Conclusion

How did the Inca's ideology contribute to the expansion and growth of their empire? // The Inca's religion and ideology affected everything in their daily life, from agriculture to warfare to politics; all of which comprised their great empire. The Inca built temples and shrines all throughout their empire but even so on the highest mountaintops of the Andes, near roads connecting different valleys and parts of their region. They established all these sacred places and celebrated festivals in the name of their most worshiped god, the Sun; who provided them with food and ability to grow it. We can see how ideology played a role in agriculture with the festivals of Inti Raymi and Capac Raymi that occurred near the June and December solstice. In Cuzco, the time to begin planting corn, August, and the time of its harvest, April, were also marked by major festivals during which the sun was observed. These rituals reflect how intimately related agriculture, the sun, and the ruler were in Inca ideology.(Bauer 1996:333). In politics, the Inca grew as they built shrines because in building them they introduced themselves as mediators between human society and the supernatural world, something very powerful to the people of the Andes, something that inspired fear and respect and because the shrines built on peaks were the homes of 'powerful beings' and humanity's well-being depended on their relationship with these powerful beings, this allowed the shrines to let the Inca lay claim to the cultural foundations of the area's residents (D'Altroy 173-174). // //Inca ideology was as much a political instrument as it was a belief system (176).//