Inka human sacrifice and mountain worship: strategies for empire unification

Abstract

The Inka Empire of western South America was the largest pre-Colombian polity ever formed in the New World.At the height of its power in the sixteenth century CE it stretched over most of Ecuador, western Peru, northern and central Chile, western Bolivia, and north-western Argentina.That the Cuzqueños (inhabitants of Cuzco in Peru, the capital of the Inka Empire) were able to incorporate a large number of ethnic groups spread over a vast area into a unified state within a time span of about ninety years was a remarkable achievement.One of the ways in which the Inka legitimized their power was through ritual.This study examines the ritual of human sacrifice and the worship of mountains within the southern quadrant of the Inka Empire.Using ethnohistoric texts written by European and indigenous authors after the Spanish conquest of 1532 and archaeological remains from mountain sites, the author shows how the Cuzqueños manipulated ideology through ritual in order to integrate subjugated groups, rationalize the appropriation of their lands, and justify the extraction of their resources.The Inka performed several types of human sacrifice: runas, male citizens of the state; captive warriors; necropampa victims buried with a deceased ruler; and substitutes offered so that a sick individual might live.The type focused upon in this study is the Qhapaq Hucha (Capacucha) sacrifice of especially chosen children and young women known as aqllas, virgins who served the imperial gods and the Cuzqueño state.These victims came from elite families in the conquered provinces and were selected for their unblemished beauty.Once chosen by an imperial official, they were separated from their natal communities, taken to Cuzco where they were honored and feasted, and then sent to important waqas (holy sites, shrines, idols, and objects) where they were sacrificed.Qhapaq Huchas then became waqas themselves and were worshipped and consulted as oracles.The family that had provided a Qhapaq Hucha victim gained increased prestige and status and were incorporated more tightly into the Inka state structure.Over the last century or so, the corpses of at least twenty-eight Qhapaq Hucha victims have been discovered on mountains in Peru, Argentina, and Chile.Besom closely examines this phenomenon through two case studies: the sacrifice of a girl and a young woman from the Pica, a territory in northern Chile, on Cerro Esmeralda, a prominent mountain peak located to the east of the present day coastal city of Iquique; and a boy from the Pechunche in Central Chile sacrificed on El Plomo.These particular examples exemplify the two types of Qhapaq Hucha sacrifice evident in the ethnohistoric texts: the immolation of boys and of specially selected girls and young women, and probably represent offerings to mountain deities.Cult sites dedicated to mountain gods are the most ubiquitous types of Inka sites and around two hundred have been discovered on peaks in the southern Andes.

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