Inca Empire

By: Sadie, Susan, & Sally

The Beginning

-The Andes Mountains stretched from the edge of South  America to Chile. -Mountain gorges, the Andes Mountains, and the desert are natural barriers to keep invaders from Inca. -The Amazon jungle is where the Incas find fruits, wood, and medicine for their everyday needs. -In the middle of the Pacific Ocean and the Andes Mountains was coastal desert.

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Religion Gods and Goddesses

-The Inca were the “Children of the Sun.”

-Religion was very important to the Inca.

-The Inca worshiped nature spirits such as the moon, the stars, and thunder.

-The Inca worshiped fewer gods than the Aztecs.

-To avoid problems, they had to worship the gods everyday.

-The chief of the Incan gods was a creator god called Viracocha.

-The next important god was the sun god, Inti.

- Inti was important because the Incan ruler was considered a descendent of Inti.

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Afterlife-Like the ancient Egyptians, the Inca

believed in afterlife.

-They mummified the dead.

-The funeral was held for eight days.

-Women wore black clothes for about a year and they had to cut their hair short.

-The mummified rulers were carefully tended.

-During special occasions, the mummies were carried through the streets.

-The Incas were allowed to enter the tombs leaving gifts and foods.

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Government-The Sapa Inca had all the power and made all of the rules. -When the Sapa Incas made new laws, they tell the ta collectors then they pass on the word to people below until it reaches the citizens. -Positions in the government are usually inherited. -You can tell if a person is royal or not by looking at their heads. When they were babies, boards were strapped to their heads so it can make it grow into a point. A point represents beauty. -The laws were very harsh, so their was hardly any crime. They took punishments seriously.  -When you serve your punishment already you were fed and clothed by the government. Your job was to tell others about your story and scare them. -Citizens throw food into your begging bowl if you had a good criminal confession.  -Criminals couldn't run away even if they wanted to. Regular citizens were not allowed on the roads.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          S.C

Social Structure- Sapa Inca, meaning the only emperor, organized his government in a pyramid. - The Sapa Inca was alone at the top of the pyramid.

- Then comes the Supremem Council, which was divided into 4 men.

-Provincial Governors

- Officials (army officiers, judges, priests, and othe noble classes).

- Tax Collectors

- At the bottom of the pyramid are the workers. Most of the people in the Inca Empire were workers.  

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The Incredible Inca Roads

-Stretching over 14,000 miles and allowing for the expansion of trade, easier movement of the Inca Army and the travel of road messengers the Inca's greatest achievement were their creation of the Inca Roads.

-As soon as the Inca conquered a new village they immediately began working on creating roads to connect the new addition to the rest of the Empire. -The roads belonged to the Government meaning that common people were not allowed to travel these roads.   continued...

    

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Roadrunners and the Army...

- Storehouses and rest houses were maintained along the road to keep supply for the people who were allowed to travel the roads.

- The roads allowed the Inca Army to travel the roads quickly in order to protect and help their people. 

- Inca roadrunners were the mailmen of the Inca. Young men ran from place to place carrying messages to the Sapa Inca. The job of the roadrunner was considered a profession and an honor. A roadrunner would run for a short time along a planned distance. As soon as he got to the next station another roadrunner would continue his journey until he got to another station where the second roadrunner would pass along the message.  

    

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Achievements-The Incas created a calender; Each year had 12 months. 4 weeks were in it, and in the week was 10 days. -Special towers called a Time Makers" told the citizens when ever they were starting a new month. Time Makers used the position of the sun to determine the passage of time. -Incas loved music; the most popular instrument is the panpipe. It consists of many single pipes put together in a size order form. -They use a two feet long rope as for measurements. Incas has the concept of 0. -Incas frozen potatoes then store them away. This is for when emergencies hit.  SC                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

Incas Time line

The Fall of the Incas...-The ending of the Incas started with the death of an Inca King and no immediate heir. His two sons fought for the thrown, creating a civil war that lasted for five years, weakening the empire. Atahualpa came out successful and took control.  

-The Spanish had already began to conquer some states in Mexico, but due to the power struggle in the Inca Empire that had taken place not so long ago, the Inca's were oblivious to the control that the Spanish were gaining.

-Because of this, the Inca's allowed the Spanish into their Empire without a thought of them being a threat; they soon realized this to be a big mistake. 

-The Spanish came for the Inca's rich supply of gold and silver. This they got, and once they had enough supply for one trip they came back again, this time with an entire army. They killed the Sapa Inca and in a few years gained control of the once great Inca Empire.  

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References

Websites: -http://incas.mrdonn.org/

Photos:-http://incas.mrdonn.org/inca11.gif -http://brown.osd.wednet.edu/media/brown/websites/images/incas.jpg

-http://www.eduplace.com/ss/hmss/7/unit/7.2.timelineA.gif

-http://www.destination360.com/south-america/peru/images/s/inca-trail.jpg