centered on maize and meat. Not only were these two foods the focus of Inca
food production, they became the core foodstuff at all ceremonies. While the
armies supposedly were given maize beer and meat, the historical evidence
suggests that they lived mainly on starches, such as potatoes or sweet potatoes.
Inca deities were omnivorous, but they too appreciated beer and meat. In
addition, they feasted on animals, chicha, maize, coca leaf, chili peppers, dried
camelid meat, cactus fruit, humans, tubers, metals, textiles, Spondylus shell,
quinoa, and fruit. While chicha and meat were the symbolic foods of the Incas,
the empire really survived on potatoes and other starchy tubers, the true Inca
domestic foods.
Further Reading
Bray, Tamara L. “To Dine Splendidly: Imperial Pottery, Commensal Politics and the Inca State.” In The
Archaeology and Politics of Food and Feasting in Early States and Empires, edited by Tamara L. Bray,
93–142. New York: Plenum Publishers, 2003.
Cook, Anita, Feasting in the Andes: To Eat for Others [To eat splendidly—Ñauraycuna mizquimicuy], Food
and Feasting in the Andes. Washington, DC: Pre-Columbian Society of Washington, D.C., 2004.
Murra, John V., “Rite and Crop in the Inca state.” In Culture in History, edited by S. Diamond, 393–407.
New York: Columbia University Press, 1960.
Rowe, John H. “Inca Culture at the Time of the Spanish Conquest.” In Handbook of South American
Indians, edited by J. H. Steward, vol. 2, The Andean Civilizations, 183–330. Washington, DC:
Smithsonian Institution, 1946.
Salomon, Frank, and George L. Urioste, trans. and eds. The Huarochirí Manuscript: A Testament of Ancient
and Colonial Andean Religion. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1991.
Sauer, Carl. Agricultural Origins and Dispersals. New York: American Geographical Society, 1952.
■CHRISTINE A. HASTORFFORTIFICATIONS
The Incas used a form of fortification that had been perfected thousands of years
earlier in the Andes: hillforts with concentric walls and narrow entrances,
strategically located on passes and natural routes of travel. In the rugged Andean
landscape of hills, sweeping views, and constrained routes of travel, such
hillforts offered significant defensive advantages. But the Incas relied on them
less than many Andean societies in the preceding centuries. Inca fortifications
are rare in the heartland, perhaps because of the rapid and aggressive growth of
the empire. In the earliest phase of Inca expansion, some new fortifications and
encircling walls were built at recently subjugated centers in the Cuzco region:
Raqchi, War’qana, Wat’a, and Pumamarca. Most sites we can confidently call
Inca forts, however, are found at strategic points and passes near the edges of the
empire, suggesting that investment in frontier defenses was a relatively late