Incas
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
an Indian people of South America resembling in many respects the Aztecs of Mexico. They inhabited the Sierra region of Bolivia and Peru, between the Cordilleras and the main range of the Andes. Exaggerated reports of the Incas were spread by early Spanish writers. After making due allowance it may be said that they attained a degree of semi-civilization. Their chief town was Cuzco. Not satisfied with the fertile plain, they terraced the slopes of the mountains and brought them under cultivation. They were governed by a succession of warlike chieftains. There were military trails, or possibly roads, which passed through mountain defiles, crossed the ranges and traversed bleak deserts. Pack trains of llamas were employed to bring home spoils. Tribute was levied on the tribes residing along the Pacific coast. The Inca builders possessed no little architectural skill. Immense stones were quarried and fitted together to build temples and palaces, displaying an ingenuity rivaling that of the Central American builders. The native artisans were workers in metals and produced pottery of a high order. The priests developed an elaborate system of sun worship. They required subject tribes to furnish "sun maidens" for sacrifice. The war power as well as the wealth of the Incas, had reached its height when the country was invaded by Pizarro. The descendants of the Incas still represent over fifty per cent of the inhabitants of Peru. They are described as a slender, well knit people, capable of enduring fatigue. They have a fresh, olive complexion, with a smooth, soft skin. The hair is straight and black, the chin beardless, the nose aquiline. In their homes they are gentle and affectionate. They are industrious cultivators of the soil and make good shepherds, being gentle and patient with the animals. See Pizarro ; Peru ; Aztecs ; Alpaca ; Titicaca
What Has Changed in the Last Century
When Aiton's wrote this in 1910, the Incas were still ranked a "semi-civilization" whose "military trails, or possibly roads" were half-doubted; a year later Hiram Bingham brought Machu Picchu to world attention, and the road system, the Qhapaq Ñan, is now mapped at some 30,000 kilometres and listed by UNESCO in 2014. Archaeology has replaced the guesswork: the empire is now called by its own name, Tawantinsuyu, dated to roughly 1438-1533, with a population estimated in the millions, and the storehouse-and-labour-tax economy recorded on knotted quipu cords is a serious field of study rather than a curiosity. The claim that subject tribes supplied "sun maidens for sacrifice" is only partly borne out: the chosen women, the acllas, mostly served as weavers and brewers, while the frozen bodies found on Andean summits, including three children on Llullaillaco in 1999, show that ritual killing was a rare, high-ceremony act. The closing paragraph on complexion, beardless chins and gentle shepherds is the part a modern encyclopedia would not print at all; today one would say instead that Quechua has been an official language of Peru since 1975.
Written for this edition, 2026.