"Breaking the Folk Spirit" - How folk cultures are easily subjugated after their gods are destroyed

 Cusco Cathedral

The Cathedral Basilica of the Assumption of the Virgin, also known as Cusco Cathedral, is the mother church of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Cusco. The cathedral is located on the Plaza de Armas. Building was completed in 1654, almost a hundred years after construction began.

Kiswarkancha

The Incas built the temple known as Kiswarkancha on the main square in Cusco. It was the Inca palace of Viracocha, ruler of the Kingdom of Cusco around a century before the Spanish colonists arrived. The aboriginal name of this city was Qusqu. Although it was used in Quechua, its origin has been found in the Aymara language. The word itself originated in the phrase qusqu wanka ("Rock of the owl"), attending to the foundational myth of the Ayar siblings.

Near to the Kiswarkancha was the Suntur Wasi, an armoury and heraldry centre for the Inca royalty. When the Spanish conquistadores arrived in Cuzco, they decided to take down the temple and build their Christian cathedral in that prominent site.

Basilica Cathedral of our Lady of Assumption

The cathedral's construction began in 1559 on the foundations of Kiswarkancha. It is shaped like a Latin cross. The location of Viracocha's palace was chosen for the purpose of removing the Inca religion from Cusco, and replacing it with Spanish Catholic Christianity. Because 1559 was only 26 years after the conquistadores entered Cusco in 1533, the vast majority of the population was still of Quechua Inca descent. The Spaniards used the Incas as a labour workforce to build the cathedral.


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The Method

One of the greatest unsolved mysteries of all time; how did less than 200 Spanish soldiers defeat an Inca Empire in the millions? There were about 40,000 actual Incas who systemically ruled over many other tribal regions who were like Inca provinces. Ironically, the Incas were actually, in some ways, guilty of what I'm pointing out in this piece. Their god was put above all others, although I don't know if they actually suppressed other traditions. In any case, they were a powerful empire who could easily raise a standing army of a quarter of a million. Their capitol was Cusco, as well as the location of their main temple. It's interesting that the Spanish kept the name "Cusco," but the folk tradition had to go. Jesus was to have said "Conquer in my name," and they did it. No more Viracocha. In this way their actions were similar to the Romans' M.O.; to replace and/or smother out the old ways of a conquered people.

This Roman method was a relatively soft way of pacifying a defeated people. Sometimes it was even a way of pacifying sovereign allies, such as with some Germanic tribes. For example, they would conflate Wotan with their god Mercury; then recruit some of them into their own military ranks. The Spaniards of Peru seemed to use some of the tricks out of the old Roman game plan; only in this case they decided to explicitly bury the old Inca spiritual tradition. Since you can't eliminate "a place," they decided to replace/"smother" out the the temple. While Muslims used brutal methods, Christians often used deception. The developing theory is that the Spaniards benefited from a period of growing discontent within the Incan "provinces." Some of the tribal groups sided with the Spaniards, and that is probably "how the west was won" in South America; somewhat similar to how certain tribes sided with the British or French during the "French and Indian War."

Catholic or Protestant authorities have always wielded power from behind the scenes. The Vatican's actions in Croatia during WW2 was nothing short of stunning; the church was literally still killing people via proxy because of their religion in the 20th century! It was no accident that churches were built right on top of ancient Druidic temples, although the Christianizing of the Druids was a much less violent conflation and conversion than that of the Germanic peoples. Charlemagne used the most brutal methods; and during later periods, incoming Christian authorities cut off Viking trade routes if they refused to convert. Even people like St. Patrick weren't really who we may have thought they were. St. Patrick was an English Catholic who used conflation and deception to get the job done.

If we're totally honest, incoming pagan invaders sometimes did the same thing; such as when Olympian gods replaced the more ancient goddess Hecate. In the Val Camonica there is evidence of how, in certain instances, one goddess statue's head was knocked off and another god or goddess' statue was constructed next to it; then at a later point, that statue's head was knocked off, etc. Also, even in the still strongly pagan Val Camonica of the Middle Ages, the meaning of the name of the ancient goddess "Mona" was changed to "a whore" (ouch, that was difficult for me to type!). Everything about the ancient Camun culture was about the moon ("mon") and the moon goddess (Mona), and still this can happen when people forget their true folk past.

Huge multinational corporations from the United States, Western Europe, and elsewhere, used to work with Christian missionaries to first "soften up" the people whom they wanted to subjugate and/or "take their resources." Most often the grinning, well fed, perhaps drunken, and newly Christened people gave it away without a fight. I remember quacky Christian entrepreneur Bill Schnoebelen told a story once about how a newly arrived missionary, in rural Borneo, humiliated the local shaman to prove to the locals that Christ was really the way. In other words, that their own spirituality was a fraud and needed to go... permanently! Who knows if the story was even true, but this big business-missionary "dog and pony show" went on for centuries. The expanding Islamic program was more honest; it was either "convert"... or it was the sword.

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