DEATH, AN IMPORTANT PART OF INCA LIFE.

Like many ancient Andean people before them, the Incas viewed Death in two ways. One was biological death, when the body ceased functionally and was mummified. The other was the passing of the soul to a place active only in the mind, souls and daily lives of the living until they were replaced by other prominent figures. However, some of them were never forgotten. They were considered heroic figures who gave the Inca their identity.
As long as they maintained alive in their minds the world beyond the living world, deities, supernatural, powers and curses were an active force very much entwined with human nature, such beliefs and practices have somehow continued alive to the present day.
Death was considered an important part of life in the realm of the living and mummification was a rite of passage into the abstract, or the non-physical one, the world of the spirits.
The mummification processes were precise and complicated. One of the things that made this process complicated was that every civilian had to be mummified. All of the people of various places on the social ladder were buried. Tombs and mummies were well preserved, revered and considered extremely sacred. Ancestor veneration frightened the European crown and clergy, because their minds were already corrupted by the belief that human power dominated the world beyond the living and no entity or force was able to punish them in their wrongdoings. They destroyed the burial chambers of these important corpses and robbed them in an attempt to undermine the spiritual power of the Inca religion founded in ancestral veneration and worship. They portrayed themselves as being sent by their ancestors in order to establish a proper order in the world of the living. At the beginning it worked out but at the end they themselves brought the Inca curses to their own lives and to the crowns responsible of the destruction behind the curtains.
The intention of the curse, according to Inca beliefs, was to submit the soul of the inflicter to the proper supernatural power in charge of the ancestral tree of souls from which the individual belonged to. This supernatural forces then inflicted misfortunes of any kind to the person and the descendants according to the weight of the wrongness done by the individual or community of people.
Curse was a powerful phenomenon, viewed as the summoned wrath of the beings in the upper world towards the wrongness of humans against the law of nature, or the presence of evil forces using nature as a weapon to defied the power of the upper world.
The reason why some of mummies survived from the hand of the Europeans and for so long is because most of the mummies were buried in the high peaks of the Andean mountains, symbolizing the power of nature against the power of man winning nature over him. The high mountains being a very cold place by nature, the mummies were kept frozen and this frozen estate kept them from deteriorating.
To help them in the afterlife, the mummies were bundled with offerings of food, tools, and precious items inside of their wrappings. Their internal organs were kept inside of their bodies and then buried or put in an above ground tombs called 'chullpas.'
If the person were a king he would be seated on a special throne, with the arms across their chest and their knees up to their chests. They would be dressed in fancy clothes and adorned with pieces of silver and gold and parts of animals would be put on the outer layer of him and onto it offerings to the gods. Fake heads also and masks would be put on the face.
The mummies of the Inca rulers were among the holiest objects of Inca religion. They were actually treated as if they were still alive. They had servants, maintained ownership of their property, were consulted as oracles, and were taken to major festivals or to visit other mummies.
If the deceased was not from the ruling class their mummies were placed in a tomb above the ones in the ground. They were accessible and people could leave gifts, food, or belongings.
If they were a religious sacrifice they were put in a long fancy robes that were so big so it allowed room to grow in, during the afterlife. Then they were wrapped up and some of their belongings were placed inside the wrappings. They were then put into the ground in many high peaks of the Andes. They were considered like demigods with a specific mission in the afterlife.