AP World History (WHAP) 1.4 Deep Dive: Incan Mita System
Summary
TLDRIn this episode of Antisocial Studies, the focus is on the unique Mita system of the Inca Empire. The Inca, who had no currency or written language, managed their vast empire through a labor exchange system where citizens served the state three times in their lives, contributing to agriculture, construction, and religious duties. The episode delves into the Inca's impressive architecture, their belief in three interconnected worlds, and how they maintained their infrastructure without taxation or slavery. The host challenges the notion that the Mongols were the exception in history, arguing that the Inca's achievements, including their record-keeping system 'khipu,' make them truly exceptional.
Takeaways
- 🌟 The Inca Empire had a unique system called the Mita, which was a form of labor service rather than a monetary or tribute system.
- 🏰 The Inca Empire was organized into provinces called suyu, which were further divided into local communities or ailu, maintaining a degree of local autonomy.
- 🌞 The Inca allowed conquered peoples to keep their religions and local leaders, as long as they showed loyalty and contributed labor to the empire.
- 🛠️ Inca labor service involved working for the state, serving the gods, and contributing to community projects, typically for periods of around 90 days.
- 🏗️ The Inca were known for their impressive architecture, using techniques like trapezoidal shapes to make their buildings earthquake-resistant.
- 🌾 The Inca had no currency and relied on bartering for trade, and the Mita system for labor, which was a significant departure from other empires' practices.
- 🛤️ The Inca built extensive road systems and bridges, comparable to the Romans, using the labor from the Mita system.
- 📚 The Inca did not have a written language but used a complex system of knotted strings called khipu for record-keeping.
- 🌐 The Inca Empire was one of the largest in the world, ruling over more people and land than the Roman Empire at its height.
- 🌟 The Inca civilization is considered exceptional due to its unique approach to governance, architecture, and societal organization without the use of writing, currency, slavery, or wheels.
Q & A
What is the Mita system discussed in the script?
-The Mita system was a unique labor organization in the Inca Empire where able-bodied individuals were required to serve the state, their gods, and their community for about 90 days, three times in their life. It was a form of obligatory community service rather than a tax system.
How did the Inca Empire structure its provinces?
-The Inca Empire was divided into provinces, which were further broken down into suyu, or main provinces. These suyu were modeled after the Southern Cross constellation, reflecting the Inca's astronomical knowledge.
What was the significance of the Southern Cross in Inca culture?
-The Southern Cross was significant in Inca culture as it was used as a model for the division of their empire into four main provinces, or suyu, reflecting the Inca's astronomical and cultural alignment.
How did the Inca treat local communities and leaders after conquest?
-After conquering an area, the Inca typically allowed local communities to continue their religious practices and kept local leaders in charge, as long as they showed loyalty to the Inca and contributed to the empire through the Mita system.
What was unique about the Inca Empire's approach to currency and trade?
-The Inca Empire did not use currency; instead, they relied on a barter system and the Mita system for labor and resource allocation, which was a unique approach compared to other civilizations of the time.
Why were craftsmen exempt from the Mita system's labor requirements?
-Craftsmen were exempt from the Mita system's labor requirements because they were highly valued in the Inca Empire for their skills, particularly in architecture, which was a notable contribution of the Inca civilization.
What is an example of the Inca's architectural achievements?
-The Inca's architectural achievements include their use of trapezoidal shapes to create earthquake-proof structures, as seen in the foundations of Cusco and the temple of the Sun in Machu Picchu.
How did the Inca's understanding of astronomy influence their architecture?
-The Inca's understanding of astronomy influenced their architecture by designing structures like the temple of the Sun in Machu Picchu, which had specific features that aligned with the sun's movement during solstices.
What is the significance of the Incan trilogy mentioned in the script?
-The Incan trilogy refers to the Inca belief in three worlds: the land of men and power (earth, represented by the Puma), the land of the afterlife (underworld, represented by the serpent), and the land of the gods and freedom (epitomized by the Condor). This belief system was reflected in their capital city Cusco and the layout of Machu Picchu.
How did the Inca record-keeping system, known as khipu, work?
-The khipu was a record-keeping system used by the Inca, which involved tying knots in ropes of different colors to represent information. The exact method of how khipu worked is still being studied, but it is known to have been a complex system of communication and record-keeping without the use of written language.
Why did the Inca not use wheels for transportation despite being aware of their existence?
-The Inca did not use wheels for transportation because they lived in the Andes Mountains where the terrain was not suitable for wheeled vehicles. Instead, they relied on human labor and their domesticated animals, like llamas and alpacas, for carrying goods.
Outlines
🌟 The Unique Mita System of the Inca Empire
The speaker expresses their admiration for the Inca civilization, highlighting the Mita system as a unique and effective method for labor organization. The Inca Empire, unlike others, did not use currency but instead relied on a labor contribution system where individuals served the state, their gods, and their community. This system was part of the Inca's broader administrative structure, which included provinces and local rulers. The speaker also touches on the Inca's respect for local customs and leaders, allowing conquered peoples to maintain their religious practices and social structures, as long as they were loyal to the Inca and contributed to the empire.
🛕 Serving the State, Gods, and Community in the Inca Empire
This paragraph delves into the specifics of the Mita system, explaining the three forms of service required: service to the state, which could involve farming, construction, or military service; service to the gods, which might include building and maintaining temples and shrines; and service to the community, which could involve contributing to infrastructure like roads and bridges. The speaker emphasizes the Inca's impressive architectural achievements, such as their earthquake-resistant buildings and the precision of their stonework. The paragraph also describes the Inca's astronomical knowledge and how it influenced the design of structures like the Temple of the Sun in Machu Picchu.
🌏 The Inca Trilogy and the Civilization's Exceptional Nature
The speaker discusses the Inca belief system, which consists of three worlds: the land of men and power (earth), the land of the afterlife (underworld), and the land of the gods and freedom. They explain how the Inca capital, Cusco, and the sacred valley were designed to reflect these beliefs, with Cusco shaped like a puma and Machu Picchu resembling a condor from above. The speaker argues that the Inca are an exception to the patterns seen in other civilizations, having built a vast empire without writing, currency, slavery, or the use of wheels. They mention the khipu, a record-keeping system using knotted ropes, as an example of the Inca's unique approach to administration. The paragraph concludes with a challenge to John Green's view on the Mongols as an exception, asserting that the Inca are the true exception due to their distinct methods of governance and societal organization.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Inca Empire
💡Mita system
💡Ailu
💡Suyu
💡Labor service
💡Architecture
💡Machu Picchu
💡Astronomy
💡Inca trilogy
💡Khipu
Highlights
Introduction to the Inca civilization and the unique Mita system
The Inca Empire's administrative structure with provinces and local rulers
The concept of suyu, the four main provinces, and their relation to the Southern Cross
The preservation of local customs and leadership under Inca rule
The absence of currency in the Inca Empire and reliance on bartering and labor
The Mita system requiring citizens to serve the state three times in their life
The three forms of Mita service: state, gods, and community
Craftspeople's exemption from Mita service due to their high value in the Inca society
Inca architecture's precision and earthquake-proof techniques
The significance of trapezoidal shapes in Inca architecture for earthquake resistance
The role of the temple of the Sun in Machu Picchu and the solstice ceremony
The Inca belief system's three worlds: land of men, underworld, and land of the gods
The shape of the ancient city of Cusco resembling a puma, symbolizing the land of power
The Inca's advanced infrastructure including road systems and bridges
The Inca's agricultural practices and community service aspect of the Mita system
The Inca's resistance to Spanish conquest and their unique record-keeping method, khipu
The Inca's exceptional civilization without writing, currency, slavery, or wheels
Conclusion and encouragement to explore more about the Inca civilization
Transcripts
hey welcome back to antisocial studies
today we're gonna talk about the Inka I
love the Inka so much I did an entire
podcast episode about them you can find
it in my youtube playlists podcasts or
anywhere you listen to podcasts anti
social studies oh it's so good I've been
to Peru twice I'm just like I'm a big
fan real into them so today I want to do
a deep dive on the Mita system because
the meanta system is something that's
really unique it's like an amazing piece
of kind of specific evidence that you
can use in a lot of ways when you're
talking about the late post-classical
era because really it's one of those
rare examples we're like really the rest
of the world had figured out kind of one
way to gain money and labor and the
resources that you need to run a massive
Empire and the Inka came up with
something totally different and unique
and in my opinion way better so first
let's just really quickly look at the
Inca Empire I'm gonna go on a few
tangents because I just like love them
so much they're so interesting but the
Inca did have this sort of bureaucratic
kind of breakdown if their empire just
like we see in others right where you
break it down into provinces and then
you have local rulers that sort of thing
they broke those down into suyu which
were the four kind of main provinces
they mimicked the Southern Cross in the
sky the Southern Cross is like the
southern hemisphere's version of the
North Star I'm gonna talk more about
astronomy in a second um and then within
that though they really left a lot up to
local rulers so they they maintained
what are called the ailu or the local
communities and basically when they
would conquer those places and
incorporate them in they typically
allowed them to keep practicing their
religion they just said as long as you
worship the Sun God - we're good they
kept local leaders in charge they kept
these like kinship groups all intact and
just said you just gotta be like loyal
to us you got to do some work for us and
so this is how they organized the Metis
system so when i say that inca are
really unique i say they're unique
because they had no currency they didn't
have any money in the Incan Empire um
all they had was they used bartering and
then and instead of a sort of like
tribute system like the Aztec had where
you had to pay tribute with people or
cry
or goods or anything else or like
currency like we see developing in kind
of afro-eurasia they just use labor they
basically just said you have to serve
your state three times in your life
so the Mita system is a lot more
complicated than this actually but
essentially you had to kind of anyone
who was willing or not willing anyone
who is physically able to had to serve
there's the Inca state three times in
their life for these kind of chunks of
around 90 days and so there were three
things you had to do you had to serve
your state so for around 90 days you
would serve your state by it kind of was
whatever the state needed or whatever
your kind of local region or province
needed you might be farming some lands
that were owned by the Emperor you might
be working on building noble palaces you
might be serving in the military there
the craftspeople were exempt from that
because craftsmen were highly valued in
the Incan Empire one of their most
notable contributions is their
architecture um you can see in this
picture down here with kind of the Incan
foundations this is a photo I took in in
Cusco I mean these stones are all still
the original Incan stones and it's kind
of hard to tell here but there's no
mortar what that means is there's
there's nothing keeping these stones
together except that they fit perfectly
together like a puzzle and so if you
ever travel around kind of the former
Incan Empire you'll see kind of more
modern buildings on top but they're
still being built on these Inca
foundations because they're so solid
they built their homes and structures to
be earthquake-proof using trapezoids so
all of the entryways and stuff are the
sort of trapezoidal shape that makes
them earthquake proof in fact in one of
their they're kind of temple to the sun
in cusco which was kind of their main
place of worship when the Spanish took
over they build like a church and kind
of monastery on top and actually around
it they like keep the Incan walls there
but then they plaster over it and they
build their own things to build this
church and in the 20th century Peru had
a massive earthquake and all of the
Spanish building fell apart and fell
down but the Inka foundations and the
inca walls stayed up which is really
really amazing so again you might be
serving your state bye bye bill
some of these things right so you can
also notice if you see an architecture
the smoother the stones and the less
gaps there are the more important that
building would be so if you go to like a
holy site right for their religion you
would see the best of the architecture
when you go to just kind of the regular
homes of the regular people you might
see some gaps you'll see some plants
growing in between but in general ink
and architecture is like pristine they
actually had architectural schools they
had training when the Spanish arrived in
Cusco they're amazed at how organized
the city is okay so service your state
you also had to pay service to your gods
as one part of your Mita again that
could be farming lands that belong to
priests that could be building temples
or just serving in temples and attending
to shrines keeping them up and running
right so this might be the people who
were building Machu Picchu and would
have been kind of serving their gods
Machu Picchu as far as we know was
really just a religious Center really
the only people living there full-time
would have been the priests like
honoring the gods and the people working
there and serving the priests doing
their Mita this down here in the bottom
left corner is the temple of the Sun in
Machu Picchu and so this would have been
one of the things that people might have
built one of the really cool things
about this building is you can see these
trapezoidal little like they're not
Windows little kind of pockets within
the temple so when this would have been
full and covered it would have been
incredibly dark inside but they
understood the movement of the Sun and
and like the the longest and shortest
days of the year so that on the on the
longest day of the year
the Solstice basically there would be a
parade of the former Incan Emperor's who
were all mummified so if you were an
Incan Emperor and you died you were
mummified and you still lived in your
palace and were served by your people in
your palace in death of the Incan
mummies clothes are changed still
everyday the Inca was never supposed to
wear the same clothes twice and white by
Inca I mean the leader that was the name
for their leader and so on this massive
festival to the Sun they would kind of
march down to much for much up to Machu
Picchu all of the former mummified Incan
Emperor's they would place the
and these like trapezoidal little
pockets and when the Sun like rose on
the longest day of the year it would
shine up through the mountains through
this gate they had built perfectly it
would shine into the windows and it
would shine light directly on to the
Incan mummies and in fact when the Incan
Emperor's were mummified they were
mummified with their mouths wide open
exactly for the ceremony so that the son
would like go into their mouth and give
them sort of life in death they ink are
really badass you should just like read
a ton about them the last way that you
would serve your Mita is to serve your
community and this is one thing that the
Inka they're not unique right people had
to build roads and other places but
seeing your community as really on the
same level as your state your leadership
and your God is is really your gods are
really important and so this is one of
the reasons why the Inka had some of the
best infrastructure in the world is
because they had this dedicated source
of labor that wasn't I mean its coerced
labor but it's not slavery you're
serving your community right it's it's
essentially in lieu of taxes so if I
were if the Inka were running you know
the United States today instead of
paying taxes every year I might spend a
few weeks out of every year going and
like working on bridges and making sure
that they're all up to date right so
they built amazing road systems as good
as or better than the Roman roads they
also built incredible bridges across
these huge parts of the Andes Mountains
they maintained these agricultural
storehouses and kind of maintains the
terraced farming that they used if you
were a farmer or a fisherman that was
your meat
you were like kind of giving some of
your crops or your fish to your
community right and so that's the Mita
system right they do this without any
sort of Taxation they for the most part
of to do this with very little force
because of that bureaucracy where the
ailu the local leadership just says all
right cool you're up it's your turn to
go do me tell you're gonna go work on
the bridges you're gonna go serve the
priests over here and then they come
back and like keep existing and they
kind of love being a part of the Incan
Empire now I want to go on two quick
side notes just while I have you here
they're really quick the first side note
is about the Incan trilogy which is like
one of my favorite facts
of all time so according to the Incan
belief system there were three worlds
there was the land of men and power that
was the earth it was represented by the
Puma then there was the land of the
afterlife in the underworld this is not
hell
the Spanish are gonna like make it into
hell it's not hell it's the world where
you go when you die and it's the
underworld and is purifying basically
you purify yourself of what we would now
call maybe sins and it's represented by
the snake or the serpent and then once
you go through that purification you
ascend to the land of the gods and
freedom which is epitomized by the
Condor the bird now if you were to look
above like the sacred valley which is
this beautiful part of Peru which is
like the heart of the Incan Empire you
would see that they constructed their
capital city Cusco make it on my pen to
be this the original shape of the
ancient city of Cusco is in the shape of
a puma because that's the land of power
and mint that's where like the Emperor's
live then if you were to look at a map
of Cusco it's right along a massive
beautiful river that's right here called
the Urubamba River um and so you would
travel through the sacred Valley I've
never seen a more beautiful place in my
life traveling along this massive River
with these huge mountains surrounded by
clouds so you travel through the world
of the Serpent and you eventually if you
follow that route Obama River you end up
at Machu Picchu which from the sky looks
like a condor I just think this is
amazing right they're doing all of this
they're building these massive
structures with huge boulders that weigh
multiple tons in Machu Picchu they're
carrying them up a mountain with they
don't have any domesticated animals
llamas can't do that right alpaca can't
do that they really are an amazing late
post classical civilization that I
really encourage you look into so I'm
gonna take issue with John Green hey
John Green I'm sure you're watching my
youtube channel you always say the
Mongols are the exception and I
respectfully disagree
I think the inca are the exception to
all the rules the mongols i'll talk
about later they actually like do all
the same things that other
post-classical states do they just do
them in a more badass way the inker the
exception the ink
this massive civilization they rule over
more people in the Roman Empire dead
more land and they do it with no writing
no currency no slavery and no wheels
they knew what wheel existed they have
it for children's toys but they're like
we're in the middle of Andes Mountains
I'm gonna use a wheel it's all like
human labor um with the no riding this
is an example of khipu which is what
they had for record-keeping instead of a
written system where you tie knots and
rope to kind of keep records and we're
still not sure exactly how it worked but
there are still students today that are
studying this and are finding that like
the different colors of the rope
symbolize different things and they have
this really intricate way of like
running their empire that's just super
unique and as we look throughout unit
one and we see a lot of similarities
across civilizations we see a lot of
civilizations doing similar things under
different names the inca are really
fascinating to study because they came
up with really their own way of doing
things and they're gonna do it very
successfully until the Spanish come and
conquer and even then they're gonna
resist Spanish conquest for like forty
years so good ani inca nicely done as
always there are more resources at anti
social studies org including you should
check out that podcast episode it's in
season two it's called dang I wish I was
an Inca if you're more interested in
this check it out
on Spotify it wherever you get your
podcasts or here on my youtube channel
thanks bye
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