Download or read book Inka Human Sacrifice and Mountain Worship written by Thomas Besom and published by UNM Press. This book was released on 2013-04-15 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Inka empire was the largest pre-Columbian polity in the New World. Its vast expanse, its ethnic diversity, and the fact that the empire may have been consolidated in less than a century have prompted much scholarly interest in its creation. In this study, Besom explores the ritual practices of human sacrifice and the worship of mountains, attested in both archaeological investigations and ethnohistorical sources, as tools in the establishment and preservation of political power. Besom examines the relationship between symbols, ideology, ritual, and power to demonstrate how the Cuzqueños could have used rituals to manipulate common Andean symbols to uphold their authority over subjugated peoples. He considers ethnohistoric accounts of the categories of human sacrifice to gain insights into related rituals and motives, and reviews the ethnohistoric evidence of mountain worship to predict locations as well as motives. He also analyzes specific archaeological sites and assemblages, theorizing that they were the locations of sacrifices designed to assimilate subject peoples, bind conquered lands to the state, and/or justify the extraction of local resources.
Download or read book Of Summits and Sacrifice written by Thomas Besom and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2010-01-01 with total page 245 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In perhaps as few as one hundred years, the Inka Empire became the largest state ever formed by a native people anywhere in the Americas, dominating the western coast of South America by the early sixteenth century. Because the Inkas had no system of writing, it was left to Spanish and semi-indigenous authors to record the details of the religious rituals that the Inkas believed were vital for consolidating their conquests. Synthesizing these arresting accounts that span three centuries, Thomas Besom presents a wealth of descriptive data on the Inka practices of human sacrifice and mountain worship, supplemented by archaeological evidence. Of Summits and Sacrifice offers insight into the symbolic connections between landscape and life that underlay Inka religious beliefs. In vivid prose, Besom links significant details, ranging from the reasons for cyclical sacrificial rites to the varieties of mountain deities, producing a uniquely powerful cultural history.
Download or read book Inka Human Sacrifice and Mountain Worship written by Thomas Besom and published by University of New Mexico Press. This book was released on 2013 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In this study, Besom explores the ritual practices of human sacrifice and the worship of mountains, attested in both archaeological investigations and ethnohistorical sources, as tools in the establishment and preservation of political power within the Inka empire"--Provided by publisher.
Download or read book Inca Rituals and Sacred Mountains written by Johan Reinhard and published by Cotsen Institute of Archaeology. This book was released on 2010 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Incas carried out some of the most dramatic ceremonies known to us from ancient times. Groups of people walked hundreds of miles across arid and mountainous terrain to perform them on mountains over 6,096 m (20,000 feet) high. The most important offerings made during these pilgrimages involved human sacrifices (capacochas). Although Spanish chroniclers wrote about these offerings and the state sponsored processions of which they were a part, their accounts were based on second-hand sources, and the only direct evidence we have of the capacocha sacrifices comes to us from archaeological excavations. Some of the most thoroughly documented of these were undertaken on high mountain summits, where the material evidence has been exceptionally well preserved. In this study we describe the results of research undertaken on Mount Llullaillaco (6,739 m/22,109 feet), which has the world's highest archaeological site. The types of ruins and artifact assemblages recovered are described and analyzed. By comparing the archaeological evidence with the chroniclers' accounts and with findings from other mountaintop sites, common patterns are demonstrated; while at the same time previously little known elements contribute to our understanding of key aspects of Inca religion. This study illustrates the importance of archaeological sites being placed within the broader context of physical and sacred features of the natural landscape.
Download or read book Child of the Snows written by Thomas Besom and published by Golden Antelope Press. This book was released on 2021-11-22 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: K'uchi-Wara, a child chosen for ritual sacrifice by Inkan authorities, walks over 1000 miles from his home to Cerro El Ploma. He, his parents, priests, and administrators witness the empire's beauty, complexity, and near-ruthless power.
Download or read book Approaches to Teaching the Works of Inca Garcilaso de la Vega written by Christian Fernández and published by Modern Language Association. This book was released on 2022-03-24 with total page 186 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author of Comentarios reales and La Florida del Inca, now recognized as key foundational works of Latin American literature and historiography, Inca Garcilaso de la Vega was born in 1539 in Cuzco, the son of a Spanish conquistador and an Incan princess, and later moved to Spain. Recalling the family stories and myths he had heard from his Quechua-speaking relatives during his youth and gathering information from friends who had remained in Peru, he created works that have come to indelibly shape our understanding of Incan history and administration. He also articulated a new American identity, which he called mestizo. This volume provides guidance on the translations of Garcilaso's writings and on the scholarly reception of his ideas. Instructors will discover ideas for teaching Garcilaso's works in relation to indigenous thought, European historiography, natural history, indigenous religion and Christianity, and Incan material culture. In essays informed by postcolonial and decolonial perspectives, scholars draw connections between Garcilaso's writings and contemporary issues like migration, multiculturalism, and indigenous rights.
Download or read book Human Sacrifice and Value written by Sean O'Neill and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-10-26 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The present volume was made possible by the Norwegian Research Council’s generous funding of the Human Sacrifice and Value project (FRIPROHUMSAM 275947). It explores concepts of human sacrifice. This volume explores concepts of human sacrifice, focusing on its value – or multiplicity of values – in relative cultural and temporal terms, whether sacrifice is expressed in actual killings, in ideas revolving around ritualized, sanctioned or sanctified violence or loss, or in transformed and (often sublimated) undertakings. Bridging a wide variety of interdisciplinary perspectives, it analyses a spectrum of sacrificial logics and actions, daring us to rethink the scholarship of sacrifice by considering the oft hidden, subliminal and even paradoxical values and motivations that underlie sacrificial acts. The chapters give needed attention to pivotal questions in studies of sacrifice and ritualized violence – such as how we might employ new approaches to the existing evidence or revise long-debated theories about what exactly ‘human sacrifice’ is or might be, or why human sacrifice seems to emerge so often and so easily in human social experience across time and in vastly different cultures and historical contexts. Thus, the volume will strike a chord with scholars of sociology, anthropology, archaeology, history, religious studies, political science and economics –wherever interest is focused on critically rethinking questions of sacred and sanctified human violence, and the values that make it what it is.
Download or read book At the Mountains Altar written by Frank Salomon and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-01-02 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In high-Andean Peru, Rapaz village maintains a temple to mountain beings who command water and weather. By examining the ritual practices and belief systems of an Andean community, this book provides students with rich understandings of unfamiliar religious experiences and delivers theories of religion from the realm of abstraction. From core field encounters, each chapter guides readers outward in a different theoretical direction, successively exploring the main paths in the anthropology of religion. As well as addressing classical approaches in the anthropology of religion to rural modernity, Salomon engages with newer currents such as cognitive-evolution models, power-oriented critiques, the ontological reworking of relativism, and the "new materialism" in the context of a deep-rooted Andean ethos. He reflects on central questions such as: Why does sacred ritualism seem almost universal? Is it seated in social power, human psychology, symbolic meanings, or cultural logics? Are varied theories compatible? Is "religion" still a tenable category in the post-colonial world? At the Mountains’ Altar is a valuable resource for students taking courses on the anthropology of religion, Andean cultures, Latin American ethnography, religious studies, and indigenous peoples of the Americas.
Download or read book Powerful Places in the Ancient Andes written by Justin Jennings and published by University of New Mexico Press. This book was released on 2018-11-15 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Andean peoples recognize places as neither sacred nor profane, but rather in terms of the power they emanate and the identities they materialize and reproduce. This book argues that a careful consideration of Andean conceptions of powerful places is critical not only to understanding Andean political and religious history but to rethinking sociological theories on landscapes more generally. The contributors evaluate ethnographic and ethnohistoric analogies against the material record to illuminate the ways landscapes were experienced and politicized over the last three thousand years.
Download or read book Archaeological Interpretations written by Peter Eeckhout and published by University Press of Florida. This book was released on 2020-06-15 with total page 295 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presenting studies in Andean archaeology and iconography by leading specialists in the field, this volume tackles the question of how researchers can come to understand the intangible, intellectual worlds of ancient peoples. Archaeological Interpretations is a fascinating ontological journey through Andean cultures from the fourth millennium BC to the sixteenth century, A.D. Through evidence-based case studies, theoretical models, and methodological reflections, contributors discuss the various interpretations that can be derived from the traces of ritual activity that remain in the material record. They discuss how to accurately comprehend the social significance of artifacts beyond their practical use and how to decode the symbolism of sacred images. Addressing topics including the earliest evidence of shamanism in Ecuador, the meaning of masks among the Mochicas in Peru, the value of metal in the Recuay culture, and ceremonies of voluntary abandonment among the Incas, contributors propose original and innovative ways of interpreting the rich Andean archaeological heritage. Contributors: Luis Jaime Castillo Butters | Peter Eeckhout | Christine Hastorf | Abigail Levine | Geroge F. Lau | Frank Meddens | Charles S. Stanish | Edward Swenson | Gary Urton | Francisco Valdez
Download or read book The Incas written by Terence N. D'Altroy and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2014-05-27 with total page 578 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Incas is a captivating exploration of one of the greatest civilizations ever seen. Seamlessly drawing on history, archaeology, and ethnography, this thoroughly updated new edition integrates advances made in hundreds of new studies conducted over the last decade. • Written by one of the world’s leading experts on Inca civilization • Covers Inca history, politics, economy, ideology, society, and military organization • Explores advances in research that include pre-imperial Inca society; the royal capital of Cuzco; the sacred landscape; royal estates; Machu Picchu; provincial relations; the khipu information-recording technology; languages, time frames, gender relations, effects on human biology, and daily life • Explicitly examines how the Inca world view and philosophy affected the character of the empire • Illustrated with over 90 maps, figures, and photographs
Download or read book Social Skins of the Head written by María Cecilia Lozada and published by University of New Mexico Press. This book was released on 2018 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Introducing the social skins of the head in ancient Mesoamerica and the Andes / Vera Tiesler and María Cecilia Lozada -- What was being sealed? : cranial modification and ritual binding among the Maya / William N. Duncan and Gabrielle Vail -- Head shapes and group identity on the fringes of the Maya lowlands / Vera Tiesler and Alfonso Lacadena -- Head shaping and tooth modification among the classic Maya of the Usumacinta River kingdoms / Andrew K. Scherer -- Cultural modification of the head : the case of Teopancazco in Teotihuacan / Luis Adrián Alvarado-Viñas and Linda R. Manzanilla -- Face painting among the classic Maya elites : an iconographic study / María Luisa Vázquez de Ágredos Pascual, Cristina Vidal Lorenzo, and Patricia Horcajada Campos -- The importance of visage, facial treatment, and idiosyncratic traits in Maya royal portraiture during the reign of K'inich Janaab' Pakal of Palenque, 615-683 CE / Laura Filloy Nadal -- The representation of hair in the art of Chichén Itzá / Virginia E. Miller -- Effigies of death : representation, use, and reuse of human skulls at the Templo Mayor of Tenochtitlan / Ximena Chávez Balderas -- Emic perspectives on cultural practices pertaining to the head in Mesoamerica : a commentary and discussion of the chapters in part one / Gabrielle Vail -- Afterlives of the decapitated in ancient Peru / John W. Verano -- Head processing among La Ramada tradition of Southern Peru / María Cecilia Lozada, Alanna Warner-Smith, Rex C. Haydon, Hans Barnard, Augusto Cardona Rosas, and Raphael Greenberg -- From Wawa to "Trophy Head" : meaning, representation, and bioarchaeology of human heads from ancient Tiwanaku / Deborah E. Blom and Nicole C. Couture -- Cranial modification in the central Andes : person, language, political economy / Bruce Mannheim, Allison R. Davis, and Matthew C. Velasco -- Violence, power, and head extraction in the Kallawaya Region, Bolivia / Sara K. Becker and Sonia Alconini -- Semiotic portraits : expressions of communal identity in Wari faceneck vessels / Andrea Vazquez de Arthur -- Using their heads : the lives of crania in the Andes / Christine A. Hastorf
Download or read book Art and Vision in the Inca Empire written by Adam Herring and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2015-05-22 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1500 CE, the Inca empire covered most of South America's Andean region. The empire's leaders first met Europeans on November 15, 1532, when a large Inca army confronted Francisco Pizarro's band of adventurers in the highland Andean valley of Cajamarca, Peru. At few other times in its history would the Inca royal leadership so aggressively showcase its moral authority and political power. Glittering and truculent, what Europeans witnessed at Inca Cajamarca compels revised understandings of pre-contact Inca visual art, spatial practice, and bodily expression. This book takes a fresh look at the encounter at Cajamarca, using the episode to offer a new, art-historical interpretation of pre-contact Inca culture and power. Adam Herring's study offers close readings of Inca and Andean art in a variety of media: architecture and landscape, geoglyphs, sculpture, textiles, ceramics, featherwork and metalwork. The volume is richly illustrated with over sixty color images.
Download or read book Machu Picchu written by Johan Reinhard and published by Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press. This book was released on 2007-12-31 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Machu Picchu, recently voted one of the New Wonders of the World, is one of the world's most famous archaeological sites, yet it remains a mystery. Even the most basic questions are still unanswered: What was its meaning and why was it built in such a difficult location? Renowned explorer Johan Reinhard attempts to answer such elusive questions from the perspectives of sacred landscape and archaeoastronomy. Using information gathered from historical, archaeological, and ethnographical sources, Reinhard demonstrates how the site is situated in the center of sacred mountains and associated with a sacred river, which is in turn symbolically linked with the sun's passage. Taken together, these features meant that Machu Picchu formed a cosmological, hydrological, and sacred geological center for a vast region.
Download or read book Silver Thieves Tin Barons and Conquistadors written by Mary Van Buren and published by University of Arizona Press. This book was released on 2024 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book traces the history of Indigenous mining in southern Bolivia from Inka times to the present using archaeological and historical sources. It argues that small-scale mineral production can only be understood in relation to large-scale mining in the context of colonialism and its aftermath.
Download or read book Andean Meltdown written by Karsten Paerregaard and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2023-08-01 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Andean Meltdown examines how climate change and its consequences for Peru's glaciers are affecting the country's water supply and impacting Andean society and culture in unprecedented ways. Drawing on forty years of extensive research, relationship building, and community engagement in Peru, Karsten Paerregaard provides an ethnographic exploration of Andean ritual practices and performances in the context of an altered climate. By documenting Andean peoples' responses to rapid glacier retreat and urgent water shortages, Paerregaard considers the myriad ways climate change intersects with environmental, social, and political change. A pathbreaking contribution to cultural anthropology and environmental humanities, Andean Meltdown challenges prevailing theoretical thinking about the culture-nature nexus and offers a new perspective on Andean peoples' understanding of their role as agents in the shifting relationship between humans and nonhumans.
Download or read book History of International Relations written by Erik Ringmar and published by Open Book Publishers. This book was released on 2019-08-02 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Existing textbooks on international relations treat history in a cursory fashion and perpetuate a Euro-centric perspective. This textbook pioneers a new approach by historicizing the material traditionally taught in International Relations courses, and by explicitly focusing on non-European cases, debates and issues. The volume is divided into three parts. The first part focuses on the international systems that traditionally existed in Europe, East Asia, pre-Columbian Central and South America, Africa and Polynesia. The second part discusses the ways in which these international systems were brought into contact with each other through the agency of Mongols in Central Asia, Arabs in the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean, Indic and Sinic societies in South East Asia, and the Europeans through their travels and colonial expansion. The concluding section concerns contemporary issues: the processes of decolonization, neo-colonialism and globalization – and their consequences on contemporary society. History of International Relations provides a unique textbook for undergraduate and graduate students of international relations, and anybody interested in international relations theory, history, and contemporary politics.
