To be Determined Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words - 1

To be Determined - Essay Example ’s grand architecture, the roads that traversed forty thousand kilometers of rugged terrain, thousands of provincial installations†¦or the government designed to manage the whole affair† (D’Atroy 3). However, such a large civilization could not be completely wiped out, and in modern day Peru there are still remnants of the old Inca culture and customs. While the empire does not exist in the ways it did from the thirteenth till sixteenth centuries, the influence of the Inca empire is undeniable. It is often times difficult to discern between myth and legends while researching the history of the Incas as their oral tradition often wove these together with facts: â€Å"None of Peru’s ancient cultures used the written word. They depended upon oral tradition, ceramics, painting† (Starn 15). While it is not certain exactly how much truth there is surrounding, it is generally believed that Manco Capac helped found the city of Cuzco after 1200 CE. Cuzco would grow to be the center of the entire Inca empire, but it grew rather slowly for several centuries. As far as the myth behind the origins of the Incas, Tici Viracocha is the creator god. Inti is the sun god, the son of Tici Viracocha. The sun was worshipped above everything else in Inca culture, and Inti was their highest god. The other gods included Mamaquilla, the moon goddess, Pachmama, the Earth goddess, Mamasera, corn goddess, Mamaqocha, and the ocean goddess. Tici Viracocha was supposed to have emerged from Lake Titicaca and destroyed the inhabitants of the surrounding regions of the lake after angering him. Tici Viracocha then populated the region with his own descendants. Nature was also worshipped in general, and more specifically animals such as jaguars and locations such as mountains were also worshipped. Sacrifices of food and animals were made to the gods, and human sacrifices were rather seldom in Inca culture, especially when compared to other empires such as the Aztecs. Inti, the