depending on the interests and motives of the new, European overlords of the
Andean world.
For the many reasons cited above, constructing an accurate and reliable picture
of life in the Andes before the Spanish conquest is a challenging business.
Nonetheless, we believe that the information offered in this encyclopedia
provides as knowledgeable, detailed, authoritative, and fair an accounting of
Inca realities as can be constructed with the resources available to scholars today.
The overview of Inca civilization that follows draws on both archaeological
and documentary (i.e., Colonial era) sources of information. Our purpose in
sketching the general outlines of who the Incas were, how they rose to power,
and how they established and maintained control within the territory they knew
as Tahuantinsuyu (“the four parts bound together”) is to provide a general
framework of the institutions and practices of Inca rule that may facilitate the
reader’s investigation and appreciation of the entries that make up the
Encyclopedia of the Incas.
WHO WERE THE INCAS AND HOW DID THEY RISE TO POWER?
Spanish accounts of what the Incas said about their own origins and nature claim
that the Incas’ ancestors were brought into being by a creator-deity, Viracocha,
on the shores of Lake Titicaca. From there the ancestors traveled underground
northward from Lake Titicaca and reemerged —following the path of the sun
and thus establishing their divine connection to Inti, the Sun—at a place called
Pacariqtambo. Later, the ancestors trekked to a nearby valley where they
founded the city of Cuzco, which would become their capital. The ancestor-king,
Manco Capac, founded a dynasty of some 11 kings (the number varies in
different accounts) who ruled in succession from the founding of Cuzco until the
coming of the Spaniards in 1532.
The history of the first eight Inca kings is lost in the mists of time. It is with the
ninth king, Pachacuti, that some Inca specialists believe we enter discernible
historical time. Pachacuti is characterized in the chronicles as an Andean version
of Alexander the Great, expanding the boundaries of what would become the
imperial domain far beyond the region of Cuzco. Pachacuti was credited with
founding many of the institutions of governance from his time (perhaps around
the 1470s) forward. Subsequent kings further expanded the imperial boundaries
north and south along the spine of the Andes, until the empire reached its
greatest extent. This coincided with the arrival in 1532 of the Spanish invaders
under Francisco Pizarro, who found Tahuantinsuyu embroiled in a war of