Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 16, 2025
These were placed under the care of the amautas, or "wise men," who engrossed the scanty stock of science if science it could be called possessed by the Peruvians, and who were the sole teachers of youth. It was natural that the monarch should take a lively interest in the instruction of the young nobility, his own kindred.
These were told in traditions and legends preserved and transmitted from generation to generation by the amautas. If they were also recorded in secret books of hieroglyphical writing, such as those found among the Panoes on the Ucayali, which “contained hidden things that no stranger ought to know,” satisfactory evidence of the fact has never been brought to light.
Next came Huainaevi-Pishua, and “during his reign was known the use of letters, and the amautas taught astrology and the art of writing on leaves of the plantain tree.” Sinchi-Cozque won victories, and “adorned and fortified the city of Cuzco.” Inti-Capac-Yupanqui, another remarkable character, divided the kingdom into districts and subdistricts, introduced a complete civil organization, instituted the solar year of three hundred and sixty-five days, and established the system of couriers.
The next morning Escombe spent in the company of a sort of committee of the chief amautas or "wise men", who represented the concentrated essence so to speak of all Peruvian wisdom and learning, and who had been embodied for the express purpose of instructing the young Inca in the intricacies such as they were of the code of Tavantinsuyu or "four quarters of the world" as it then stood.
He gives the history of the Incas as it was handed down to the descendants of the former rulers of Peru. In it we read that Manco Ccapac and his brothers finally succeeded in reaching Cuzco and settled there. With the return of the descendants of the Amautas to Cuzco there ended the glory of Tampu-tocco.
Was this the cause of their reticence? Certainly the requirements of Tampu-tocco are met at Machu Picchu. The splendid natural defenses of the Grand Canyon of the Urubamba made it an ideal refuge for the descendants of the Amautas during the centuries of lawlessness and confusion which succeeded the barbarian invasions from the plains to the east and south.
Several of the Peruvian princes are said to have built their palaces in the neighborhood of the schools, in order that they might the more easily visit them and listen to the lectures of the amautas, which they occasionally reinforced by a homily of their own.2 In these schools, the royal pupils were instructed in all the different kinds of knowledge in which their teachers were versed, with especial reference to the stations they were to occupy in after-life.
As the Incas grew in power and extended their rule over the ancient empire of the Cuzco Amautas from whom they traced their descent, superstitious regard would have led them to establish their chief temples and palaces in the city of Cuzco itself. There was no longer any necessity to maintain the citadel of Tampu-tocco. It was probably deserted, while Cuzco grew and the Inca Empire flourished.
The thirty-fourth ruler, called Ayay-Manco, “assembled the amautas in Cuzco to reform the calendar, and it was decided that the year should be divided into months of thirty days, and weeks of ten days, calling the five days at the end of the year a small week; they also collected the years into decades or groups of tens, and determined that each group of ten decades should form a sun.”
They studied the laws, and the principles of administering the government, in which many of them were to take part. They were initiated in the peculiar rites of their religion, most necessary to those who were to assume the sacerdotal functions. They learned also to emulate the achievements of their royal ancestors by listening to the chronicles compiled by the amautas.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking