The Inca Empire in its heyday was the largest state in all of South and North America of the pre-Columbian period. It covered territories from modern Colombia to Chile. Her heart was the land that today belongs to the states of Peru and Bolivia. This ancient civilization has achieved significant success in military affairs, social organization, scientific natural sciences, and also managed to leave behind a significant cultural heritage.
Inca Worldview
The Indian, who lived in Peru, lived in a world of omnipotent, spiritualized and deified nature. Representatives of this civilization literally considered everything spiritualized. In this aspect, the ancient Indians of Peru went much further than the European pagan peoples, deifying only the forces of nature. For the Incas, even the smallest item possessed its own soul and will: the fruits of potatoes, animals, and even stones. The invisible spirit could manifest in many forms. Even the universe itself had a certain reasonable principle - an egg, which was depicted on a gold plate in the temple of the Sun, in the Inca capital of Cuzco. The Indian who lived in Peru believed, of course, in the immortality of the soul.
Representatives of this civilization generally had a peculiar form of totemism. The names of deified animals called communal lands. It was believed that this would contribute to their fertility. The cult of ancestors was also widespread. The Indian who lived in Peru, after his death, remained in the memory of his relatives. According to them, his spirit contributed to the fertility of animals, the ripening of the crop, the well-being of the family. A deceased aristocrat, regardless of how he lived the earthly life and how he behaved, fell directly into the abode of the Sun. Abundance always reigned there. But for the commoner after death, there were options. Only virtuous people were brought into the warm abode of the Sun. Sinners threatened to go to a kind of hell called an eye-pack. But the hell of the ancient Americans was not a place heated by heat, but an ice cave. Thus, the Indian, who lived in Peru, had a mystical character passed down from generation to generation, being largely a fatalist. It is interesting that social psychologists even today often attribute to the representatives of these nationalities the character of an extreme melancholy who is ready to accept the whims of nature. At the same time, the religious ideas and worldview of the ancient inhabitants of the Peruvian mountains were very practical.
An Indian who lived in Peru considered agriculture to be sacred. Actually, the population of the Inca state consisted mainly of landowners. Therefore, the whole daily life of the Aboriginal people was subject to the cycle of sowing and harvesting. In society, there were especially revered priests who relied on knowledge of astronomy, lunar cycles and plant properties. The Incas managed to create a state that has become one of the most important centers of plant cultivation in history. Even in the modern world, more than half of all products consumed all over the planet originally come from South America.