Capacocha: Child Sacrifice on the High Andes
The Capacocha (sometimes spelled Qhapaq Hucha, meaning “royal obligation” or “solemn sacrifice”) was the most solemn and elaborate ritual of Inca religion, in which selected children were sacrificed on high mountain peaks to honor the apus (mountain spirits), the sun god Inti, and other deities. The capacocha was performed on major political occasions: the accession of a new ruler, the outbreak of a plague, an imperial victory, or a natural disaster such as a drought or earthquake.
The Spanish chroniclers, including Pedro Cieza de León, Miguel Cabello de Balboa, and Bernabé Cobo, described the capacocha in some detail. The most dramatic account comes from the discovery in 1999 of the frozen mummy of a young Inca girl on the volcano Llullaillaco on the Argentina-Chile border, an event that has transformed the modern study of the ritual.
The Selection of the Victims
The children selected for the capacocha were carefully chosen. They were usually between five and twelve years old, healthy, physically unblemished, and drawn from honored families. The chronicler Garcilaso de la Vega noted that some were selected from the royal panaca and others from the local population. The children were dressed in fine garments, given offerings of chicha and coca leaves, and treated as sacred beings in the months before the sacrifice.
A long procession carried the child to the chosen mountain shrine. The route often followed the Qhapaq Ñan and was marked by feasting and ritual at each tambo along the way. The child would arrive at the summit of the sacred peak in the company of priests, nobles, and an entourage of attendants.
The Sacrifice Itself
On the summit of the chosen peak, the child was given a small amount of chicha before being killed — the chroniclers most often describe a blow to the head, though some accounts mention strangulation or being left to die of exposure. The body was then placed in a stone tomb (a cista) on the summit. Some accounts suggest that the child was placed in a stone tomb (a cista) on the summit, sometimes with offerings of gold and silver figurines and miniature versions of the toki and chakana symbols.
The 1995 discovery on the volcano Ampato in Peru of the mummy of a young girl, named Juanita by the excavators, was followed in 1999 by the discovery of three more children on Llullaillaco. The Llullaillaco children, two girls and a boy, were preserved by the cold and dry air of the summit and provide an extraordinary window into the capacocha ritual. They were dressed in fine llama-wool garments, had elaborate hairstyles, and were accompanied by elaborately crafted gold and silver figurines, miniature weaving implements, and containers of food.
The Meaning of the Ritual
The capacocha was understood as a kind of gift or covenant between the Inca state and the apus, the powerful mountain spirits who controlled weather, fertility, and the success of military campaigns. The child — pure, untainted by the world — was the most precious gift the empire could offer. In return, the apus were expected to provide rain, good harvests, and protection.
The capacocha was also a political act, performed in public to demonstrate the power and reach of the Inca state. A capacocha sacrifice at a remote provincial peak sent a message of imperial unity, since children from different parts of the empire were often required to participate. The ritual reinforced the symbolic order of Tawantinsuyu and reminded every subject of the cosmic importance of the Sapa Inca and the gods.