Archaeologists are fortunate when it comes to the Inca civilization--we not only have archaeological data, but since the empire was up and running when the literate Spanish arrived in the 16th century, we have ethnographic data about it as well. Of course, the arrival of the Spanish wasn't that lucky for the Inca...
The capacocha ceremony is the Quechua word for child sacrifice in the Inca religion. The perfectly preserved ice mummies discovered on the tops of mountains like Llullaillaco in Argentina have been matched by ethnographic reports of child sacrifice from the 16th century Spanish, making a fascinating--if gruesome--story. Pick a link and click on to read more about it.
The capacocha ceremony is the Quechua word for child sacrifice in the Inca religion. The perfectly preserved ice mummies discovered on the tops of mountains like Llullaillaco in Argentina have been matched by ethnographic reports of child sacrifice from the 16th century Spanish, making a fascinating--if gruesome--story. Pick a link and click on to read more about it.
- Capacocha Ceremony
- Llullaillaco (Argentina)
- Inca Civilization
Comments
Could you add a note to your studies that say:..they are the a Westernized explanation of the Inca civilization? Capaqocha or Qhapaq qocha was the Quechua name the Inkas gave to the lords that came via the ocean Qhapaq (Lord-Great) Qocha (ocean)to refer to the Spaniards. It does NOT mean Inca Child Sacrifice.
Spanish conquerors and the Christian institution guided by the power of greed left tons of writings (chronicles), and destroyed Incas writings and symbols (their written language)to justify the genocide and invasion.
Unfortunately, many well educated historians and archaeologists still base their “conclusion” on the conquerors’ version without having a clue of Incan cosmo-vision, language or attempts to find the version of the conquered.
The fine intellectual minds and technology should also be used to learn more about.. for example how Christian human sacrifices were done, the holy inquisition, the modern version of Christian human sacrifices and range of other topics.
Why it that Archeology is unable to share with the world the wisdom and teaching left from those great indigenous cultures?.
Thanks!
Richard
Thanks for your note; I really appreciate it! Can you give us some sources to look at (web or written)? I’m sure we’d all like to learn more about the Quechua world view.
Kris
This is a story detailing a horror story of when these Spaniards referred to as ” Qhapaq qocha” destroyed an Inca town in 1532. Indeed western story telling till this day demonizes all other cultures to justify themselves.
http://espanol.geocities.com/edmundoguillenguillen/paginas/documentos/html/un_testigo_de_la_tragedia_cajamarca.html
I think it’s really hard to know how best to present information gathered from the past. Of course, everything a westerner writes is filtered through a western lens. And of course, there are bad things that happened in the past–all of us, each one of our cultures, past and present–are guilty of such things. We want to make that clear, and by knowing and understanding the past maybe we can get beyond it; at least so I hope.
So as archaeologists and writers, how do we walk that line, attempting to present the past as clearly as we can, not shying away from the ugly truths of our collective past, but not selecting out a particular group or culture to point fingers at?
I don’t know, but I do know that these kinds of conversations are very helpful towards making these points. Thanks much for bringing up these issues.
Kris