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Dinesh

Dinesh club

Posted: 09 Aug 2022

Taken: 09 Aug 2022

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Image / excerpt •
Inca •
Author •
Gordon McEwan •
Second Excerpt •
The Travels of •
Pedro De Cieza De Leon •

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Women in traditional ceremonial dress performing during celebration of the Inca Winter Solstice festival, Inti Taymi (Keren Su/Corbis)
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 Dinesh
Dinesh club
Another class operating outside the regular social hierarchy were the so-called chosen women, or ‘acllas’. Each year the emperor sent out to the provinces royal inspectators called ‘appupanaca’ to collect the tribute to be paid to the state in the form of young girls. From each village in each province the most beautiful young women between the ages of ten and twelve years were selected. Being selected was considered a great honor and represented a path of upward mobility in Inca Society. These girls were taken to Cuzco and divided into several classes based on their social standing, skills, and beauty before being assigned to the ‘aclla wasi” 9house of chosen women in Cuzco of the province. ~ Page 100

Incas
20 months ago. Edited 20 months ago.
 Dinesh
Dinesh club
Touching the equinoctial line, some of the ancient cosmographers were in error when they affirmed that the heat was such as to render the country lying under it uninhabitable. The fertility of the land, and the abundance of all things necessary to sustain man, are manifest to all, and, as the equinoctial line is touched upon in several parts of this history, I will here give an account of what I have gathered from the best cosmographers concerning it. The equinoctial line is an imaginary line round the world from east to west, at equal distances from the poles of the earth. It is called equinoctial, because the passage of the sun across it makes the days and nights equal. This occurs twice in the year, namely on the 11th of March and 13th of September. It is to be understood, as I have already said, that the opinion of some ancient authors was that the country under this equinoctial line was uninhabitable. They believed this because, as the sun there sent its rays on the earth vertically, the heat must, as they thought, be so excessive that none could live. Virgil, Ovid, and other worthies were of this opinion. Others held that some part might be inhabitable, following Ptolemy, who says, “It does not follow that we should believe the torrid zone to be entirely without inhabitants.” Others thought, on the contrary, that the climate was not only temperate and moderately warm, but very pleasant. This is affirmed by St. Isidore, who says that the terrestrial paradise is a temperate and delightful place in the east, under the equinoctial line. Experience has now taught us that, not only the country exactly under the equinoctial line, but the whole torrid zone, from one tropic to the other, is habitable and fertile, by reason of the days and nights being almost equal. The coolness of the night tempers the heat of the day, and the land has its due season for growing and producing its fruits. This is the{174} natural condition of the country, though some parts are different.

The Indians of the province of Santiago de Puerto Viejo are not long lived; and, as regards the Spaniards, there are very few old men amongst them, though their number has been thinned more by the wars than by sickness. From this equinoctial line towards the Arctic Pole, the tropic of cancer is distant 420 leagues in 23½°, and the sun arrives there on the 11th of June, but never passes beyond it, for it there takes a turn towards the equinoctial line again, and reaches it on the 13th of September. Then it descends to the tropic of capricorn, another 420 leagues, and also in 23½°. There is, therefore, a distance of 840 leagues from tropic to tropic. The ancients called this the Torrid Zone, which is as much as to say the parched or toasted land, for the sun moves over it all the year. ~ Page 173

THE TRAVELS OF PEDRO DE CIEZA DE LEON
20 months ago. Edited 20 months ago.
 Nora Caracci
Nora Caracci club
geniale prise !!!
20 months ago.

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