Amauta (meaning "master" or "wise one" in

Quechua Quechua may refer to: *Quechua people, several indigenous ethnic groups in South America, especially in Peru *Quechuan languages, a Native South American language family spoken primarily in the Andes, derived from a common ancestral language **So ...

) was a title for teachers in the

Inca empire The Inca Empire (also known as the Incan Empire and the Inka Empire), called ''Tawantinsuyu'' by its subjects, ( Quechua for the "Realm of the Four Parts", "four parts together" ) was the largest empire in pre-Columbian America. The adm ...

, especially of children of the nobility. According to Fray Martin de Murua, a missionary in Peru, education in the Inca empire was instituted in schools called ''Yachaywasi'' or "Houses of Knowledge" in

Cuzco Cusco, often spelled Cuzco (; qu, Qusqu ()), is a city in Southeastern Peru near the Urubamba Valley of the Andes mountain range. It is the capital of the Cusco Region and of the Cusco Province. The city is the seventh most populous in Peru; ...

. Students were children of the Inca nobility, the future rulers. The subjects were the moral standards, religion, government tenets, statistics, math, science, " Runa-Simi" language variety of Cuzco, Khipu interpretation, art, music construction, history, agronomy, architecture, medicine, philosophy and cosmological ideas of the earth and the universe, among other subjects. The original ''Yachaywasi'' was constructed and inaugurated by

Inca Roca Inca Roca (Quechua ''Inka Roq'a'', " magnanimous Inca") was the sixth Sapa Inca of the Kingdom of Cusco (beginning around CE 1350) and the first of the Hanan ("upper") Qusqu dynasty.Steele, Paul Richard and Allen, Catherine J. (2004) ''Handbook of ...

. More schools like this were built as the empire grew, and were the centers of teaching the primary ideologies, histories and philosophies of the empire. The amautas maintained this knowledge through an oral tradition and passed it on to future generations. The word is still used in modern Perú, communist José Carlos Mariategui ran a magazine named "Amauta".

References

* ''(in Spanish)'' * {{Cite book , last=De la Vega , first=Garcilaso , title=The Royal Commentaries of the Incas * Amaruk Kayshapanta
El segreto de los Amawtas
Ediciones Carena. (in Spanish) Inca society Peruvian culture

See also

References