Called Inti, the Inca rulers considered him their direct ancestor. Like many Andean religions, Inca considered the sun god the most prominent. Just as Peruvians now celebrate a version of Catholicism mixed with native beliefs and practices, the Incan religion absorbed some of the central tenets of the cultures the Inca people had conquered. What we know of the Inca pantheon of gods and goddesses comes from the archaeology of temples and shrines, and some records preserved by Spanish priests after the conquest. Gods and goddesses typically took the form of anthropomorphized snakes, birds, the sun and the moon, and Mother Earth. You can still see this blended temple today, an architectural metaphor of the history of Peruvian religious practices.īefore the arrival of the Spaniards, the religions of the disparate Peruvian indigenous groups often involved some kind of nature worship. Nearly 100 years later, the Spanish completed construction of the Church of Santo Domingo on the ruins of the temple, incorporating walls that Inca had built into the church. For example, Qurikancha, the Incan Temple of the Sun in Cusco, originally shone with a layer of gold, removed by the Spanish conquistadors in the 16th century. Throughout Peruvian cities and villages, you can stop and admire the cathedrals that the Spanish built, which are close by (and sometimes directly on top of) the ruins of Inca and older indigenous civilizations.
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