Generative topic: Which culture is better?

Conductive thread: Which culture was more advanced in science, literature, social and political organization comparing the main
Pre-Columbian cultures with the Europeans of the time (16th century)?
Understanding goals: that it is not possible to qualify a culture with the current definition, and that the intervention of others can prevent the natural cultural evolution of a society.

The Rise and Fall of the Inca Empire: A Short History

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRUlGUVxARo

Transcription:
Did you know that the inca had one of the most sophisticated road networksand messenger systems in History, stick around to learn all about the inca Civilization.
Hello and welcome to world History encyclopedia my name is Kelly and in today's video we are going to explore the history of the inca Civilization, don't forget the
easiest way to support us is by giving this video a thumbs up and subscribing to our channel and hitting the bell icon for notifications so you don't miss out on our
new videos every tuesday and Friday.

Who were the Incas?

The inca civilization flourished in peru and surrounding areas between 1400 and 1533 c.e., prior to the inca being dominant in western south america the Chimu
occupied the area until 1470 when the inca defeated them, the inca who started as a small settlement in cusco ended up expanding along the andes and the
pacific south coast as far north as quito in modern day ecuador and as far south as santiago de chile which made it the largest empire in the americas, at that time
although the environment of the andes which was the area they inhabited was often quite harsh, the inca utilized the natural landscape to construct mountaintop
settlements complex road networks and terraces and canals for diverting and moving wáter, their most famous site today is the ruins of machu picchu but the
capital city of the inca civilization was cusco where the laws were decreed and spread throughout their empire along their sophisticated messaging system but
more on that later.

Inca Mithology and Religion

For the incas the world was made by the creator god Virakocha who emerged from lake Titicaca, viracocha created a race of giants but he found them too large so
he destroyed them and made humans on a smaller scale as well as creating the sun, the moon and the stars. After creating humans and leading the founding
couple to cusco to live and teaching the people civilized arts, he walked across the sea to the west and promised that one day his messengers would return. The
inca believed they were all descended from the sun god Inti who was also among the most important gods in their pantheon and also believed their ancestors
emerged from places in the natural landscape such as a tree or a spring known as pacquiarinas, there was no difficulty in reconciling the belief in the sun as
people's origin with an earthly one as descending from a tree because all things were considered part of the divine,

The incas were polytheistic and their deities dwelt in one of three realms, the Hanon Pacha which was the upper realm and home to inti the sun god and the moon
goddess and sister to inti, Kila the middle world or Ke Pacha which was the home to humans animals and vegetation and Ukupacha the underworld and overseen
by Supe the god of death. They believed that the natural world was controlled by the gods and so their belief in the gods informed their daily lives significantly, in
the inca religion there were three rules which were considered a single rule: do not steal, do not lie, do not be lazy, and if you followed this rule, after you died you
would go to the Upper Real also known as the land of the sun if you didn't follow these rules you would go to the underworld after you died, where it was always
cold and your soul would be lonely forever in eternal darkness. The souls who were neither perfect nor terrible in life would get to go back and have another chance
at life trying again and again until they got life right. The inca also practiced mummification and buried their dead with grave godos, but instead of placing the
corpse lying down, the mummies were buried sitting up why the inca practiced this method of burial is still unclear

Inca Government and society

The inca empire was huge and at its height it reached over 4 000 kilometers or 2 500 miles, with this in mind, how did they keep that whole territory in order? The
government of the inca empire and central power was focused at their capital city cusco and this centralized government ended up being in charge of over 10
million subjects who spoke over 30 languages and to manage that kind of scope they had around 40 000 inca governance. When the inca conquered a group they
would impose their administration religion and even their art onto the conquered regions and while they received tribute from these peoples and integrated them
into their empire the inca would provide them with food better storage facilities, military assistance luxury goods and access to the roads and state-sponsored
religious festivals. The inca had a king known as the Sapa inca which means “unique inca” who was the absolute ruler and was considered divine and a living
descendant of Inti, legitimizing the inca divine right of rule. The king was in charge of politics society, the food stores of the empire and was even the commander-
in-chief of the army. The king would marry on his accession to the throne with his wife, sometimes being his own sister the queen or Koya and held some power
over her husband via her kin group, especially when it came to selecting which son would be the heir at the top of the ruling hierarchy, just below the king was his
high priest Willakumu and 10 royal kindred groups of nobles called Panaka, below them was another 10 kindred groups and below them another 10, then at the
bottom of the administration were the locally recruited administrators who looked over the settlements and the smallest andean population unit known as the
Ayllu, which was a collection of households which was often a group of related families who lived together and worked an area of land.

An Ayllu was governed by a small number of nobles or Kurakas a role which could include women, the local administrators would report to a group of around 80
regional level administrators and they would report to the four administrators of the four quarters of the empire who in turn report to the king as you might have
already noticed. It was an intricate affair and it needed to be in order for such a large empire to be successfully governed although super intricate, it was an
incredibly efficient system and information traveled quite quickly as it was passed down through the layers of administrations and this process was aided by the
sophisticated roads constructed by the inca.

The network of roads covered over 40 000 kilometers or 25 000 miles within their territory which made it easier to move goods that trade with the use of llamas
since they didn't have wheeled vehicles, as well as easy movement for armies and administrators, also along these roads lived pairs of messengers whose entire
responsibility was to receive and then deliver messages and they lived in pairs, so while one slept the other was awake to deliver the messages, there were
stations and storage depots along this roadway for supply, troops, give travelers a rest and maintain those who worked for the messenger systems, and now
imagine getting all this done without writing anything, the inca didn't develop an alphabet or a writing system but what they did develop was a sophisticated
system of record keeping called a quipu. A quipu used colourful knotted strings to signify certain information but what that information was is still unknown
interestingly there was also no currency in the inca empire and things like taxation would have been paid in foodstuffs precious metals and textiles.
Inca Art, Architecture and Culture
Looking at the ruins of inca sites such as machu picchu, it's hard to believe that they were constructed without the use of wheels, steel tools or mortar to stick the
stones together. The inca created these buildings out of such tightly shaped stones that even through earthquakes the buildings stay standing. The land which the
inca lived on was mountainous but this did not stop them from constructing buildings, walls and fortifications. The inca created terraces in order to grow crops
and these terraces often included canals and underground water irrigation systems which were also used for fountains, as part of their extensive road system was
the suspension bridges which connected parts of the inca territory and were made out of woven fibres, this practice of constructing suspensión bridges out of
grass and woven fibres is still practiced today even though there are metal bridges for cars this refined fibre working perfected by the inca, was even used to
construct boats.

Inca were also known for their sophisticated artistic style especially their textiles, they created highly polished metal work out of precious materials such as gold
and silver, the king lived in luxury and would drink out of gold and silver cups and wear silver on his feet, gold was considered the sweat of the sun and silver was
the tears of the moon and they created objects such as jewelry figurines, ceremonial knives and everyday objects for nobility. Ceramics were made out of clay by
hand since they didn't have potter's wheels and they were decorated in abstract plants, zigzags geometric shapes and dots in spite of these crafts the inca were
most revered for their textiles the finely worked and highly decorated textiles were signs of wealth and status and the colours they used were from natural sources
such as mollusks minerals plants and insects one of the most popular designs was the checkerboard and one of the reasons for the repetition of designs was that
pottery and textiles were often produced for the state as a tax and so artworks were representative of specific communities and their cultural heritage much like
national currencies nowadays.

Collapse of the Inca Empire

In 1528 Francisco Pizarro and his partner Diego de Almagro were adventurers and treasure seekers looking for gold since their companions found so much of it in
mexico from the aztec world decades earlier. In 1528 the expedition's pilot Bartolomeu Ruiz captured a raft off the coast which was filled with treasure, and so
with a 168 men, 138 veterans, 27 cavalry and one friar, they set off for the andes, later, they got some reinforcements which bumped their number up to 260 which
included 67 cavalry and as they moved they pillaged. They formed a settlement at San Miguel and by the end of 1532 pizarro was ready to make contact with the
ruler of what seemed to be a large and wealthy empire. On november 15th, the spaniards approached the inca town of kashmaka and the king atahualpa who felt
fairly safe surrounded by 80000 of his men agreed to meet, after the formal meeting with speeches and drinks. The next day pizarro planned an ambush for when
Atahualpa arrived in the square it turned out that clubs, spears and arrows were no match for firearms and atahualpa was hit on the head and captured alive,
Atahualpa continued to rule from captivity during the eight months, it took for the inca to come up with the ransom pizarro demanded which was a room
measuring 6.2 by 4.8 meters filled with all the treasures the incas could provide up to a height of 2.5 meters, then even though, he got his ransom, Pizarro killed
Atahualpa anyway.

Although the collapse of the inca civilization is often credited to the spanish, namely, the conquistadors under francisco pizarro in 1533, the civilization was
already in a state of decline prior to the arrival of the spanish, this decline was caused by rebellions from the people they conquered since the inca forced their
religión, art, and taxes on them as well as fighting within the empire and the decimation of up to 90 of the inca population due to disease most likely smallpox
brought to the americas by the spanish, so it's safe to say that if pizarro hadn't come along and exploited the unrest already brewing in the population of the inca
who saw their conquerors as oppressors, they would have eventually collapsed anyway, what form this collapse may have taken can't really be guessed at, but it's
a pretty good bet it wouldn't have involved the kind of cruelty and destruction of the indigenous culture that resulted from the spanish conquest of the 16th
century.

Outro
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1. Read the information that is above and make a power point presentation. 6 points
The power point presetation should have the following:
a. The main ideas of the information
b. Images related with the main ideas
c. At least 6 creative slides

2. Each member of each group will expose a part of the assigned subtopic using the slides of the power point presentation. 4 points