Sacrifice, Divination and Ritual

Ritual sacrifice and divination were central to Inca religion, and the elaborate ritual calendar of the empire involved the coordinated participation of priests, diviners, the royal family, and the general population. The most common form of sacrifice was the burnt offering of llamas, whose fat and meat were burned on the altars of the huacas, and the bloodless offering of small animals, particularly guinea pigs, whose bodies were examined for divination. The Incas also practiced the sacrifice of llamas, and on the most important occasions, the sacrifice of humans, in a ceremony known as Capacocha. Recent archaeological discoveries on the summits of Andean peaks, including the famous finds at Llullaillaco in northwestern Argentina in 1999, where three child mummies were recovered in remarkable state of preservation, have provided dramatic confirmation of the chroniclers’ accounts. The role of the religious specialist was closely linked to that of the amautas, the intellectuals of Inca society, who were responsible for the preservation of oral tradition, the instruction of the young nobility, and the interpretation of the calendar and the ceque system.

The Spanish chroniclers, most notably Pedro Cieza de León, Garcilaso de la Vega, Bernabé Cobo, and Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa, recorded the substance of Inca ritual practice within decades of the conquest of 1532. Their accounts are supplemented by the archaeological evidence from major Inca sites, including the Coricancha in Cusco, the Island of the Sun in Lake Titicaca, the mountaintop shrine of Vilcacunca, and the many high-altitude Capacocha sites scattered across the Andes. The combination of textual and archaeological sources has allowed modern scholars to reconstruct the principal features of the Inca ritual system, although many details remain uncertain because of the destruction of temples and the loss of oral tradition in the centuries after the conquest.

Capacocha: The Imperial Sacrifice

The Capacocha sacrifice was the most solemn and elaborate of the Inca ritual practices. The ceremony, also written Capac Cocha or Qhapaq Hucha, involved the selection of children, often from villages at high altitude, who were prepared for months before being brought to a high mountain shrine, where they were killed, usually by a blow to the head, and buried with a rich assemblage of offerings. The children were typically selected for their physical perfection, their unblemished character, and their descent from noble families in the local communities, and they were prepared for the sacrifice through a long process of ritual purification, fasting, and ceremonial feasting.

The Capacocha was performed on a number of occasions. The most important was the ceremony at the accession of a new Sapa Inca, when a number of children were brought to the major shrines of the empire and sacrificed in honor of the apus, the sun, and the deceased emperors. The ceremony was also performed at times of crisis, such as the outbreak of plague, the threat of war, or the death of a member of the royal family, and at the dedication of important new buildings. The chroniclers report that, in some cases, as many as several hundred children were sacrificed in a single Capacocha, and the geographic distribution of known Capacocha sites, which are scattered across the Andes at elevations above 5,000 meters, suggests that the practice was a regular feature of the imperial cult. The Spanish chronicler Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa recorded in 1572 that the Capacocha was performed at the accession of the Sapa Inca Tupac Inca Yupanqui in 1471, and the history of the Inca Empire was marked by several such events.

The Llullaillaco Children

The most famous archaeological evidence for the Capacocha is the discovery made in 1999 at the summit of Mount Llullaillaco, a 6,739-meter peak on the border of present-day Argentina and Chile. The American archaeologist Johan Reinhard and his team recovered the bodies of three children, two girls of about thirteen and fifteen, and a boy of about six or seven, who had been sacrificed some five hundred years earlier, probably in the late fifteenth century. The children, who are known as the Llullaillaco maidens and the Llullaillaco boy, were found in small stone structures on the summit of the mountain, and the cold, dry conditions of the site preserved their skin, hair, and clothing in extraordinary detail.

The Llullaillaco children have been the subject of detailed scientific study, including DNA analysis, isotope analysis of diet, and CT scanning. The studies have shown that the children were drawn from different parts of the empire, suggesting that the Capacocha drew on a wide geographic base, and that they were well-fed in the months before their deaths, consistent with the chroniclers’ accounts of ritual feasting. The children were also given coca leaves and chicha to chew in the days before their deaths, as indicated by the presence of these substances in their stomachs. The discovery of the Llullaillaco children is widely regarded as one of the most important archaeological finds in Andean history, and the children are now on display at the Museum of High Altitude Archaeology in Salta, Argentina.

Coca Leaf Divination

The reading of coca leaves for divination was a central religious practice in the Inca world. A ritual specialist, called an umu, would chew coca leaves together with a small amount of llama fat and a few drops of chicha or wine, then blow on the leaves and interpret their distribution when they fell. The position, the color, the size, and the relative orientation of the leaves were all taken as signs, and the umu would pronounce on questions of marriage, harvest, health, war, and the disposition of the huacas. The practice was called qhaway in Quechua, and the umu was a professional religious specialist whose services were sought by the Sapa Inca, the nobility, and the general population.

Coca leaf divination was used in a wide variety of contexts. The chroniclers report that the Sapa Inca would consult the umu before undertaking any major decision, including the launching of military campaigns, the appointment of officials, and the dedication of new buildings. The umu was also consulted on questions of personal fortune, of agricultural operations, and of the proper timing of festivals. The use of coca leaves for divination was not, in the Inca period, associated with the recreational use of the leaf, and the chewing of coca leaves in non-ritual contexts was also common. After the Spanish conquest, the use of coca leaves was suppressed by the colonial authorities, but the practice of coca leaf divination persisted, and the reading of leaves is still practiced in many Andean communities in the early twenty-first century.

Other Forms of Divination

In addition to coca leaf divination, the Incas practiced several other forms of divination. The examination of the entrails of sacrificed llamas and guinea pigs, called ichu or simply “reading the body,” was a common method, in which the position, color, and texture of the internal organs were interpreted as signs. The flight of birds, particularly hawks and condors, was observed, and the patterns of their flight were taken as omens of the future. The sound of mountains and rivers, the appearance of meteors and eclipses, and the content of dreams were all interpreted as messages from the huacas and the ancestors.

The Incas believed that the future was not fixed but was subject to the intervention of the huacas, and the role of the diviner was to discern the likely outcome of a particular course of action and to recommend the appropriate offerings or rituals to secure a favorable result. The work of the diviner was closely tied to that of the priests, and the two professions were often combined. The most important diviners were associated with the major oracles, including the oracle of Pachacamac on the central coast, the oracle of the Island of the Sun in Lake Titicaca, and the oracle of Vilcacunca, the mountaintop shrine above the Sacred Valley.

The Amautas and Inca Education

The amautas were the intellectuals of Inca society, responsible for the preservation of oral tradition, the instruction of the young nobility, the composition of songs and poetry, and the interpretation of the calendar and the ceque system. The word amauta is often translated as “sage” or “philosopher,” and the amautas were the keepers of the historical, scientific, and ritual knowledge of the empire. They were not priests in the strict sense, although many amautas also served in the temples, and they were not diviners, although they provided the knowledge of history, geography, and ritual protocol on which divination depended.

The amautas were responsible for the education of the sons of the nobility, who were sent to Cusco at the age of about fourteen for a period of training that lasted several years. The training included instruction in the Quechua language, in the history of the Inca dynasty, in the calendrical and astronomical knowledge of the empire, in the interpretation of the ceque system, and in the ritual practices of the state cult. The amautas also composed the songs, the poems, and the historical narratives that were performed at the major festivals of the year, and they were responsible for the maintenance of the oral tradition on which Inca historical consciousness depended. The education of the Inca nobility was thus closely tied to the religious calendar and to the state cult, and the amautas were a central institution of the imperial elite.

The Inca Ritual Calendar

The Inca ritual calendar contained a large number of fixed festivals, each dedicated to a particular deity or huaca. The most important of these were the four major festivals of the solar calendar: Capac Raymi, celebrated at the December solstice; Inti Raymi, at the June solstice; and two others associated with the spring and autumn equinoxes. Other major festivals included the festival of the maize harvest, the festival of the dead, and the festival of water. The Spanish conquest of 1532 disrupted the Inca calendar, but many of the major festivals continued to be observed, often in combination with Catholic feasts, and elements of the pre-Hispanic calendar have survived into the present in some rural Andean communities.

The Capac Raymi, celebrated at the December solstice, was the most important of the four major festivals of the solar calendar and was particularly associated with the passage of boys of the elite into adulthood. The festival was held at the time of year when the sun was at its southernmost declination and the rainy season was beginning in the highlands. The ceremony involved the presentation of the sons of the nobility to the Sapa Inca, the performance of military exercises, and the recitation of the deeds of the ancestors. The Inti Raymi, celebrated at the June solstice, was the most important public festival of the year and was the occasion for the gathering of vassals, the presentation of tribute, and the sacrifice of llamas whose blood was offered to the sun. The chronicler Garcilaso de la Vega described the Inti Raymi in detail in his “Comentarios Reales de los Incas” of 1609, and the celebration has been revived in modern Cusco as a major cultural event held each June 24.

The Sacerdotal Class

The Inca priesthood was a large and complex institution. At its head stood the Villac Umu, the chief priest, who was typically a brother or close relative of the Sapa Inca. The Villac Umu had authority over all the temples of the empire and was responsible for the maintenance of the ritual calendar, the performance of the major sacrifices, and the consultation of the major oracles. Below him stood a hierarchy of priests, including the taquioncoc, or “those who weep for the sun,” who lived in seclusion and abstained from marriage and certain foods, and the umu, or diviners, who were responsible for the consultation of coca leaves and the examination of animal entrails.

The priesthood was supplemented by a number of other religious specialists, including the mamaconas, the chosen women who served in the temples, the acllacunas, the women selected for service to the sun, and the pampayacuq, the heralds who announced the festivals. The religious specialists were supported by a substantial economic foundation, including lands, herds, and stores of offerings, and they played a major role in the economic life of the empire. The Spanish chroniclers, particularly Bernabé Cobo in his “Historia del Nuevo Mundo” of 1653, describe the hierarchy of the priesthood in considerable detail, and the structure of the Inca religious system has been reconstructed from these accounts with the help of archaeological and ethnographic evidence.

The Persistence of Ritual Practice

The Inca ritual system was disrupted by the Spanish conquest and the subsequent campaign of evangelization, but many elements of the practice survived. The cult of the apus, the mummification of the dead, the reading of coca leaves, and the offering of chicha, coca, and llama fat to the earth all continued in rural communities, often in combination with Catholic devotion. The Capac Raymi is still celebrated in some Andean communities in modified form, often combined with the Catholic celebration of Christmas, and the Inti Raymi has been revived in modern Cusco as a major cultural event. The practice of the Capacocha, however, was abandoned in the colonial period, and the high-altitude shrines, which had been the destination of the imperial pilgrimage, became deserted.

The persistence of Inca ritual practice into the present has been the subject of a substantial body of scholarly and ethnographic work. The anthropologist Catherine Allen, in her studies of the communities of the Sonqo district in the Cusco region, has documented the persistence of pre-Hispanic ritual practice in combination with Catholic devotion, and the work of the ethnographer Inge Bolin has described the persistence of Inca-style agricultural ritual in the highland communities of Peru. The persistence of the practice of coca leaf divination, the cult of the apus, and the offering to Pachamama suggests that the Inca ritual system, although modified, has not entirely disappeared from the rural Andes.