Yesterday we went to the Sun and Moon Islands on Lake Titicaca. These are ceremonial islands for the indigenous people here who are are the Aymara, the Tiwanaku, and the Inca. The first were the Tiwanaku, who are known for doors within doors and rectangular shapes. To make walls they found stones that fit perfectly with each other, with a little mortar. The next were the Aymara. The Aymara were known for making very hardy structures. This culture is still around today and practiced by many people in the Titicaca area. To make walls the Aymara made a mixture of clay and cactus juice that could withstand any and all weather. The last were the Inca, the most famous. The Inca were known for trapezoidal windows and doors to prevent collapse during earthquakes. The Inca territory stretches from the Atacama desert in Chile up into Colombia. To make walls the Inca shaped stones and stacked them. These walls were so perfect that you couldn’t fit a finger in between the stones.
All of these cultures thought of Lake Titicaca in general, but especially the Sun and Moon Islands as sacred places. We took a tour to both of these islands yesterday. First, we went to Moon Island. Moon Island is the smaller of the two and home to two hundred people. It has only one school with eleven children of all ages. It is very quiet and has only a couple of visitors a day. We walked from one side up and across it to the ruins on the other side. These are the ruins of what we would call a convent for young Inca women. No men were allowed on the Island save for possibly the Inca King. At this temple, the Inca Virgin Princesses worshiped the moon and the Lake. Each day they took care of mummies of important Incas. They changed their clothes and put balsams on them to keep them preserved. These mummies, as well as silver idols, sat in niches in their bedrooms. The niches were differently sized for different sized mummies. The bedrooms also held maybe eight-ish women in each room, on two floors, sort of like an ancient bunk bed. There were also rooms for priests (women as well), food storage, bathrooms, cooking, and more worship. The princesses also made clothing and other things to help them, you guessed it, worship. The reason the women worship the moon is because of the length of the lunar cycle. If you didn’t know, the lunar cycle is about twenty eight days, around the same amount of time as the menstrual cycle. The Incans deemed this non-coincidental and decided that the moon was a woman and women should worship it. Also, every six months, an Inca Princess was chosen for a very special honor, which I will get to in a moment.
After we were done at Moon Island, we took an hour long boat trip to the north side of Sun Island. The south side is fine, but the north side has the best ruins, so we went there. Sun Island is the biggest island in Lake Titicaca and has a whopping five thousand residents. Most of these people live in one of three towns on the north, middle, or on the south side. Once we got there, we hiked up to the top of the hill where we found the ruins. Just like there was a women’s temple on Moon Island, there are three men temples on Sun Island. Here the men worshiped the sun, the lake, and the protective mountains you can see in the distance. They say the sun and moon were born in Lake Titicaca and hid here during the days of darkness. The most sacred place in the Inca world is Puma Rock. Titicaca is actually mis-translated from Titikarka meaning puma rock. The puma rock does actually look like a rock and is located about one hundred meters from the sacrificial table. Every six months, an Inca Princess was chosen to be sacrificed to the sun god. They only sacrificed women because the sun god was a man, and therefore preferred women. They also sacrificed animals, namely Llamas on this table. Here the sacrifice had his or her throat slit and placed on the puma rock for the sun god. After seeing the temple and the rock, we went to the boat down in the northern town, a twenty or thirty minute walk south of the ruins.
All in all these places were awesome to visit and definitely worth the money. I hope that one of you comes here and gets to see or at least glimpse the life of the Incas.
4 Responses
Thank you, Audrey, for your thorough description of the Sun and Moon Islands and the three indigenous peoples. I can sense a hint of humor running throughout your descriptions. The pictures that your parents are taking add depth and meaning to your narratives. Keep up the memory-making experiences. You will have volumes of information and stories to relate when you return home.
So much interesting history! I wonder how they picked the not so lucky princess? So often ancient people tried to find connections between natural occurrences to explain events in their lives. I like that you included an example in your post. Thanks for sharing your experiences in writing. You can look back on them for your entire life!
It’s interesting that those cultures of so long ago were so smart in some things (building without mortar) and so ignorant of others – it’s like “when you can’t explain something you sacrifice people and animals to it”, as if it would change anything. If I were a young girl back then I would have been terrified that I’d get picked to be sacrificed, but I imagine some back then would have considered it an honor. And who got to choose who was to be sacrificed? That’s a heavy weight to carry.
Keep up the wonderful posts!
You have piqued my interest with your accounts of these ancient civilizations! I remember learning about the Incas when I was in school; your descriptions and pictures bring that learning to life. Thanks!