The ancient Inca sacrificed children who were drugged with cocaine, a powerful hallucinogen and, in some cases, alcohol, according to a new study in Antiquity. The discovery reveals new macabre details of how these ancient peoples chose to honor their gods.
During the reign of the Inca Empire, which spanned a large territory in western South America from the 13th to the 16th centuries, children and young women were regularly sacrificed to important gods in a ceremony known as capacocha. They were meant to act as messengers between the living and the deities. The rituals were conducted in an effort to restore stability after events such as a famine or drought. Before they were killed, those chosen for sacrifice were taken to Cusco, the capital of the Inca Empire, or to temples or oracles scattered throughout the territory.
As they were prepared, the children were given an array of psychoactive plants. Though previous studies had found that these included coca leaves—from which cocaine is derived—tests for other substances had been largely inconclusive or negative.
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“Our aim was to identify a broader range of psychoactive substances administered to the children and to determine whether patterns in their use could provide new insights into how capacocha ceremonies were conducted at different locations,” said Dagmara Socha, an archaeologist at the University of Warsaw, in a statement. “Recent advances in toxicology now allow for the identification of low concentrations of such substances.”
When Socha and his team conducted toxicology exams on hair and nail samples from eight bodies discovered near several Inca sacrificial sites in Peru and Argentina, they found that each body had at least one intoxicant present. All the bodies contained traces of cocaine and benzoylecgonine, a chemical produced by the body as it metabolizes the drug. Cocaine may have been given to the children to help them deal with altitude sickness and fatigue as they climbed the mountains where the sacrifices took place.
Four of the mummified corpses also tested positive for alcohol, which likely came from drinking chicha, a beer made out of maize. Historical records show the drink was given to the children in order to calm them during the final parts of the ceremony.
One of the bodies contained traces of harmine—it has been found at one of the sites before, alongside a compound called harmaline. Both chemicals are found in the hallucinogen ayahuasca. “Harmine is an alkaloid associated with Banisteriopsis species, one of the principal plants traditionally used in the ayahuasca beverage,” Socha said. “It may indicate that a harmine-containing beverage had a specific role in ceremonies connected with this particular sacred mountain.”
In the study, Socha and his colleagues didn’t rule out that additional substances that aren’t detectable with current technology may have also been given. But the differences in results in the bodies do show that the capacocha ceremony wasn’t uniform and could vary by geography and by which god was being venerated.
“Five hundred years after these children were sacrificed during one of the most important Inca rituals, new technologies are allowing us to uncover details of their lives and Inca religious practices,” Socha said. “What we are seeing is that the capacocha was not a single standardized ritual, but rather, the Incas appear to have adapted it to different cults and local religious traditions.”
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