Today, the term ‘sunworshipper’ tends to conjure images of lotion, deckchairs and Mediterranean sands. For the Inca, however, it was a part of life, finding its purest expression in the Inti Raymi festival, which honoured the god Inti (Quechuan for ‘sun’) in celebrations held every winter solstice in Cusco. By the mid-1500s, though, the Spanish had curtailed the festival (and later the entire empire), only for it to be resurrected 74 years ago. It’s been a fixture for Peru-bound travellers ever since.
Tell me more…
It was a big event, even by today’s standards, with more than 25,000 rulers, worshippers, noblemen and priests arriving for a nine-day celebration. Pilgrims fasted for the three days prior to the festival, which began in earnest with a parade of cloth-bound ancestral mummies from…
