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Directions: Using information in the Padlet from Machu Picchu: Unveiling the Mystery of the Incas (Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale University), fill the chart below with information that answers the question: How did the Inca gain, consolidate, and maintain power in their empire?

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The Inca Empire was organized in a strict hierarchy starting with the emperor and reaching all the way down to individual households. The Sapa Inca, or Ultimate Inca, had complete power. He was considered a descendant of the sun god. The empire was divided into four quarters, and a close relative of the emperor was lord (apu) of each quarter. The four apus made up the Supreme Council, which advised the Sapa Inca on important matters. Royal governors, usually but not always Incas, headed
each of the provinces, which often encompassed a single ethnic group. The empire contained over 80 provinces at its peak.

Each province had a hierarchy of curacas who were responsible for between 100 and 10,000 households. The curacas appointed foremen, who were in charge of between 10 and 50 taxpaying households. The curacas carried out many tasks vital to the running of the empire.

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Think of someone who you know with power, how did they gain that power?

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Objective: I can describe how the Inca used to gain, consolidate, and maintain power in their empire.

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Directions: Watch video clips in the Padlet (Discovery documentary and Atlas Obscura) about the Inca use of grass woven bridges, read the document and examine the map in the Padlet, then answer the questions below.

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Directions: Using evidence from the information above, respond to the task below in the space provided.

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As we have seen, the Incas did not have money, and so the government could not collect taxes as we know them. Instead, Inca administrators required adult men to work for the state for a certain number of days per year. This system is called the mita system. As soon as a man married, he became the head of a household and was obligated to perform mita work. Each person was assigned a specific job according to his skills.

Both women and men were required to weave a certain amount of cloth for the state each
year. Other activities carried out with mita labor included farming, mining, road and bridge building,
building temples and other public monuments, transportation of goods, building canals, terraces
and irrigation systems, and making pottery and metalwork.

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Our government is financed by taxes that all working people pay. But the Inca Empire did not use money. How was their complex government supported?

The Inca emperor owned all land in the empire. Agricultural land in each community was divided into three parts. Local farmers worked all the land, but they were allowed to keep only the products from one portion of the fields. The other two portions of the agricultural yield went to support Inca religious leaders and the Inca government. Herds of llamas and alpacas were divided up in a similar manner—one part of the wool went
to the emperor, one part to the priests, and the local community was entitled to keep only the wool from the community herds. The exact proportion each group received depended upon local needs.

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The object, called a quipu, is simply a long string held horizontally with shorter strings of many colors tied to it. Each of these threads can have other threads tied to it. The threads have different types of knots to represent the numbers 0 to 9. Quipus could not be used to add, subtract or multiply. Specially trained administrators called quipucamayocs learned to “read” the quipus. They used stones and counting trays similar to the abacus for doing calculations, and then transferred the information back to the quipu.

The quipu was used to record all kinds of information, from the number of births and deaths in a province, the number of llamas or alpacas in a village herd, the amount of corn stored in a storehouse, the amount of
gold produced in a province, or the amount of mita textiles a community owed. Colored strings represented different things—for example, a yellow string might represent gold, and a white string silver. The quipu was also used to record historical events and legends and could be used to
represent ideas. For example, white might represent peace and red, war.
The quipu was lightweight and compact, and could easily be carried by chasqui runners.

Reading a quipu was difficult. Quipucamayocs spent many years learning to read and interpret the quipu. They worked in every provincial capital collecting and recording important information about the province. They
would send regular reports back to the emperor in Cuzco. Being a quipucamayoc was often hereditary, with quipu readers passing their skills down to their sons. Sons of Inca nobility and
provincial rulers learned to read the quipu at a school in Cuzco.

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Perhaps because they lived in a harsh and unpredictable environment, the Inca practiced religious rituals designed to win the favor of the gods, who
were often associated with natural forces such as the sun, water, or weather. The Inca people gave precious things to the gods to earn their favor.

The Inca religion grew out of the beliefs of Andean people regarding natural forces. Andean people have long worshipped the natural world around them, including mountains, rivers, lakes, the ocean, and constellations. They identify natural features such as especially high mountains, springs and large stones as sacred places, called huacas.

The Inca worshipped the sun as the ultimate giver of life and celebrate festivals to assure that the sun will continue to appear each day. They used felines and snakes as symbols in their religious art.

Inca beliefs required people to observe many rituals tied to the agricultural calendar. These rituals involved the sacrifice of precious objects, including textiles, coca, chicha, and llamas. Children were sacrificed only on rare occasions after natural disasters, war, or during the crowning of a new emperor.

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...We can only marvel at the ability of the Sapa Inca [chief ruler] to control his vast domains, separated as they were not only by long distances, but by dramatic changes in altitude. Inca engineers developed a massive road system over some of the most rugged terrain on earth, a lattice [network] of highways and tracks that covered a staggering 19,000 miles (30,000 km). The Inca empire could never have been created without this communication system that carried important officials, government correspondence, entire armies, and all manner of commodities and trade goods. Road-building started long before Inca times, for earlier states like Chimor on the coast also needed to connect dense concentrations of farmers in widely separated valleys. But the Incas vastly extended the network...Anthropologist John Murra has called these roads the “flag” of the Inca state, for they were a highly visible link between the individual and the remote central government….