INKA ROAD
ing rivers into water canal systems, carving horizontal terraces into steep mountains to recover agricultural land, and establishing an Inka mastery of engineering and architecture that organized the labor and military service of tens of thousands.
The Inka Dynasty Weaving mythology and history
T
he dynasty of Inka sovereigns be- gins in the mythological narratives of oral memory and bridges into modern history in the legend and
physical presence of Pachacutic. In the mythological creation, the original
couples – the ayares, four couples from one panaka, or extended family – emerged from caves at Pacariqtambo and, before that (in a different version), from the waters of Lake Titicaca. These principals, Manco Qapac and Mama Occllo, gathered the ten first commu- nities (ayllus) and began a journey, the first journey of the Inka Road. They came with a mandate from Inti, the Sun. Inka legend tells that before their emergence, chaos and vio- lence ruled the Andes; people “lived like fierce and brutish animals.” “Our Father, the Sun,” the Inka historian
Garcilaso de la Vega recounted in 1609, “... having pity upon them sent from the sky to the earth a son and a daughter of his, to teach
them...precepts and laws to live in reason.” The Sun instructed these primordial and mythic- historical Inka, according to Garcilaso, that they should conquer and incorporate the hu- man beings to a “system of reason and justice, with pity, clemency and
calm...as with tender and well-loved children.” Garcilaso is not always the most accepted
of early witnesses, writing some 60 years after the conquest, but the impetus to organiza- tion by the Inka state is widely acknowledged. Historians often comment on the Inka’s orga- nizational skill. “In everything from the most important to the most trifling, there was order and methodical arrangement,” wrote the 20th century scholar Lewis Hanke. “Men had hon- orable and useful occupations…lands, mines, pastures, hunting lands, woods; and all kinds of employments were so managed that each person knew and held his own state.” Through the Chaski or post “runner” sys-
tem, and in the accounting of materials and people through khipu, the Inka imperial capi-
26 AMERICAN INDIAN SUMMER 2015
PHOTO BY RAMIRO MATOS MENDIETA
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