While pregnant, the woman continued to perform all her household duties, although she did not participate in agricultural labor. Children were seen as a valuable contribution to the economy, and any attempt to get rid of the fetus was inexorably punished by the death of the perpetrator and anyone who helped her - it could be beatings, womb massage and the use of special drugs.

Before a child was to be born, the mother was required to confess and pray for an easy birth, while the husband was required to fast during the birth. Although midwives were not known as such, the mothers of twins were believed to be endowed with special powers, and they were sometimes present at births to assist. But many women gave birth without help and were able to get on their own and carry the baby to the nearest water source to wash themselves. The mother then returned to normal household chores, usually immediately. However, if she gave birth to twins, or if the child turned out to have some kind of physical defect, the family considered this an omen and fasted, performing certain rituals to ward off trouble. On the fourth day after birth, the child was placed in kirau - a cradle (see Fig. 21), to which he was tied, and his relatives were invited from everywhere so that they could look at him and drink chichi. A commoner carried her baby in this cradle on her back, and when she left the house and wanted to take the child with her, the cradle was supported by a shawl tied around her chest.

Rice. 21. Kirau - cradle

Garcilaso, who was raised by his own paglia mother in the Inca tradition, provides interesting information about the upbringing of children under the rule of the Incas:

"They raised their children in an unusual way, both Incas and common people, rich and poor, without distinction, not at all showing tenderness. As soon as the child was born, he was washed in water and wrapped in blankets. Every morning before being swaddled, he was bathed in cold water and often exposed to the night cold and dew. When a mother wanted to pamper her child, she took water in her mouth and sprinkled it all over, except for the head and especially the top of the head, which was never washed. It was said that it accustoms children to cold and difficult trials, and also strengthens their members. Their hands remained swaddled inside the covers for more than three months, because it was believed that if they were released earlier, the children would grow up with weak hands. They lay in cradles like rough benches on four legs, one of which was shorter than the rest, so that the cradles could be rocked. The bed on which the infant was laid was a rough net, only slightly less rigid than bare boards: the same net was used to tie the infant, attaching it to the sides of the cradle and tying it so that the child could not fall out.

Mothers never took the baby in their arms and did not put it on their knees, neither during breastfeeding, nor in any other cases. It was said that this would make them whiny and make them want to be nursed and not want to stay in the cradle. The mother leaned over the baby and gave him the breast. This was done three times a day: in the morning, at noon and in the evening. Except for these three times, no milk was given even though the children were crying. Otherwise, as it was believed, they would have become accustomed to sucking all day long and unclean habits would have developed - vomiting and diarrhea, and they would have grown up greedy and gluttonous ... . All this time they abstained from sexual relations, believing that this would spoil the milk, causing the baby to wither and grow weak.

The baby was breastfed as long as the mother had enough milk. According to Garcilaso, when a child grew large enough to be released from the cradle, a hole was dug in the ground so that he could mess around and play in it. The hole was as deep as the child's armpits and was lined with rags, and there were a few toys in it for him to play with. Such a device may have been used in special circumstances as a kind of playground, perhaps in the gardens of the Incas, but Garcilaso does not elaborate on the environment in which such a pit was located. He also says that when the baby is big enough to climb out, "he crawls up to the mother from one side or the other to be suckled," which shows that the mother herself must have been sitting on the ground.

The child was given a name later, in a special ceremony called rutuchiko, which means "cutting off the hair". It was carried out when the child was weaned, that is, at the age of one to two years. This ceremony was attended by all relatives, and sometimes friends of the family. After the feast, the eldest or most important male relative would begin the shearing by cutting off a lock of the child's hair. Everyone who cut a strand presented the child with a gift. Hair and nails were also cut off, which were then carefully preserved.

When this ceremony was performed on the emperor's son, each courtier, in order of nobility, cut off a lock of the prince's hair and presented him with rich gifts from beautiful clothes and gold and silver jewels, bowing before him as before the grandson of the Sun.

Rice. 22. Older children help their parents: look after animals, collect fuel for the hearth, hunt birds

The names given to children in rutuchiko were used only until the children reached puberty. During this period, most of the children were constantly close to their parents and learned by imitating them and helping to carry out everyday duties. Useless games were not welcomed, and from childhood every child learned all the activities that were required to meet daily needs, such as making simple clothes, shoes and utensils, cooking and farming. The boys helped their parents look after the animals and drive birds and pests out of the fields (see Figure 22). The girls helped their mothers nurse the new children, and they always had plenty of simple housework that required attention, such as sewing, cooking, washing and cleaning.

Education

Most of the sons of commoners did not receive formal education, they only knew the crafts that they learned from their parents. The following excerpt from the statements of the ruler of the Incas clearly articulated the position of the aristocracy: “It cannot be allowed that the children of the plebeians could learn knowledge suitable only for the noble, lest the lower ones rise and become presumptuous and disgrace the public arena: it is enough that they know their own crafts from their fathers, and management is not a matter for them, and it would be shameful for the authorities and for the state if it were entrusted to the common people.

However, some girls, daughters of community members, could be selected for education in the provincial akla-wasi - House of Girls. These were the monasteries in which the Chosen Women lived - mamacuna(dedicated women) and aklya(virgins) (see chapter 9). Each province had a commissioner appointed by the emperor - apupanaka, - who selected the girls and was responsible for organizing their maintenance in aklahuasi. He went around all the settlements, looking for "the most pretty, attractive in both appearance and disposition" among girls aged nine to ten years. These girls lived in provincial capitals under the care of mamakun—nuns dedicated to teaching—who prepared them for their future destiny. Mamakuna taught the girls religion and daily women's duties: faultlessly dye, spin and weave wool and cotton; cook food and make quality chicha, especially the chicha required for sacrificial rites. When the girls reached the age of 13 or 14, the Apupanaka took them to Cusco for Inti Raimi, the festival of the Sun.

In Cuzco, the akla were presented to the emperor, on whom it then depended to decide their fate. Most beautiful girls became servants or concubines of the Inca himself, or he gave them to those whom he wanted to honor or reward for their service; they were usually Incas and Kuraks. Others were left either for special sacrifices, or to serve in sanctuaries or live in monasteries, where they taught new generations of aqlya.

All sons of the Incas and Kuraks were required to attend Yachai wasi(House of Learning) in the capital, Cusco. As for the Kuraks, in their case, the benefits from studying in the capital were mutual. On the one hand, the young men who had this privilege lived all year round at the Inca court and were educated within the Inca culture. This education, however, also served the purposes of indoctrination and formed in them a favorable attitude towards Inca politics by the time they inherited positions from their fathers. At the same time, for the Sapa Incas, they were convenient hostages to guarantee the loyalty of their provinces and kuraks.

Of life in the schools, Garcilaso writes: “Because they had no book knowledge, learning was reduced to practice, daily repetition and experience, and in this way they studied the rites, precepts and ceremonies of their false religion and came to understand the causes and foundations of their laws and privileges, learned their number and their true interpretation. They acquired knowledge of how to govern and became more cultured and more skilled in martial arts. They studied the times and seasons of the year and could write and read history with the help of knots. They learned to speak with grace and taste, and to raise children, and manage their households. They studied poetry, music, philosophy, and astrology, or whatever little they knew about these sciences. Mentors were called amauts - "philosophers" or "wise men" - and they were treated with great respect. (In fact, there was no abstract philosophy, there was only direct observation of the real world. - Auth.)

Rove says the course took four years, each with a different subject: Quechua in the first year, religion in the second, Quipu knot writing in the third, and Inca history in the fourth. Discipline was maintained by kicking on the heels - up to ten blows, but teachers were forbidden to assign more than one punishment per day.

Puberty

Age entry rituals existed separately for girls and boys and were named accordingly. kikochiko And huarachico.

There was no official collective ceremony for girls, with the possible exception of the participation of daughters of noble families in the huarachiko rite for boys. The kikochiko ritual was an intra-family event and was celebrated when the girl had her first menstruation. During the preparation, she stayed in the house, fasting for three days while her mother wove her new outfit. She appeared on the fourth day, cleanly washed, with braided hair, dressed in a beautiful new dress and sandals of white wool. Meanwhile, her relatives were going to a two-day feast to celebrate this event, and it was her duty to serve them at the feast. After that, everyone gave her gifts, and she received a permanent name from her most significant male relative, who gave her a good parting word and ordered her to be obedient and serve her parents to the best of her ability.

Women's names spoke of qualities that were admired and considered appropriate for a woman, so a girl could be named after an object or an abstract quality - such as Oklio (pure) or Corey (gold). An unusual name was given to one Koya, who was called Mama Runto ("runto" means "egg"), because she had a more delicate constitution than most Andean women, and such a comparison was considered an exquisite figure of speech. The boys received names and nicknames that spoke about character traits or denoting animals: Yupanki (revered), Amaru (dragon), Poma (cougar), Kusi (happy), Titu (generous).

The boys took part in a male-age ceremony called huarachico when they were about 14 years old, give or take a year. It was one of the most traditional Inca rituals, held annually for the sons of aristocratic families in Cusco. Although the most significant ceremony, in which the rules were especially carefully observed, took place precisely in Cusco, at the same time, in the capitals of the provinces, under the guidance of the Inca governors, rites of entry into age were held for the sons of the local nobility. A similar rite of growing up was held among the commoners - it was celebrated with a simpler festival, at which the boys were given their first loincloths made by their mothers.

In the chronicles, reports of these ritual actions are intertwined with stories about the great festival of Capac Raymi, which was held in the same month (in our opinion, in December), when the provinces sent their tribute to the emperor in Cuzco. The two detailed reports, from Garcilaso and from Cobo, differ greatly, so that it is almost impossible to make a coherent whole from them. In short, the Kobo account describes elaborate ceremonies, sacrifices, rituals, and dances, while sports, athletics, and war games play a very minor role. On the other hand, Garcilaso's account goes into great detail about the trials of endurance: a long-distance run from Huanakauri to Cuzco, a comic battle in a fortress above the city, wrestling, jumping, throwing, and marksmanship contests. According to Garcilaso, the boys were tested as guardians, for resistance to pain, and for courage; in addition, they had to demonstrate that they could, if necessary, make their own weapons and usut sandals. However, Garcilaso's account may be colored by his own experiences in the Huarachico as a mestizo (half-breed), as the Spaniards tried to reorient Native American rites away from their underlying underlying religious meaning. In this case, it is possible that Kobo's report is more reliable.

The main rituals of Huarachico coincided with the celebration of Capac Raimi, but preparations for Huarachico began long before that. Women weaved special clothes for their sons: tight shirts of fine vicuña wool and tight white cloaks, pulled together around the neck with a drawstring from which a red tassel hung. Meanwhile, the candidates were gathering at the Wanakauri shrine, located about six and a half kilometers from Cuzco, where they made sacrifices to an idol, asking permission to enter the aristocratic class. The priests gave each boy a sling, and with the blood of the lama sacrificed, they drew a line on his face. The boys would then collect the ichu grass for their parents to sit on. After returning to Cusco, everyone began to prepare for the upcoming celebration, preparing a huge amount of chichi ahead of time.

On the first day of the month, noble people presented their sons to the Sun, their ancestor, in the temple of the Sun. The boys were dressed in the same outfits specially made at home, and so were their relatives. Then they all went to Wanakauri, leading the sacred white lama. The next morning, before returning to Cusco, new sacrifices were made and rites were performed at the Wanakauri shrine. On the way back, a curious ritual was played out: parents with slings spurred the boys on the legs. After arriving in Cusco, sacrifices were made to idols and mummies of ancestors in the central square.

After several days of respite, during which the boys probably fasted, families again gathered in the central square, this time for greater solemnity in the presence of the Sapa Inca, and finally the rituals took place, ending with the acceptance of the boys into the aristocratic class. Boys and girls who were supposed to participate in the celebrations were given outfits from the storehouses of the Sun by the High Priest. The boys' attire consisted of a red-and-white striped shirt and a white cape, which was tied with a blue lace with a red tassel; they also wore special sandals woven from ichu grass by their male relatives for the occasion. Then everyone went to Huanakauri, to the Anahuarque hill, where, after regular sacrifices, the Incas danced a special taki dance. This was followed by a ritual run. The boys, encouraged by their relatives, ran a distance of about a thousand meters down a dangerous slope. At the finish line, at the foot of the runners, girls with chicha cups met.

Then, after returning to Cuzco, they went to the hills of Sabaraur and Yavir, where they again made sacrifices and danced. Here the Sapa Inca gave the boys symbols of maturity - a loincloth and golden ear pendants. After the next performance of the dance, everyone returned to Cuzco, and the ritual of whipping the boys on the legs was repeated again in order to honor the gods. After all these many ceremonies, the young aristocrats went to take a bath in the spring of Calipuchio, located behind the fortress of Cuzco, where they took off the clothes they wore during the ceremony and put on another one called nanakla, painted black and yellow colors. Finally, upon their return to Cusco's central square, Huacapata, their families gave them gifts, which included weapons given to them by their "godfathers", and the boys were instructed on how to behave in order to conform to adult status and were punished to be brave, be loyal to the emperor and honor the gods.

After the rite of entry into age, the sons and daughters continued to live at home and help their parents until they themselves married and started their own. own house. Although the Sapa Inca, the Inca aristocracy and the Kurakas had many or at least several wives, a main wife and junior wives (concubines), very few commoners had the opportunity to acquire more than one wife.

The head wife was not necessarily the first woman taken as a wife. She could only be the one whose marriage was legalized by the corresponding ceremony under the guidance of officials, and then the wedding took place in the house. However, the rest of the wives could only be obtained as a gift from the emperor or high-ranking officials. Although in the past, before the period of the empire, consanguineous marriages were forbidden, this custom was changed for the aristocracy, and most Inca men chose their main wife among relatives. Only marriages with direct ancestors and direct descendants of any tribe were forbidden to anyone and everyone. Sapa Inca was the only one who was allowed to marry his own sister, but men of imperial blood could marry relatives in the fourth generation, so there were many children of imperial blood. Men from the highest aristocracy were granted the privilege of marrying their half-sisters (but not half-sisters). However, commoners from the provinces could be sentenced to death for marrying a fourth-degree relative, although they were required to marry within their ailyu (local kinship group, community). Traditional marriages within such kinship groups may have involved the exchange of sisters between two men. Girls usually got married between the ages of 16 and 20, while young people married a little later, usually at 25.

The heir to the throne married his sister only after completing the formalities regarding his succession. A description of such a marriage is found in Pachacuti Yamca, who says that Huayna Capac left the house of his grandfather (Pachacuti), along with his Council and apokuraka, and the highest government officials from Colyasuyu; his sister Mama Kushirimai came out of her father's palace (Topa Yupanqui) accompanied by all the aukikonas and the chief apokurakas from Chinchasuyu, Kontisuyu and Antisuyu. Both processions moved towards the temple of the Sun, and at that time the city was guarded by 50 thousand soldiers. Mama Kushirimai was carried in her father's palanquin, Huayna Capac in his grandfather's palanquin, and they entered the temple through different doors. The high priest combined them in a legal marriage, and then, according to custom, a feast and dances followed.

Other young couples throughout the empire first had to get "legal permission" to marry in a brief ceremony, probably somewhat reminiscent of our registration at the civil registry office. This ceremony was held once a year, and its inauguration took place in Cuzco, where Sapa Inca ordered all girls of marriageable age and young men belonging to his family to gather in the main square. To unite the couple by law, Sapa Inca took both by the hand, joined hands and handed over the young to their parents. The next day, appointed officials married the sons and daughters of other residents of the city, conducting this ceremony separately for Hanan and Urin Kuzco. In all other villages of the empire, it was carried out by local kuraks, unu kuraka, in the presence of a representative of the Inca authorities. Then weddings were celebrated, to which the closest relatives were invited.

After that, the groom, accompanied by his parents, paid a visit to the bride's family to pick her up from there. Arriving at the house, he confirmed his choice by putting a sandal on her right foot - if she was a girl, the sandal was woven from white wool, if not, from itchu grass - and took the bride by the hand. Then relatives on both sides took her to the newlywed's house. Arriving there, the girl presented her young husband with a beautiful woolen shirt, lautto, and flat metal decoration which he was wearing. The new couple's parents then remained until dusk instructing the children in their marital duties: the bride's parents instructed her how she should serve her husband, while the groom's parents instructed him how he should treat his wife. The celebration of this event, that is, a feast with drinking, was held in a circle of guests, the number of which varied depending on the economic condition of the families.

The newlyweds started life together in a house specially built for them, and with household utensils received as gifts from relatives, each of whom brought one gift. If it was about noble people, the construction of the house was carried out as mita - public labor service of Indians from the provinces. Commoners also received gifts from relatives, but the house for them was built by the local community of the area to which their parents belonged. One of the main reasons for the restriction to allow marriages only within a local group was that marriages within a group of 10–100 families made it easier to structure the population.

Family wedding ceremonies that took place after the generally accepted official betrothal, in different areas empires differed according to local traditions. For example, in Collao, the groom brought with him a small bag of coca leaves to present to his mother-in-law, and after the gift was accepted, the marriage was considered concluded. In other places, the groom offered to work for four or five days for his bride's parents, preparing for them firewood for the hearth and Ichu grass. Trial marriages were also common in some areas, with the couple living under the same roof. Leaving for a partner without the permission of the father was not approved, but the law allowed this, provided that both parties were from the same village and the desire to marry was mutual.

There was a significant difference between the position of a lawful wife and junior wives or concubines. The latter had to obey the main wife, as well as serve her. While the main wife remained inviolably in her married status until her death, concubines could be easily disposed of.

Sapa Inca usually chose his concubines from among the girls of imperial blood. Sun virgins of imperial blood, trained in Cuzco until they were initiated, could become concubines or wives of the Incas or the Inca himself, but by no means the wives (main or not) of ordinary people who did not descend from the Sun. Illegitimate daughters were seen as having lost this imaginary divinity, and hence nothing prevented them from being given as wives to high-ranking kuraks.

The Sapa Inca also gave away women - as wives or concubines - from among the Aklyas, who were brought to Cuzco once a year. When taxes were collected from all over the empire, the Inca divided the acleys brought to Cuzco by the provincial Apupanacas into three categories. Those who were destined to become wives and concubines were then distributed among the nobility, the Incas and the Kuraks. The future social status of the girl depended on whether the man to whom she was to be given already had a main wife. If she was, then the girl became the junior wife, and she was sent to her husband without further ado, but if she was given as a wife to an unmarried person, she could acquire the status of the main wife, and then it was celebrated official ceremony even if he was a widower. After the death of the main wife, it was strictly forbidden for a man to take one of the younger wives in her place. Instead, he appointed one of the younger wives to be the head of the family until he married another main wife. This law was introduced to prevent jealousy and rivalry of ambitions between junior wives who are thinking of taking the place of the main one. It was also forbidden to take close relatives as junior wives.

One of the duties of a junior wife in a large family of a high-ranking man is to serve as a nanny to a legitimate son. In this case, she was "given" to her son, and she was obliged to bathe the boy and look after him until he reached puberty, when her role changed and she became his partner in bed, initiating him into the world of sexual pleasures. When the young man finally married, this woman stayed with him. After the death of his father, the son also inherited that of the father's younger wives who did not bear children to him.

A somewhat similar practice existed with regard to orphans, when they were given to childless widows. The widow raised the boy, and when he passed the rite of reaching puberty, she initiated him into the secrets of sex.

The young man remained with her until he married; then it was his duty to support her as a younger wife until he had paid everything he owed her. Otherwise, she was inherited by her husband's brother - it was difficult for a widow to remarry.

Although it was only in rare cases that a commoner could acquire a second wife, sometimes they could be purchased at military service when a man was allowed to take possession of a woman he captured - but, apparently, only if she did not have a legal husband.

The life of a grown man

After marriage, the young man was considered finally an adult and began to play a more responsible role in the structure of the empire. If he was an Inca or the son of a Kurak, he could be appointed to an official position in some administrative branch, or he could go to serve in the army. Or live at court, or, if his family owned lands, live off the income from them. He started life married man, having some advantages, since, as a representative of the elite, he did not have to pay taxes.

As soon as a commoner got married, he was automatically entered into the list of taxpayers. This was done not only because he acquired the status of an adult, but also because, upon marriage, he became a householder and received a small plot of communal land to cultivate in order to meet the needs of the family. He was given a whole year to settle in a new status and start family life, before making demands, but then these demands were made a lot. He was supposed to help in agricultural work on the lands of the Sun and the emperor, as well as on the lands of the local kuraki. He could also be required to participate in any public building or other imperial work, and was required to serve a total of approximately five years (somewhere between 25 and 50 years) in one of the tax-paid imperial services ( mita): in the army, in the social labor force or in the mines. The only way a commoner could improve his lot was to surpass his comrades in the army: through excellent service, he could gain the approval of his superiors and earn a reward or even increase his status. In such a case, the reward could be the right to wear certain insignia or to acquire certain luxury items in your home. Raising the status is not so clearly defined: he could become a local chief and get up to 50 taxpayers under his command, or, under exceptional circumstances, take another wife, or receive a gift of land free of taxes. However last option, was probably only real for the Incas and Kuracs, who, as a rule, were exempted from taxes anyway.

Sometimes the government placed certain additional requirements on the homeowner. A male child under the age of 10 years old could be selected for the sacrifice. Such sacrifices were relatively rare, and the claim could only refer to the father of several children. The father also had to give his daughter if the apupanaka chose her for the aqlya. Refusal was not allowed under any circumstances, unless he could prove that she had already been corrupted, but this entailed a charge of a felony.

In their home, men were required to make their own shoes for their family members, a craft that some chroniclers mention as one of the indispensable conditions for those who undergo initiation into men. The Incas and Kuracas had servants who made sandals for them, but even they sometimes deigned to make their own shoes or weapons. Most chroniclers mention tribes in Ecuador where women worked in the fields and men were busy at home, but this was not part of the customs of the Incas: such a strange local practice could reflect the fact that in some territories after the Inca conquest or as a result of the civil war , the Spanish conquest and the plague brought by the Europeans, too few men survived.

The Andeans were not particularly concerned about whether their women would retain their virginity before marriage, they were much more interested in such practical qualities of a companion as hard work, diligence and caring, which were tested during a trial period of several months before obtaining a marriage license. Not all marriages were successful, but the husband was obliged to financially provide for his wife. If she fell ill, the priest used to order her husband to fast; if she was dying, this could create difficulties in trying to remarry, as he could be suspected of being the cause of her death. If a man drove out his lawful wife, he was obliged to take her back; if he then again tried to get rid of her, public punishment awaited him.

A saying attributed to Inca Pachacuti outlines the attitude of the Incas towards adultery: "Adulterers who destroy the good name and dignity of others and rob them of peace and happiness should be considered thieves, and therefore they should be sentenced to death without delay." How this law was enforced depended on who the perpetrators were. Adultery committed between a commoner and a woman of a noble family was considered a very serious crime - both were executed (see Fig. 23). Adultery between residents of different provinces was punished by torture, while committed between residents of the same locality was considered less serious; but even so, there was a law that said that a husband who killed his wife for adultery was exempt from punishment. To ensure that this law would not give an advantage in other circumstances, it was added that if he killed her in a rage to get rid of her, he was guilty of death.

Rice. 23. Punishments (according to Poma): The sorcerer's family is clubbed to death for taking a life; hanging by the hair was supposed as a punishment for seducing aklya; for adultery were sentenced to stoning

Other laws relating to crimes against the person were generally similar to our laws today, but some of the punishments were more severe. Rape was punishable by throwing a heavy stone on a man's shoulders for the first time a crime had been committed, and a death sentence for a second time. Robbers were usually sent to the hot regions of the Andes, where they worked on coca plantations. Premeditated murder was punishable by execution if the survivor was the instigator of the quarrel that led to the murder. If the quarrel was started by the murdered, the accused remained free, and the choice of punishment was left to the discretion of the judge. Wounding or inflicting bodily harm to another person was punished arbitrarily - but the one who crippled another in a fight, making him disabled, was obliged to support him with products from his site, and in addition, he was subjected to a certain punishment.

If he did not have land, the injured were kept at the expense of the pantries of the Inca, and the culprit was subjected to a more severe punishment. Destruction of public property—for example, setting fire to a bridge, vault, or other structure—was a serious crime punishable by death. Disobedience and lies were also punished, and the worst offenders faced the death penalty (for the third manifestation of disobedience or for the second case of perjury). Likewise, for showing disrespect to the emperor or government, the offender deserved imprisonment. Bribery was a serious crime, for which an official could lose his place, and under aggravating circumstances, even pay with his head.

There were also laws concerning travelers. Citizens had no right to leave the province without the special permission of their kuraqi. Mitima (immigrant), who was leaving his new house, was tortured, and for the second attempt - the death penalty. Liberty in clothing and decals was regarded as one of the most serious crimes; it was decisively suppressed throughout the empire. But the puritanical inclinations of the Incas were fully manifested in the way in which homosexuality and other perversions were punished. In these cases, they acted with exceptional cruelty: not only the perpetrators themselves, but also their family members were executed, and their houses were burned, as if they wanted to disinfect the entire territory from the infection of such behavior. Other crimes for which the whole family was punished were treason and murder by witchcraft (see figure 23).

Life of an adult woman

Women of any age and social status were theoretically free from paying taxes. It was assumed that they should help their husbands to the best of their ability to carry out any tasks assigned to them (which, of course, varied depending on the rank of the husband). The husband, in turn, was obliged to take care of the interests of his wife and ensure that she was provided with everything necessary and could fulfill his requirements.

The wife of a commoner shared his duties as a subject - she, along with her children, helped him to carry out public agricultural work. Each family was required to hand over to the government once a year one piece of clothing, woven from wool provided for this purpose by the emperor - in most cases it was the wife who did this work. If necessary, women carried heavy luggage behind their husbands, and also performed his main household duties, if the husband was absent, working on public works (mita). At the same time, the community was obliged to cultivate the family land allotment.

Authorized inspectors saw to it that the women kept their dwellings in a tidy condition, observed hygiene in the preparation of food, provided their families with clothing, and brought up their children properly. They also made sure that girls obeyed their mothers or nannies and took care of household chores. Inca and Kurac women also had to take care of their household. The head wife had official duties and tasks reminiscent of those in which the wives of famous people are engaged in our society. But she also had the responsibility for impeccable housekeeping - for the quality of food, the amount of chicha prepared, for cleanliness in the house and for receiving guests.

Rice. 24. It was possible to spin while walking. The loom, mounted on a belt across the back, was hung on a peg or pole, and the necessary tension for weaving was maintained by leaning back

In addition to looking after the household, married women throughout the empire performed other tasks for the needs of their families, such as spinning and weaving (see Fig. 24). Even Inca women were always busy with such things: communicating with each other, they at the same time did not part with spinning wheels and spindles. Garcilaso claims that only commoners were engaged in spinning and twisting the thread during walks, and the servants who carried her spinning wheel and yarn accompanied the pali. At a party during the conversation, both the guests and the hostess of the house were engaged in this work. If the wife of kuraka came to visit the palya of imperial blood, she did not bring her work with her, but after the exchange of the first phrases she had to offer her services, and as a token of favor, the palya had to give her something to do for one of her daughters, so as not to put her on the same level as the servants. Courtesy in response to humility!

Many women of imperial blood led a chaste life, taking vows of celibacy and living in seclusion in their homes. Garcilaso says that such women were called Oklio(clean) and that they visited their families only special occasions or when someone gets sick. Such women, some of whom were widows, were deeply revered for their chastity and piety. Since Garcilaso wrote after the aclahuasi were banned, these women after the Spanish conquest may have included the former aquila and mamacuna.

The other extreme were prostitutes. Outcasts, they lived in tiny huts, standing in an open area outside the villages and cities. called them pam-pairuna, which means "a woman living in an open field". The Incas tolerated their existence because they considered them a necessary evil. But any woman who was caught chatting with one of them risked the same universal contempt, being cut in public, and besides, she could be abandoned by her husband.

From the point of view of our enlightened age, the role of women in the court of the Inca may seem rather limited, since married women no occupation was available, and their sexual freedom was severely restricted. The wives (concubines) of the emperor were kept under strict guard and supervision by gatekeepers to ensure that they remained pure and faithful. Death - that's the price the concubine and her partner would pay for treason if they were caught together. The early Inca rulers were not so severe in punishing cases involving young courtiers, and are said to have turned a blind eye to what Topa Inca defined as "young blood is playing," but Huayna Capac respected this point. the law is as inexorable as in any other case.

An extremely cruel punishment awaited the woman who killed her husband: she was sentenced to death - hanging by the legs in a public place. Otherwise, the laws were the same for both sexes.

Old people and cripples

The Inca government made sure that adults were always busy with business; the policy was that it's better to invent a job if there isn't one than to let people dissolve when they have free time. Old age was officially considered to occur when an adult can no longer withstand the full workload, and this usually happened somewhere after fifty years.

As soon as a person was defined as an "old man", he stopped paying taxes and could receive an allowance from the Inca pantries, like the sick or disabled, while at the same time performing less labor-intensive tasks. Chunka Kamayok reports that the duty to meet the needs of the elderly and infirm people was assigned to their superiors, and in turn, the old people were expected to do something useful: collect brushwood, for example, or itchu grass, or catch lice, which they should have been presented to the headman. In addition, the old people helped their families by doing some housework from time to time, looking after the children and teaching them.

The crippled and handicapped were also given appropriate work. On the coast, the blind were engaged in picking seeds and other impurities from cotton, and in the mountainous regions they were cleaning corn cobs from leaves. The deaf-mutes were not exempt from compulsory work on account of the tax, but the sick were exempt for as long as their illness lasted, as were those who received physical injuries. The crippled, mutilated and sick were supplied with food and clothing, like the elderly, from the pantries of the emperor Inca. They also had special laws and regulations. The law concerning people born with physical defects required that people with the same types of deformity marry among themselves: the blind married the blind, the deaf-mutes the deaf-mutes, dwarfs dwarfs, etc.

In essence, it all looks like under the Inca regime everyone had their own place, everyone's needs were provided for, and everyone received a livelihood as long as he did his best work, so that no one was begging.

Already in 1560, Garcilaso notes that he saw only one Indian woman who begged for alms, and that the Indians despised her for this and spat on the ground in front of her as a sign of contempt - so she begged for alms exclusively from the Spaniards. Kobo's later observations about the treatment of the elderly and infirm suggest that the collapse of the Inca economic system caused serious damage to the old and crippled, material and moral - they were no longer shown any kindness or compassion. He says that when old and sick people were given food, they simply put it next to them, and if they were too weak to eat on their own, no one cared to help them.

Diseases and treatment

J. Rove believes that, according to the Incas, "all diseases had a supernatural cause and could be healed with the help of religious and magical means." However, physiology demanded that, along with purely magical, herbal medicines should also be used. Although healing was an important part of the Inca religion, the recorded sayings of Inca Pachacuti indicate that the Incas were interested in the beneficial properties of plants and were well aware of them: “A doctor or herbalist who is ignorant of the good properties of herbs, or who knows the power of some, but does not seek to know the power of all, knows little or knows nothing. He must work until he knows them all, both useful and harmful, in order to deserve the title to which he claims.

In at least some areas of the empire, there were tribes that were well versed in the healing properties of local plants, and members of one of these tribes, collauana, were required to serve as doctors among the Incas. The secrets of healing were carefully guarded, preserved in the family circle, and healers were called humpi kamayok -"medical specialist" It is likely that most of the inhabitants used herbs to treat some simple ailments, but turned to other forces for help if the treatment was not successful or if the disease turned out to be more serious. Although many of the prevalent European diseases, such as smallpox, measles, or scarlet fever, were not known in the New World before the arrival of the Spanish conquerors, other widespread local diseases existed there, such as syphilis, verruga And uta. Verruga affects both humans and animals, and its symptoms are an abundance of warts, fever, and sometimes bleeding. Uta is a skin disease, a type of leprosy, that mainly affects the face.

Medicinal drugs were made from individual plants, and very rarely herbal preparations were made from several.

Fresh wounds were washed with a decoction of the bark of the molle tree. Chilika - bush leaves - relieved pain in the joints and sprains, if they were steamed in a clay pot and applied to a sore spot. Sarsaparilla grew along the shores of the Gulf of Guayaquil, it was used as an anesthetic and to relieve syphilitic inflammations, and a decoction of its roots served as an effective laxative.

Laxatives and bloodletting were the two most common treatments for all kinds of minor ailments. An obsidian lancet was used for bloodletting, and as a rule, people endured the bleeding while standing, while the vein was opened near the place where the pain was felt, or, if it was necessary to alleviate the headache, on the bridge of the nose between the eyebrows. The laxative was used as a remedy for "heaviness and lethargy", and its effect could be increased if it was necessary to get rid of worms. Cleansing with an enema tube was also used as an enema.

Urine was kept in the house for the treatment of various minor ailments, in particular for bathing an infant who had a fever, or even as a medicinal potion. The teeth were cleaned with molle branches, and the gums were treated by burning these branches, then they were split and placed on the gums - “by scalding them, they burned the meat, and the scabs peeled off the gums, and fresh, very red and healthy flesh showed from under them.” Mateklu was considered excellent remedy for the eyes and could be eaten raw. It was also crushed and juice was poured over the sore eye, and the crushed grass was applied as a plaster on the eyelid and fixed with a bandage. tobacco, or sairi, if you inhale its powder, it helped to clarify the mind, and mixed with saltpeter, it affected the stones in the liver, and if you drink it, stirring it in hot water He cured urinary retention.

And today, for the treatment of minor ailments, the Indians still use all kinds of herbs and leaves. In addition to acting as a stimulant or pain reliever in the form of cocaine, coca leaves stop diarrhea and their juice dries out ulcers. Quinoa leaves reduce swelling of the larynx, and yucca (cassava) leaves, boiled in salt water, are applied to the joints to relieve rheumatic pains. Animal fats and herbs are used for massage.

Many healings were performed due to superstitions. Sick children were allowed to suck on their umbilical cord, which was specially preserved for this purpose; in this way the pain was “sucked out” from the body, evil spirits and foreign bodies were expelled, and the body was cleansed.

Seriously ill called for local healers, camasca or sonkyok, plant-savvy old men who could pretend to have supernatural powers through some kind of epiphany, or pretend to be cured of an illness with unusual speed. They tried to heal with words, magical actions and potions. This could both affect the body with benefit, and turn out to be not only useless, but also harmful.

Sacrifices played an important role in healing. The sick person performed the sacrifice on his own with the help of the priests, and if this did not bring results, a kamask or sonkoyok was called, who first sacrificed to the spirit of his insight, and then tried to unravel the cause of the disease. When it was assumed that the ailment was caused by neglect of religion, black and white maize flour and ground seashells, and the mixture was put into the hand of the patient, who had to repeat certain words, blowing the powder towards the idols. Then he brought some coca as a gift to the Sun and scattered particles of gold and silver for Viracocha, the Creator. Diseases that were supposedly caused by a lack of attention to the ancestors were counteracted by bringing food and chicha to the grave of the ancestor or placing them in the house in front of objects that belonged to the deceased.

Purification treatment, which consisted of washing the patient with water and white maize flour at the confluence of two rivers, was prescribed only if the patient could get there - otherwise he was washed at home.

A man of nobility, or of some wealth, who was believed to be suffering from some kind of internal disorder, was subjected to special treatment. This took place in a small room in which the healer had previously performed a rite of purification using black corn flour, burning a pinch, and then repeating the procedure with white corn flour. Next, the patient was placed in this room and intoxicated with drugs or suggestion. Then the healer opened for him abdominal cavity with an obsidian knife, pretending to pull out snakes, toads and other creatures. Sometimes, if a person was very sick and nothing else helped, he was even ready to sacrifice one of his young children in an attempt to win the favor of the spirits.

When a bone was broken or dislocated, it was required to make a sacrifice at the place where the damage was received, since it was believed that local spirits were to blame. However, battle wounds, such as a pierced skull, required the services of an experienced surgeon. In such cases, a craniotomy operation could be performed, but such operations were also performed for religious reasons. Apparently, in the vicinity of Cuzco, such operations were carried out in two ways, traces of the use of which were found on skulls found during excavations of cemeteries. One method was to drill along an oval line a succession of overlapping holes, each about half a centimeter in diameter. The second method is sawing two parallel pairs of lines that intersect at approximately a right angle. Before the operation, the patient, of course, was drugged. That such operations were often successful is confirmed by the found skulls, which show signs of healing after performing several extensive operations.

Healers, doctors, surgeons and sorcerers were rewarded for their work: they received clothes, food, gold and silver or lamas.

But the sorcerers who practiced black magic were feared by the Incas and other Andean tribes, mainly because they were well versed in poisons. They acted by suggestion, using human teeth, hair and nails, as well as figurines, amulets, shells, parts of various animals and toads. in a special way prepared preparations were placed at specific points with the aim of causing the "enemy" as much anxiety and suffering as possible, in the hope of making him sick or destroying his crops. In addition, figurines resembling the victim were maliciously mutilated. However, since the sorcerer found responsible for the death of a person was executed along with all his descendants, they probably acted with some caution. Wizards also made love potions.

The Incas took the prevention of diseases very seriously and even developed a special ritual called kitua, whose purpose was to expel disease and evil from Cuzco. The Kitua festival was celebrated at the end of August or in September, because at this time of the year the rains began, causing many diseases. Before the start of the celebrations, all foreigners were evicted from Cuzco. In the center of the city, 100 warriors lined up in a square facing each of the four quarters. The festival began when the high priest of the Sun left the temple of the Sun. All those present greeted him with cries of "Away with the evil!". Then the warriors rushed to run in the direction of the quarter where they were facing until they met with other warriors who were waiting for them outside the city to change. These others, not from Cuzco, carried the message to the new warriors, and so on, until the evil was finally thrown into the river.

The death of a man or woman often drew more attention to him or her than they had received in a lifetime, especially if it involved a commoner. The period of mourning lasted long enough - if a noble person died, then a whole year. Relatives dressed in black, and women cut off their hair, put a cover over their heads and smeared their faces with black paint. Fires were not kindled in the houses until the mourning ceremonies, which lasted from five to eight days, were completed. Relatives present at the funeral were offered food and drink, while mourners performed a slow dance accompanied by cloth-wrapped drums. Following the funeral of a significant person (see Fig. 25), pilgrimages began to places associated with him, and people sang songs listing his exploits. A year after death, the period of mourning ended with a ritual kullu uakani.

Rice. 25. The burial rite of a noble Inca

Although there was no belief in the transmigration of souls as such, nevertheless there was an expectation that life would continue somewhere in the other world and that virtuous people would live with the Sun in the upper world. Hanak-paka, while sinners will live underground, suffering from cold and hunger. This could not prevent the spirits of the deceased from remaining in contact with their descendants who took care of their bodies. The burial place was a kind of room for the body of the deceased, in which he or she stayed in sitting position wrapped in their best clothes and mats or sewn into the skin. Items buried with the body included pottery, baskets, jewelry, food, and tools appropriate to the deceased's craft. Fishermen were put in the grave with fishing rods, warriors with weapons. The rest of the property was burned or used for pilgrimage.

Some tombs became family burial sites. Noble Incas and Kuraks could also be accompanied to the grave by their beloved wives and servants, as happened in the case when the emperor died.

calendar rites

The ceremonial calendar of Cuzco evolved into a state cycle of ceremonies and festivities, the most important of which were:

Inti Raimi, the festival of the Sun, took place in June, at the moment winter solstice. On the hills around Cuzco, numerous sacrifices were made in honor of the Sun. These included children who were buried alive with silver and gold vessels, powdered sea shells, and llamas. This was followed by a solemn feast at the expense of the Sun, and everyone participated in a dance in the public square.

Chaua-uarkiz, Chakra Rikuichik, or Chakra Kona (Plowing Month), was celebrated in July when sacrifices were made to the huaca, which dominates the irrigation system of the valley.
Yapakis, Chakra Ayapui, or Kapak Sikis (month of sowing), - August, when sacrifices were made to all uaks. After maize grains were solemnly sown in the field of Mama Uaki, sacrifices were made to Frost, Air, Water and the Sun.

Ritual sowing of maize was held in August

Koya Raimi and Kitua (Moon Festival) were celebrated in September at the vernal equinox, and Poma reports that this was the month in which women were most happy. The Kitua festival began at the moment of the appearance of the new moon. Men were engaged in cleansing the city from diseases. After the disease was driven away, everyone washed and, as a sign of purification, smeared their faces and door lintels with maize porridge. This was followed by several days of feasting and dancing, after which four lamas were sacrificed and their lungs examined, looking for omens. On this occasion, all the subordinate tribes brought their huaca to Huacapata, recognizing the power of the Inca.

K "antaray, or Uma Raimi, was held in the month corresponding to October, during which the crops were carefully protected. If necessary, special ceremonies and sacrifices were held to increase rainfall.

Ayamarca, corresponding to November, was the month during which the Feast of the Dead was held. The dead were taken out for public viewing, special ceremonies were performed and sacrifices and food were offered to them.

Kapak Raymi (the greatest festival) coincided with the December solstice, when the rites of the huarachico (age ritual for boys) were performed, after which products belonging to the emperor and religion were brought from the provinces to Cuzco; this was followed by a great feast and sacrifices of gold, silver, and babies.

Kamai quila: during the January new moon, the huarachico ritual continued; the participants fasted, performed rites of repentance, a funny battle took place in the main square, and then dances and sacrifices followed. At the full moon, additional dances and sacrifices were added to all this. Six days later, all of last year's victims were burned and thrown into the river to be carried away to Viracocha.

Hatun-pukui (great ripening) was held in the month corresponding to February. At the new moon, sacrificial gold and silver were presented first to the Sun, then to the Moon and other deities. "Twenty guinea pigs and 20 bundles of firewood were donated to the Sun for the harvest."
Pacha-puchui (maturation of the Earth) was held in the month corresponding to March, the month of the autumnal equinox. At this time, fasting was observed, and under the new moon they looked after ripening crops and sacrificed black llamas.

Airiua, or Kamai Inca Raimi, the April festival, was dedicated to the Inca and took place under the auspices of the Sun. A ceremony was held in honor of the emblem of the emperor, which was carried by members of his family, singing hymns to the sacred lama. It was a completely white animal, dressed in the same way as the members of the procession, which took part in many ceremonies, symbolizing the first lama on earth.

Aymorai kilya, or Khatun Kuski (great Cultivation), was celebrated in the month corresponding to May. The holidays of this month were held in honor of the harvest of maize and its storage. Lamas were sacrificed to the sun and uakam, and then feasts followed, at which in in large numbers ate chicha. At the same time, many local holidays and rituals were held. The boys, who had passed the rite of passage, harvested the crops from the field of Mama Uaki.

family rituals

The Incas had many family rituals, customs, and traditions associated with the human life cycle.

Before a child was to be born, the mother was required to confess and pray for an easy birth, while the husband was required to fast during the birth. On the fourth day after the birth, the child was placed in a kirau - a cradle to which he was tied, and his relatives were invited from everywhere so that they could look at him and drink chichi. The child was given a name later, in a special ceremony called rutuchiko, which means "cutting hair." It was carried out when the child was weaned, that is, at the age of one to two years. The names given to children in rutuchiko were used only until the children reached puberty. During this period, most of the children were constantly close to their parents and learned by imitating them and helping to carry out everyday duties.

Kiara - cradle

Older children help their parents: look after animals, collect fuel for the hearth, hunt birds

In my opinion, the rituals associated with the achievement of puberty are the most interesting among the Incas - coming of age rituals.
Age entry rituals existed separately for girls and boys and were called kikochiko and uarachiko, respectively.

There was no official collective ceremony for girls, with the possible exception of the participation of daughters of noble families in the huarachiko rite for boys. The kikochiko ritual was an intra-family event and was celebrated when the girl had her first menstruation. During preparation, she stayed at home, fasting for three days while her mother wove her a new outfit. She appeared on the fourth day, cleanly washed, with braided hair, dressed in a beautiful new dress and sandals of white wool. Meanwhile, her relatives were going to a two-day feast to celebrate this event, and it was her duty to serve them at the feast. After that, everyone gave her gifts, and she received a permanent name from her most significant male relative, who gave her a good parting word and ordered her to be obedient and serve her parents to the best of her ability.

Women's names spoke of qualities that were admired and considered appropriate for a woman, so a girl could be named after an object or an abstract quality - such as Oklio (pure) or Corey (gold). The boys received names and nicknames that spoke about character traits or denoting animals: Yupanki (revered), Amaru (dragon), Poma (cougar), Kusi (happy), Titu (generous).

The boys took part in a male-age ceremony called huarachico when they were about 14 years old, give or take a year. The main rituals of Huarachico coincided with the celebration of Capac Raimi, but preparations for Huarachico began long before that. Women weaved special clothes for their sons: tight shirts of fine vicuña wool and tight white cloaks, pulled together around the neck with a drawstring from which a red tassel hung. Meanwhile, the candidates were gathering at the Wanakauri shrine, located about six and a half kilometers from Cuzco, where they made sacrifices to an idol, asking permission to enter the aristocratic class. The priests gave each boy a sling, and with the blood of the lama sacrificed, they drew a line on his face. The boys would then collect the ichu grass for their parents to sit on. After returning to Cusco, everyone began to prepare for the upcoming celebration, preparing a huge amount of chichi ahead of time.

On the first day of the month, noble people presented their sons to the Sun, their ancestor, in the temple of the Sun. The boys were dressed in the same outfits specially made at home, and so were their relatives. Then they all went to Wanakauri, leading the sacred white lama. The next morning, before returning to Cusco, new sacrifices were made and rites were performed at the Wanakauri shrine. On the way back, a curious ritual was played out: parents with slings spurred the boys on the legs. After arriving in Cusco, sacrifices were made to idols and mummies of ancestors in the central square.

After several days of respite, during which the boys probably fasted, families again gathered in the central square, this time for greater solemnity in the presence of the Sapa Inca, and finally the rituals took place, ending with the acceptance of the boys into the aristocratic class. Boys and girls who were supposed to participate in the celebrations were given outfits from the storehouses of the Sun by the High Priest. The boys' attire consisted of a red-and-white striped shirt and a white cape, which was tied with a blue lace with a red tassel; they also wore special sandals woven from ichu grass by their male relatives for the occasion. Then everyone went to Huanakauri, to the Anahuarque hill, where, after regular sacrifices, the Incas danced a special taki dance. This was followed by a ritual run. The boys, encouraged by their relatives, ran a distance of about a thousand meters down a dangerous slope. At the finish line, at the foot of the runners, girls with chicha cups met.

Then, after returning to Cuzco, they went to the hills of Sabaraur and Yavir, where they again made sacrifices and danced. Here the Sapa Inca gave the boys symbols of maturity - a loincloth and golden ear pendants. After the next performance of the dance, everyone returned to Cuzco, and the ritual of whipping the boys on the legs was repeated again in order to honor the gods. After all these many ceremonies, the young aristocrats went to take a bath in the spring of Calipuchio, located behind the fortress of Cuzco, where they took off the clothes they wore during the ceremony and put on another, called nanakla, painted in black and yellow. Finally, upon their return to Cusco's central square, Huacapata, their families gave them gifts, which included weapons given to them by their "godfathers", and the boys were instructed on how to behave in order to conform to adult status and were punished to be brave, be loyal to the emperor and honor the gods.

Previous articles in the series.

In 1567, the Spanish colonial official and chronicler Juan Polo de Ondegardo y Zarate, who worked in Peru, Bolivia and Argentina, compiled a memo for missionaries who were to live among the Indians of Latin America - "Instructions for combating the ceremonies and rites used by the Indians since the time of their atheism”, where he described the beliefs and customs of the inhabitants of the New World known to him. Arzamas publishes fragments of this composition.

What do the Indians worship?

Almost all Indians tend to worship wak Waki is a common name for holy places., idols, gorges, rocks or huge stones, hills, mountain tops, springs, springs and, finally, any thing in nature that seems remarkable and different from the rest. They also tend to worship the sun, moon, stars, morning and evening dawn, the Pleiades and other stars. Also to the dead or their graves - both ancestors and Indians who have already become Christians. The Highlanders especially worship thunder and lightning, the Indians of the Plains revere the heavenly rainbow. They worship any stone shards where our people find leftover stones, coca, maize, ropes, scraps of cloth and other things. In some places of the plains, all this can still be found a lot. Yoongi Yoongi- the inhabitants of the valleys of the Pacific coast or the inhabitants of the valleys in the Andes. or other Indians living in the mountains also worship lions, tigers, bears and snakes.

Peruvian holiday of the sun god. Engraving by Bernard Picard from the series "Religious rites and customs of all peoples of the world." 1723-1743 Bibliothèque nationale de France

How Indians Worship

When they worship the vakas, they usually bow their heads, raise their palms and talk to them, asking for what they desire.

It is customary when crossing rivers or streams to drink from them in the form of a greeting, worshiping them and asking them to let them cross safely and not carry away the traveler.

It is the custom of the highlanders, when they walk along the road, to throw at the crossroads, on the hills, or on piles of stones, or in caves, or on ancient graves, old shoes, feathers, chewed coca or maize, asking that they be allowed safely pass and saved them from road fatigue. It is their custom to sacrifice their eyelashes or eyebrow hair to the sun, hills, winds, storms, thunder, rocks, ravines, caves, or other things, as a token of their respect, asking that they be allowed to go on and return in peace.

Plains Indians usually worship the sea by throwing maize flour or other things into it, so that it will give them fish or not rage.

It is also the custom of those who go to the mines to worship the hills and mines, asking them to give them their metal, and for such an occasion they stay awake at night, drinking drinks and dancing.

At harvest time, when they spot potatoes, corncobs, or other roots of a different shape, they usually worship them and perform their special ceremonies of worship, drinking and dancing, considering such an omen.

It is their custom to offer eyelashes or eyebrow hair as a sacrifice to the sun, hills, winds, storms, thunders, ravines, or other things as a token of their reverence.

Among the Indians, it is common to worship fertile land by pouring chicha on it. Chicha- a low-alcohol drink obtained by fermenting various plants through saliva. or koku so that she bestows her favors on them. And for the same purpose, when plowing the land, preparing it for fallow and sowing, harvesting, building a house, butchering cattle, they usually sacrifice animal fat, burning it, coke, lambs and other things, drinking and dancing. For the same purpose, they usually fast and abstain from meat, salt, pepper, and other things. They also consider it important that pregnant women or those who are menstruating do not go through the sown fields.

When, due to lack of rain, the year is rendered fruitless, or due to excessive rainfall, or ice, or hail, one asks for help from the Vak, the sun, the moon, and the stars, shedding tears and sacrificing fat, coca, and the like. And for the same purpose they usually confess to the sorcerer, fast, and order their wife, or children, or servants to fast and shed tears.

The Incas make a sacrifice to the sun god. Engraving by Bernard Picard from the series "Religious rites and customs of all peoples of the world." 1723-1743 Bibliothèque nationale de France

In some places it is customary to sacrifice to the waqs, or hills, or thunder and lightning, some person or child, killing him and shedding blood, or performing other ceremonies. Also, they usually sacrifice their own blood or the blood of another person to appease the idols with this sacrifice. The sacrifice of children or people, however, was for matters of great importance, such as a severe plague, pestilence, or other great hardships.

Rituals for the Dead

It is common among the Indians to secretly dig up the dead from churches or cemeteries to bury them in wacas, on hills, or in ancient tombs, or in one's own house, or in the house of the deceased himself, to give them food and drink in right time. And then they drink, dance and sing, gathering their relatives and friends for this.

Also, sorcerers usually extract teeth from the dead or cut off their hair and nails in order to perform various witchcraft.

It is also the custom of the Indians, when they bury their dead, to put silver in their mouths, in their hands, in their wombs, or in some other place, and dress them in new clothes, so that all this will serve them in another life and in the sad songs that they sing. above them.

Funeral honors among the Peruvians. Engraving by Bernard Picard from the series "Religious rites and customs of all peoples of the world." 1723-1743 Bibliothèque nationale de France

It is also their custom to feed and drink a lot during the funeral of their dead, singing a sad and sad song, spending this and other ceremonies during the funeral, lasting even up to eight days. And it is customary for them to arrange anniversaries with food, chicha, silver, clothing and other things to sacrifice or perform other ancient rituals, as discreetly as possible.

They also believe that the souls of the dead walk idle and alone in this world, suffering from hunger, thirst, heat and fatigue, and that the heads of their dead or their ghosts visit their relatives or other persons as a sign that they must die or to them. some evil must come.

About sorcerers and sorceresses

It is common to have recourse to sorcerers to cure diseases, and sorcerers usually cure by sucking fluids from the entrails, or by smearing them with tallow, meat, or kuya or toad fat, or other muds, or with the help of herbs. In the same way, they resort to the help of sorcerers, so that they predict what will happen to them, and discover for them what they have lost, or what has been stolen from them, and so that they entrust them to the protection of the Vak. For all this, they always give the sorcerers clothes, silver, food, and the like.

They also resort to their services in order to confess their sins and fulfill the very strict penances that they impose: worship, sacrifice to vakam, fasting or bringing a gift of silver or clothing, or the execution of other punishments.

They also resort to the help of sorcerers so that they give them the means to achieve some woman, or to inspire love in her, or so that their mistress does not leave them. To achieve this, they usually give them clothes, capes, coca, a tuft of their own hair, or hairs, or from the hair or attire of an accomplice in the ceremony, and sometimes their own blood, so that from these things they perform their sorceries.

In some places they are seized with the disease of dancing, for the cure of which they call sorcerers or go to them and perform thousands of superstitious rites and sorceries.

In many places it is common to carry or put to bed
to an accomplice witchcraft talismans, or amulets of the devil, called wakanki, to woo women or inspire them with love. These wakankas are made from bird feathers or various other items, according to the invention of each province. Women also break their large pins or spikes with which they fasten their capes, believing that this will prevent a man from using violence to take possession of them.

In some places they are seized with the disease of dancing, which they call Taki-onko or Sara-onko, for the cure of which they call sorcerers or go to them and perform thousands of superstitious rites and sorceries, where idolatry is also found, and confession with sorcerers, and others. various ceremonies.

They also burn fat, coca, tobacco, sea shells, and other things to see what's coming; in some places they build their fences on the ground and utter special words known for this, by which they invoke the devil, and speak with him in some dark place, and in the end they perform many other superstitious rites for this.

About predictions and omens

Usually, when the Indians see snakes, spiders, large worms, toads, butterflies, they say that this is a bad omen, that trouble should happen because of this, and they trample the snakes with their left foot so that the evil omen does not come true.

Peruvians during a lunar eclipse. Engraving by Bernard Picard from the series "Religious rites and customs of all peoples of the world." 1723-1743 Bibliothèque nationale de France

When they hear the singing of owls, eagle owls, vultures, chickens or other unusual birds, or the howling of dogs, they consider this an evil omen and a prediction of death for themselves, or for their children, or for their neighbors, and especially for the one in whose house and the place they sing or howl. And they usually donate koku or other things to them, asking them to kill or harm their enemies, but not them. Also, when they hear the singing of a nightingale or a goldfinch, they say that they will have to quarrel with someone, or that something bad is about to happen.

When they hear the singing of owls, owls, vultures, chickens, they consider this an unkind omen and a prediction of death.

When there is an eclipse of the sun or moon, or some comet appears, or a radiance in the air, they usually scream and cry and order others to scream and cry, to make dogs bark or howl, and for this they are beaten with sticks. They usually surround their houses during the night processions with sheaves of fire, so that no evil happens to them. They also consider it a bad omen when they see a heavenly rainbow. But more often they consider her a good sign, they worship her and do not dare to look at her, and if they see her, they do not dare to point a finger at her, believing that they will die. And the place where, as it seems to them, the base of the rainbow falls, they consider terrible and frightening, believing that there is some kind of waka or other thing worthy of horror and reverence.

In case of misfortune

When women give birth, their husbands and even they themselves fast and confess to the sorcerer, worship the vakas or hills so that the newborn is born safely. If twins are born from the same womb, they say that one of the children is the son of lightning, and sacrifice him to thunder.

Feast of the first haircut of a child among the Incas. Engraving by Bernard Picard from the series "Religious rites and customs of all peoples of the world." 1723-1743 Bibliothèque nationale de France

It is the custom of the Indians in the plains, when they are sick, to lay out their clothes on the roads, so that travelers may carry away their sickness, or that the winds may cleanse their clothes.

It is also their custom, when they are sick or healthy, to go to bathe in rivers or springs, observing certain ceremonies, believing that by doing so the souls are cleansed of sins and that they are carried away by the waters, and take hay or a kind of feather grass and spit on it or commit other rituals, talking about their sins there before the sorcerer, accompanying this with thousands of ceremonies, and they believe that in this way they will become pure and cleansed from sins or from their diseases. Others usually burn the very clothes in which they committed sins, believing that the fire will destroy them and they will become clean and innocent and unburdened.

If twins are born from the same womb, they say that one of the children is the son of lightning, and sacrifice him to thunder

When their eyelids or lips tremble, or there is noise in their ears, or any part of their body trembles, or they stumble, they say that they will see or hear something good or bad: good if it was the right eye, or ear, or foot, and bad if left.

In the fire, when it bursts out and sparks form, they throw maize or chicha to calm it down.

In order to send sickness on the one they hate, they carry his clothes and outfits and put them on some statue that they make on behalf of that person, and curse her, spit on her and execute her by hanging. In the same way figurines are made of clay, or wax, or dough, and put into the fire to destroy the wax, or to harden the clay, believing that in this way they will be avenged or hurt the one they hate.

Of the delusions of the Indians against the Catholic faith

Sometimes they say about God that he is unkind, and that he does not care for the poor, and that they serve him in vain. That he is not a merciful and compassionate God. That there is no forgiveness for serious sins. That God created them to live in sin, especially for dishonorable deeds of voluptuousness and drunkenness, and that they cannot be good. That things are done by the will of the sun, moon, vak. And that God does not foresee the works here below.

That, since Christians have images and they worship them, it is possible to worship vakas, idols and stones. And that the images are the idols of Christians. That what the clergymen and preachers preach is not wholly true, that many things are praised by them to frighten the Indians. And that it is equally reasonable to believe in one's ancestors and one's kip Kipu- knot letter., and memorabilia. That it is quite possible to worship Jesus Christ, Our Lord, and the devil at the same time, because both of them have already agreed and fraternized.

They say that it is quite possible to worship Jesus Christ and the devil at the same time, because they both have already agreed and fraternized

They challenge and complicate some of the works of faith. Especially in the sacrament of the Most Holy Trinity, in the unity of God, and in the passion and death of Jesus Christ, in the virginity of the Virgin Mary, in the most holy sacrament of the altar, in the generally accepted resurrection and with regard to the sacrament of the unction of the dead - since before death they were not communed and they had no information about it. information, they have no faith that it was a sacrament.

Peruvian marriage. Engraving by Bernard Picard from the series "Religious rites and customs of all peoples of the world." 1723-1743 Bibliothèque nationale de France

They say that marriages can be dissolved, even if they were legal and accomplished; and therefore, on any occasion, they ask that their marriage be annulled. It is said that the sin of a bachelor and an unmarried woman who for some time came together illegally by probation in order to get married is not so bad and that it is not a sin, since they do it for the service of God.

That the priest is evil, wild, greedy, dishonorable, or that he has other shameless sins, that he is not destined for mass and is not worthy of the sacraments that he presides over, and that he should not worship the host and chalice that rise on the altar.

The chroniclers had very little interest in the daily life of the inhabitants of Tauantpinsuyu, which they sometimes depicted as filled with work alone and regulated down to its most intimate aspects (like the choice of a spouse) by representatives of the state. Much scattered information refutes this gloomy and harsh panorama, which some monumental works on the Incas, however, continue to develop and support. It seems that the Incas had enough holidays and entertainments, and all of them were inextricably linked with the fulfillment collective work and religious ceremonies. The iconography of all periods of the history of ancient Peru is replete with images of musicians, instruments and dancers, and historical sources emphasize the importance of music, singing and dance in the everyday life of the Andean peoples of the 16th and 17th centuries. Various aspects of private life, especially family life, education and sexual behavior, unfortunately, are still little studied, just as the Inca kinship system has not become the object of serious research.

Names

Throughout their lives, the Incas and their subordinate peoples have repeatedly changed their names.

At birth, the child received the first name, often due to some event that happened at that moment (for example, the words spoken by his father or mother, or even the appearance of a bird). He changed his name on the occasion of the first transitional ritual of life - "hair cutting" - which was celebrated when he was one or two years old. The second name change took place during the rite of passage into adulthood, at the age of 14-15. These names, as a rule, consisted of two words, the first of which was an indication or definition to the second: Sulka Uaman "Junior Hawk", Chuki Lyantu "Shadow of the Spear" (wife of Huascar). These components, it seems, were sometimes borrowed from the heritage of the names of famous ancestors and often denoted some powerful animal: puma (cougar), condor (contour), snake (amaru), hawk (waman), etc., since the ancestors-ancestors, in the view of the Incas, in order to defeat enemies, were able to turn into animals.

Celebration in the Province of Contisuio (according to Felipe Guaman Pome, 1615)

Some of the components of Inca names are not explained in Quechua; most likely, they owe their origin to the language belonging to one or another ethnic group: Yupanki (Inca Yupanki; Tupac Yupanki) - "Brilliant", Roca (Inca Roca) or Maita (Maita Capac) - "Powerful". In the 16th century, the Incas considered the term yupanqui as a kind of honorary title; in relation to women, the term ocllo (“pure”) was used in a similar way, which is part of many female names, for example, the wife and sister of Manco Capac, Mama Oklio - “Mothers of Occlio”. Those of the names of the Inca rulers that lend themselves to interpretation hint at some real characterization of the one who wears them: Ljoque Yupanqui - "Yupanki Left-Handed", Atahualpa - "Fortunate in War", Tupac Amaru - "Brilliant Serpent", Ashau Rimachi - "The one who makes Uda-chu speak." It seems that the rulers received a new name immediately after accession to the throne, like Inca Yupan-qui, who wanted to be considered the founder of the empire, and ordered himself to be called Pachacuti - "Return of the Age", or Tupac Cusi Hualpa - "Happy and Brilliant", - who became Huayna Capac - "Young Master". In the same way, the names by which certain persons were known do not seem to have been received by them in adolescence, but, like a surname, speak of some characteristic trait already acquired in mature years: Rumiñavi "Stone Eye" was Atahualpa's ruthless general; Atuk "Fox" - General Huascara, probably very cunning; Uturunku Achachi "Old Jaguar" - the commander of Tupac Yupanqui, who conquered the Amazon region and killed the jaguar there. Some were known by the name of their place of birth: Kivar Tu-pak, "the Brilliant of Kivar", son of Tupac Inca, was probably born in Kivar, near Cuzco; Huanca Auqui, "Master of the Huanca," Huascar's general, was the son of Huayn Capac and a woman from the Huanca tribe.

The terms that make up the names of women often indicate elements related to the female sphere: Kuri Ilpay "Women's Bosom", wife of Inka Roki; Kusi Rimay "Word of Happiness", wife and sister of Wayne Capac; Chimpu Urma "(Felled from the sky) Particle of (Lunar?) Radiance", wife of Inka Rocky \ Kispi Sisa "Clear Flower", daughter of Wayne Ka-paka and cohabitant of Francisco Pizarro. Like men, women are sometimes named after their place of birth: Mama Runtukayan, "Mother Runtukayan", wife of Inca Viracocha, was from the village of the same name, and Mama Anavarka, "Mother Anavarka", wife of Pachacuti, was born on the heights of Anavarka, near Cusco.

Life cycle

For the Incas, the most significant moments of life were the first haircut, dedication to adulthood, marriage and death. These transitions were accompanied by important rites. Birth, on the other hand, did not give rise to any special ceremony, probably due to the high mortality rate of newborn children, so that the transition from the category of “baby” to the category of “child” was considered a real entry into life, approximately at the age of two. This transition was accompanied by the ceremony of the first "hair cutting" (rutuchikuy). On this occasion, parents and their friends got together to drink and dance. Each cut off a lock of the child's hair, which was carefully preserved throughout his life.

First haircut (according to Garcilaso, 1609)

They stopped breastfeeding after two or more years and cut off the first hair with which they were born and which had not been touched before. Then they were given their own name, which they were supposed to have, for which all relatives gathered, from which one godfather of the child was selected, and he cut off the first tuft of hair. Stone knives served as scissors, since the Indians had not yet managed to invent scissors. Behind godfather others went according to their rank, age or dignity, to cut off their tuft of hair from the weaned; having finished the haircut, they gave him a name and handed over their gifts that they had brought; some - clothes, others - cattle, others - various types of weapons, others gave him gold or silver jugs for drinking, and these gifts had to have signs of royal distinction, which ordinary people were allowed to use only on personal privilege. gee from the Incas.

As soon as the offerings ended, the celebration of drinking began, for without it there was no good holiday. They sang and danced until night, and this rejoicing lasted two, three or four days, or even more, depending on the relationship of the child.

Already from childhood, a person, to one degree or another, participated in economic activities: girls helped their mothers cook and weave, while boys protected livestock from predators. The most complex and confusing rite was the transition of a girl or young man to adulthood, which gave them the right to start a family. The ritual, which was performed by boys of fourteen or fifteen years old, was called by the Incas huarachikuy (“loincloth”). This ceremony was held in December, at the time of the summer solstice, and it consisted of several trials, which were intended to test the ability of young men to become warriors. After several days of fasting, they had to run across the Cuzco Valley, then engage in battle with another of the same group, and in a serious battle - often after such battles they carried away the wounded, and sometimes the dead. At the end of a series of military exercises, the young men had their ears pierced to insert thick rings traditional for the Incas, then they were given loincloths that testified to their freshly acquired male status gave them new names, and the elders made speeches. The equivalent ritual for girls, kikuchikui ("(first) menstruation"), was less elaborate. After several days of abstaining from food, the girl was visited by relatives, to whom she served food and drinks. On this occasion, she was given an adult name, new clothes and other gifts, after which she was also showered with instructions.

Marriage is a key moment in life: after it, everyone receives all their rights and obligations. By creating a family, that is, a new economic unit, the community member fully accepted the guilt in favor of the master. Men got married at the age of 20-25, girls got married between 16 and 20 years. A new cell of society was considered to be finally created after the construction of the house. Marriages took place inside their own lyakta, and possibly even their own ailya, and the newlyweds settled not far from their parents' house young man. Among the elites, polygamy and marriages with representatives of other peoples were the rule, very common, since they made it possible to strengthen political alliances.

Marriages of commoners (according to Garcilaso, 1609)

At the marriages of commoners, the councils of each village were obliged to build houses for their newlyweds, and relatives provided them with a dowry. They were not allowed to marry either between the inhabitants of one and the other provinces, or between the inhabitants of one village with another; they all married in their villages and within their relatives (like the tribes of the Israelites), so as not to mix the clan and not to mix the peoples one with another. The only exceptions were sisters, and all residents of one village and even one province were considered relatives (like bees from one hive), since they belonged to the same people and spoke the same language. They were also forbidden to move to live from one province to another, or from one village to another, or from one city quarter to another, so that the decuria [community of ten households], which were made up of residents of each village and quarter would not get mixed up, and also because the houses were built by the councils, and they did not have to build them more than once, and this was done in the same block or in the neighborhood with their relatives.

About the concepts related to the birth and upbringing of a person, we know almost nothing. In any case, life seems to have been viewed by the Incas not as a path that has its beginning and end, but as a kind of becoming with blurred boundaries, consisting of successive life periods, perhaps like an agricultural year, which also does not had no beginning and no end. Death was seen by the Incas as a continuation of life. The bodies of the dead were placed in a sitting position in rocky shelters or in burial towers, where, protected from rain, contact with the ground and blown by the winds, they dried out without decomposing at all. They were dressed in the best clothes, placed next to them dishes, weapons and working tools (spindles, fishing nets, etc.), so that they could also engage in the activities necessary for their existence in the afterlife. For five days after the death, the soul of the deceased (supai) continued to wander in those places that she used to visit during his life. Then she "departed" to the place of origin of the community (pakarina), where she led a second life. The bodies of the dead, however, continued to receive offerings of food and drink from the living from time to time.

It was extremely important for the caciques and the state, which were periodically engaged in the mobilization of labor among the population, to register people by age categories according to their physical condition and role in production. Those were categories not purely administrative, but the corresponding organizations of labor, moreover, such as it was determined by the peasants themselves.

Age classification

	nursing child		nursing child
	child (3-7 years old)		child (3-7 years old)
	girl, not yet		boy not yet
	having reached that		having reached that
	age when		age when
	you can create		you can create
	family (8-13 years old)		family (8-15 years old)
	unmarried		single guy,
	girl, but		but already reached
	having reached that		that age
	age when		when possible
	you can create		to start a family
pukuska married

dwelling

As a rule, the Incas did not destroy the dwellings of the conquered peoples - they continue to live in the same villages as before. On the hills, these villages were located in places unsuitable for plowing, on the edge of a hill or on steep spurs, descending steeply into the valleys. Fortified from the "reachable" side, these eagles' nests were clearly visible from their own kind, several kilometers away, which allowed their inhabitants to always be on the alert and protect their territory. Some villages—there are not many of them—looked like real cities, with up to 10,000 inhabitants, but most of them still numbered only a few hundred. Sometimes such villages had a small area, but they were never built according to any plan, and there were no differences between the houses in terms of style or architectural quality. Around the living areas, along the inner perimeter of the fortress walls, there were pens for animals and grain barns, most often in the amount of 20 to 50 units.

At higher elevations, people's dwellings consisted of patios bounded by stone walls, inside which were one or more circular buildings, from three to six meters in internal diameter. One of these buildings served as a kitchen, others as rooms, and still others as warehouses.

The walls, depending on the region, were built of uncut stone or raw brick and even clods of earth, the roofs were covered with thatch.

The caciques had more spacious dwellings, where they received their subjects during the rainy season. The small size of the family houses of the majority of the population is explained by the climate: during the day, throughout the year, it was warm and sunny, which allowed everyone to be mostly in the yard; according to some observations, during the day, small houses without windows absorbed the sun's rays and kept them all night. In the courtyard in front of the house, the crops were sorted out and dried in the sun. Here they sewed and wove. Dwellings ordinary people, built within the framework of the city-planning programs of the state, differed from traditional houses in their rectangular shape, which copied the shape of the prestigious Inca buildings.

On the coast, most of the people built houses from wicker reeds, while representatives of the nobility lived in adobe buildings.

At Kolyasuyu, the mummies of the dead were kept in funerary towers, incorrectly called chulpa by archaeologists (this term, which means "withered, dried up", is actually a modern designation for the withered bodies located there) and built on the model of houses. Round or square, made of stone or adobe, these towers, however, were much higher than the dwellings of living people, and went up to the sky, in the form of a cylinder or a parallel-piped. Some of them happened to reach 12 meters in height. Even those that followed Inca architectural forms and were rectangular had a circular internal structure with a false vault.

Due to the rarity of trees both in the Andes and on the coast, the tradition of furnishing houses with furniture among the ancient Peruvians did not develop at all. All their simple utensils - pots, earthenware jugs, mugs, plates and cups - were displayed in a row on the ground or in niches arranged in the walls, or hung from beams covering the roof. Food was stored in large jugs inside the house or in barns outside. In some areas, the hearth consisted of only a few stones. It was located in the middle of the dwelling, at least a meter from the wall. In other places, they used terracotta hearths leaning against the wall. Smoke escaped through holes made in the roof. This hearth was, as a rule, double, since, in order to save such rare firewood, two pots were often set to heat up at once at the same time. Where cattle breeding was developed, firewood successfully replaced the dried manure of llamas or alpacas. In order to eat, the Incas descended to the ground, placing in front of them (sometimes on a piece of cloth) ceramic, wooden or bottle gourd plates and bowls. The women ate, sitting with their backs to the men and looking at the hearth. The upper classes of society also ate on the ground, but from luxurious ceramics and even from gold and silver utensils placed on expensive fabrics. The kitchen was inhabited by guinea pigs, who fed on cleanings and created dwellings in the recesses of the walls. Ordinary people, as a rule, slept on a blanket spread directly on the ground. Some high-status houses had a platform that served as a bed for the whole family, with cotton mattresses and woolen blankets. The furnishing of the royal residences was practically limited to tablecloths, courts, mattresses and bedspreads. The only form of seating, tiyapa, was reserved for persons of the highest rank. It was a low, slightly concave chair carved from a single piece of wood, often in the shape of some animal.

Food, drink and coca

The Incas were not famous for such culinary traditions as other royal and imperial elites were at that time. At the feasts, little was eaten and much was drunk, due to the fact that maize beer was an extremely nutritious drink. The daily diet of the majority of the population was vegetarian. The food was either boiled in a pot or fried over a fire. The many plants grown in the Andean region made it possible to prepare many soups and stews seasoned with pepper, aromatic herbs, and sometimes meat. Like modern Andean peasants, the inhabitants of 7auantinsuyu limited themselves to two meals a day; the first, most dense, occurred around eight o'clock in the morning, the second - at four or five o'clock in the afternoon. In the middle of the day, the Incas, as a rule, were in the field or in the pasture, where they were supported by a light snack, consisting of potatoes and / or boiled or fried maize.

In the mountains, the basis of nutrition was potatoes, many variations of which have a wide variety of tastes and textures. Like today, it was processed, as a rule, in two ways, after which it received a completely different taste: chuno (frozen potatoes) is a product that is obtained by drying potatoes for three days, in the sun during the day and in the cold at night . Then the tubers are crushed with their feet in order to eliminate the remaining moisture; Moraya is also obtained by keeping potatoes for three days in the cold, after which it is lowered into the waters of some river, where it is left to dry out in the sun for three weeks. These processes allow potatoes to be stored for at least five years and are equally applicable to other root crops (for example, to oka, from which kaya is extracted), even to maize (from which chuchuk is obtained). Without such an opportunity to store food for a long time, it would be simply impossible to live in a puna, where frosts in just one night can destroy the entire annual crop.

Unlike the inhabitants of the coast, who consumed maize in large quantities, those of the Incas who lived in the mountainous regions ate corn only as an additional product, boiled or fried, or, during the holidays, in the form of brioches. However, with the rise of the Inca Empire, maize consumption seems to have begun to increase. Meat (dried - llamas or alpacas, fried - guinea pigs), the majority of the population ate only on special occasions. The inhabitants of the coast, on the contrary, could always taste fish stew if they wished. The ancient Peruvians never drank milk, did not eat cheese or eggs, even though many animals at their disposal could well supply them with these products.

The Incas preferred to drink not water, but beer, which was made from maize (such beer was called either aha or asua), quinoa, oka, pepper tree, canihua, ceratonia grains, etc. - with a very low alcohol content in everyday life and with much more - on holidays. In order to make maize beer, the grains were kept for several days on wet straw so that they began to sprout. Then these seedlings were slightly dried, crushed and thrown into boiling water. The liquid thus obtained was passed through a sieve, then poured into hermetically sealed vessels, where it was to ferment.

Eating (according to Garcilaso, 1609)

Food was available in the greatest abundance, since it was prepared for all the relatives of the Inca who wanted to eat with him, and for the servants of the royal house, of which there were innumerable. The time of the main meal for the Incas and for all ordinary people was in the morning - from eight to nine; in the evening they supped in the daylight, they ate lightly, and apart from these two times they ate nothing else. As a rule, they were bad eaters; I mean they ate little; in drink they were great sinners; they did not drink during the meal, but retribution came after the meal, for the drink lasted until night. This was the case among the rich, for the poor, who were the common people, were lacking in everything, but not in want.

Coca is a tree grown in warm and humid regions whose leaves contain a stimulant substance similar to caffeine or theine. It was chewed at every opportunity with a dough based on lime or vegetable ash, which made it possible to release the alcohol contained in its leaves.

Coca (according to Blas Valera, 1590-1596)

Coca is a kind of tree the height and thickness of a vine; it has few branches, and on them there are many tender leaves, as wide as thumb and half the length of the same finger, with a pleasant, but slightly faint smell; the Indians and Spaniards call these leaves coca. The Indians like coca so much that they value gold and silver and precious stones below it; it is planted with great attention and care, and with even more - collected; because they take off the leaves themselves with their hands and dry them in the sun, and so the Indians eat them dry, but not swallowing them; they only savor the smell and swallow the juice. The usefulness and strength of coca can be inferred from the fact that the Indians who eat it show more strength and a greater disposition to work; and many times, satisfied with it, they toil all day long without food.

Medicine

The ancient Peruvians attributed illnesses (unkui) to two causes. The first was the penetration of a certain foreign entity into a person, from which superhuman strength emanated. Identification of this essence, "settled" in the body of the patient, allowed the symptoms. Such penetration was usually considered a punishment imposed on the sick person by some deity (usually - huaca) for some misconduct, impiety, negligence committed in relation to this deity or violation of any prohibition by the sick person himself or by someone from his loved ones. The patient was not necessarily aware of the misconduct committed by him or by one of his relatives, so it was the healer's task to recognize him. Once the diagnosis was made, the disease could be expelled in various ways. For example, having "sucked" the pain out of the body, the doctor then presented the patient with some object or stone, supposedly extracted from his body and concretized the disease. Sometimes, in order to “absorb” the disease and free the sick patient from it, they rubbed a live guinea pig. However, not all of these "penetrations" were the result of this or that oversight. Often, the Incas blamed the bodies of the dead for what happened (no matter how long ago those died), which they considered very dangerous and capable of infecting the living with their emanations.

Also, a person could get sick due to the loss of the “soul” (sunku), which was now held in a special place (pacha) by some supernatural force. The healer had to return the "soul" to the patient's body, otherwise inevitable death would have awaited him. Symptoms of soul loss could include depression, unexplained emaciation, fever, nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea, asthenia, or insomnia. Often, one of the ways to establish a diagnosis was fortune-telling: the healer made a conclusion based on the position that the coca leaves took, which he allowed to fall on any piece of tissue.

The psychotherapeutic effectiveness of the above procedures is difficult to assess. The therapy of ancient Peru was based, however, also on an exceptionally rich pharmacopoeia and excellent knowledge of anatomy. Local healers knew a lot of painkillers and hemostatic agents, plant and mineral substances that had a moderate antiseptic property. Apparently, the Incas also had deep surgical knowledge. They practiced craniotomy; removed foreign bodies using bronze tongs; some kind of gauze bandages were applied to the wounds. Like their predecessors, the Incas also knew how to carry out amputations, as evidenced by the discovered wooden prostheses.

Cloth

Most people, in any corner of the Andes, but-were practically the same clothes; the hairstyle and headdress indicated the belonging to one or another tribe in the first place. Simple Incas walk with their heads shaved, while the privileged Incas, like the Indians of the stake, wore very long hair. Women's hairstyles, apparently, were less variable: women combed their long hair into a parting in the middle, and they fell freely. A distinctive part of the Inca hairstyle was a woolen bandage (lyautu), created by repeatedly wrapping around the head and tying braid with braided laces. Some tribes practiced the deformation of the skull: among the Indians of the stake, it was oblong and pointed and was decorated with a cap of the same shape. The Cañari, on the other hand, had a slightly flattened head.

Plain men's clothing It consisted of a loincloth (uara) and a sleeveless tunic (unku), which reached almost to the knees, as well as a rectangular cloak (yacolya), which was worn in cold weather or on ceremonial occasions. Unku was made from cotton on the coast and from wool in the Andes. It has existed since ancient times - the oldest examples of it that have come down to us date back to the middle of the 1st millennium BC. Shoes were the same for both sexes: both men and women wore sandals or moccasins. Women wore a dress (aksu) and a thin cape (lyiklya), which fell from their shoulders and descended to the very ground. The dress was a large rectangular piece of fabric that Inca women wrapped around the body. Around the waist they tied a wide, skillfully made belt (chumpi), which tightened and fastened the dress. In order to fasten the capes, they stabbed them with two disk-shaped brooches (tupu). Such a robe could easily be opened at chest level in order to feed the baby. Another pin (tips), shorter, made it possible to fasten the dress below when it was not tied on the chest with a knot. The hair was tied up with an elegant vincha. Inca women covered their heads with a strip of cloth (nyanyaka), folded three or four times (in length) in such a way that one of its edges was held at the top of the head, and the other hung down on the back. When the sun beat down too mercilessly, the nyanyaka spun, turning into a kind of mantilla. Tunic, cloak and dress, as a rule, were black or chestnut color in the Sierra and whites on the coast, where they were made from cotton. The structure, the direction of the pattern and the neckline in the tunic were vertical in men's attire and horizontal in women's. Thus, clothing visually embodied one of the fundamental aspects of Andean dualism, according to which a man and a woman were a pair of complementary opposites.

Clothing was not made from cut and sewn pieces of fabric, but from completely woven on the loom, including ornament and fringe. The task of the weaver was to produce a finished product, since the clothes could not be tailored. Indeed, based on modern ethnographic data, one can conclude that clothes and even bags and bags were considered by the Incas as living beings, however, like houses and other objects that we would consider inanimate. The list of pieces of clothing seems to confirm this perception: the tunic, for example, consisted of "heart", "mouth", "innards", "buttocks", etc. Ethnologists note that sometimes, even now, in the views of local residents, the bag “is” a toad, a rope is a snake, and a sling is a lizard. Thus, Andean weavers had to have a clear idea of ​​all aspects of the future attire - size, shape, proportion and layout - even before starting work. Even the uiku was made from a single piece of fabric, and the hole for the head was made on loom. In clothing, there was practically no variability in forms. So, the noble Incas could be distinguished from commoners only by the quality of the fabric of their outfits, the first wore ahuasca, the second - kumpi. The inhabitants of Tahuantinsuyu slept fully dressed and did not wash their clothes, but only changed them periodically. Holidays were an opportunity to put on more colorful robes for a while. The Inca never walked around in the same outfit for more than one day, presenting it as a gift to one of his close associates whom he wanted to single out. Jewelry was worn by both sexes. In the ears of the Incas, there were huge, about 5 centimeters in diameter, cylindrical pendants that deformed the lobes of the ears, as a result of which the Spaniards called them nuts - “lop-eared”. Men of a certain rank also wore metal bracelets or discs around their neck or head. The women had nothing in their ears; their ornaments were limited to necklaces and brooches.

Games and entertainment

The entertainment of the subjects of the Incas is almost inextricably linked with economic and ritual life. The main reason for entertainment was joint work, since the one who invited a certain group of people to do some work had to offer them hearty lunch and more maize beer. Work was thus seen not as a punishment, but as a holiday. It was an opportunity to strengthen bonds between members of the same ailu, as alcohol opened hearts and brought people together. In a word, one and the same activity combined economic, social, symbolic and game functions. Dance occupied a large place in the life of the subjects of the Inca: ceremonies by which honors were paid to some deity, ancestor, noble person or Inca, consisted primarily in dancing in front of him to the sounds of all kinds of flutes, drums, bells and bells (string instruments were not known to the Incas), sometimes using very elaborate costumes and masks.

The most popular game in ancient Peru was pichka. It was played with the help of painted stone or wooden cubes in the form of a truncated pyramid, called pichka, “five”.

The smallest side of the dice, on which the cross was drawn, was equal to five points, the other four sides had a value from one to four, depending on the number of parallel stripes on them. Divided into two teams, the players took turns throwing a bone and moving chips (often beans of various colors) on a wooden game board divided into sections, each of which had a value of 10, 20, 30, 40 or 50 points. Scoring was done using maize grains of two different colors. Whenever one of the teams managed to get ahead of the other, those who took the lead exclaimed: "Misayki" - "We overtook your color!" The game continued until one of the participating sides won six times. Often they played for fun, and then guinea pigs, cattle or fabrics were put at stake. In ritual circumstances, the pichka game could also serve as a method of divination. The forces that were invoked on the occasion of the ritual were supposed to act in accordance with how the bone fell, which made it possible, at the end of the session, to establish the relationship that existed at that moment between the invisible forces. This use of pichka took place at critical moments of transition between two periods, such as the beginning of the rainy season or the first days after someone died. In fact, it was the favorite game of the Incas during the five nights that they were to spend at the coffin of the deceased.

Commoners were forbidden to hunt wi-cunias, guanacos and representatives of the deer family without special permission. Approximately every four years, the Inca or its representatives organized a big hunt (chaku), in which the entire village population took part. It was both fun for the nobility, which played a major role in the hunt, and entertainment for the common people who participated in it, as well as a good opportunity to distribute meat among both. Thousands of beaters formed a huge circle several kilometers in diameter and moved towards its center, trying to make as much noise as possible and driving the game in front of them in the direction where the Inca was. As they advanced, the hunters killed cougars, spectacled bears, foxes, and wild cats. Deer, as well as male sires, were released. Other males were slaughtered, and their skins were divided among all participants in the raid. Caught vicunas and guanacos were sheared, after which most of them were also released into the wild; some were killed as needed, and their skins were distributed among the families. The guanaco wool, coarser, was given to the common people, while the soft vicuna wool was intended for the Inca, who then distributed it to those whom he wanted to reward. The meat obtained in this way was dried so that it could be stored for several years, until the next hunt. During such a raid, the ruler appeared before his subjects as the main supplier of meat. It is known that Inca Manco organized a chaca in honor of Francisco Pizarro, leading 10,000 people to hunt, who slaughtered about 11,000 animals.

From the book by Yuri Berezkin "Empire of the Incas" (Moscow: Algorithm, 2014).

The ideological unity of ancient Peru, which was a consequence and at the same time a condition for maintaining the political integrity of the country, found its most striking expression in the ritual of capac hucha - the Great Sacrifice. Once every four years, and also during severe disasters (for example, on the occasion of the internecine war between the supporters of Atahualpa and the adherents of Huascar), children of about ten years of age, devoid of any physical disabilities, were found throughout the country. They could be sent to Cusco from all four suyu empires or from a specific area whose inhabitants urgently needed the support of divine forces. The choice of a candidate also depended on the position of the child's parents and relatives, for participation in kapak hucha ensured the respect of others for several generations to come. Children could be sacrificed at Coricancha or at the out-of-town shrine of Wanakauri, but if the Inca sought to reward the senders of the sacrifice, he would bring it back home, where the ceremony was held.

In the case known to us, the kuraka of the village of Okros near Ayacucho sent his ten-year-old daughter consecrated to the sun to Cuzco. As a reward for the fact that her father organized the construction of an important irrigation canal, the girl was not only received in Cuzco with all sorts of honors, but also sent back. Near her native village, on the top of the mountain, a shaft tomb was arranged, in which the chosen one of the sun was walled up along with vessels and jewelry. A copper tube led to the grave, through which the buried woman was symbolically given water to drink. The sacrificed girl turned into a local deity, who was honored with special ceremonies at the beginning and end of the agricultural season. Her younger brothers and their descendants became the priests of the new oracle, speaking in falsetto on behalf of the buried. The girl's father received a promotion, becoming the head of all neighboring kurak.
The word "sleep", which meant a tube that led from the surface of the earth to the crypt, the reader has already met. This was the name of the elevation in the middle of the square, standing on which the Inca performed rituals. In both cases, we have before us a variant of the image of the cosmic axis, connecting the tiers of the universe and passing through the center of the earth's circle. In many mythologies, an anthropomorphic character sacrificed is also associated with a similar axis.

In the 1950s and 1960s, in the desert mountainous regions on the border of Argentina and Chile, unusual burials were first discovered, apparently associated with the capac hucha ritual. On the top of Mount El Plomo (5430 m above sea level), a frozen corpse of a sitting boy of 8-9 years old was found, and on the peak of El Toro (more than 6300 m) - young men of 15-18 years old. Items and
adornments found next to human remains, rich woolen clothes allow us to confidently date the finds to the time of the Incas. Here, on the mountain peaks, near the graves, there were stone buildings - obviously, sanctuaries. One of them is oriented along the north-south line, and the axis of the other is directed to the point of sunrise corresponding to the day of the December solstice for a given latitude.

The boy, according to doctors, was placed in the grave while still alive in a state of narcotic trance or alcohol intoxication. He climbed to the top himself, freezing his fingertips along the way. As for the young man, he was killed at the last moment with a blow to the back of the head. Both victims were distinguished by the correctness of facial features and the absence of physical defects. Judging by their clothing, these were not indigenous peoples of the southern Andes, but rather Mitmaq, resettled from western Bolivia or southern Peru. No settlements have been found in the valleys adjacent to El Toro and El Plomo. From one of these mountains, the nearest modern village is located 200 km, and the entire surrounding area is not very suitable for economic activity. It is absolutely clear, therefore, that the ceremonies performed on the mountains had not a local, but almost an all-imperial significance. Turned into deities and raised to the highest peaks, the victims, apparently, should have overshadowed all the southern provinces of the state with their grace.

As T. Zoydema showed, in the burial according to the kapak hucha rite, the main Andean symbols are concentrated, reflecting ideas about fertility, life and life-giving first ancestors: a mountain, a pool and a source (a pipe leading to the crypt), a libation of water. But even more important were the political aspects of sacrifice that he revealed, emphasizing the role of Cusco as a regional center. The path of the child intended for sacrifice from the capital went home (as close as possible) in a straight line, often off-road, through rivers and mountains. Such an ideal straight line coincided with one of the seke, that is, with one of those imaginary radial lines that radiated in all directions from Cuzco and connected the main temple of the city with the sanctuaries scattered throughout the country.

Recent archaeological research in different parts of Peru, the study of settlement plans, geoglyphs (giant drawings and lines on the ground), graffiti on the walls of buildings, etc., testify to the wide and ancient distribution of ideas about the world expressed through seke. In such a picture, the center and points on the horizon are marked, to which the divergent rays are directed. Perhaps we are talking about a layer of beliefs common to many South American Indians, because quite similar ideas are found in the northwestern Amazonia, the population of which in the last thousand years has not had any particularly close contacts with the inhabitants of the Central Andes.

In the pre-Inca period, seke systems were local in nature: the “axis of the universe” passed each time through the territory of one or another ethnic group, through each altar in each temple. In the imperial era, local systems were preserved and even arose in new cities founded by the Incas themselves. Altar-usnu-oriented building plots with a radial layout are visible on the plans of Huanuco Pampa, Inca Wasi and other settlements. However, now seke in each locality are beginning to be perceived not only as self-sufficient, independent systems, but also as a reflection of the general imperial system - with its center in Cuzco. During the Great Sacrifice, a symbolic connection between the capital and the provinces was carried out by moving some non-material substance, fruit-bearing power, energy, embodied in the child sacrifice. If we ignore the external attributes of this magnificent and cruel religious act, then we will face the classic principle of the transfer of power on which the building of any empire rests: first from the provinces to the capital, then from the supreme ruler to the local administrator.