Encyclopedia of the Incas

The plaza witnessed daily, monthly, and yearly rituals and functioned as the axis of the empire’s territo ...

This nineteenth-century map of Cuzco shows the city’s principal monuments: Sacsahuaman at the northern end and re ...

According to the chronicler Juan de Betanzos, Pachacuti named the whole city “puma’s body.” Some scholars ...

holed up in the city; the thatch smoldered for days, and the roof beams eventually collapsed ...

On the northwest side of the plaza stood the Casana, the town palace of Huayna Capac and ...

D DANCE Dance in Inca times formed part of larger ritual celebrations that included music as well as ...

In this drawing by Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala, men dressed in feathered tunics and plumed headgear dance as ...

until they eventually reached the Inca king. On special occasions the Inca king joined the dance. Another dan ...

describes another version of this dance performed on the day of the ruler Huayna Capac’s birth, when 200 ...

Sun in all of Tahuantinsuyu, occupied the sanctum sanctorum of the Coricancha. Many historical sources describe ...

right hand and a war club in his left one. His shining garments discharged lightning ...

Therefore, by subsuming all of the major powers of nature, Inti and his two alter egos, Viracocha and Illapa, em ...

states of consciousness, could understand and translate into a verbal message that was intelligible to ...

one that changed traditional ways of doing things in profound ways. The exchange was two sided, as ...

and yellow fever, was delayed given the need for an American vector species capable of carrying it, or until ...

down with an illness that at first made him delirious, followed by an eruption of scabies and what a ...

by the second decade of the seventeenth century was a reduction of the population by approximate ...

at the same time, it objectified and legitimized the decision-making processes, thus assuring the broadest socia ...

coca leaves spat onto the palm of the hand drained through the fingers. Likewise, counting the number of ...

The reading of llama entrails to predict the future was a common practice in Inca times. Guaman Poma de Ay ...