Inca Highways

The Inca conquests could never have been accomplished without good roods, nor could the Inca have continued to rule over he conquered peoples for long without being able to move armies to any troubled par of the Empire with lightning speed.

The great Inca highway, which ran from north o south, is still being discovered by our archeologists. I was actually two almost parallel highways. Paved with cobblestones, with many crossroads connecting them. One highway stretched along the entire Pacific coast from the town of Tumbes in northern Peru to Talca in Chile. This highway serviced the coastal villages and towns. Numerous roads connected these settlements with the main road.

The other highway, which was even more travelled, ran inland from Quito, Ecuador, to Cuzco, the capital of Inca Empire. South from Cuzco the highway forked, circling Lake Titicaca and continuing south through Bolivia to the town of Tucuman in Argentina. From Tucaman the highway turned was to the port of Comquimbo in Chile. From Comquimbo a highway lead to what is now Santiago and still another highway led from Tucuman to Mendoza in Argentina. In all, the Inca Highway covered over 2000 miles, a distance comparable to the entire length of the Atlantic coast from Maine to Key West, Florida.

To have built roads in this land of lofty mountains and high plateaus, deep gorges, scrapes – out canyons and turbulent rivers, was quite a feat. The Inca’s ingenuity is overcoming these obstacles was amazing. In some places, where the grade was too steep for a loaded man or IIama, wide stone steps were built to make the climbing easier. Whenever possible, the Inca dug tunnels.   Raised causeways were laid out over narrow passes between peaks or over shallow bodies of water. Canyons and rivers were spanned with bridges.

One of these bridges, which were built – it is believed – in 1350, served the highland people for hundreds of years before it collapsed. This bridge was the subject of a book by Thornton Wilder, entitled The BridgeOf San Luis Rey. The bridge, according to Mr. Wilder, was 250 feet long. I hung over the gorge of the turbulent Apurimac River, some 90 feet below.

The Andean people called the Apurimac River the Great Speaker, because its rushing waters, echoing and re-echoing in its deep gorge, were never silent. The bridge was built of braided and twisted fibers, held together with matting and mud. Two thick plaited fiber rails were needed to steady the traveler, because the bridge swung in the air with the wind.

The Inca Highway took years and years to build. Men from each family unit in every village and town along the way were drafted for the work. Crews with oversees kept all the road open and in good repair. They constantly reinforced weak stretches of highway with terrace and stone walls, and they added improvements all the time. These men were exceptional stone masons, and they always did their best, no matter how small the job. They even decorated the stone walls with designs to please the travelers.

Although the Inca people did not encourage the common people to travel, there were always Indian on the highways. They travelled by day, and at night they slept on mats on the side of the road with only their blankets to protect them against the bitter cold of the highland nights.

On market days the highways was crowded with people. The Inca government accumulated surplus grain in its warehouses and annually did tribute it to the people. If a family had enough grain of their own, they could take it on market day and trade it for cloth, pottery or ornament.

Read More

History Of Inca People

There are two legends about the beginnings of the Manco Capau ayluu. One says that Manco Capac and his family of three brothers and four sisters came out of a cave in the southwest of Cuzco. According to the other version, Manco Capac and his sister, Mama Ojllo were children of the sun and were sent down by the sun to an island in Lake Titicaca. After searching for a suitable place to live, they founded the town of Cuzco, which became the capital of Inca dynasty. They taught the people they found around Cuzco to raise corn and leave to weave cloth. Their first son, Sinchi Roca, began the conquest of Peru.

Legends have it that under the first three rulers who came after Sinchi Roca, Inca rule was extended to Lake Titicaca, to Tiahuanaco – which was then a very important town  - to the headwaters of the coastal rivers, and to some of the coastal fishing villages. The next three rulers continued the expansion of the Empire.

In the early days of the Inca, conquest and expansion were not accomplished by means of huge armies. Probably the small Manco Capac ayllu allied with a neighboring Inca ayllu and moved against still another neighbor.

After conquering them, the Inca let the people remain on their land and allowed the craftsmen to continue their pottery making, weaving and metalwork. Inca soldiers returned at each harvest to collect an annual tribute of corn and IIamas. The pottery, weaving and metalwork of some of these conquered people were superior to those of the Inca, but the Inca were ready to learn from them.

As the might of the Inca increased, they began to take advantage of each warring group outside their borders. Weaker nations often asked their help against a strong enemy aggressor and in exchange for this help, the Inca received tribute in produce from both the weaker nation and the newly conquered aggressor.

There were always struggles for power within the royal house – Manco Capac had found it necessary to kill his three brothers – and there were threats from the outside, too. As the territory under Inca control grew larger, the danger of rebellion among the conquered people increased.

Therefore, they were no longer permitted to live as they had before the conquest, merely paying tribute in men and produce. The Inca often issued orders to kill all the men in a newly conquered village and to escape this fate the defeated mean fled to the mountains or into the jungle immediately after battle.

Pachacuti Inca Yupanqui, the ninth ruler of the Inca, is the first emperor for whose reign we have exact dates. By this time (1438 -1471) the Inca Empire was well established. To insure obedience to himself, Pachacuti ordered all the people of Cajamarca, a newly conquered province in the northern highlands, to move south.  He moved to Cajamarca people who had been living longer under Inca rule and could be trusted not to rebel. This was the beginning of enforced mass migrations.

Any village that seemed rebellious or refused to turn over the produce tax imposed by the Inca was resettled elsewhere in the empire. This was not done without struggle, since the farmers loved their homes and their land. But the Inca won, and the rebels were moved away from their relatives and friends and made to live among strangers. Indians do not trust strangers whose ways and language are unfamiliar to them, and Pachacuti knew that people who were suspicious of each other would not plan revolt together.

In each village there were overseers who were responsible for the welfare of ten families. They kept track of the marriages, births, and deaths in these families. Over them were the curacas. Lesser members of the nobility who were responsible for 100 families. People came to over seers with their problems and grievances and in turn, the overseers got advice from curacas on problems they themselves could not solve.

The curaca worked under a nobleman who was responsible for 500 families. Together with whom they sat in court, listened to complaints, and administered justice. The law was strict. When a man confessed to an error, he was forgiven by the Inca gods, but not by the judges. They set a death penalty for him and his family.

The next groups in the pyramid were nobles who were responsible for 1000 families each. There were also nobles responsible for 10,000 families and for 40,000 families. Finally, there were four wise men of royal blood, who were responsible directly to the emperor for the entire population. For greater convenience the Inca had divided the empire into four slices, and each of these men presided over a province. The North –west was called Chinchasuyu; the southwest Cuntisuyu; the Northeast, Antisuyu; and the Southeast, Collasuyu. The Inca called empire Tahuantisuyu – the land of four quarters.

The population of the land of the four quarter was between 8-16 million. It included thriving, hard-working farmers, outstanding potters, and weavers of fine textiles, craftsmen who worked in gold and silver, and builders of huge stone temples that stagger the imagination even today.

Quechua , the language of the Inca, was the dominating language of the Empire and the Inca culture had overtaken all the others.

 

Read More