THE INCAS: INSIDE AN AMERICAN EMPIRE COURSE GUIDE Professor Terence N. D’Altroy COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY The Incas: Inside an American Empire Professor Terence N. D’Altroy Columbia University Recorded Books™ is a trademark of Recorded Books, LLC. All rights reserved. The Incas: Inside an American Empire Executive Producer John J. Alexander Executive Editor Donna F. Carnahan RECORDING Producer - David Markowitz Director - Matt Cavnar COURSE GUIDE Editor - James Gallagher Design - Edward White Lecture content ©2004 by Terence N. D’Altroy Course guide ©2004 by Recorded Books, LLC 72004 by Recorded Books, LLC Cover image: The Inca ruins at Machu Pichu © Clipart.com #UT042 ISBN: 978-1-4025-8197-7 All beliefs and opinions expressed in this audio program and accompanying course guide are those of the author and not of Recorded Books, LLC, or its employees. Course Syllabus The Incas: Inside an American Empire About Your Professor ......................................................................................................4 Introduction 5 Lecture 1 Portrait of the Incas: An Introduction ........................................................6 Lecture 2 The Land and Its People ........................................................................10 Lecture 3 The Origins of Inca Society ....................................................................14 Lecture 4 The Formation of Tawantinsuyu: The Inca Empire ................................18 Lecture 5 Inca Militarism..........................................................................................22 Lecture 6 Cuzco: The Navel of the Universe ..........................................................28 Lecture 7 The Royal Estates ..................................................................................32 Lecture 8 At the Heart of Power ..............................................................................36 Lecture 9 Powers of the Sky and Earth, Past and Present ....................................40 Lecture 10 Growing Up Inca......................................................................................43 Lecture 11 Provincial Rule ........................................................................................46 Lecture 12 Building the Empire..................................................................................50 Lecture 13 Provisioning the State and the Sun ........................................................56 Lecture 14 Invasion and Aftermath............................................................................60 Course Materials............................................................................................................64 3 About Your Professor Terence N. D’Altroy Terence N. D’Altroy is a professor of anthropology at Columbia University, director of the Columbia Center for Archaeology, and one of the world’s leading Inca specialists. He is the author of The Incas, Provincial Power in the Inka Empire; coauthor, with Christine A. Hastorf, of Empire and Domestic Economy; and coeditor of Empires. Photograph courtesy of Terence D’Altroy Dedication To Mary, Susan, Alison, and Jenny, in loving memory of Lawren. Acknowledgments As in any research project or publication, authorship of the final product owes a great deal to many more people than appear under the title. I first would like to express my thanks to the editors and their colleagues at Recorded Books, who extended the invitation to create this lecture series and then were more than encouraging in seeing it through to the end. To John Alexander and Matt Cavnar, especially, I would like to express my gratitude for their relaxed professionalism in designing the project, recording the lec- tures, and supplying excellent sandwiches. It has been a real pleasure work- ing with Donna Carnahan, James Gallagher, and Ed White in creating the booklet that complements the lectures. A great proportion of the success that The Incas may enjoy can be laid at their doorstep. A special thanks also goes to the institutions and colleagues who graciously provided images for the booklet, notably Brian Bauer, Larry Coben, Chad Gifford, and Ramiro Matos. And finally, love and thanks to Mariela and Niki, for being there. 4 © Clipart.com Introduction The Incas were a small ethic group from the southern Peruvian highlands who created the greatest empire ever seen in the independent Americas— an empire of 10 to 12 million people. Inca history, largely presented to us by the conquering Spanish, reveals a rich culture of stunning achievement. In many ways, Inca life was defined by its unique geographical setting in the Andes, whose climate influenced everything from the crops the Incas grew to the altitudes in which they lived. This course focuses on Inca life at the height of empire, the society’s origins, its military, religion, ruling struc- ture, and finally, the Incas’ legacy today. Suggested Reading for this Course You will get the most out of this course by reading Dr. D’Altroy’s book, The Incas, published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2003. This book is avail- able on-line through www.modernscholar.com or by calling Recorded Books at 1-800-636-3399. 5 Lecture 1: Portrait of the Incas: An Introduction Before beginning this lecture you may want to . Read Terence N. D’Altroy’s The Incas, pp. 1-23. Introduction: This lecture introduces the Incas, a small ethnic group from the southern Peruvian highlands who created the greatest empire ever seen in the indepen- dent Americas. It begins with the encounter between the Spaniards and the Incas in 1532 that led to the downfall of Tawantinsuyu (The Four Parts Together), as the Incas called their vast domain in the South American Andes. It then explains what kinds of information we have available to understand the Incas, who did not have their own writing system, as did most ancient empires. Instead, we have to rely on Spanish chronicles and reports, based on observations and interviews with the Incas, and on modern archaeology. Issues . 1. What were the Spaniards’ first impressions of the Incas? 2. How have the Incas been portrayed over the years? 3. How can we understand the rise and character of the empire, consider- ing that the Incas had no writing system that we can decipher? First Impressions 1. In November 1532, a Spanish force of 168 soldiers led by Francisco Pizarro invaded the Inca empire and triggered the collapse of the largest polity seen in the native Americas. Everywhere the Spaniards went, they saw the imperial imprint in provincial centers, roads, the royal capital of Cuzco, and a redesigned social order. They were aston- ished to hear that—according to Inca history—the empire was just three generations old and that the Incas themselves claimed a past of only thirteen generations. 2. The collapse of an empire of 10 to 12 million people with no known challengers seems inconceivable, but the highly personalized nature of Inca leadership, the bloody politics of succession, and the resistance of subject societies made Inca rule a fragile veneer in many ways. 3. Scholars have called Tawantinsuyu everything from a communistic utopia to an enlightened monarchy to a totalitarian state, and they can’t even agree if the Incas ruled an empire. How could one polity inspire such contradictory views? A partial answer is that no one who grew up in Tawantinsuyu ever wrote about it and there was no native Andean writing system that we can decipher yet. Moreover, the Incas presented many differing views of their history, so the Spanish authors had to choose among conflicting views, and the Spaniards themselves had dif- LECTURE ONE fering agendas, selective interests, and depth of knowledge. 6 © Terence D’Altroy What Is an Inca? 1. Properly, an Inca is a member of an ethnic group living in and around Cuzco in the southern Peruvian highlands. There were about 100,000 of them in 1532. Inca also means “ruler,” as in Sapa Inca (“unique Inca”). 2. The Incas appeared on the archaeological landscape by about AD 1000 to 1200, and became imperial rulers in the fifteenth century AD. They called their language runasimi (“human speech”), but today we know it as Quechua. What Is an Empire? 1. Empires were the largest and most heterogeneous of the ancient soci- eties, often containing hundreds of societies with millions of subjects. There could be myriad languages and the territory of an empire could 7 cover many hundreds of thousands of square kilometers. Typically, an expansionist state lay at the core of power, dominating subject societies through a combination of military, economic, political, social, and ideo- logical policies. In the Old World, ancient empires included New Kingdom Egypt, the Assyrians, Romans, Parthians, Sassanians, Mughals, Qin and Han Chinese, and Mongols. In the New World, there were the Aztecs, Incas, and maybe the Wari. 2. We often hold up the Romans as the exemplar of ancient empires, but the Romans were exceptional in the scope, duration, and intensity of their rule. Instead, we need to investigate from a comparative framework ranging from indirect to direct rule. We also need to look at things at the local level to get a real flavor of what life in the Inca empire was like. Sources of Information: How Do We Know about the Incas? 1. Since the Incas had no written language, we have to depend heavily on Spanish documents. The first conquistadores gave us impressions writ- ten without time for reflection or understanding of the civilization they were observing. They were followed by soldiers, administrators,