall may have been that they had discovered something so valuable to the Spanish, which lead to a conquest.
The Incas were strictly organized when it came to its’ natives. From the emperor down to the peasants, bloodline was an important thing to them. Emperors were not chosen as either was the government. It was all based on bloodline, the most “pureblooded” Incas not only held the most important positions in government but also in religious and military posts. There was one exception to this, which seemed to contradict their beliefs; nobles of conquered people would become part of the governing aristocracy on top of being considered Inca by adoption. Inti was the sun god from which emperors were said to descend from – therefore they believed he ruled with divine authority. Below the emperor was the aristocracy, which consisted of descendants and relatives of all emperors. The empire would soon divide into four regions as it began to get bigger. Each of which was governed by a blood relative of the emperor. From here the Incas further divided each quarter into units that progressively would become smaller. Although they divided the empire up into many smaller units which were comparable to villages, they still had descendants of the emperor ruling over them. Under each governor there were ten district governors who would each rule over a district of around ten-thousand peasants. The Spanish conquest began when the Spaniards began to arrive to the Americas and began to explore the territory. The first attack was in 1525, by a band of Native American people from nearby Paraguay, accompanied by Aleixo Garcia. He coincidentally was also the first white man the Incas had seen. Soon stories reached the Inca that there were other white men exploring the Pacific Coast. In the following years diseases came which the English had brought; Huayna Capac (emperor at the time) along with his appointed heir died with only a few days in between the two deaths. The deaths set a power struggle with the deceased emperors’ sons; this only caused a civil war which weakened the empire. The victorious son was Atahualpa in 1532, which had his competing brother Huascar captured and executed in order to become emperor. During this same year Francisco Pizarro along with 180 Spanish soldiers landed on the coast of Peru. The naïve people believed Pizarro to be their creating god Viracocha, he however proved them wrong. Pizarro attacked their emperor Atahualpa and had his head chopped off; regardless that Atahualpa had given Pizarro enough gold to fill a room in order to spare his life. Over the next several years there was a series of events which led to the defeat of the Inca Empire. They had tried fleeing to the mountainous area of Vilcabamba, where they created a new Inca state. From here warriors were led to attack the Spanish, they were determined to regain their empire. They new Inca kingdom survived for 36 years in Vilcabamba. Finally in 1572, the Spanish made an attack with a goal of destroying the Inca stronghold. The Spanish overwhelmed the Incas; capturing and killing the last emperor of the Incas’, Tupac Amaru, thus ending the Inca dynasty.
The Incas’ had no writing system like other civilizations developed. They had a quite efficient way of keeping inventory of all the civilians, livestock, gold, land, crop harvests, armies and projects or tasks the empire had. The method they used was called “quipus”, which consisted of a series of knots and strings. The way they differentiated what strings where for what was with different colors of strings. The ones who would keep the records were the quipucamayo; they were responsible of inventory for an entire region. The quipus was a way to help this person remember so many numbers and to what or who they pertained to. At times there was more than one quipucamayo to ensure that there was accuracy in the counting. After the Spanish conquered the empire they brought in a new system, a system of writing records. The downside of this was that the Inca slowly began to loose the ability to read the quipus.
In the end the Incas’ were a very successful empire for the years that they stood strong. They had a government that for the most part was very successful due to its’ strict organization which was synced with their beliefs. They were loyal to their gods and believed them to be divine; anything that would descend from them was next to their god. The way they endured the attacks and were able to maintain the empire, which was under constant battles with the Spanish for 36 years, can be seen as a strong and determined civilization. Although they were weakened with the English diseases and the way things were falling apart they attempted to regain their territory. In my opinion, the Inca’s were very hard working people who had constructed a very organized and growing empire – it was unfortunate that it fell.