Encyclopedia of the Incas

The Inca Empire was a collection of ethnic groups united through religion and
kinship, reinforced by reciprocity and redistribution, and guaranteed by force.
Access to tribute labor allowed the Incas to build their network of roads and
bridges, monumental architecture, highly engineered agricultural terraces,
well-provisioned tambos, and state storehouses. Nevertheless, there was no
recognized and practiced law of succession and thus the end of each reign
proved a dangerous time for the empire. Because primogeniture was not the rule,
sons did not necessarily succeed fathers, brothers sometimes followed brothers,
and nephews could rule after uncles. Political intrigue, power struggles, coups,
assassinations, or battle marked these transitions. These followed from one ruler
to another, when the last ruler named a successor; or when one would-be ruler
took power after showing unusual merit and/or the blessing of the gods; or even
when competition, confrontation, or war settled the question. Each candidate,
ideally, had been tested and judged to be apt and each was subject to positive
auguries (see Divination). War had acquired a religious dimension,
demonstrated as early as the Chanca war (see Myths, Origin). Troops carried
idols of their gods onto the battlefields, because their supernatural powers, the
Natives believed, aided and even determined the outcome. Once a new ruler
emerged, he reestablished ethnic alliances by visiting subject peoples’ provinces
and renegotiating the relations set up by his predecessor.
Huayna Capac, who was known among his contemporaries as “el Cuzco,” the
last emperor of a united kingdom, had been returning from a mission near Pasto
and Popayán (in the far southwest of modern Colombia) when he fell ill from an
unknown disease, probably smallpox, a few years before the Spaniards invaded
in 1532 (see Diseases, Foreign). On his deathbed, Huayna Capac named a son,
Ninan Cuyuchi, as his successor, but his augury was negative and he died soon
thereafter. Early observers left several versions of what happened next. In one
scenario, Huayna Capac then named another son, Huascar, as his heir, but his
prognostication likewise proved unfavorable. When attendants approached
Huayna Capac for a third name, they found him dead. Other accounts claim that
Huayna Capac intended to split his jurisdiction between Huascar, who would
govern the peoples of the south, and Atahualpa, his half brother, who would hold
sway over the populations of the north.
Regardless of which is accurate, Huascar, by most accounts, assumed the
mantle of heir apparent, marrying his sister (Chuqui Guapay), despite the
objections of their mother. Atahualpa acted as a provincial governor in the north
and took control of his father’s seasoned army led by the generals Chalcochima,