In Mexico, the Spanish puppet-Tlatoanis could not hinder the anger of large groups against the heavy forced labor, the social misery and the forced Christianizing. The first major Indian resistance was due to Caxcanes in present Mexican states of Jalisco, Zacatecas and Aguascalientes. In 1540, they resisted the Spaniards slavelike conditions and executions by entrenching…
Tag: Sapa Inca
DESCENDANTS OF TLATOANIS AND SAPA INCAS
The Aztecs had been led by an chosen leader, Tlatoani. Although the Aztec electoral kingdom by no means was democratic, Aztecs knew that the ruler was a human being. As an important ritual, the Tlatoani and other leaders could dress as gods, representing gods in the rituals, but they never claimed to be divine. When…
INCAWORSHIP OF ANCESTORS AND SPLIT INHERITANCE
The people of the Andes knew that a lightning in the sky could spread death just as a crashing tree could do, but they also knew that without rain that followed the lightning and without food growing on the ground, no one could survive. Life and death were connected. It was discovered that seeds could…
PERU: THE WRITING KNOTS LOOSENED?
Perhaps there in the Inca Empire had existed royal kiphus with writings for the specially initiated, a secret wisdom of great royal times before the time of the Incas. Perhaps Valera had developed some writing systems to make the Inca civilization creditable in the eyes of ruling Christian Spaniards. And perhaps the existence of royal…
PERU: TO OLLANTAYTAMBO!
It’s May 13, 1536. Two Inca nobels, who believe there still are opportunities in cooperation with the Spaniards, have provided important information on Saqsaywamans layout, so that the Spaniards can now better plan the siege and their attacks. The war can become asymmetric. The Spaniards are met by stones and arrows from the top of…
PERU: A ROYAL RESCUER
In this chaos, when the Spanish soldiers are facing one days march from Cusco, a young man emerges from an apparent nothingness. I know it may sound like a narrators solution when the action has to speed up. But then: The young man presents himself to Pizarro: I, Manco Inca, is son of Inca Huayna…
PERU: THE CONQUEST SPEEDS UP
A few days after Atahualpa is executed, Pizarro appoints a replacement. A new Inca instead of the dead. Túpac Huallpa is also son of Huayna Cápac, and is half-brother of Atahualpa and Huáscar. With this appointment, Pizarro hopes to satisfy Inca nobles and soldiers, or at least to pacify them. Túpac Huallpa is attempted to…
PERU: ATAHUALPA SENTENCED TO DEATH
The sun is setting on July 26, 1533 while Spanish soldiers led Sapa Inca Atahualpa with iron around the neck into the square where he had been captured eight months earlier. A blast on a trumpet opens the show trial with Pizarro and Almagro as judges, Sancho de Cuellar as clerk and Filipillo as interpreter….
PERU: ATAHUALPA IS BORNE IN
Saturday, November 16, the sun rises on an almost cloudless sky. No one knows when Inca will come, no one can know if he will come and if then how. Chaskis are announcing that he will come armed, and that’s what Pizarro expects, but answers that he would be received by him as a friend…
PERU: THE DEVISION OF THE INCA EMPIRE
If Atahualpa had been his fathers general and governor in the north, then he at the death of the father could try to fight for the position as Sapa Inca. He was sitting in a capital, a new capital, which must have given him legitimacy or the feeling of such one. His power base would…
PERU: WAR OF BROTHERS
Hayna Cápac, the 11th Sapa Inca, followed his predecessors tradition of having many children. At least three or four of his sons were of decisive importance to Inca history, but none of them could foresee the future of the enormous Inca Empire, which was succumbing to its own success, respectively cracking as a result of…
PERU: THE CONTINUED GROWTH OF THE EMPIRE
In 1493, Huayna Cápac, the 11th Sapa Inca, took over the Inca dignity of his father, Túpac Inca Yupanqui. During Huayna Cápac, the number of revolts rose, and the main reason for this is believed to have been the extensions, that Cusco lay so far away that the original reciprocity – Pachacútecs principle of reciprocity,…
MIKAEL WITTE 