- The Inca Empire or Inka Empire was the smallest empire in pre-Columbian America.
- In Inca times the fiesta of Santiago, or St. James would have been the festival of Illapa, the Inca god of lightning.
- As the prayers draw to a close, four men dressed in black raise a rustic wooden litter holding a painted statue of Santiago.
- The names of those Inca rulers still resonate with power and ambition centuries after their demise.
- Viracocha Inca (meaning Creator God Ruler),
- Huascar Inca (Golden Chain Ruler),
- Pachacutec Inca Yupanqui (He Who Remakes the World). And remake the world they did.
- Rising from obscurity in Peru's Cusco Valley during the 13th century, a royal Inca dynasty charmed, bribed, intimidated, or conquered its rivals to create the largest pre-Columbian empire in the New World.
- Walking behind the priest in a small procession, the bearers carry the saint for all in the plaza to see, just as the Inca once shouldered the mummies of their revered kings.
- They struck marriage alliances with neighboring lords, taking their daughters as wives, and dispensed generous gifts to new allies.
- When a rival lord spurned their advances or stirred up trouble, they flexed their military might.
- In all the surrounding valleys, local lords succumbed one by one, until there was only one mighty state and one capital, the sacred city of Cusco.