Inca Masks

The inca masks as we know it today, are the result of the incas knowledge collection from many pre inca cultures like Paracas, Nazca, Mochica, Sican and Chimu, used for ceremonies, religious purposes and burial offerings, all this cultures knowledge was absorb by the incas and the mask rituals were adopted by the incas as well.

I will give you a short idea of what the incas masks are all about; The origins of the use of masks, goes long before all pre inca cultures; Inside the Peruvian territory, you can find hundreds of caves with paintings on the walls, of hunters that use masks to get close to their prays; During the Peruvian history happen a fantastic metamorphosis of the use, mining and types of mask.

The incas create golden masks for ceremonies and religious activities, but not so often for burial ceremonies like the cultures before them; The incas designs were looking for the functionality of the mask, for example the mask should work as helmet, for decoration and for religious ceremonies as well; It is right to tell you that maybe all the inca masks that you have seen before are not from the incas, it is a large chance that they belong to other pre inca cultures.

The second type of masks were the common celebrations masks, most of this masks were made from wood, ceramics, cotton, feathers and any other material with nice colors; The inca empire was divided in four regions, each region had it own identity, adding the fact, that the masks from each region were classify by the kind of celebration, where they were use and by the time of the year that they must to be use; So if you would like to estimate how many types of masks the incas had, it could go up to few hundreds.

Peru have a large variety of inca masks that had survive to the mix of cultures of the spaniards and the incas; Today many masks are hand made by Peruvian artisans, they make them specially for several old ceremonies to pray to the land, to the mountains and to the nature; Today many old inca religion ceremonies are still perform by the Peruvians that live in the andes.

The incas force all conquered cultures into its own culture, but every now and then, the incas adopt customs from the conquered cultures, like the burial inca masks, that was not commonly use by the incas society; The incas had excellent technology, but when they find out something new, the incas absorb it and make it their own to make them selfs more stronger, better and efficient.

The Peruvian people use masks in special celebrations, like many Christian celebrations, most of them are celebrated with dances and performances of local people, using evolve stylish inca masks; It is estrange that during all Cristian celebrations, many pagan gods are show as part of the religion ceremonies; It is a fact that Peru have a unique Catholic-Inca melt version of the Catholic religion.

Among the masks collection that still is in use until today, we can find the devil mask, that is a mix of old inca demons and the spaniard version of the devil; The dance where the devil mask is use, tell a story of old incas demons in a interesting mix with the Dante Divine Comedy argument, it is the prefect example of how well this cultures has melt together, into what today we call the Peruvian culture.

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