Download World of the Incas and the North American Indians

World of the
Incas and
the North
American
Indians
Willow LeTard and
Kevin Nguyen
World of the Twantinsuyu
1300 c.e. in the Andean highlands
Notable advances in metallurgy and architecture
The Incas had a revolutionary state organization with
bureaucratic control over people of different
ethnicities, cultures, and languages, achieving a
level of integration and domination never before
seen in the americas
Inca Rise to Power
Quechua-speaking clans, or ayllus, living near
Cuzco, an area under the influence of the Huari
gathered in Cuzco under the Inca leader
Pachacuti
Pachacuti’s son, Topac Yupanqui, conquered the
northern coastal kingdom of Chimor, spreading
territory in the southern edge of modern day
Ecuador
The next ruler, Huayna Capac stretched the
Twantinsuyu from modern day Columbia to
modern day Chile, from Bolivia to Argentina
Religion and Conquest
Inca conquest and expansion was driven by various beliefs, the belief of the
cult of Inca ancestors was extremely important among the Inca beliefs.
● 
Deceased rulers were mummified and treated as intermediaries with the gods.
● 
Incas adopted the practice of split inheritance, whereby all political power
and titles of the ruler went to his successor, but all his palaces, wealth,
land, and possessions remained in the hands of his male successors.
To ensure the ruler's own cult and place for eternity, each new inca needed to
secure land and wealth which came in the form of new conquests.
Like the Aztecs, Incas held the sun to be the highest deity and considered
themselves to be the sun’s representatives.
The Temple of the Sun Cuzco was the center of the state religion and held
the mummies of past rulers.
● 
The cult of the sun spread throughout
the empire, but the empire did not
prohibit worship of local gods
Other deities were worshipped as a part
of the state religion. Viracocha was a
popular creator god.
Mountains, stones, rivers, caves, tombs,
and temples were called huacas or holy
shrines.
The Techniques of Imperial Rule
Ruler was the Inca, a person considered almost to be a god, who ruled from his court at
Cuzco
Major temple was also in Cuzco. The High Priest was usually a relative of the Inca
Twantinsuyu was divided into four great provinces, each under a different governor, and
then split again.
Local rulers of conquered areas, called curacas, were allowed to maintain position under
the governor's but as tribute they sent their sons to Cuzco to get educated
Sent out Quechua-speaking colonists to integrate the empire into a whole by setting an
example in newly conquered territory
The Incas did not take much tribute except to have communities take turn s working on
state or church land or building projects and mining. These labor turns were called
mita
Inca Cultural Achievements
The Incas artistic traditions were drawn from their Andean predecessors.
Pottery, cloth, and metal were produced in specialized workshops. Metalworking
was among the most advanced in the Americas and Incas worked with silver
and gold with great skill.
The Incas had no system of writing but instead a system of knotted strings, or
quipu to record numerical information and perhaps other information. The
Incas took censuses and recorded financial records.
The Incas were renowned for their land and water management, extensive road
system, state craft, and architecture.
Ingenious agricultural terraces were made on the steep slopes of the Andes using
a complex system of irrigation.
The empire was linked by approximately 2500 miles of road which mostly
included rope suspension bridges over rivers or gorges.
Ancient Terraces built by the Incas (15th Century)
Comparing Incas and Aztecs
● 
Both empires were based on a long development of the civilizations before
them
○ 
They represented the success of imperial and military organization
○ 
They were based on intensive agriculture
○ 
They both transformed older kinship-based groups with the
emergence of a social hierarchy
○ 
They both showed nobles as the personnel of the state
○ 
They both allowed variation from one region to another
● 
There were many differences in metallurgy, writing systems, and social
definition of hierarchy
● 
The Aztec developed trade and markets much further than the Incas
● 
There were variations in system of belief , cosmology, and social structure
vs
The Other Peoples of the Americas
The civilizations of the Mesoamerica, Andes, and other
imperial states continued to live in different ways.
This ranged from highly complex sedentary agricultural
empires to simple kin-based bands of hunters or gatherers.
Groups such as the Incas had many things in common with
tribal peoples of the Amazon Basin. The division of villages
or communities into two major groupings called clans were
one of the similarities between the two.
The Amazon Basin
How Many People?
The Americas Population c. 1500 was
approximately 57 to 72 million
The current world population was about 389 to
614 million
In 1492, the average reported population of
Native Americans 8.5 million
Different scholars believed there could be up to
112 million at the time but the general
consensus was 67.3 million (see chart)
Population Estimation for the
Western Hemisphere, 1942
Area
Population
(Millions)
North America
4.4
Mexico
21.4
Central America
5.65
Caribbean
5.85
Andes
11.5
Lowland South America
18.5
Total
67.3
Differing Cultural Patterns
Northern, South, and parts of Central America was an intermediate area that shared many features with the
Andes and parts of Mesoamerica. They could have served as point of cultural and material exchange
between the two regions
With the exception of architecture, the two chieftainships resembled the sedentary agricultural states in many
ways.
There is strong evidence of large chieftainships elsewhere in the Americas and along the Amazon, where the
rich aquatic environment supported complex and hierarchical societies.
Agriculture was spread widely throughout the Americas by 1500. Some people along the eastern North
American woodlands and the coast of Brazil combined agriculture with hunting and fishing.
Techniques such as slash and burn farming led to the periodic movement of villages when production declined.
Social Organization in these societies often remained without strong class divisions, craft-specializations, or the
demographic density of people who practiced permanent, intensive agriculture.
Although often subordinate, women in some societies played an important political and social role, and usually
played a central role in crop production.
Slash and Burn Agriculture
American Diversity in World
Context
The Americas held a huge range of societies from empires like
the Inca and Aztec, to small bands of hunters
Religion played a dominant role in the relationship between
people and their environment, as well as the individual and
their society
European observers were shocked at how the isolated cultures
had grown
The “primitiveness” of the tribespeople and hunting society
Astounding wealth such as gold from the civilizations like the Aztecs
and Inca
Bibliography
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http://ancienthistory.abc-clio.com/?setcustomercontext=25240>.
Stearns, Peter N., Michael Adas, Stuart B. Schwartz, and Marc J. Gilbert. World Civilizations The
Global Experience. 5th ed. N.p.: n.p., n.d. 244-55. Print.
Britannica ImageQuest. Britannica Digital Learning, n.d. Web. 17 Nov. 2015. <http://quest.eb.com/>.
Britannica School High. Britannica Digital Learning, n.d. Web. 20 Nov. 2015. <
http://school.eb.com/levels/high>.