Huacas Along Ceremonial Routes
A huaca could exist along a processional ceremonial line or route as they did for the enactment of sacred ritual within the capital at Cusco. Such lines were referred to as ceques. The work of Tom Zuidema and Brian Bauer (UT-Austin) explores the range of debate over their usage and significance. Also these lines were sometimes astromonically aligned to various stellar risings and setting pertaining to time keeping (for the purposes of agriculture and ceremony and record keeping). These ceque lines bear significant resemblance to the processional lines among the Maya (sacbe), the Chacoans, and the Muisca (Suna). Special compounds were erected at certain huacas to compose entire elaborate network of rituals and religious ceremonial culture. For instance, the ceremony of the sun was performed at Cusco (Inti Ramyi). Incas elaborated creatively on a preexisting system of not only the mita exchange of labor but also the exchange of the objects of religious veneration of the peoples whom they took into their empire. This exchange ensured proper compliance among conquered peoples. The Incas also transplanted and colonized whole groups of persons of Inca background with newly adopted peoples to arrange a better distribution of Inca persons throughout all of their empire in order to avoid widespread resistance. In this instance huacas and pacarinas became significant centers of shared worship and a point of unification of ethnically and linguistically diverse empire bringing unity and citizenship to often geographically disparate peoples. This led eventually to a system of pilgrimages throughout all of these various shrines by the indigenous people of the empire prior to the introduction of Catholicism.
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