How Did The Inca Communicate

Inca Communication Like the ancient West African civilizations, the Inca did not develop a written language. They did, however have knowledge of advanced mathematics. They used knotted string called quipu to keep track of population, taxes, amount of food in storehouses, etc. The quipu worked like an abacus in that different knots at various places on the string represented different places on the number line.

The Inca were South American Indian people who ruled one of the largest and richest empires in the America 's. The Inca Empire began to expand about 1438 and occupied a vast region that centered on the capital, Cusco, in southern Peru. Within a hundred years, the Inca conquered a number of different tribes expanding their area of influence
outward from their home in the Cusco valley. The Inca Empire eventually totaled about 906,500 sq km. (Patterson 1). This territory centered on the peaks of the Andes, but extended to the pacific coast and the Amazon basin. Every territorial gain resulted in another war, which expanded the borders of the empire again. The larger the Inca Empire became, the greater the need for war to control territories the empire gained. The Inca were a warlike people and a peaceful god like the one the coastal tribes worshiped wouldn 't have met the needs for the Inca emperor to expand his empire. Inti, the sun god the Incas worshiped, satisfied those needs, since he was a cruel and warlike god. That is why the Inca emperor forced everyone to worship this god with the emperor himself as an incarnation of the deity (Salentiny 2).

With an empire that ran almost the entire length of South America, the Inca needed a way to get messages from one place to another quickly.
They developed an extensive network of roads and bridges, which were used by runners, traders and the general population. Rapid communication and trade was achieved through a relay system of runners. Messages and goods could be sent up to 250 miles in one day (Hos-McGrane 3). The Incas had an incredible system of roads. One road ran almost the entire length of the South American Pacific coast. Since the Incas lived in the Andes Mountains, the roads took great engineering and architectural skill to build. On the coast, the roads were not surfaced and were marked only by tree trunks The Incas paved their highland roads with flat stones and built stone walls to prevent travelers from falling off cliffs. Referred to as an all-weather highway system, the over 14,000 miles of Inca roads were an astonishing and reliable precursor to the advent of the automobile. Communication and transport was efficient and speedy, linking the mountain peoples and lowland desert dwellers with Cuzco. Building materials and ceremonial processions traveled thousands of miles along the roads that still exist in remarkably good condition today (Morris & Von Hagen
4).

The terrain, according to Ciezo de Leon, an early chronicler of Inca culture, was formidable. The road system ran through deep valleys and over mountains, through piles of snow, quagmires, living rock, along turbulent rivers; in some places it ran smooth and paved, carefully laid out; in others over sierras, cut through the rock, with walls skirting the rivers, and steps and rests through the snow; everywhere it was clean swept and kept free of rubbish, with lodgings, storehouses, temples to the sun, and posts along the way. The Incas did not discover the wheel, so all travel was done on foot. To help travelers on their way, rest houses were built every few kilometers. In these rest houses, they could spend a night, cook a meal and feed their llamas.

Their bridges were the only way to cross rivers on foot. If only one of their hundreds of bridges was damaged, a major road could not fully function; every time one broke, the locals would repair it as quickly as possible (Hos-McGrane 5).

Not many people lived in the Incan cities. People lived in the nearby villages and traveled into town for festivals or business. The city was mainly used for the government. About theonly people who lived in the city were the metalworkers, carpenters, weavers and other crafters who made artwork for the temples. These people lived in the artisans ' quarters. Outside of the cities were the government storehouses and soldiers ' barracks. All the records for nearby villages were reported by their leaders and recorded in the city by the quipucamayoc. Quipucamayocs were special people responsible for maintaining a record of Inca accomplishments through memory and record keeping. A method of keeping records the Inca had was the khipu, knotted strings hanging from horizontal cords that represented numbers for the purpose of imperial accounting and bookkeeping. Although the conventionalbelief is that the khipus hold straightforward numerical data for the empire 's bureaucrats, more recent research has challenged this view. One new theory is that the khipu appear to use numbers as both numbers and as labels, estimating that around 20 percent of existing khipu are "non-numerical" and could be an example of an early form of written record. Anaccount from the colonial times would appear to backup this theory: Spanish travelers came upon an old Indian man who tried to hide a khipu he was carrying. When questioned, the Indian claimed the khipu recorded the actions of the conquerors, "both the good and the evil".The Spanish then burned the khipu (Von Hagen, V 6). The main form of communication between cities was the chasqui. The chasqui were young men who relayed messages. If the army general in Nazca needed to report a village uprising to the Sapa Inca in Cuzco, he would have one chasqui runner start from the chasqui post in Nazca and run about a kilometer to another chasqui, waiting outside another hut. The message would be relayed and the chain would be continued for hundreds of miles by hundreds of runners until the last runner reached the Sapa Inca and relayed the exact message.(Morris & Von Hagen 7). The quipu was also useful for census-taking and provided a mass of statistical information for the government. Messengers could carry a quipu from Quito to Cuzco in 3 days, less time than it sometimes takes by car. Archeologists are now suggesting that authors used the quipu to compose and preserve their epic poems and legends. Because there were relatively few words in Quechua, they could be used as pronunciation keys on the cords. Then each knot on a cord designated a syllable of the word represented at the head of the cord.

The Inca of Peru have long held a mystical fascination for people of the western world.
Four hundred years ago the fabulous wealth in gold and silver possessed by these people was discovered, then systematically pillaged and plundered by Spanish conquistadors. The booty they carried home altered the whole European economic system. In their wake, they left a highly developed civilization in tatters. That a single government could control many diverse tribes, many of which were secreted in the most obscure of mountain hideaways, was simply remarkable. (Moseley 8)Bibliography1 Patterson, Thomas C.1991, The Inca Empire: The Formation and Disintegration of a Pre-Capitalist State. Berg, New York, Oxford.

2 Salentiny, Fernand. Machu Picchu. 1979 Umschau Verlag Breidenstein KG, Frankfurt am Main3 Ms Hos-McGrane 1997 http://www.internet-at-work.com/hos_mcgrane/inca/eg_inca_menu14 Morris, Craig & Von Hagen, Adriana 1993. The Inka Empire and its Andean Origins. Abbeville Press, New York5 Hos-McGrane6Von Hagen, Victor W., INCAS., Vol. 12, Colliers Encyclopedia CD-ROM, 02-28-19967 Morris8 Moseley, Michael E.1992, The Incas and Their Ancestors. Thames and Hudson Ltd., LondonHardman, Chris Source: Americas; Sep/Oct2006, Vol. 58 Issue 5, p48-55, 8pCrystal, Ellie 2006 Inca Civilization
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