Above illustration: an inca huaca - http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_er26XOmi8gA/TOfcWairgmI/AAAAAAAABFI/rrt91Nz0tPU/s1600/11.JPG
Huaca
Huaca , also spelled wak’a and meaning sacredness or holiness, is used to refer to:
The shrines, which are found throughout the Inca territory from Ecuador to Chile, may be as simple as stones piled in a field (apachitas) or as complex as stepped pyramids that were once topped with canopies and carved images.
Huacas are associated with respect and ritual.
Andean cultures believed every object has a physical presence and two camaquen (spirits), one to create it and another to animate it. They would invoke its spirits for the object to function.
A huaca could be built along a processional ceremonial line or route, as was done for the sacred rituals within the capital at Cusco. Such lines were referred to as ceques. These lines were laid out to express the cosmology of the culture (their theory on how the universe was formed) and were sometimes aligned astronomically to various stellar risings and settings. These matched with seasonal ceremonies and time keeping (for the purposes of agriculture and ceremony and record keeping).
Special compounds were erected at certain huacas where priests composed elaborate rituals and religious ceremonial culture. For instance, the ceremony of the sun was performed at Cusco (Inti Raymi).
Incas 'enhanced' the pre-existing religious beliefs of the peoples whom they took into their empire. This ensured proper compliance among conquered peoples.
The Incas also transplanted and colonised whole groups of persons of Inca background with newly adopted peoples to arrange a better distribution of Inca persons throughout all of their empire in order to avoid widespread resistance.
In this instance, huacas and pacarinas became significant centres of shared worship and a point of unification of ethnically and linguistically diverse peoples. They helped to bring unity and common citizenship to often geographically varied peoples.
Eventually the people developed a system of pilgrimages to these various shrines.
Huaca , also spelled wak’a and meaning sacredness or holiness, is used to refer to:
- a sacred ritual
- the state of being after death
- any sacred object
- a burial place
- spirits that inhabit physical phenomena such as waterfalls, mountains, or man-made shrines.
The shrines, which are found throughout the Inca territory from Ecuador to Chile, may be as simple as stones piled in a field (apachitas) or as complex as stepped pyramids that were once topped with canopies and carved images.
Huacas are associated with respect and ritual.
Andean cultures believed every object has a physical presence and two camaquen (spirits), one to create it and another to animate it. They would invoke its spirits for the object to function.
A huaca could be built along a processional ceremonial line or route, as was done for the sacred rituals within the capital at Cusco. Such lines were referred to as ceques. These lines were laid out to express the cosmology of the culture (their theory on how the universe was formed) and were sometimes aligned astronomically to various stellar risings and settings. These matched with seasonal ceremonies and time keeping (for the purposes of agriculture and ceremony and record keeping).
Special compounds were erected at certain huacas where priests composed elaborate rituals and religious ceremonial culture. For instance, the ceremony of the sun was performed at Cusco (Inti Raymi).
Incas 'enhanced' the pre-existing religious beliefs of the peoples whom they took into their empire. This ensured proper compliance among conquered peoples.
The Incas also transplanted and colonised whole groups of persons of Inca background with newly adopted peoples to arrange a better distribution of Inca persons throughout all of their empire in order to avoid widespread resistance.
In this instance, huacas and pacarinas became significant centres of shared worship and a point of unification of ethnically and linguistically diverse peoples. They helped to bring unity and common citizenship to often geographically varied peoples.
Eventually the people developed a system of pilgrimages to these various shrines.