March 9, 2009 [Monday]

Main events: Visit to Cuzco's plaza and Kori Cancha, huacas and observatory at Saqsawaman

A tour of the city Cuzco [pronounced in Quechua, Koz-ko], the city that, in Inca times, supposedly had the shape of a puma (as evidenced by the street names, such as Pumakurko [spinal column of the puma]), illustrated the centrality of the city as the "navel of the world." In the main plaza of Cuzco, once covered in sand from the beach and housing a descicated whale corpse, lies the Kori Cancha ("Temple of Splendor"). From this temple, now a Dominican church, radiated the imaginary sacred lines, or ceques, dotted with huacas (sacred places/things). Each of the four sections of the empire in Tahuantinsuyo (Chinchasuyu (NW), Antisuyu (NE), Contisuyu (SW), and Collasuyu) had about nine of these lines, except for one, which had either fourteen or fifteen. The huacas would each correspond approximately to a date in the Inca calendar, and would receive attention from a member of the appropriate kinship group corresponding to the line on which the huaca stood) on a specific day of the year. The lines and kinship groups also expressed hierarchical relationships, with groups of three, each representing a different lineage.

Huacas could be anything special, often landscape features (caves, lakes, mountaints, and so forth). Occasionally, however, the Inca extended their reverance to living things, such as trees. Somewhere in Cuzco's plaza there are three such sacred items buried.

The juxtaposition of the Kori Cancha and the colonial architecture is a good example of power relationships and stratigraphic evidence for Spanish techniques of Christianization. Instead of demolishing the temple completely, the Spaniards preserved much of the most sophisticated architecture in the Inca empire. The technique of associating the most sacred site of the indigenous population with Christianity effectively converted many, though native practices and iconography still appear in this syncretic brand of Catholicism. In modern times there has been an effort to reassert native traditions, with educational programs aiding this objective.

One such attempt to rediscover the wisdom of the Inca includes an astronomical observatory at Saqsawaman, the location of the megaliths supposedly whipped by the Inca until they moved by themselves. This observatory discusses ancient techniques of observation, such as water mirrors, and the importance of constellations to the predition of weather patterns. Such constellations include the Pleiades and the dark clouds of dust in the Milky Way which, to the Andeans, seemed to include the forms of llamas, toads, serpents, and other such figures of native importance. Dark constellations are one of the rare and unique features of the indigenous Peruvians.