The Inca ruler Huayna Capac goes to battle
carried in a litter, wielding a shield and whirling a
sling. Guaman Poma de Ayala, Felipe. El primer
nueva corónica y buen gobierno. Edited by John
V. Murra and Rolena Adorno, 307/333. Mexico
City: Siglo Veintiuno, 1980 [1615].Scale and logistics were the great military strengths of the Incas—not
technology, tactics, or battlefield organization. Conscripts fought with the same
weapons their ancestors had used. In the highlands, the primary projectile
weapon was the sling, with smooth round or egg-shaped slingstones, followed
by the bola (ayllu), two or three stones linked by a cord, thrown against the legs
of enemy fighters or Spanish horses. Coastal conscripts used spear-throwers and
spears with fire-hardened points, metal tips, or fish spines; bows and arrows
were used in many regions, especially the forested eastern lowlands. Hand-to-
hand weapons included clubs of hard palm wood, maces with stone or bronze
heads shaped like rings or stars (champi), small hafted axes of metal or stone,
thrusting spears with fire-hardened points or metal tips, and macanas, hardwood
broadswords said to cut like steel. Soldiers had helmets of thick wool, cane, or
wood, and sometimes wore padded cotton armor; at the back, they might bear a
protective shield of leather or palm-wood slats. They carried small shields of
hard palm wood, decorated with bright cloth and feathers.
Perhaps as important were the components of ritually effective defense:
shining discs of precious metal strung at the chest and back, painted standards
for each squadron, musical instruments, and effigies of royal ancestors carried
into battle “because,” noted the chronicler Bernabé Cobo, “they thought that
this was a great help to them in their victories and it made the enemies fearful”
(Cobo 1990 [1653]).
As an Inca army approached, we are told, first the slingers fired, then the
archers, and then the lancers. Finally the soldiers fought hand-to-hand with
maces and small hatchets tied to the wrist, “and with these they did great damage
and chopped heads as with a sword” (Cobo 1990 [1653]). Skeletal remains in the
Cuzco area have more lethal cranial injuries in Inca times than before,
demonstrating elevated hand-to-hand combat as the empire emerged (see Health
and Illness).