[bksvol-discuss] another question about the Last Days of the Incas
- From: Scott Berry <sberry@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: Bookshare Volunteers <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2007 11:44:50 -0500
Hello there,
I have another question about this book. At the end of page 45 there are
some definitions for words as you will see from the insertion I am
including. I wonder how would it be best to separate the definitions
from the actual text because it could become confusing when trying to
read. I had to read it twice to figure out what was up. Here is the page
which has the definitions:
Pachacuti began rapidly to conquer the amalgam of tribes, kingdoms, and
city-states that lay strewn across the Andes. Pachacuti's bold forays
and those of his son, Tupac Inca, eventually culminated in the toppling
of the old Chimu Empire, located on the northwestern coast. Within a
single lifetime, then, Pachacuti and his son had seized a 1,400-mile
stretch of the Andes, from present-day Bolivia to northern Peru, plus
much of the adjacent coast. No longer were the Incas a small, pregnable
group exposed to the vagaries of other kingdoms' marauding armies.
Pachacuti had become the first Inca king to fashion a veritable empire—a
vast, multiethnic conglomeration that had been created through conquest
and that Pachacuti now ruled over with a tiny band of Inca elite.
Pachacuti called his new empire Tawantinsuyu, or "the four parts
united," as he divided it into four regions: Chinchaysuyu, Cuntisuyu,
Collasuyu, and Antisuyu. The capital, Cuzco, lay at the intersection
where all four suyus came together. In a sense, Pachacuti and Tupac Inca
had created a conquest enterprise. Through threat, negotiation, or
actual bloody conquest, they subjugated new provinces, determined the
number of tax-paying peasants, installed a local Inca governor, and then
left an administration in place that was empowered to supervise and
collect taxes before their armies moved on. If cooperative, the local
elites were allowed to retain their privileged positions and were
rewarded handsomely for their collaboration. If uncooperative, the Incas
exterminated them and wiped out their supporters. Peasants were a crop,
a crop that could be harvested through periodic taxation. Docile,
obedient workers who created surpluses, in fact, were a crop more
valuable than any of the five thousand varieties of potatoes the Incas
cultivated in the Andes, more valuable even than the vast herds of
llamas and alpacas that the Incas periodically used for their meat and
wool. It was the peasants and their associated lands that the Incas
coveted, and it was by taxing the peasants' labor that the Inca elite
continued to increase their wealth, prestige, and power.
Tupac Inca, who had carried out successful campaigns in the north and on
the coast, also succeeded in extending the Inca Empire farther east,
marching from the high frigid plains of the Andes down into the sweltering
Tttwantin in the Inca language, Quechua, means a group of four things
(tawa means four with the suffix -ruin, which names a group; and suyu,
which means "part").
45
Scott
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