South America: land of gold

SHORT-LIVED EMPIRE

The Inca empire, which grew to control a 2,500-mile-long stretch of the Anded in South America, survived for less than 100 years. Until the reign of Pachacuti Yupanqui (c.1440-71) the Incas had  spent almost 250 years as a small tribal group centered around their  capital, Cuzco, in the Peruvian highlands. Then, after repelling an attack by neighboring Chanca warriors in 1438, Pachacuti and his successors, Tupac Yupanqui (1471-93) and Huayna Capac (1493-1525), launched a series of campaigns that established Inca rule from present-day southern Colombia through Ecuador and  Peru to central Chile, spilling over into Bolivia and Argentina.

The culture gets its name from the word Inca, a shortened form of Sapa Inca, meaning the “unique Inca.” The word which comes from the Quechua term inka (”king”), was used as a title by the rulers, who were worshiped as gods. The empire was toppled by a mere 180 Spanish soldiers uder Francisco Pizarro. Taking advantage of his men’s superior fire power, of epidemics introduced by the Spaniards to which the Indians had no immunity, and of divisions among  the Incas themselves after a 7-year civil war, Pizarro conquered the whole of the empire within 6 years of his arrival in 1532.

MUMMIFIED MONARCHS

Inca kings were worshiped even in death.This sketch, from a Spanish chronicle published in about 1610, shows how their mummified bodies were carried out into the main square of the capital, Cuzco,each day. There, the corpses were honored with prayers and the sacrifice of white llamas.