πππ΅πͺ Here comes the Sun: Peru, the Incas and Inti Raymi
It's the winter solstice in the Southern Hemisphere, but this Incan celebration brings back the Sun for us!
Welcome to your evening plan! Music, history, food and a movie. Letβs jump in!
Big shout outs for Cielo, Mal Paso and Baila Caporal!
The Andes has a weird climate.
They are so tall and so long that clouds struggle to pass over them, which causes to the driest desert in the world on one side, the Amazon on the other, and has lead to mass killings of whales when it does finally rain!
This climate also is harsh - during the Inca period there was a 30 year drought. The hills are tremendously sharp. The elevation is extreme (average height is 4,000m up and peaks around 7,000m - for reference the highest point of the Alps is 4,800m).
In this climate though, humans did adapt and many civilisations grew.
Humans adapted physically too, with many Andeans being shorter with relatively larger chests, with better and more oxygen-carrying blood cells, and 1/3 larger lungs. The civilisations learnt to foster an array of food (quinoa, corn, potatoes, tomatoes, avocados, cocoa), using agricultural techniques like irrigation and using the Andes elevation to their advantage and even learning how to freeze dry their food to last longer!
Nazca lines - I have to mention them!
A group called the Nazca are known to have independently created irrigation systems around 200BCE and made line drawings in the desert - preserved by the lack of rain at that altitude. They are assumed to be religious signs to the Gods.
Various other dynasties grew in Peru and along the Andes, but none would be as dramatic in size as the Incas.
The Inca creation
According to legend, Viracocha is the divine creator, often taking the form of an old man with two staffs. Viracocha created humans from earth and stone. The first humans there were giants and destroyed the land they lived in. Viracocha decided to flood the lands and start again, making humans much smaller and tasked them to look after the land.
He also created three Gods to look after Earth as he continued his travels.
Mama Quilla was the god of the moon, Pacha Mama was the god of the earth and Inti was the all powerful god of the Sun.
Later Inti had a son called Manco Capac who was the first Inca Emperor (of which there were only around 13!).
The start of Inca civilisation - Manco Capac (1200-1230)
Manco Capac set up in Cusco (a city that already had existed prior) and built a social order - defining responsibilities and collective labour. He also began spreading his religion through military campaigns and alliances - a skill never lost by the rulers, often through offering destruction and decimation or alliance.
The Inca developed interesting culture too - allowing teenagers (14+) to openly have sex (though if a child was conceived would be expected to wed), daughters would keep their mothers name and sons would keep their fathers, and they would also mummify people so they could reincarnate.
All of this was a managed bureaucracy which operated incredibly without the invention of currency, iron, steel, chisels, saws, writing or wheels.
Despite this they built incredible wonders such as their earthquake resistant stone walls. The Incas never had concrete and instead built and shaped interlocking rocks - such as agricultural terraces with stone bases which helped with irrigation but also stopped frost killing the plants due to the stones storing heat and the 12 angled stone below:
Pachacuti (1471-1493)
Pachacuti rose to power when he defended the city against invaders, after the King and heir fled. He took over the empire and began a rapid expansion, using his military prowess to win territories.
He enforced disability benefits, pensions and more social rules as trade for peoples service. He used an unusual type of assimilation too, often dispersing groups across the empire as to instil Inca loyalty.
He also heavily invested in roads, suspension bridges (made from grasses and wood) and relay stations.
Relay stations a.k.a Tambos
Relay stations are super interesting - so quick a dive in. At this time, the Inca had the fastest information network in the world. They could send a message over 200km in a day.
These relay stations were always manned and when a message came to them, they would run to the next station and stay there until the next message - often running 10k up a mountain in 50 minutes. Suddenly, a conveyer belt of running messengers living life purely to do this could essentially act as a phone network.
More over, these relay stations were often garrisons for weapons and freeze dried food - meaning soldiers could quickly march and recoup without needing to carry supplies. This was a force that allowed them to grow to be the longest continuous empire in the world - spanning 2,800km along the harsh Andean mountain ranges.
The last king, Atahualpa (1532-1533)
The Inca empire grew dramatically to be the biggest within 200 years, but also collapsed dramatically. At its peak the Inca were 10 million people. Then Francisco Pizarro and around 100-200 Spanish Conquistadors arrived, brought down the empire and took huge wealth back to Spain. How?
In short, plague, a civil war and converting old Incan allegiances to Christianity.
In 1527, a plague from the North of the empire began to destroy life, and further, and then all. In this chaos and terror, Oracles predicted the end of days brought by a bearded Viracocha, many (sometimes human) sacrifices were made to Inti and then, Huayna Capac the king died of the mysterious plague (smallpox).
This rocked the Empire, and lead to two successors (Atahualpa and Huascar) to battle a civil war. Atahualpa eventually won and then a year later met Pizarro to make an alliance. After agreeing on one, the decided to meet again in a ceremonial spot.
The cousin arrived (1532)
Pizarro was the cousin of Cortez, who had decimated and massacred the Aztec and indigenous population and colonised Mexico. Pizarro followed suit.
At this meeting spot, the Inca filed into the centre through a narrow walk way and got ready for the ceremony. Pizarro and his men then fired their cannons and muskets (the first time the Inca saw these weapons) upon the weaponless Inca army. They captured the King and then sent iron-clad horse men to attack the rest of the Inca army outside the gates.
With Atahualpa, they ransomed the Inca empire and had Atahualpa organise payment through messengers. Initially, Atahualpa sourced payment from the allies of his defeated half-brother, but the Spanish demanded more and more gold as payment for the Inca king/deity - enough to fill two giant halls in the palace. As a new wave of smallpox ravaged the empire, the management systems failed and now huge gold demands hit, the Inca empire crumbled.
The Spanish may have heard a rumour of an orchestrated uprising by Atahualpa or may simply have believed they sourced all the gold in the Empire, they had the last Incan king killed (through an awful device called a Garote).
The gold value today that Pizarro managed to plunder would be $250,000,000 of which most Incan art would have been melted down into bars.
Inti Raymi
The celebration of Inti - the sun god - is a resurrected festival held to celebrate Andean culture. It is a blend of colours, costumes, parades, music and dancing followed by offerings and rituals of food.
The Food
There is only one thing that has been recommended again and again. Ceviche.
And for dessert you have to trust me, Helado Queso is a delicious fantastic dessert. You may have spotted that says cheese ice cream, but it doesnβt have cheese in it nor does it taste anything like cheese! I would recommend trying it!
Movies
The Emperor's New Groove would be the obvious choice - though not likely historically accurate.
Undertow - a Peruvian cultural hit, from a famous Peruvian director about a heterosexually Peruvian fisherman and his dead homosexual partnerβs ghost.
And if neither are your jam - Tintin goes to Peru here - thought I have to say, I donβt like it and I am not sure many Peruvians would eitherβ¦