HILA 2001 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Ayllu, Morality, Ecological Niche
27 Sep 2016
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L5 the inca and the andes before 1492. Why was ancestor worship central to andean religion: the nature of incan deities differs from other mesoamerican/latin american religions. Waka"s (mummies/centrality of ancestor worship: gives them an advantage over their competitors, dead emperors and nobles maintaining their property and power, split inheritance = limits the powers of emperors. Maintains the ethnic of the ruling group: reinforce the power of the nobles and kinship lineages which serve the dead emperors. Historical, ethnographical, archaeological data available for inca + their competitors = relatively sparse. Account #1 from spanish conquistador: spanish admiration for the inca state"s government and state itself, state craft. Whereas, spanish didn"t really care are about aztec"s governance more about their culture, Account #2 from spanish priest: in contrast, speaks negatively of the inca state as oppressive, coercive, etc, ancestor worship to the point where the dead had a split inheritance and still held value post-death.
