Capacocha Sacrifices - From the Darkened Heart

 Because that, when they knew God,

they glorified Him not as God,

neither were thankful;

but became vain in their imaginations,

and their foolish heart was darkened.

Romans 1:21

Capacocha Child Sacrifice: Where the Darkened Heart led to......

"Information on the Inca capacocha can be found in several Spanish colonial documents. One of these, Bernabe Cobo’s Historia del

Nuevo Mundo, is considered amongst the most reliable of the Spanish chronicles and presents a comprehensive description of Inca myths, religious beliefs, and ceremonies.

The assemblage of seven child burials was discovered in 2004 at Choquepukio, a stratified site in the Cuzco Valley occupied continuously from the Early Intermediate Period (∼400 BC–AD 540) through the Late Horizon (AD 1476–1532) (McEwan, 2006, McEwan et al., 2002, McEwan et al., 1995). During excavations of this site, Choquepukio field directors Gordon McEwan and Arminda Gibaja uncovered an imperial Inca building with an intact floor, dated to AD 1410–1520.

Based on the 87Sr/86Sr range for the Cuzco region, two of the seven children were identified as non-local. 

The first individual (CHO 141) exhibited a 87Sr/86Sr value of 0.70910, just above the Cuzco-region range and within the range of the Tiwanaku region of Bolivia (0.7087–0.7105) (Knudson, 2004). The second individual (CHO 142) yielded a 87Sr/86Sr value of 0.70638, well below the Cuzco range. Instead, this 87Sr/86Sr ratio fell into the range observed for Wari.....the Spanish chronicler Betanzos (1996[1557]:132) noted that for the capacocha demanded by the Emperor Pachacuti.

The Inca practiced the sacrificial ritual of capacocha, which

involved sacrificing children from noble families for various reasons, including gaining political favor with the emperor. 

Notable mummies, such as the Llullaillaco Maiden and the Aconcagua mummy, have been discovered in the Andes of Argentina, Chile, and Peru. The Inca had the practice of capacocha, the sacrifice of children often high in the mountains where they would become naturally mummified.

The practice of capacocha was important among the ancient Inca. Most of the time, the sacrifices were children, both boys and girls.
Those sacrificed are often called 'sacrificial victims' today, but it should be noted that it was considered an honor to be chosen to be sacrificed. Those to be sacrificed were often from noble families that sought to gain political favor with the emperor.
Age Of Capacocha Sacrifices:
Boys: Up to 10
Girls: Up to 16

These children were considered to have been 

the purest of beings, and were sent to contact the gods

 with a message from their people.

These sacrifices were carried out for a number of reasons and on

several occasions. They would be done with the ascension, sickness, or death of the Emperor (or the birth of a son). They would also be done to stop natural disasters.
The children chosen had to be perfect (virgins, no illness, no freckles, no scars, etc.).

The chosen girls would be taken to the "House of the Chosen Women" where they stayed for a while learning to be a priestess. When they turned 14 years old, some became priestesses while the prettiest ones were often sent as tribute to be sacrificed in the capacocha rituals.

On the day of the sacrifice, the child would be fed chicha, a maize alcohol, presumably to ease the pain of the cold, the altitude, and perhaps the fear of dying. 

Much ritual celebrating would take place at the platform as the child would be wrapped in ceremonial clothing, placed inside the tomb, and surrounded with the sacred artifacts that would accompany him/her into the Other World.

This was the ultimate sacrifice the Inca could make to please the mountain gods: to offer up their own children in the highest places humans could possibly reach. Once the child died of exposure, the priests would continue to return to the site, making offerings of coca leaves and filling in the burial site with dirt. 

Often a miniature figurine of the child would be placed on the surface near the burial site, along with more simple offerings like ichu, wild grass from the slopes thousands of feet below.
A third group went on to be the secondary wives of noblemen or servants and concubines for the emperor.
Those destined to be sacrificed were fed the best diet for a year in preparation for their sacrifice. They could be sacrificed through blunt force to the head, strangulation, or by being buried alive. Females were typically buried with more extravagant grave goods when compared to their male counterparts.

"Beautiful beyond exaggeration," is how one Spanish chronicler

Poma de Ayala (1615)

described Tanta Carhua. Carhua was a 10-year old Inca child whose father offered her to the Inca Emperor as a Capacocha sacrifice. 

She was taken by priests to Cuzco where she met the Inca Emperor, and on her return journey to the mountain where she would be sacrificed the procession passed through her home village. Tanta Carhua was then taken to a high Andean mountain, placed in a shaft-tomb and walled in alive. Chicha, a maize alcohol, was fed to her both before and after her death. And in death, this beautiful ten-year old child became a goddess, speaking to her people as an oracle from the mountain, which was reconsecrated in her name.

Now, as reported in the journal Scientific Reports of the Nature

group, scientists have managed to extract DNA from a lung biopsy of the mummy of the child to sequence the mitochondrial genome. An analysis through which it has been possible to identify a new haplogroup that, until now, had not been detected in contemporary populations, and which has been named C1bi. They believe that the lineage probably came to the area during the first waves of immigration in the Americas. 

The experts believe that there may still be living descendants of this lineage found in some parts of Peru and Bolivia. They also have noted a high affinity of the haplogroup C1bi in skeletal remains belonging to an individual who lived in the ancient Wari (Huari) empire. "
TheTravel/NOVA/ScienceDirect/AncientOrigins