Term Papers on The Inca

Term Paper Title	The Inca
# of Words	1274
# of Pages (250 words per page double spaced)	5.1

The Inca

     As you gaze at the society you live in today, you are accustomed to
your culture; your religion, language, government, food, and basically your
way of life.  What is amazing is that there are thousands of other cultures, all
being different in one way or another.  It could be said that the most
mysterious and interesting of cultures are tose of the ancient world.  One of
those cultures that we know a good deal about is the Incans.  Their span was
rather short, yet they accomplished so much.  From their artwork to religion,
to their food and military accomplishments, the Inca are indeed an amazing
people.

     In Quechua, the language of the Incas, the empire was known as
Tawantinsuyu. In English, this means "land of the four quarters." As the name
states, the territory was divided into four parts known as suyus coming
together at the capital of Cuzco. Chinchasuyu was located to the northwest of
Cuzco, Condesuyu to the southwest, Antisuyu to the northeast, and Collasuyu
to the southeast. Within those four quarters, the Incas ruled over people who
had formerly composed hundreds of independent societies, representing
dozens of different ethnic groups and perhaps as many different languages.

     The Inca Empire was short-lived. It lasted almost 100 years, from 1438
AD, when the Inca ruler Pachacuti and his army began conquering lands
surrounding the Inca heartland of Cuzco, until the coming of the Spaniards in
1532.  Yet despite the short time span, the Incas created the largest state-level
society in the New World prior to the arrival of the Europeans. Their domain
spanned over 4,000 km, including all of the highlands and coast of Peru, most
of the highlands of Ecuador, northern Chile, part of western Bolivia, and part
of northwestern Argentina. This territory included extremely diverse
ecological zones, from the deserts of the Peruvian and Chilean coasts to the
west, to the dense Amazonian rainforests in the east. The rugged Andean
highlands at the center of the empire included humid zones, high
snow-capped mountains, grassy plains,  river valleys, and active volcanoes.

     The many different  places of Tawantinsuyu and the rough terrain
contained within them presented great challenges to those who tried to
control large territories. The Incas met the challenges by constructing a vast
network of roads combined with an intricate system of way stations, imperial
centers, forts, ceremonial centers, and other constructions. Also, they
created a very efficient message delivery system to communicate, and
constructed strong suspension bridges to cross deep river gorges.  With these
ways of responding to the environment, the Incas were in many cases building
on ideas developed by previous Andean societies.  What is amazing is the
level to which the Incas expanded those ideas to control such a vast empire.


     At the height of their power, the Incas controlled a vast territory that
encompassed extremely rough terrain and different climates, inhabited by
perhaps over six million people. Those lands were home to people of dozens
of different ethnic groups, representing numerous different languages.
The Incas used two main methods to conquer the people of these lands.
The first was military conquest, led by their army, which was composed of
thousands of people from different provinces and supported by food and
equipment provided from citizens throughout the four quarters. The second
tactic was diplomacy, in which the Incas offered the elites of a region the
choice of submitting peacefully to the command of Cuzco, and thus gaining
favor and prestige. Of course, the diplomatic option was always backed by
the threat of armed conquest.

     To seal their control over the land and people of Tawantinsuyu, the
Incas used various strategies of integrating the native political and religious
systems into those of the empire. In most parts of the empire, the...

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