WARRIORS OF THE INCA PERIOD.
[After a cut given by Ruge, and showing figures from an old Peruvian painting.—Ed.]
The subjugation of the Chancas, with their allies the Huancas, led to a vast extension of the Inca empire, which now reached to the shores of the Pacific; and the last years of Yupanqui were passed in the conquest of the alien coast nation, ruled over by a sovereign known as the Chimu. Thus the reign of the Inca Yupanqui marks a great epoch. He beat down all rivals, and converted the Cuzco kingdom into a vast empire. He received the name of Pachacutec, or “he who changes the world,” a name which, according to Montesinos, had on eight previous occasions been conferred upon sovereigns of the more ancient dynasties.
Tupac Inca Yupanqui, the son and successor of Pachacutec, completed the subjugation of the coast valleys, extended his conquests beyond Quito on the north and to Chile as far as the river Maule in the south, besides penetrating far into the eastern forests.
Huayna Ccapac, the son of Tupac Inca Yupanqui, completed and consolidated the conquests of his father. He traversed the valleys of the coast, penetrated to the southern limit of Chile, and fought a memorable battle on the banks of the “lake of blood” (Yahuar-cocha), near the northern frontier of Quito. After a long reign,[1175] the last years of which were passed in Quito, Huayna Ccapac died in November, 1525. His eldest legitimate son, named Huascar, succeeded him at Cuzco. But Atahualpa, his father’s favorite, was at Quito with the most experienced generals. Haughty messages passed between the brothers, which were followed by war. Huascar’s armies were defeated in detail, and eventually the generals of Atahualpa took the legitimate Inca prisoner, entered Cuzco, and massacred the family and adherents of Huascar.[1176] The successful aspirant to the throne was on his way to Cuzco, in the wake of his generals, when he encountered Pizarro and the Spanish invaders at Caxamarca. This war of succession would not, it is probable, have led to any revolutionary change in the general policy of the empire. Atahualpa would have established his power and continued to rule, just as his ancestor Pachacutec did, after the dethronement of his brother Urco.[1177]
The succession of the Incas from Manco Ccapac to Atahualpa was evidently well known to the Amautas, or learned men of the empire, and was recorded in their quipus with precision, together with less certain materials respecting the more ancient dynasties. Many blunders were committed by the Spanish inquirers in putting down the historical information received from the Amautas, but on the whole there is general concurrence among them.[1178] Practically the Spanish authorities agree, and it is clear that the native annalists possessed a single record, while the apparent discrepancies are due to blunders of the Spanish transcribers. The twelve Incas from Manco Ccapac to Huascar may be received as historical personages whose deeds were had in memory at the time of the Spanish invasion, and were narrated to those among the conquerors who sought for information from the Amautas.
| a.d. 1240—Manco Ccapac. 1260—Sinchi Rocca. 1280—Lloque Yupanqui. 1300—Mayta Ccapac. 1320—Ccapac Yupanqui. 1340—Inca Rocca. | a.d. 1360—Yahuar-huaccac. 1380—Uira-cocha. 1400—Pachacutec Yupanqui. 1440—Tupac Yupanqui. 1480—Huayna Ccapac. 1523—Inti Cusi Hualpa, or Huascar. |
The religion of the Incas consisted in the worship of the supreme being of the earlier dynasties, the Illa Ticsi Uira-cocha of the Pirhuas. This simple faith was overlaid by a vast mass of superstition, represented by the cult of ancestors and the cult of natural objects. To this was superadded the belief in the ideals or souls of all animated things, which ruled and guided them, and to which men might pray for help. The exact nature of this belief in ideals, as it presented itself to the people themselves, is not at all clear. It prevailed among the uneducated. Probably it was the idea to which dreams give rise,—the idea of a double nature, of a tangible and a phantom being, the latter mysterious and powerful, and to be propitiated. The belief in this double being was extended to all animated nature, for even the crops had their spiritual doubles, which it was necessary to worship and propitiate.
But the religion of the Incas and of learned men, or Amautas, was a worship of the Supreme Cause of all things, the ancient God of the Titicaca myth, combined with veneration for the sun[1179] as the ancestor of the reigning dynasty, for the other heavenly bodies, and for the malqui, or remains of their forefathers. This feeling of veneration for the sun, closely connected with the beneficent work of the venerated object as displayed in the course of the seasons, led to the growth of an elaborate ritual and to the celebration of periodical festivals.