An Inquiry Lesson into the Origin Story of the Inca

CLASS-READY LESSON PLAN

Day 1
ENGAGE
10 mins PowerPoint - Talking Points
Have student listen for the answers to the questions on the worksheet title Mini-lesson Notes on the Origin
Story of the Inca. Tell students that this information will be useful in answering the CHQ.
Slide 1: Today we will begin a series of lessons on the Inca Civilization.
Slide 2: The Inca were located in South America, along the Andes Mountains (point to Andes Mountains on
map). The capitol is Cusco and Lake Titicaca. Theyre civilization existed during the time periods of 12001572 AD (Ask follow up question of if this is before or after the Maya. Students should respond after.)
Before moving to slide 3 ask: How we might still know things about the Inca? (Students should respond by
talking about ways we know about the Maya, such as archaeology and hieroglyphs.)
Slide 3: Unlike the Maya, the Inca did not have a system of writing. They did not have hieroglyphs.
After responses reveal to students that we know about the Inca through 3 different ways:
- Spanish conqueror writings
- Native accounts and other information from ethnographic studies of modern groups descended from
the Inca
- Archaeology
Slide 4: Like the Maya the Inca people also have a creation story. We learned from the Maya creation
stories that these stories can teach us about a culture. More specifically, creation stories can teach us that
about what matters to a specific culture. Today we will learn the creation story of the Inca. (You could ask
student what they think this is a picture of. Some students could create hypotheses about the picture.
Some may know that the Inca people had a lot of gold. You can tell them that this is the sun god named
Inti. Tell them that the Inca believes the gold to be the sweat of the sun and silver to be the tears of the
moon. Inti appears in the creation story.)
Slide 5:
There are a few Inca creation stories. The most common story in by El Inca Garcilaso de la Vega.
Garcilasos mother was Inca noblewoman, Princess Palla Chimpu Ocllo and his father Spanish
captain and conquistador, Sebastin Garcilaso de la Vega y Vargas. His mother descended from
Inca nobility. His father was Spanish captain and conquistador
Gmez lived with his mother and her Inca family for the first ten years of his life. His first language
was Quechua and he also learned Spanish from his early years. His father them took him into his
household and gave him some education. At the age of 21, Garcilaso decided to travel to Spain.
Slide 6: Garcilaso was very proud of his Inca ancestors and wrote about them in his book The Royal
Commentaries of the Inca and General History of Peru. He record stories he learned from his Inca family
and one of them was the Inca creation story.

POSE CENTRAL HISTORICAL QUESTION

5 mins
Present the following CHQ.
Central Historical Question: Can we trust the Inca creation story as told by Garcilaso de la Vega?
If students need clarification: I am not asking if the creation story is actually true - for example, in the Maya
people were made from write and yellow corn. This is impossible and we will see impossible things happen
in the Inca story also. What I am asking is if we can trust that Garcilaso is retelling the story with complete
accuracy. Is it the origin story of the Inca or did he make up some parts?
Have students brainstorm hypothesis. State: Given what we know about Garcilaso de la Vega do you
think we can trust his version of the Inca creation story? Before moving on to the first round have each
student individually write down the hypothesis they think will most likely be supported by the evidence.
Students should make sure that they are recording their response on the worksheet titled Mini-lesson
Notes on the Origin Story of the Inca. Then either have students turn and talk with a partner. After this
allow a two or three students to reveal their hypothesis to the whole class. While eliciting students initial
ideas record student responses on the board.

Evidence - Round 1
Pass out Documents A and B and Graphic Organizer
Introduce Document A: (1 min)
This creation story is so and trusted to be the creation story of the Inca that the Smithsonian
National Museum of the American Indian just released a video describing this creation story. The
National Museum of The American Indian currently has an exhibit on the Inca civilization called The
Great Inka Road: Engineering an Empire. It will be open until June 1st 2018.
Model Sourcing (Slide 8) (5 mins max.)
We will have an opportunity to answer the questions but first I want to teach you a skill called
sourcing.
Ask students to fill out the graphic organizer as I speak.
Review graphic organizer.
Watch video - Video Link / Pictures (Video is 4 mins)
Students have time to answer questions for Document A (5 mins)
Review questions for Document A (5 mins)
Turn students attention to Document B. (15 mins)
Ask them to first source the document using the graphic organizer.
Read Document B with them.
Ask them to answer the questions on the back.
Review the questions.
End round two with the following questions (10 mins):
Can we trust the Inca creation story as told by Garcilaso de la Vega?
Ask students why and why not.
Try to get two different sides on the table. For example, ask can we think of any reasons why we
wouldnt trust Garcilaso's account? Possible points of discussion could be
Discuss the value of a primary source.
Discuss the value of a national museum exhibit, in which you might see the origin video play.
Textual press or to mark the text, specifically Document B paragraph 1 and 2.
Ask student whether they revised their initial hypothesis in light of the new evidence. Ask student to
record this on their graphic organizer.
Assign homework -Pass out Document C and Document D : Read Documents C and D. Answer the
questions that follow. Also fill in the sourcing graphic organizer.
60 min class period.

Day 2 of the Inquiry Lesson

Evidence - Round 2
Reintroduce the topic. Review what was discussed yesterday.
( 5 mins) Review Day 1 --So yesterday, we started to answer a central historical question that asked: Can
we trust the Inca creation story by Inca Garcilaso? Yesterday after looking at documents A and B what
conclusions did we make?
(Students respond)
(10 mins) Last night you read document C and D. Debrief the questions for Documents C and D.
Who is MacCormack? (Sourcing)
What arguments does she make? (Close reading)
Who is DowDell? (Sourcing)
What arguments does he make? (Close Reading)
(15 mins) Have a closing discussion with students. These questions ask students to corroborate the
information. Make some of these turn and talk with your partner questions.
Can we trust the Inca creation story as told by Garcilaso de la Vega?
Which arguments do you find most convincing? Least convincing?
Which authors do you trust the most? Why?
Which authors do you trust the least? Why?
If you had to order the authors from most reliable to least reliable, what would your order be? Solicit
different responses to orders.
Give students 30 mins in class to start the writing assignment. The writing prompt as students to write
a 5 paragraph responding to the question: Can we trust the Inca creation story as told by Garcilaso de la
Vega? Give three paragraph reasons to support your answer. Also include an introductions and
conclusion. Explain rubric. Students should finish the essay for homework if not completed in class.
Teacher rotates around the class to help student individually.

Mini-lesson Notes on the Origin Story of the Inca

Answer the following questions from the mini-lesson.
Where was the Inca Civilization located?

During what time period did the Inca civilization

exist?

How do we learn about the Inca?

Why are creation stories important?

Who is El Inca Garcilaso de la Vega?

Respond: Can we trust the Inca creation story as

told by Garcilaso de la Vega?

Document A
Inca Garcilaso de la Vega recorded the origin story of the Inca and the founding of Cusco, the capital of
their great empire, in his "Royal Commentaries of Peru," published in 1609. This video is adapted from a
digital flipbook created for the exhibition "The Great Inka Road: Engineering and Empire" on view at the
National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C., through June 1, 2018.
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Source: Adapted by the National Museum of the American Indian from stories by Inca Garcilaso de la Vega
in 1609 and other writers during the Spanish colonial period; Produced by the National Museum of the
American Indian; illustrations by Alejandra Egaa and Paz Puga, Ojitos; Published Aug 13, 2015
After watching respond to the following questions:
1. Where does the story take place?
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2. Who is Inti?
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3. Who are Manco and Mama?
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4. Where were they born? What was Manco and Mama asked to do?
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5. What did Manco use the rod of gold for?
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6. What did Manco teach the men?
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7. What did Mama teach the women?
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8. What is ayni?
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DOCUMENT B
The Origin of the Inca Kings of Peru
Garcilaso de la Vega, The Royal Commentaries of the Incas (1609) (Modified)
1. In the old times people lived like wild beasts, with no religion or government and no towns or
houses, and without tilling or sowing the soil. They did not wear clothes, for they did not know how
to weave cotton or wool.
2. Our father the Sun took pity on them. He sent from heaven to earth a son and a daughter of his (The
Inca people called the son Manco Cpac and the daughter Mama Ocllo) to teach the people to
worship the Sun, and to give them laws so that they would live as civilized men. The Sun set these
two children of his in Lake Titicaca and told them go where they liked, and wherever they stopped to
eat or sleep to try to thrust into the ground a golden wand. Wherever this wand sank into the ground
at a single thrust, there the Sun wished them to stop and set up their court. Finally he told them: I
make you kings and lords over all the people. Instruct them with your reason, government, and good
works.
3. They left Titicaca and travelled northwards, and wherever they stopped on the way they thrust the
golden wand into the earth, but it never sank in. They spent the night in a small rest house the Inca
called Pacrec Tampu, house of the dawn, because he set out from it about daybreak. From this
place he and his wife, our queen, reached the valley of Cusco, which was then a wilderness.
4. They first settled on Huanacauri hill. There they tried to thrust the golden wand into the earth and it
easily sank in at the first blow and disappeared. Then our Inca said to his wife: Our father the Sun
bids us remain in this valley and make it our home. It is therefore right, queen and sister, that each
of us should go out and call together these people so as to instruct them and benefit them.
5. Our first rulers set out from Huanacauri, each in a different direction. The prince went northwards,
and the princess south. They spoke to all the men and women they found in that wilderness. They
said that their father the Sun had sent them from the sky to be their teachers and aides, delivering
them from the wild lives they led. The people recognized them as children of the Sun by their
clothes, their pierced ears, their words, and their faces, so they believed and worshipped them. A
great number set out to follow our king and queen wherever they might lead.
6. Thus our city began to be settled. It was divided into two halves called Hanan Cusco, which means
upper Cusco, and Hurin Cusco, or lower Cusco. The king wished those he had brought to live in
Hanan Cusco, therefore called the upper, and those the queen had brought to live in Hurin Cusco,
therefore called the lower. In imitation of this, there was later the same division in all the towns,
great or small, of our empire.
7. At the same time, our Inca showed the male Indians which tasks were proper to men: tilling the land,
sowing crops, seeds, and vegetables, making ploughs and other necessary tools, building irrigation
channels from the streams that ran through the valley of Cusco, and even making footwear. On her
side the queen trained the Indian women in all the feminine occupations: spinning and weaving
cotton and wool, making clothes, and other domestic duties. In short, there was nothing relating to
human life that our princes failed to teach, the Inca king acting as teacher for the men and the Coya,
queen, as teacher of the women.
Source:
,G arci
The
laso de la V ega
H istory of P eru, and Originally published in

R oyal
S panish in 1609.

Questions:
1. How does this Inca myth describe the people who came before the Inca, the people of the old
times? What does the storyteller achieve by starting the story this way?
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2. Is this story different in any way from the Smithsonian's?

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Document C
RELIGION IN THE ANDES: VISION AND IMAGINATION IN EARLY COLONIAL PERU
by MacCormack, Sabine., c1991. (MODIFIED)
MacCormack writes about whether we can trust that was written about the Incas in the 1600s, when the
Spanish ruled over them. She thinks that the Spanish people who wrote at that time could only understand
the Inca through their own views of religion and European culture. She thinks that any descendants of the
Incas who were writing in the 1600s had converted to Christianity and were trying to connect the Inca
religious beliefs to Christianity.
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Garcilaso didnt think there was such a big difference between Inca religion and Christianity. Other Spanish
writers did. Garcilaso did not like conflict and disagreement. He tried to persuade his readers (the Spanish
people) that there was not a great difference between Christianity and Inca religion by creating his own
version of Inca religion. Garcilaso could not help but do this because he looked at and understood Inca and
Andean religion from the European and Christian point of view. It makes sense that he does this because
he had been taught European culture and Christianity from the time he was an infant. These beliefs formed
the foundation of his historical understanding and lived reality.
Source: MacCormack, Sabine. Religion in the Andes: Vision and imagination in early colonial Peru.
Princeton University Press, 1991. pg.333
What argument does MacCormack give for not completely trusting Garcilaso account of the Inca
origin story?
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Document D
The Inca: Occupiers or Creators Part III from Nephicode.com
By Del DowDell (History Blogger) (Modified)
It is important to understand Garcilasos motivation in his writing. At the time he wrote the Inca
history, the conquerors were mistreating the native people of the Andes with terrible abuse. In addition,
Garcilaso himself was ridiculed for his Inca blood. At the time, marriage between the Spanish and native
people of the Americas was not recognized in Spain, where Garcilaso tried to get recognition of his
parents marriage so he could collect his fathers full payment for services rendered to the crown. Upset by
his illegitimacy in Spain and proud of his Inca heritage, Garcilaso took on the name "El Inca". In response,
Garcilaso set out to prove the superiority of the Inca, share their vast heritage, and add to their
accomplishments.
Garcilaso eagerly embraced these stories, which included ridiculous beginnings of the Inca people
rising out of Lake Titicaca in ancient times. They knew the ancient stories of the Flood, and he bent its
events to their own purposes. Garcilaso wrote down the stories told to him, but he tried to make the
already exaggerated accounts sound better to increase the standing of his defeated heritage. To Garcilaso,
this was the perfect retaliation for the abuses he had personally suffered, and the falsifying of an Inca
background that made his mothers people look far better than they were.
While many scholars today question the accuracy of Garcilasos history, many others accept his
account as the most complete and accurate available. But if you were to walk the streets of Lima and other
major Peruvian cities and talk to the literate descendants of the local, indigenous people whose stories and
retold memories date back into antiquity, you will hear a very different version. The problem is that the Inca
story is good for tourism, and those who make their living in this trade, have found that tourists love to hear
such stories about the Inca about this people who once ruled the Andean domain, who built magnificent
buildings with a technology that can hardly be duplicated today. They want to know about the ruins they
have paid to visit, about the people who built them and lived within them. So bigger than life stories are
told, with no one able to counter them, and the Inca myth grew over the years until now almost everything
that can be seen, especially around Cuzco, is attributed to the Inca.
Source: DowDell, Del. "The Inca: Occupiers or Creators Part III." Web Blog post.Nephicode.com., 26
Jan. 2013. Web. <http://nephicode.blogspot.com/>.

Describe two reasons that DowDell gives to not trust Garcilaso

account o
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2. _______________________________________________________________________________
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Homework
Write a 5 paragraph essay responding to the question:
Can we trust the Inca creation story as told by Garcilaso de la Vega?
Give three strong reasons to support your answer. Read rubric for complete directions.
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