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Lauren Wilson

eHRAF World Cultures - 0 views

ehrafworldcultures-beta.its.yale.edu/...dispatchSearch.do

inca government

shared by Lauren Wilson on 17 Apr 13 - No Cached
  • Early chroniclers marveled at the ordered government and favorably compared the infrastructure of administrative centers, way stations, roads, and storage facilities with that of contemporaneous Europe. Later Andeanists cast Inka rule as a despotic monarchy, an enlightened dictatorship, and a feudal, utopian, Asiatic, or socialist state. More-recent treatments have tempered conceptions of a highly controlled, standardized society with the recognition that Inka rule varied notably among regions and that life at the local level may not have changed radically in many areas.
  • Political interaction between the Inkas and their subjects thus ranged from patron-client relations with the elites of small-scale and peripheral societies (e.g., the Pasto of northern Ecuador) to treaty or favored-status relations with some internal polities (e.g., the Chincha and the Lupaqa) and intensive assimilation with a well-developed bureaucracy
  • Because the state depended heavily on local elites, the apparatus of government was tailored to use the authority of ethnic leaders among their own people. Conversely, the local political structures were modified to facilitate state rule.
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  • Initially, they needed to set up an administration that could conduct state affairs in the absence of adequate loyal personnel. Conversely, increasing the organizational abilities of subject groups and the power of subject elites magnified the potential internal threats to the empire.
  • Each province was headed by an Inka-appointed governor (tokrikoq), usually an Inka noble, who directed an array of imperial and local elites and functionaries. The vertical orientation permeated the provincial structure, because the tokrikoq administered the local elites directly below him in the pyramid, rather than the people themselves (Cobo 1956 [1653]: vol. 2., bk. 2, ch. 25, pp. 114–15). The officials from the provincial governor up were recruited from the core Inka nobility, although the offices were not strictly hereditary and ability was considered in making appointments (
  • Whatever the structure, political control was not applied evenly across all societies. Although the Inkas exerted their tightest control near the core of the empire, regions at varying distances from the capital were integrated more fully than were other closer regions, and their human and natural resources more fully exploited.
  • initially, the Inkas found it most effective to deal with the Ecuadorian populations through a single point of native authority—a paramount chief, sometimes elevated to represent a pooled set of smaller chiefdoms.
  • In sum, the Inka political system was initially built on the authority systems of a widely diverging set of subject societies. The evidence suggests that the Inkas were attempting to apply systematic policies to subject groups within the empire. Regional variations in demography, political complexity, native social and economic forms, and security threats—coupled with limited imperial resources, transport, and communications capacities—contributed to variable imperial policies. With this review as context, we may now sketch out the major political changes effected in the Upper Mantaro region under Inka rule.
blonabocker

INKA ARCHITECTURE - 0 views

www.rutahsa.com/incaarch.html

shared by blonabocker on 24 Apr 13 - Cached
  • The essence of Inka architecture cannot be distilled into a single word. Three themes demand recognition: precision, functionality, and austerity. The Inka stonefitters worked stone with a precision unparalleled in human history; their architects clearly esteemed functionality above decoration; yet their constructions achieved breathtaking beauty through austerity of line and juxtaposition of masses. The Inka seem to have presaged Mies Van der Rohe's philosophy of "less is more".
  • The dominant stylistic form in Inka architecture is a simple, but elegantly proportioned trapezoid, which serves the dual ends of functionality and severely restrained decoration. Trapezoidal doorways, windows, and wall niches are found in Inka constructions of all types,
  • They built with locally available rock, from limestone to granite.
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  • "local" supply might be several kilometers distant and involve a transportation problem that would have daunted a less capable people. At Ollantaytambo, huge blocks were quarried from one side of the Urubamba Valley, shaped in part, and then brought down the mountainside, across the Urubamba River, and up a long construction ramp to the great fortress-temple complex above Ollantaytambo village.
  • How the Inka cut stone without iron tools is not known with any certainty, but in all likelihood stone was cut and shaped mainly with stone tools. Bronze or copper tools may also have been used, but would be of limited use with the hard varieties of igneous rock commonly used by the Inka
  • What the Inkas must have considered their very finest stonework is found, naturally, in their most important buildings, their temples. Temple walls are battered (inwards sloping), and constructed of finely hewn ashlars laid in courses that get progressively thinner upwards. This creates a wall with a wonderfully stable and pleasing appearance, and which is, in fact, highly resistant to seismic shaking. Earthquakes are a common building hazard in the Andean region, and Inka stonework has survived for centuries, even as Spanish colonial structures have collapsed. In fact, the most durable Spanish constructions have been those that incorporated Inka walls. Here original Inka walls have been breached by Spanish colonial doorways; note the inward slope of the lower wall, as opposed to the vertical upper wall of European construction.
Emily Healey

The Incas - 0 views

www.latinamericanstudies.org/...collier.htm

shared by Emily Healey on 02 May 13 - Cached
  • The legendary founding of Cusco by the first Inca, Manco Capac, is placed about a.d. 1100. Cusco lies in the hollow of a valley at 11, 207 feet (3,416 meters); on two sides, the Andes rise precipitously, and at its southern end the valley stretches for miles between the double row of mountains. Manco Capac, according to legend, came up this valley from the south; following instructions of the sun god he threw his golden staff into the Cusco earth, and when the staff disappeared, suggesting the land's fertility, he founded his city. It is generally agreed, and archaeologically confirmed, that Inca history actually begins about 1200 and continues through 13 ruling Incas, ending with the death of Atahualpa at the hands of the Spaniards in 1533. In the 12th century, however, the Incas were only one of the myriad tribes that occupied the Andes area.
  • The Incas began by enlarging their hold beyond the immediate valley of Cusco. By 1350, during the reign of Inca Roca, they had conquered all areas close to Lake Titicaca in the south as well as the valleys to the immediate east of Cusco. To the north and east the region around the Upper Urubamba River also soon fell to the Incas, and their realm then began to spread westward.
  • The last indisputable Inca, Huayna Capac, who came to power in 1493, the year after Columbus landed in America, made the final conquests. He extended the empire so that it included Chachapoyas on the right bank of the upper Rio Marañon in northern Peru, and his warriors reduced the belligerent tribes on the Isle of Puná (off the coast of Ecuador) and around Guayaquil on the adjacent shore. The final Inca extension was even farther to the north; in 1525 the frontiers reached Rumichaca, a natural bridge over the Ancasmayo River, which now marks, more or less, the boundary between Ecuador and Colombia.
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  • When the Spaniards occupied Cajamarca they sent out an invitation for Atahualpa to visit them in the city,
  • During the colonial era that followed the Spanish conquest of Peru, many of the Inca state institutions were retained and adapted to fit the needs of the conquerors. Spanish rule was largely indirect: the colonial administrators and landowners transmitted their demands through local chieftains, or curacas, and did not directly interfere with the daily life of the Indian householder. Like the Incas, the Spanish practiced mass resettlement of villages, demanded a work-tax of the Indians, and maintained a separate class of servants and artisans. But Spanish demands for gold and produce were intolerably harsh, and the greed of the landowners and the corruption of the administrators provoked numerous Indian uprisings throughout the colonial period. Even today the Quechua Indian peasants of Peru and Bolivia speak Quechua and retain many elements from Inca days in their religion, their family life, and their agricultural techniques. See also Indians, American: The Central Andes.
  • Emily Healey on 02 May 13
     
    Incan empire
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