Inca Human Sacrifice
This is the topic the students will want to hear about and it is also the one that they will most remember if they have any prior knowledge of the Inca. Mann emphasizes in 1491 that the Inca did not have human sacrifices, but only behaved like their European city counterparts of London and Toledo. He states that the report of the Incas committing human sacrifices or cannibalism are "racist lies" spread by those needing a reason for annihilating the Inca society. Mann states that the Inca only executed criminals and those found guilty of crimes against the empire (120-1). This position is different than the Maya as noted above. However, Mann does not mention the Inca practice of capac hucha.
The capac hucha or "royal obligation" ceremony is believed to have been practiced to celebrate the maize harvest cycle, the death of an Inka, the crowning of a new Inka, and possibly other occasions. The ceremony began with the selection of children from the four corners of the empire. The children would be picked because of their exceptional beauty. They traveled to the capital, Cuzco, were paired, and symbolically married. The new couple would be outfitted with new clothes and necessary household items all in miniature. The couple along with priests and other companions would immediately begin their journey homeward. The procession would walk in a straight line and single file. Upon reaching home, there would be a celebration in which the married children were purposely induced into a drunken stupor on maize beer called chicha. They, and all their household possessions, would be buried at a huaca or sacred place in the town. A tube running down to the dead children would pipe chicha to them for five days. Archaeologists have found many capac hucha sites and it is thought that as many as 1,000 children would be sacrificed at a time (McEwan and Van DeGuchte 359-362).
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