2/24: Inca Religion & Empire Expansion

2/24: Inca Religion & Empire Expansion

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Learning Targets

1. I can identify the religious beliefs and practices of the Inca.

2. I can identify the reasons for the rise, development, and decline of the Inca Empire.

Open Ended

In the next two minutes, write everything you can remember about the Mayan and Aztec religions. Include the words gods, calendar, temple, priests, sacrifice:

Inti

The Incas believed in many gods who controlled various aspects of nature. But to the Incas, the most important god was Inti, the sun god. Inti was important for two reasons. First, Incas believed that the emperor's family was descended from Inti. Second, Inti was also the god of agriculture, which was the basis of Inca life.

Spirits

The Incas also believed that spirits dwelled in certain sacred objects and places, called huacas. Huacas included temples, charms, and places in nature such as springs and rocks. Because the Incas believed in an afterlife, the tombs and bodies of the dead were also considered huacas. People often prayed and made offerings to all these huacas.

Multiple Choice

True or False:

It was forbidden to make offerings to anything other than the gods:

• true

• false

The Inca religion was highly formal and required a large number of priests to conduct rituals and ceremonies. Priests worked at temples and shrines devoted to the gods. The most important temples were those dedicated to Inti.

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The high priest, a close relative of the Sapa Inca, presided over the Sun Temple in Cuzco. Priests who worked in the sun temples in the countryside came from the families of curacas.

Animal Sacrifice

Like the Maya and the Aztecs, the Incas offered sacrifices to the gods. Some sacrifices took place regularly. For example, each day priests threw corn on a fire to encourage the sun to appear. "Eat this, Lord Sun," the priests said, "so that you will know we are your children." In many rituals, the Incas sacrificed live animals, usually llamas or guinea pigs.

Multiple Choice

What group of people provided the priests for temples in the countryside?

• commoners

• curacas

• relatives of the Sapa Inca

Human Sacrifice & Divination

The Incas also practiced human sacrifice, but only on the most sacred occasions or in times of a natural disaster. At such times children might be sacrificed, because the Incas believed that their purity honored the gods.

In addition to performing rituals and sacrifices, priests practiced divination to try to predict the future.

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Divination helped the Incas decide what course of action to lake. For example, a priest might ask an oracle when the army should attack another tribe.

Multiple Choice

True of False: The Inca sacrificed more people than the Aztec.

• True: They sacrificed multiple people every day.

• False: They sacrificed people only on special occasions.

The Chosen Women

Each year, government officials visited all the towns in the empire to search for the most beautiful, graceful, and talented girls between the ages of 8 and 10.

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Selected girls were honored as Chosen Women and taken to live in convents. There they studied Inca religion, learned how to prepare special food and drink for religious ceremonies, and wove garments for the Sapa Inca.

Around the age of 15, many Chosen Women left their convents. Some went to work in temples or shrines. Others became convent teachers, called mamaconas. Still others went to Cuzco and became wives of nobles or secondary wives of the Sapa Inca himself. A few Chosen Women were sacrificed at important religious ceremonies.

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The rest spent almost their whole lives either serving Inti or fulfilling their roles as wives of nobles or the emperor. Only in old age were they sometimes allowed to return to the homes and families they had left so many years earlier.

Multiple Select

Click which jobs the Chosen Women were trained to do:

• sacrifice guinea pigs

• prepare food for ceremonies

• teach at the convent

• weave garments for Sapa Inca

Ancient Inca music was used for religious ceremonies and dances.

They used the panpipes, flutes, bells, and drums.

The Incas believed that the soul of the animal being sacrificed was kept alive by playing music.

Watch the following video:

Inca Expansion and Control

Expanding Territory

The Incas had several methods of bringing other groups of people into the empire. They did not immediately resort to war. Instead, the Sapa Inca usually sent a delegate to meet with a tribe. The delegate explained that the tribe could join the Inca Empire and enjoy peace and prosperity. Everyone understood that the alternative was war against the strong Inca army.

In this way, the Incas expanded their empire without always having to fight.

Multiple Choice

Which other empire sent delegates to give other people groups the choice to join the empire peacefully, instead of going to war?

• Maya

• Aztec

• Tepanec

Controlling the Population

Becoming part of the empire meant adopting the ways of the Incas. The leaders of a conquered tribe had to build a sun temple. While the tribe could go on worshiping its own gods, it had to accept the Inca gods as the most powerful. Local leaders and their sons were brought to Cuzco to study Inca laws as well as Quechua, the official language. Then they returned to their people as curacas.

The Incas took an important religious object belonging to the tribe and kept it in Cuzco. The Incas claimed they acted out of respect for the local religion.

In reality, the object was held "hostage" in the capital. If the tribe ever rebelled, the government could destroy the sacred object.

Open Ended

Of the following ways the Inca controlled conquered peoples, which do you think was the most effective? Why?

1. Accepting Inca gods as most powerful.

2. The village leaders being trained in Inca ways and language.

3. Threatening to destroy a sacred object.

Open Ended

The Inca required conquered people to adopt their culture and language.

The Aztec only required conquered people to do two things:

1. Honor the Aztec god huitzilopochtli as most powerful.

2. Pay tribute.

Had the Spanish not conquered the Inca and Aztec, which empire do you think would have lasted longer? Why?

Despite these efforts, sometimes the Incas failed to bring a tribe fully into their empire. In such cases they might remove— and usually kill—the local leader.

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Some rebellious tribes were forced to move far away. The government then settled loyal members of the empire in their place. In this way, the Incas reduced the chance of resistance to their rule...and controlled a vast empire.

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Despite their effective control, the Inca empire would eventually fall.

Watch the video and listen for the reasons.

Open Ended

What were two of the reasons given for the decline and fall of the Inca empire?

1. Fighting between Sapa Inca's sons over control.

2.

3.