Capacocha Ceremony (cap-ack-ocha)

Execution

Selection

At least two from each of the quadrants are chosen every year: one male victim, no older than ten; and one virgin girl, up to age sixteen with unblemished skin. Though this is only the minimum requirement. In practice, alot more girls, of an elder age, than boys are chosen and not all of them wind up becoming tribute.

It is well established that children are the purest of beings and would inhabit a better provided-for world in the afterlife.

Ca-Chisneu

The steps of the capacocha sacrifice begin at the capital city of Ca-Chisneu, on the orders of the Sapa.
The children are paired off, boy to girl, as if they were married couples and paraded around four large statues of the Creator, the Sun God, the Moon God, and the Thunder God. Until that time, they are present in the golden court, officially, as emissaries. However, given most of their youth, they are little more than ornaments and prizes to the dominant Tawantinsuyu.

Sacrifice

The children chosen for sacrifice in a capacocha ceremony typically have to travel to a place of spiritual significance and given alcohol and coca leaves to make them nub to pain and more compliant. The actual sacrifice is primarily carried out through one of four methods: strangulation, concussion, hypothermia, or being buried alive while unconscious.
Once dead, the victims would then be buried in graves pre-dug with non-metal tools. The bodies are then placed in a fetal position, wrapped up in a bundle containing various artifacts or next to them in the same grave.

Components and tools

Huaca/Wak'a

There are a number of sacred sites at very high elevations that have served many ceremonial purposes to many peoples across the four corners of the world. These places, over 100 ceremonial centers and shrines, have been systemically appropriated into the Innoit's state religion to override the local culture of their conquered subjects.
Though there may be hundreds of places scattered throughout the empire left for lesser priests to manage, there are four main sites that deserve the direct attention of religious leaders: the peak of the Fire Mountain, inside the Queen in the South, the base of the Honey Towers and the edge of the Great Green.

While the repurposed wak'as may continue to serve their original purpose, (to a limited degree), their use in where children of their own are deposited during the Capacocha continually stains its importance to local inhabitants.
However, if a crisis is dire enough; the innoit will substitute their own as the greatest offering to be bestowed.

Clothes

For the rest of their lives the chosen are dressed like little royals. In public, they are made to wear fine woolen dress and clothed in a feathered headdress and other ornamentation such as necklaces or bracelets.

Toys

Elaborate human statuettes and llama figurines that have been crafted from gold, silver, and shells pay tribute to the male Sun and the female Moon. Several sets of ceramic, gold, silver, and bronze pins are also commonplace at the less important wak'a sites.

Participants

Sapa

The lives of these children hung on the word of the innoit emperor.

It is not an immediate death sentence to be selected and taken away. There are several festivities that are inescapable but deaths only ever increase on the whims of the sun's son.

Priests

Priests are regularly dispatched to the four quarters to select the yearly tribute from different communities with sacrificial items on hand and orders to make bird offerings to all wak’a on their routes. These trips are also to credit that existing wak'a still maintain their power or if had lost it, on occasions destroying the discredited wak'a.
After the ceremonies at Ca-Chisneu, the children, a number of priests and their entourage of companions undertake the trip back to their original communities. On the return, they do not follow the royal roads, as they had gone, but had to follow a straight path; following the ceque lines that leave the capital and go to the wak'as. This is a long and tedious journey, crossing valleys, rivers and mountains, which took months.

Mama-Kuna

Matrons of the Sun who oversaw the running of the House of Women. They are the primary caretaker of those chosen girls; be it as nurse maid, instructor or chaperone.

Chosen Children

While the boys are immediately fostered to a noble family in Ca, the young girls are sent to the House of Women to be taught to weave and sew there for an extended time until the time of their death was decided or not.
These girls are divided into three groups. Some girls would never leave the House and may continue on to raise the girls brought after them as the next mama-kuna. The prettiest were almost sure to be selected as the tribute. The rest are destined to become Chosen Women and will serve as the state's political coin, and as wives and concubines to noblemen.

Observance

Capacocha ceremonies take place under several circumstances:

• Key events in the life of the Innoit Emperor including:
  his ascension to the throne
  the birth of a son
  an illness
  his death
• To stop natural disasters
• During major festivals of the harvests, cosmos and deities
• Before and after processions to important ceremonial sites

Alternate Names

• Capaccocha
• Qhapaq Hucha
• Qhapaq Ucha
• Child Sacrifice

Primary Related Location

Ca-Chisneu

Important Locations

• Hananhallpa
• House of Women

Related Organizations

• Tawantinsuyu

Related Ethnicities

• Innoit

Items Used