The Inca civilization was also filled with shrines around natural monuments such as mountains, caves, rivers, and other naturally occurring earth formations. These shrines were called huacas. Huacas were erected in locations where the Incan people of the region believed that they originated from. For example, in Cuzco there were many huacas marked into the side of hills and mountains because that is the location that they believed the origin of their people came from. Each area of the Inca empire included a principle huaca that would be worshipped as that locations patron.
When a new part of South America was captured and new people were brought into the Incan world, they established their principle huaca and a statue of that huaca was then erected and brought to the town of Cusco so that it would sit underneath the original location of Inti, the sun god that they worshipped above all. They would keep these statues to ensure that these new people would be on good behaviour as they assimilated to the new culture. The huacas are also rumoured to represent a sort of calendar spread out through the land.
I will explain this idea after|| explain the importance of ceque lines. Ceque lines were a system of pathways leading from the capital of Cusco to the rest of the Incan empire, dividing them up into 4 major sections called suyus. The paths followed along a set of huacas spread throughout the empire from Cuzco to the surrounding settlement. They were relatively straight when seen from above and never crossed. This especially was an amazing engineering feat for a civilization spread out along such a large distance.
Huacas were not built along the ceque lines but the ceque lines were built to connect them as they were connected with their idol’s and gods. Tom Zuidema is the name of an archaeoastronomer who first created a theory connection ceque lines, and huacas to the sky and how it moves through the year as he worked closely with Anthony Aveni. They have concluded with their research that the placement of ceque lines as viewed from Cuzco can be used to predict the rising and settings of the sun, moon, and stars along the horizon and that huacas are used as a calendar having each huaca represent a single day in a calendar year.
There were found to be 328 huacas on 41 ceque lines throughout the Inca empire. Zuidema relates the 328 huacas to the cycle of 12 sidereal lunar months, (12 x 27. 5 = 328), giving each huaca a calendar day association. Another example of evidence for their proposal is the number of ceque lines. Through research of the Spanish records that were recorded when they visited the Inca, they determined that their week consisted of eight days in contrast to our seven day weeks. They were lead to this conclusion by the reference of the Inca’s week as ocho dias or eight days.
If you take the 41 ceque lines that are visible from Cuzco and multiply that value by their 8-day week you find the number 328 again. The sidereal lunar month year. He follows the prediction of the Inca using a 12-month lunar sidereal calendar with the reference to a repeating chain of 73 huaca groups that are spread through the civilization at the time. Using these 73 huacas, he states that they could be used to form 12 of a solar year or that they could be useful in the Venus cycle (8 X 73 = 584).
Unfortunately, because of the lack of details in the notes of Spanish explorers and their records and the lack of knowledge of the Inca’s quipu, Zuidema’s theories go mostly unverifiable and have to be taken on a common-sense basis. Personally, I believe that his theory may very well contain many examples of how they used the ceque lines and huacas to their advantage. There seems to be a lot of numbers that correspond almost perfectly with what has been found in the area we know the civilization to have occupied making the coincidental nature of the theory less, and less likely from my point of view.
In contrast, an aspect of Incan astronomy that we can verify is their love of horizon astronomy. As I had previously stated, it was a very well-known fact that the elite’s in the Incan civilization claimed to be direct descendants of inti, the sun god to keep their rightful place above the others. This fact was not only just portrayed by the mouth of the families. but was also followed with the practice of proving this through ceremonies where they would gather to watch solar movement along the horizon.
They watched the sun, and moon move across the horizon where they had built pillars in Cuzco to track the movement as they rose and set. The rulers at the time would watch the movement of the sun and would then, with the help of their ancestor, Inti the sun God, tell the people when the alignment would be perfect. When the sun and the moon would align perfectly with the pillars, they would offer human sacrifices and other treasures to Inti, the sun god at the bottom of these towers.
The towers were rumoured to be placed at important locations along the horizon such as the equinoxes and solstices. One of the locations of pillars that still exist today is a hill located northwest of Cuzco, called Picchu, not to be confused with the famous city of Machu Picchu. The pillars are placed so that during an equinox, the daily solar motion will be able to set between the two sets of pillars from the correct viewing location. They were also used to reference when the sun was at a solstice point because the sun would then set outside of the distance of one set of pillars.
This action of the sun setting and rising between the pillars brought a huge crowd along to view the spectacle. It was a community event where people would gather to view an important time of the year and to worship their god, Inti and for the emperors to prove their ancestry to their people. The island of Titicaca is an island that was extremely important to the creation stories of the Inca and their daily worship. Titicaca is referenced many times throughout their history and is the most important and the very first huaca of the Inca people. The myth of Titicaca goes as follows.
The Inca people were surround in the dark for many days without the sun rising again after it had set beneath the horizon. Finally, the sun has rose again and was first seen rising out a of crag from the island of Titicaca. This image lead the Inca to believe that the sun and the sun god, Inti lived in that crag. Therefore, they must bring sacrifices and worship Inti from Titicaca so that they may never again go without light. This continued as a ritual through the length of the Inca civilization and lead to the creation of many more important huacas.
Finally, the most definite example of our understanding of the Incan civilizations relationship with the cosmos is the record of Joan de Santa Cruz Pachacuti Yamqui Salcamaygua. Not much is known about his life except that he was located somewhere between the capital, Cuzco, and Lake Titicaca. His work was one of the most influential in our understand of Incan civilization today through his famous piece, Relacion de la antiguedades de este reyno del Piru dating back to 1613. In his writing, he included a famous picture depicting the sky as the Inca viewed it.
It included images of Inti, the sun god, Constellations such as orions belt and the southern crux. The image was then used as a celestial map that really sparked the search for astrological evidence in the Inca world by outlining the knowledge that they had of the heavens. Because of the lack of personal records that the Inca kept, it remains as one of the only references of astrological culture for the Inca. Unfortunately, the Incan empire had a short lifespan because of an invasion from the Spaniards in 1533.
This was started with the discovery of the new world by the Spaniards in modern day Panama and southern Mexico. From here they heard word of the Inca civilization and the gold that they held and they wanted to continue to venture south and discover the land. During their first expedition to the empire, they only made it as far as Ecuador, unfortunately when they came and visited they brought along with them the small pox disease to the region. Anthony Pissarro was then able to convince the king to allow hem to travel back to the empire where they heard that the emperor and his son had both died from small pox and there was currently a struggle for power over the vast empire. Hernando De Soto now joined the expedition with more men so that can have the intention of taking over the land before they continued farther south. Now that they had the men they needed, they continued south into the Andes mountain range. In Cuzco, a new emperor had emerged as victorious during the civil war to return peace to the land and the Spaniards moved to greet and congratulate him.
When they arrived, they attempted to convert Attualpa (the new emperor) to Christianity and it failed which caused the Spaniards to slaughter their military with their advanced weaponry and take the new emperor hostage. They then used him to request a large amount of gold from the Incan people, which took months to gather the amount requested. Even though the ransom had been paid, they took his life weeks later. The Spaniards continued to follow the empire south, killing and converting the Incan people along the coast until eventually they gained control of the once largest civilization in the world.
This conquering of the Incan people is what allowed us to gain a lot of insight into the way that the Incan people lived, their religion and more importantly, their interest and knowledge in astronomy because of the notes and records that they took through the expedition. Machu Picchu became the famous city that it was because during this conquest, the city was located in such a remote location that they were unable to find it until it was finally found in the year 1911.
