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The
Inca Empire (or Inka Empire) was the largest empire in pre-Columbian
America . The administrative, political and military center of the
empire was located in Cuzco. The Inca Empire arose from the
highlands of Peru sometime in early 13th century. From 1438 to 1533,
the Incas used a variety of methods, from conquest to peaceful
assimilation, to incorporate a large portion of western South
America, centered on the Andean mountain ranges, including large
parts of modern Ecuador, Peru, western and south central Bolivia,
northwest Argentina, and north and north-central Chile. The Incas
identified their king as "child of the sun."
In 1533, Atahualpa, the last Inca sovereign emperor (Qhapaq Inka,
also Sapa Inca), was executed on the orders of the conquistador
Francisco Pizarro, marking the beginning of Spanish rule in South
America. The Inca Empire was organized in dominions with a
stratified society, in which the supreme ruler was the Inca. It was
supported by an economy based on the collective ownership of the
land.
Inca Empire South America
The Quechua name for the empire was Tawantin Suyu which can be
translated as The Four Regions or The Four United Regions. Before
the Quechua spelling reform it was written in Spanish as
Tahuantinsuyo. Tawantin is a group of four things (tawa "four" with
the suffix -ntin which names a group); suyu means "region" or "province".
The empire was divided into four Suyus, whose corners met at the
capital, Cuzco (Qosqo), in modern-day Peru.
The official language of the empire was Quechua (also pronounced
Chichequwa), although scores if not hundreds of local languages were
spoken.
There were many local forms of worship, most of them concerning
local sacred "Huacas", but the Inca leadership encouraged the
worship of Inti, the sun god. They tried to impose it against the
cult of Pachamama which was the main common deity worshiped in the
Andean area. |
