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Andean Religion
The Inca religion was a group of beliefs and rites that were related to a mythological system evolving from pre-Inca times to Inca Empire. Faith in the ''Tawantinsuyu'' was manifested in every aspect of his life, work, festivities, ceremonies, etc. They were polytheists and there were local, regional and pan-regional divinities. Deities Inca deities occupied the three realms: *'' hanan pacha'', the celestial realm in the sky. *'' ukhu pacha'', the inner earth realm. *''kay pacha'', the outer earth realm, where humans live. Deities of the Official Pantheon * Viracocha: He was typically personified as a human male, and known as the creator of humanity and everything else in the world. In Inca Water Worship and Religion, it states, "He created humanity on an island in Lake Titicaca on the border between modern Peru and Bolivia and taught people how to live, assigning them tribal dress and customs and determining where they should live." After this occurred, Viracocha gave c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mama Cocha
Mama Qucha (Quechua: "Mother Sea" or "Mother Lake", hispanicized spelling Mama Cocha) is the ancient Incan goddess of sea and fishes, guardian of sailors and fishermen, wife of Viracocha, mother of Inti and Mama Killa. In some regions of empire people believed she was the goddess of all bodies of water, including lakes, rivers, and even human-made watercourses. Mama Cocha was more important to people living beside the coastal regions due to nearness and dependence upon the sea. Inca beliefs in Mama Cocha and other water deities indicate that the people back then understood the basics of the hydrological cycle. They knew the seawater Seawater, or salt water, is water from a sea or ocean. On average, seawater in the world's oceans has a salinity of about 3.5% (35 g/L, 35 ppt, 600 mM). This means that every kilogram (roughly one liter by volume) of seawater has appro ... was replenishing the rain, which then fell over the ground. References {{deity-stub Inca goddesse ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Coca
Coca is any of the four cultivated plants in the family Erythroxylaceae, native to western South America. Coca is known worldwide for its psychoactive alkaloid, cocaine. The plant is grown as a cash crop in the Argentine Northwest, Bolivia, Alto Rio Negro Territory in Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, and Peru, even in areas where its cultivation is unlawful. There are some reports that the plant is being cultivated in the south of Mexico, by using seeds imported from South America, as an alternative to smuggling its recreational product cocaine. It also plays a role in many traditional Amazonian and Andean cultures as well as the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta in northern Colombia. The cocaine alkaloid content of dry ''Erythroxylum coca'' var. ''coca'' leaves was measured ranging from 0.23% to 0.96%. Coca-Cola used coca leaf extract in its products from 1885 until about 1903, when it began using decocainized leaf extract. Extraction of cocaine from coca requires several sol ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Divination
Divination (from Latin ''divinare'', 'to foresee, to foretell, to predict, to prophesy') is the attempt to gain insight into a question or situation by way of an occultic, standardized process or ritual. Used in various forms throughout history, diviners ascertain their interpretations of how a querent should proceed by reading signs, events, or omens, or through alleged contact or interaction with a supernatural agency. Divination can be seen as a systematic method with which to organize what appears to be disjointed, random facets of existence such that they provide insight into a problem at hand. If a distinction is to be made between divination and fortune-telling, divination has a more formal or ritualistic element and often contains a more social character, usually in a religious context, as seen in traditional African medicine. Fortune-telling, on the other hand, is a more everyday practice for personal purposes. Particular divination methods vary by culture and reli ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Qhapaq Hucha
''Capacocha'' or ''Qhapaq hucha''''Of Summits and Sacrifice: An Ethnohistoric Study of Inka Religious Practices'', University of Texas Press, 2009 ( qu, qhapaq noble, solemn, principal, mighty, royal, crime, sin, guilt Hispanicized spellings , , , also ) was an important sacrificial rite among the Inca that typically involved the sacrifice of children. Children of both sexes were selected from across the Inca empire for sacrifice in ''capacocha'' ceremonies,D'Altroy, Terence N. (2003). The Incas (Reprinted ed.). Oxford: Blackwell Pub. . which were performed at important shrines distributed across the empire, known as , or . ''Capacocha'' ceremonies took place under several circumstances. Some could be undertaken as the result of key events in the life of the Sapa Inca, the Inca Emperor, such as his ascension to the throne, an illness, his death, the birth of a son. At other times, ''Capacocha'' ceremonies were undertaken to stop natural disasters performed as major festivals or ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Child Sacrifice In Pre-Columbian Cultures
300px, Aztec burial of a sacrificed child at Tlatelolco. The practice of human sacrifice in pre-Columbian cultures, in particular Mesoamerican and South American cultures, is well documented both in the archaeological records and in written sources. The exact ideologies behind child sacrifice in different pre-Columbian cultures are unknown but it is often thought to have been performed to placate certain gods. Mesoamerica Olmec culture Although there is no incontrovertible evidence of child sacrifice in the Olmec civilization, full skeletons of newborn or unborn infants, as well as dismembered femurs and skulls, have been found at the El Manatí sacrificial bog. These bones are associated with sacrificial offerings, particularly wooden busts. It is not known yet how the infants met their deaths. Some researchers have also associated infant sacrifice with Olmec ritual art showing limp "were-jaguar" babies, most famously in La Venta's Altar 5 (to the right) or Las Limas fig ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prayer
Prayer is an invocation or act that seeks to activate a rapport with an object of worship through deliberate communication. In the narrow sense, the term refers to an act of supplication or intercession directed towards a deity or a deified ancestor. More generally, prayer can also have the purpose of thanksgiving or praise, and in comparative religion is closely associated with more abstract forms of meditation and with charms or spells. Prayer can take a variety of forms: it can be part of a set liturgy or ritual, and it can be performed alone or in groups. Prayer may take the form of a hymn, incantation, formal creedal statement, or a spontaneous utterance in the praying person. The act of prayer is attested in written sources as early as 5000 years ago. Today, most major religions involve prayer in one way or another; some ritualize the act, requiring a strict sequence of actions or placing a restriction on who is permitted to pray, while others teach that prayer may b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Huaca
In the Quechuan languages of South America, a huaca or wak'a is an object that represents something revered, typically a monument of some kind. The term ''huaca'' can refer to natural locations, such as immense rocks. Some huacas have been associated with veneration and ritual. The Quechua people traditionally believed every object has a physical presence and two ''camaquen'' (spirits), one to create it and another to animate it. They would invoke its spirits for the object to function. ''Huacas'' in Peru Huacas are commonly located in nearly all regions of Peru outside the deepest parts of the Amazon basin in correlation with the regions populated by the pre-Inca and Inca early civilizations. They can be found in downtown Lima today in almost every district, the city having been built around them. Huacas within the municipal district of Lima are typically fenced off to avoid graffiti. ''Huacas'' along ceremonial routes A huaca could be built along a processional ceremonial li ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Snake
Snakes are elongated, Limbless vertebrate, limbless, carnivore, carnivorous reptiles of the suborder Serpentes . Like all other Squamata, squamates, snakes are ectothermic, amniote vertebrates covered in overlapping Scale (zoology), scales. Many species of snakes have skulls with several more joints than their lizard ancestors, enabling them to swallow prey much larger than their heads (cranial kinesis). To accommodate their narrow bodies, snakes' paired organs (such as kidneys) appear one in front of the other instead of side by side, and most have only one functional lung. Some species retain a pelvic girdle with a pair of vestigial claws on either side of the cloaca. Lizards have evolved elongate bodies without limbs or with greatly reduced limbs about twenty-five times independently via convergent evolution, leading to many lineages of legless lizards. These resemble snakes, but several common groups of legless lizards have eyelids and external ears, which snakes lack, altho ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cougar
The cougar (''Puma concolor'') is a large Felidae, cat native to the Americas. Its Species distribution, range spans from the Canadian Yukon to the southern Andes in South America and is the most widespread of any large wild terrestrial mammal in the Western Hemisphere. It is an adaptable, Generalist and specialist species, generalist species, occurring in most American habitat types. This wide range has brought it many common names, including puma, mountain lion, catamount and panther (for the Florida sub-population). It is the second-largest cat in the New World, after the jaguar (''Panthera onca''). Secretive and largely solitary by nature, the cougar is properly considered both nocturnal and crepuscular, although daytime sightings do occur. Despite its size, the cougar is more closely related to smaller felines, including the domestic cat (''Felis catus'') than to any species of the subfamily Pantherinae. The cougar is an ambush predator that pursues a wide variety of pre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Condor
Condor is the common name for two species of New World vultures, each in a monotypic genus. The name derives from the Quechua ''kuntur''. They are the largest flying land birds in the Western Hemisphere. They are: * The Andean condor (''Vultur gryphus''), which inhabits the Andean mountains. * The California condor (''Gymnogyps californianus''), currently restricted to the western coastal mountains of the United States and Mexico and the northern desert mountains of Arizona in the United States. Taxonomy Condors are part of the family Cathartidae which contains the New World vultures, whereas the 15 species of Old World vultures are in the family Accipitridae, that also includes hawks, eagles, and kites. The New World and Old World vultures evolved from different ancestors. They both are carrion-eaters and the two groups are similar in appearance due to convergent evolution. Description Both condors are very large broad-winged soaring birds, the Andean condor being short ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Llamas
The llama (; ) (''Lama glama'') is a domesticated South American camelid, widely used as a meat and pack animal by Andean cultures since the Pre-Columbian era. Llamas are social animals and live with others as a herd. Their wool is soft and contains only a small amount of lanolin. Llamas can learn simple tasks after a few repetitions. When using a pack, they can carry about 25 to 30% of their body weight for 8 to 13 km (5–8 miles). The name ''llama'' (in the past also spelled "lama" or "glama") was adopted by European settlers from native Peruvians. The ancestors of llamas are thought to have originated from the Great Plains of North America about 40 million years ago, and subsequently migrated to South America about three million years ago during the Great American Interchange. By the end of the last ice age (10,000–12,000 years ago), camelids were extinct in North America. As of 2007, there were over seven million llamas and alpacas in South America and over ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
