Showing posts with label Inca. Show all posts

June 24 - Inti Raymi in Peru

Posted on June 24, 2022

This is an update of my post published on June 24, 2011:

Just as the Danes celebrate the Sun during Midsummer Party (yesterday's post!), Peruvians in the high-altitude city of Cuzco hold a Sun ceremony called Inti Raymi, or Festival of the Sun.

This isn't held, like the Danish Midsummer Party, near the summer solstice. Instead, it is held near the winter solstice!

(Remember, Peru is south of the equator, and so it has seasons opposite those of us who live in the Northern Hemisphere.)

Inti Raymi is actually a reenactment of an ancient Incan ceremony.

In 1572, the Spaniards banned the Sun festival, but some people still celebrated in secret.

Today, it's a secret no more: Inti Raymi is the second largest festival in all of South America, and (before the pandemic) hundreds of thousands of people generally travel to Cuzco to participate.

The long trip made by tourists is made worthwhile by Sun festival events that take place for 5 to 7 days. There are expos, street fairs, and free concerts.

But the biggest day of the festival (again, at least pre-pandemic!) is today, June 24: this is the historical reenactment of the Incan traditions. Actors with elaborate costumes make a procession and wind through streets decorated with flowers, and then climb the steps of the sacred altar of the Inca. Speeches are made. A white llama is sacrificed (“now in a very realistic stage act,” according to About-dot-com). A bonfire is lit. Costumed dancers dance around the bonfire.

And so a new year begins.

Also on this date:

Jāņi in Latvia

Celebration of the Senses Day

Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day in Quebec

International Fairy Day

Midsummer in Sweden

Big Numbers Day

Joninės in Lithuania

Festa Junina in Brazil

Battle of Caraboba Day in Venezuela

Anniversary of the first report of "flying saucers"

Take Your Dog to Work Day

(First Friday after Father's Day U.S.A.)

Plan ahead:

Check out my Pinterest boards for:

June holidays

June birthdays

Historical anniversaries in June

And here are my Pinterest boards for:

November 19 - Happy Birthday, Hiram Bingham

Posted on November 19, 2021

This is an update of my post published on November 19, 2010:

Hiram Bingham is best known for publicizing one of the major tourist attractions of an entire continent: Machu Picchu.

Born in Honolulu, Hawaii, on this day in 1875, Hiram Bingham became a lecturer and a history professor at Yale University. In 1908 he attended the First Pan American Scientific Congress at Santiago, Chile. He went to Peru in order to travel home to America, and there a local prefect took him to visit an old Incan city called Choquequirao. Bingham was fascinated and drawn to the idea of exploring Incan ruins previously unknown to most people.

In 1911 he returned to the Andes Mountains and Peru with a university expedition. A Peruvian farmer Melchor Arteaga knew of some ruins, and Bingham had him lead the expedition up the mountains to the site.

What did Bingham see in that first visit?

Visitors to Machu Picchu today see the Incan citadel spread out high in the mountains in a breathtaking view, but when Arteaga first led the American expedition to the ruins, the ancient buildings and walls were overgrown by plants. See below the 1911 photo of Bingham and a Peruvian man.

Here is a black and white photo of Machu Picchu before it was cleared up or excavated, contrasting it with the color "now" photo:

More

For more a map and lots of links about Machu Picchu and the Inca, check out Ducksters.

Here is a short video from National Geographic.

Also on this date:

Rocky and Bullwinkle Day

Actress / director Jodie Foster's birthday

Monaco's National Holiday

Gettysburg Address Day

Discovery Day in Puerto Rico

Garifuna Settlement Day in Belize

World Toilet Day

Oman's Sultan's Birthday

Birthday of U.S. President James A. Garfield

Birthday of cell biologist George Emil Palade

Flag Day in Brazil

Anniversary of the second Moon Walk

Plan ahead:

Check out my Pinterest boards for:
November holidays
November birthdays
Historical anniversaries in November

And here are my Pinterest boards for:
December holidays
December birthdays
Historical anniversaries in December

October 6 Happy Birthday, Thor Heyerdahl

Posted on October 6, 2021

This is an update of my post published on October 6, 2010:

Born on this day in 1914 in Norway, Heyerdahl became an ethnographer. What the heck is an ethnographer, you ask? This is an anthropologist who deals with the scientific description of specific human cultures. Heyerdahl had a background in geography and zoology, which came in handy for his first expeditions to remote South Pacific islands, where he was to study how animals first came to the islands.

Heyerdahl is most famous for one particular expedition. He had discovered some native legends and some archeological evidence that suggested that Inca Indians from South America could have had contact with South Pacific islanders thousands of miles away. Although old Spanish reports of Incas included drawings of their rafts, most people didn't believe that Incas could travel so far with their technology.

Heyerdahl and his Kon-Tiki expedition proved it was possible when they went to Peru and used native materials and Inca techniques to build a raft with sails and a hut-like shelter, based on the old drawings. They then set out on a 4,300-mile (8,000 km) journey!

The Kon-Tiki traveled across the South Pacific for 101 days. The balsa-wood raft turned out to be easy to maneuver, and fish congregated between the logs in such great numbers that the expedition members could stay fed and hydrated. The raft carried the adventurers from Peru to the Tuamotu Islands.

Since this famous voyage, other rafts have repeated the feat. Heyerdahl continued his career with other exciting expeditions (such as crossing the Atlantic Ocean with a papyrus reed boat, the Ra).

Thor's Theories

Heyerdahl built up some theories about the colonization of the South Pacific Islands based on some old legends and some likenesses of statutes and structures and other artifacts. His ideas were exciting to many but never gained acceptance by anthropologists, and later data such as mitochondrial DNA has shown that the majority of anthropologists were right, and Heyerdahl wrong.

However, Heyerdahl's spectacular expeditions did rouse public interest in anthropology and also showed the benefits of experimental archaeology.

Do you have a theory of how an ancient culture could have built a pyramid, a henge (like the famous Stonehenge), or a monumental sculpture? Maybe you, too, can work to gather a team to try out your ideas: recreate ancient tools using native materials—and build a similar structure yourself!