National Park After Dark - The Chosen Ones: Llullaillaco National Park

Episode Date: April 24, 2023

Earth’s history is marked with the rise and fall of many great civilizations, all of whom had their own ways of living and thoughts on dying. Today we travel to South America to learn about the ancient Inca Capacocha ritual, uncover what lies within the world’s highest tombs, and what they can tell us about people of the past.For the latest NPAD updates, group travel details, merch and more, follow us on npadpodcast.com and our socials:Instagram: @‌nationalparkafterdarkTikTok: @‌nationalparkafterdarkSupport the show by becoming an Outsider and receive ad free listening, bonus content and more on Patreon or Apple Podcasts. Want to see our faces? Catch full episodes on our YouTube Page!Thank you to this week’s partners!MILL: Use our link to secure your MILL membershipAlo Moves: Use code NPAD for a free 30-day trial and 50% off an annual membership.Storyworth: Use out link to save $10 on your first purchase.Monsters Among Us: Check out Monsters Among Us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. For a full list of our sources, visit http://npadpodcast.com/episodes Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Close your eyes. Focus. Listen to work getting done with Monday.com. Relax. As AI does the manual work, while your teams are aligned on a single source of truth. Feel the sensation of an AI work platform, so flexible and intuitive, it feels like it was built just for you. Notice you're limitless.

Limitless. Now open your eyes. Go to Monday.com. Start for free and finally. Breathe. Girl, winter is so last season. And now Springs got you looking at pictures of tank tops with hungry eyes. Your algorithm is feeding you cutoffs. You're thirsty for the sun on your shoulders.

That perfect hang on the patio sundress. Those sandals you can wear all day and all night. And you've had enough of shopping from your couch. Done hoping it looks anything like the picture when you tear up on that envelope? It's time for a little in-person spring treat. It's time for a trip to Ross. Work your magic. The growth and collapse of great human civilizations rise and fall steadily and rhythmically throughout history,

as if the earth itself is inhaling and exhaling, giving birth to empires, and extinguishing them just as quickly and effortlessly, only to pause for the briefest of moments before starting the process anew. And just as with breathing, there is little left behind. Maybe if it's chilly, a small cloud of icy vapor is suspended before us. us before it is lost forever. What has been left behind from great civilizations is like that, only a brief, fleeting snapshot of a larger picture that give us peaks behind the curtain of a time long past. The Moai of Rapa Nui, the Great Pyramid of Egypt, Stonehenge in England, and the Colosseum in Rome are all examples of the windows we get to look through to a bygone era.

They offer us a look back at ways of living, thinking, and believing that at the time we're just the ways of the world. But sometimes the glances we are offered are not of inanimate objects, but rather of flesh and blood. And sometimes those glimpses that we get are difficult to face. Welcome to National Park After Dark. All right, well, Danielle has told me absolutely nothing about this episode, so I have no idea what we're doing, which I'm proud of. I'm proud of that accomplishment. I usually spill as soon as I get a topic, but I held strong. And this one's a little, it's a little harder to swallow as far as the subject matter. But it's really interesting and it's historical base, but also has some modern implications.

It's going to be great. Okay. It's going to be great. You're looking at me like you're scared. I am scared. I am a little scared. But I'm ready. I'm excited. It sounds like a historical one. And I usually like historical. And you do usually tell me what the stories are at least a little bit.

And I don't even know what park we're at or even slightly what the topic is. So I'm ready to hear about it. Okay. Cool. Well, before we do that, we have two things to say. We do. First and foremost, Spotify people, there's a new feature that you discovered before we did. And we wanted to tell the rest of you about it.

So everyone who uses Spotify, there is now a question and answer and a poll feature for every one of our episodes. And we would really love if you interact with them. So sometimes we'll throw up polls, but there will always be a question and answer kind of like, what did you think of the episode? Or sometimes we ask questions to you guys during the episodes. And it's a great way to give us feedback and answers and we can publish them. And it'll be so it'll be a cool way to interact with everyone. Yeah.

I feel like we ask all the time questions like, hey, does anyone on here know this? And if you do, write it in and we can publish it so your comment is actually on our episode so other people can read it too. And our second thing that we have to say that I don't think we ever mentioned on the podcast is we re-launched our merch. We have all new merch right now. And it launched about two weeks ago. And we posted it all of our socials. We sent out emails for it if you're on the email list.

But I know a lot of people don't really use socials and you might just listen to the podcast. So if you missed it, we have a bunch of new merch. Yeah, new designs and new products. We have a really cool hat. We have a new camping mug. We got some cool new stickers. we do still have Rayco designs, but we did a rebrand with Abby Layton, and she did a lot of cool new designs for merch that we are in love with. And you guys are too. You already are tagging us in

all your new stuff out and about, which we love to see. So keep doing that. Sorry we didn't announce it on the podcast. I don't know what we're doing. We were just so busy this past. I think it just slipped, and we didn't even know the date we were going to launch it because there were a lot of logistics going behind and then suddenly it was ready and we're like, okay, we can't wait, we have to post it, but we had backlog recorded things and it just kind of got lost on the podcast. So we apologize, but please go check it out. It's so cool. Yeah, and we'll put a link directly to the shop in today's episode description. So you got easy access. But as far as the episode today, it has been a journey getting here because it was originally supposed to be one thing. And then I changed my mind

and I started researching something else. And then I changed my mind again. And those two other stories will get their time in the sun. I definitely want to cover them. Just not right now. Because I stumbled upon something and it seemed like a sign. So I wanted to cover it today. All right.

Where are we going? So hold your horses one second. Because like I'm still not telling you anything about this episode. I wanted to tell you how it came about because it's actually kind of cool. So I was doing some light read. before bed. I've had this book on my shelf for years. I got it in college, I think, or right after college. And it's called Death in the Afterlife, a Chronological Journey from Cremation to Quantum Resurrection. Just something to lull me to sleep. Oh, yeah, very, yeah, very light reading.

Well, it's nice because it's in little sections. It's not a really heavy read, even though the subject matter is a little intense. But one of the sections made mention of a particular practice that I'm going to focus the episode on today. But when I was reading it, the description of the location of where this ritual used to take place seemed to really familiar. So I looked it up in hopes that this was going to have some sort of national park tie in. And lo and behold, it does because now this area is a national part. And it also has tie-ins to two places that we just visited in person, and that is Egypt and Patagonia. Oh, okay. So it just, you know what I'm saying about a sign? Like, I was just like, God, this seems like I should be doing this right now.

The puzzle pieces just came together on this one. That's right. So before I go on, I do kind of just want to give a little bit of a warning. While I'm super excited to do this episode, it has a lot of intriguing subject matter from ancient civilizations, their cultural history, different religious belief systems and death rituals and afterlife beliefs. I do need to give a disclaimer that this episode is. going to focus heavily on human sacrifice, particularly of children. So if you're not in the headspace to hear about that, totally understand. I'm not going to do anything super graphic, but that's just the subject matter of this episode today. So if you're not in the space to listen to it, we'll see you next time. But if not, in your game, we are headed to South America. Oh. Kind of right north of where we just were in Patagonia for our last group trip, we are going to be going to Yuya Yoko National Park, which is on the border of Argentina and Chile. Oh, well, that's exciting because I have to say that South America, where we were in South America,

has been like a highlight of trips I've ever been on. So tell me more. Tell me about this park. Okay. This episode is brought to you by Prime. Obsession is in session. And this summer, Prime Originals have everything you want. Steamy romances, irresistible love stories, and the book to screen favorites you've already read twice. Off campus, L, every year after, the love hypothesis, Sterling Point, and more. Slow burns, second chances, chemistry you can feel through the screen. Your next obsession is waiting.

Watch only on Prime. Well, we'll get into the park in a little bit. First, I have to tell you. Everything I say, you're like, I'm not telling you, actually. It's a secret. First, we're going to talk about a person. and his name is Johann Reinhard. Johan always knew that he was going to be an explorer.

Growing up in Illinois in the 1940s and 50s, he couldn't help but dream of far-off lands and distant cultures, wanting to know more about them than books could teach. After completing his undergraduate studies in the States, he ventured to Austria to complete his PhD in anthropology and then began conducting field research in the 1980s. Johann focused his studies in South America, but his belief that the urge to explore and that every human being had this innate curiosity for the world

just kind of propelled him to even further far off places. And I'm going to tell you, like, I'm going to kind of give you his resume a little bit because it is astounding. Like I, it just kept going and going and going. I'm like, God, could this guy get any cooler? And I'm telling you right now, I condense this. So just keep that in mind. Okay. I love it already. He conducted underwater archaeological research of Roman shipwrecks in the Mediterranean and different sacred lakes of the Incas in the Andes. He studied fishermen in the Maldives, was part of teams that rafted rivers in Nepal, participated in over 150 skydiving jumps throughout Europe and the U.S., crossed the Thar Desert by Camel, made a land crossing of the Tierra del Fuego in Chile, and crossed the Eugintius Mountain Range in Ecuador to reach the Amazon. He has been part of climbs in Greece, up to Everest, and throughout the Himalayas.

He has tracked and found the Ratu and Kusunda, two of the world's last nomadic hunter-gatherer tribes. Johan has been named as one of today's 25 most extraordinary explorers by Outside Magazine, dubbed one of the 12 Heroes of the Planet by Ford Motor Company, and was the recipient of the prestigious Explorers Medal. Three museums around the world have been built just to exhibit his archaeological finds. He is the author of six books, has been mentioned in the Guinness Book of World Records twice, and received the Sir Edmund Hillary Mountain Legacy Medal for archaeological discoveries and scholarship in the Himalayas and the Andes. And to top it off, he has lectured in the Caribbean

along the coast of South America, in Antarctica, the Galapagos, Easter Island, as well as on round the world flights for National Geographic. Wow. I also have to just pause really quick. to say, I'm like, when I read that, I'm like, around the world flights for National Geographic. What is that? I looked it up. And they are trips, like itinerary, full-blown itineraries that you can sign up for that will take you literally around the world to like 10 different huge points of interests throughout all these different countries by private jet. And it's a month long trip. How expensive is that?

How much money is that? I think it said it starts at 96K. Oh, okay. Just a cool 100K. But it's the trip of a lifetime. I'll keep that in mind if I ever have a spare 100K to drop. I mean, that's amazing. That's really cool.

National Geographic does have some really cool trips that I've been, I'm subscribed to their magazine and they sent me all their trip itineraries all the time. And one day I really want to do it because you go off with all these explorers. And they're very expensive. All the trips are like 10K plus. So it's something. thing you have to really plan and save out for, but one day. Worth it. I mean, he was one of the lecturers on this private jet that just takes you around the world. That's really cool. Oh,

my God, there's more. Like, and back to his resume. Okay, and here we go. His work in the form of research, cinematography, and photography has been featured in National Geographic, of course, the BBC, PBS, Discovery, The Times, and more. He speaks English, Spanish, Nepali, and German, and studies several unwritten languages as well. But of all of his accomplishments, travels and endeavors, his 200 expeditions in the Andes, ascending multiple mountains, leading to the discovery of more than 50 high altitude Inca ritual sites,

which include evidence of human sacrifice, were among his most remembered and celebrated achievements. These achievements earned him a time selection, naming him and his discoveries among the world's 10 most important scientific discoveries of the 1990s. His work spanning decades as a high-altitude archaeologists focused primarily on the ancient Inca empire and the discoveries made by him and his teams gave unique glimpses and fresh insights into the past. They indicated that the ancient Inca's, a highly religious culture, were not worshipping from far off places. They were traveling great distances

and climbing some of the highest peaks in the entire world to make sacrificial offerings. This reveals that the Incas are among the world's first, if not the first, high altitude climbers. Although not the first, one of Johan's most impressive and celebrated discoveries occurred in 1999 on the peak of a dormant volcano in the middle of Yuya Yoko National Park. And that is where I will end his resume and talk about the park. Okay, well, you have successfully gotten me much more excited for this story now that I hear the direction and the direction is really cool. So tell me everything. We've never covered high altitude archaeology before. It's a brand new kind of subject matter. We've done underwater

archaeology, OG archaeology, just like regular. Is there a, here we go, a question. The OG archaeology. Is there a name for just like regular archaeology? It's not underwater. It's not on mountains. It's just normal. What's normal archaeology, though, because there's so many different types. I know. That's the thing. I don't know. There's so many different cultures and well we don't need to know I guess right now because we're focused on high altitude archaeology and we know where that occurs and that's on top of mountain peaks. But going back to the park, it's located in northern Chile on the Argentina border. Yuya Yoko National Park was established in 1995. To access the area, travel must be programmed, arranged and signed off by the National Forest Guard of Chile.

It doesn't have any tourist facilities such as like visitor centers, campgrounds, or interpretive centers that were used to here in the U.S. National Park sites, but the park is visited frequently by different groups of mountain bikers, hikers, wildlife observers, and teams of mountaineers, and of course, archaeological scientific expeditions. The park protects roughly 1,035 square miles of landscape dominated by semi-desert plains, salt flat basins, and several mountains, which are, part of the central Andes, and its dry and arid climate is home to many species, including the Puma, Wanako, Bukunya, and Paragrin Falcons. And we know what Winacos are now like through and through. Oh, we saw hundreds of them. I saw them. I see them in my dreams. Everywhere. Yeah. There's so many. It was funny because when we went, I'm like, I really want to see one. And then I was like, okay, I've seen so many. I know. Our guide was like, I'm telling you, as soon as you see one, you're going to be super excited.

By the end of this trip, I'm going to point him out and you're not even going to lift your head up to look at them. And he was right. So this park is part of the Andes, the longest continental mountain range in the entire world. The park has an extensive chain of various different mountains within the Andes, but is named after its most prominent peak Yuya Yoko Volcano, the second highest active volcano in the world, coming in at approximately 22,000 feet. While the park itself lies mostly in Chile, this. Park technically lies in Argentina as well because the border actually splits kind of like right across the volcano. So it's kind of straddling two countries. And while it's currently considered dormant, its last explosive eruption was documented in the second half of the 19th century. While

volcanologists expect future eruptions to involve pyroclastic and lava flows, they are currently ruling it as a small danger to human life given the extremely low human population in the area. So it's going to go again, it's just there's not a lot of people around, so they're not super concerned. But it's on this peak that Johan and his archaeological team discovered some of the world's most intact mummies, and they were those of three Inca children. More intact than in Egypt? Oh yeah. Wow. Okay. I know. And we're going to get into that a little bit. This is probably why I switched the episodes around three times because I really, really love this subject matter. We never really talked about our trip to Egypt on the podcast, but it was a great trip for a number of reasons,

but just the whole mummification processes and death rituals and afterlife beliefs that the ancient Egyptians had were obviously a huge highlight and central focus of that trip, just learning about them. And that's just my jam. I love learning about that. Those belief systems within different cultures and civilizations throughout history and present day. So this episode, while the content child sacrifice is hard, it does tie into a larger theme and one I really enjoy learning about. So to understand kind of how and why these children wound up there in the first place, we need to learn a little about the Inca culture in the time in which these children were alive. The Incan Empire first emerged in the 12th century in modern day Peru and over the centuries

became the largest in the history of the Americas prior to European conquest. The empire consisted of over 100 distinct ethnic groups and roughly 12 million people. But its well-developed societal structure maintained a smooth-running empire. Today, the Inca are celebrated for a large number of reasons. Their architectural achievements, Machu Picchu, just being one example. Their sophisticated calendars, precise surgical techniques, knowledge of botany used for medical purposes, elaborate textiles and ceramics, understanding of agriculture, their indigenous. involved religious ceremonies and their intricate mummification procedures for their dead,

as well as over 15,000 miles of roadways that crisscrossed their kingdom, all indicate that the Inca were one of the most powerful and capable civilizations to ever rise in human history. And that rise fell with the arrival of the Spanish in the 1500s. Although they brought advanced weaponry and violence, they also carried an invisible killer, which is disease. smallpox and influenza decimated millions of Incas, and through violence, dominance, and threats, the Spanish brought the great Inca Empire to an end in the late 1500s. As they had no written language, the only written accounts we have today

were created by outsiders passed down to successive generations. And of course, when outsiders, such as the Spanish, are recording history of a culture and a people that they just decimated, the accuracy is hard to rely on. It's a bias record. Right. As I mentioned, the ancient Incas were a highly religious people and were polytheists, meaning that they worshipped many different gods,

specifically gods that ruled over natural elements. Their belief was that there was a god for every aspect of earth and nature. So they worship gods of rain, wind, lightning, thunder, the sun, the moon, as well as different deities of creation. and death, etc. And in order to honor or appease these gods, the Inca would make offerings on a routine basis, but especially to mark important events.

These offerings varied greatly, depending on the occasion, and included food, beverage, clothing, incense, jewelry, sometimes animals. And oftentimes, mountain summits were selected as places to make the most important of all offerings, and that was of humans. Johann first became interested in these ritual sites in 1980 when he first visited the Andes and realized that there was really no mention of the high altitude ruins in different archaeological textbooks. So he knew they existed, but no one was really talking about them at the time or publishing any literary work on them. And when he realized that most archaeologists at the time had not spent more than a handful of hours at the summit of any of these ruins sites,

he knew that he needed to know and learn more. He started his journey with a pretty basic and simple question. Why had people 500 years ago constructed buildings and made offerings at such staggering heights? Because this is the Andes, 22,000 feet. Yeah, it's not an easy feat to get up there and breathing is not easy. Right. Yeah, the journey is not easy. This is the 15, I mean, 1,500's like latest.

15 mid-1500. Like, why not just stay at the bottom? What is the significance of making such an extreme trek? He knew, of course, these were people who lived their daily lives in high altitudes already because there has been evidence of permanent villages being found at around 13,000 feet. But to get this, like, arduous trek, kind of like a pilgrimage of sort to some of the highest and most extreme and treacherous places on earth, must have been driven by something of extreme importance. So to find the answer, he began climbing with his climbing part.

partner Miguel Zararate. In 1995, the pair was scaling Peru's Mount Ampato to photograph a nearby erupting volcano. The pair had actually been funded with a grant to publish these dramatic images of the eruption, so they were hell-bent on gathering the coolest photos around, so they trekked up a nearby mountain to get some different angles and close-up shots. Climbing closer to the summit, Miguel spotted a bundle of cloth and pointed it out to Johan, suggesting that maybe a climber had left their pack. Johan, half jokingly, suggested maybe it was an actual climber. Approaching the bundle, the pair soon discovered they were looking at a person, but it was

one who had died many centuries before. The bundle contained the mummified remains of a 14-year-old Inca girl, who is now known as Juanita or the Ice Maiden. Five centuries prior, she had climbed the nearly 21,000-foot volcano, where she was then killed with a single blow to the head and buried on site with offering such a pottery, food, and statues. Johan and Miguel's discovery led to an influx of interest in high-altitude archaeology. This find made headlines across both the Americas, North and South America, Europe and throughout

Asia. Juanita was the first female mummy to be discovered in the Andes and was remarkably well-preserved, despite some sun damage to her face, because she was just out in the open. She was sitting. I mean, they thought she was a climber. She wasn't buried. Yeah, someone who had died recently. Are you going to get into why she was preserved the way she was?

Yep. Okay. Because I'm just thinking of the altitude and the cold and if that played a factor in her being so preserved. Huge role. Yeah, a huge role. National Geographic brought her to Washington, D.C. for an exhibit which drew so many people. Viewing time had to be limited to six minutes per person because there was just so many people who wanted to lay eyes on her in person. And that's pretty cool.

The surge of interest was great not only for public education, but for Johan himself. The rise of public curiosity rose his funding as well, and he was able to continue work in excavating other high-altitude locations, which were at the time more than ever at risk. Just like the tombs in Egypt, decimation and desecration of the sites via looting was a real threat, especially when it became known that mummies were left with invaluable artifacts like gold and silver. looters would scramble up to the sites to rummage through them, sometimes using dynamite to blast through ice and rock, which would obviously damage the mummified remains and also different sacrificial offerings. And it's important to note that these sites are also remarkable to find in and of themselves even now or back in the 90s because they survived the Spanish conquest, who at the time, the Spanish would destroy, intentionally destroy different sacrificial sites. burial sites, places of worship, things like that.

So the fact that there's even some left still is pretty remarkable. The stone structures which held the human sacrifices and other offerings pale in comparison to the elaborate tombs of Egypt. At the surface, there are nothing really more than a small pile of rocks. But what was most important to Johan was understanding why they were constructed and what they could tell us about Inca beliefs. And this is another reason I enjoyed doing this episode because I just have such a vivid. I mean, I think we all do pretty much as far as like people who grew up with a typical American school education.

You know if someone says envision an Egyptian tomb, you can kind of pull up. We all learned about it at some point in our education. But these are quite different. They are nothing compared to like the giant rooms and elaborate chambers and huge pyramids. and huge pyramids, but they're significant in their own right. During this time of high altitude archaeology, it was discovered that in just over 60 years, the Inca's constructed stone structures on nearly 100 different mountains ranging from 17 to 22,000 feet in an area spanning 2,000 miles of the Andes.

Wow. In 1999, just a couple years after his discovery of the Ice Maiden, Johann was leading another expedition team of 14 men and women in search for the Inca ritual sacrifice sites that were now becoming more and more, not even prevalent, but people knew to look out for them now and to search for them. And this time, they were on the volcano of Yuya Yoko Volcano. The expedition was particularly difficult and physically demanding. A month-long acclamation process was undertaken by this team to ensure that they were all

properly adjusted to the altitude at a lower elevation mountain nearby prior to summoning the volcano. And throughout their actual ascent, after 30 days or so of getting used to the altitude, they established several different camps along the way to make sure they were still going slow and steady. They were braving winds of up to 70 miles an hour, and there was even a storm that lasted four days, and temperatures plummeted to 40 degrees below zero. So it was rough. This is rough work. This is It's not as fun as it sounds on paper. Like, oh, yeah, you're going to explore all that and you're going to go check out all these ancient ruins. It's going to be so fun and, like, one of the most beautiful places in the world.

Like, have a great time. Like, yeah, I almost died many times. The winds are insane. It's so cold. I can't breathe without my. I'm sick. Like, yeah. Yeah.

And Johann was actually about to call it. He was nearly about to give up on this expedition. when his team spotted what appeared to be an artificial layer in the landscape near the summit. Upon further investigation, the layer led to the discovery of a small chamber, five feet underground, and then the discovery of three different children, where they were left to die 500 years prior. And right now, it would be, I'm going to get into kind of the descriptions of the mummies, and it would be helpful to, if you're okay with it in a space to do that,

to kind of pause and look up photos of Juanita, the Ice Maiden, And these three children that I'm about to go into a little bit of detail about to just understand how remarkable they are and just how different they are from the mummies of Egypt. Okay, I've definitely, now that I'm looking at this, I have definitely seen her before. And her clothes are so intact too. Her clothes, the braiding on her hair. Okay, so there's four mummies that we're kind of talking about right now. and I'll definitely break it down a little easier because I think right now everything's just like piled into one statement as like the mummies. Like I mentioned before, they're totally different from the mummies of Egypt.

And while the Inca did prepare their dead through mummification as a way to honor their dead, that is a complete separate thing than what's going on in these circumstances. So these mummies that were focused on today were not prepared after death. They were just left that way and naturally mummified. First, the mummies look different. The bodies and the artifacts found with them are remarkably, almost perfectly preserved thanks to the environment and the weather conditions in which they were discovered. So kind of getting into your question a little bit,

the frigid conditions combined with being so close to the Otacama Desert, which is one of the driest places in the whole world, have resulted in the bodies having virtually no decomposition. The remains were not prepared in the traditional sense, meaning they did not have their organs removed or tissues prepared with oils or solves to slow the decomposition process, the state of their remains are 100% due to the environment. Because the mummies froze before dehydration could occur, the removal of moisture and the decomposition of tissues and organs that would be normal for exposed human remains,

that process just didn't occur. So this resulted in the perfect preservation that you see in those images. So individual hairs were preserved. You can easily see braids in some of them swirls and lines of their fingerprints and on their palms are easily visible. And scans, internal scans, reveal that their brain matter is still intact. Their eyes are still intact. And there was even frozen blood in one of their hearts. So they're going to bring these mummies back to life.

This is one of those horror movies where they bring one of these things back to life. I hope not. I really hope not. It's like they're the perfect specimen. They're completely preserved. Well, people are just astounded by the condition in which they're in. Yeah. Forensic and archaeological expert Andrew Wilson of the University of Bradford in the UK led several different studies on the mummies and remarked, quote, In terms of mummies that are known around the world, in my opinion, she, and he was referring to the oldest female of the three that were found on the volcano, so not Juanita. has to be the best preserved of any of the mummies that I'm aware of.

I suppose that's what makes this all the more chilling. This isn't a desiccated mummy or a set of bones. This is a person. This is a child. Many of the mummies that we have been taught about in school were people who passed away prior and then they were prepared with intention. These children were a part of something else altogether.

They were part of a ritual known as Kappa Kota. An extremely important ritual designed to, according to Johann, atone for transgressions committed and to prevent misfortune that could affect the Inca ruler in the entirety of his empire. So this ritual involved the sacrifice of children, worshipped mountains as gods, and involved elaborate burial procedures.

These sacrifices, as well as other forms of human sacrifice, would often follow a major event that included but was not limited to, celebrations such as the victorious return of an Incan, army from battle, the birth of a son of the emperor, a response to a natural disaster, such as a drought, a volcanic eruption, or an earthquake, to consecrate a sacred space. So if there was a construction of a new irrigation canal or a place of worship, human sacrifice would occur, or even the death of a ruler. In that case, just a side note, Capacocha was not done because that is the sacrifice of a child.

In this case, if there was the death of a ruler, there was a different type of sacrifice called Necropompah. And it was done in order to provide this deceased ruler with servants in the afterlife. And in this case, hundreds and some reports even number them into the thousands of different wives and servants would be ritualistically killed after the death of the Inca ruler to accompany him in the afterlife. I would not want to be that servant. Or wife. Yeah, or wife. I mean, and they had many.

Obviously, it wasn't just one. But some of them did it willingly and some by force. Do you know how they chose the children? Yes. And we'll get into that as well. Okay. Right now, actually. Okay.

Okay. Here we are. Okay. Here we are. I feel like this episode you've been so used to being like, I'm not telling you yet. I know. I'm like, you'll have to wait one minute. One second later.

Here we are. So it's thought that the chosen children had to be perfect without. flaw in their physical appearances. After the child was chosen or offered in some cases by the family and the parents, a procession would be- Imagine your parents offering you. They're like, please take this one. Well, they thought that this was a huge honor. Like, this was considered a huge, huge honor to be chosen. And sometimes the family would, like I said, offer them themselves because of kind of like the benefits that came with that. the afterlife beliefs that came with it.

And also there was some perks in it as far as how the family would be treated. The surviving family members would be treated and regarded after. So after the child was chosen or offered, a procession would begin comprised of family, community members, and a priest from their home. And they would travel months, sometimes years, depending on where they were in the Inca Empire, because it's massive and far reaching. but they would all go to Kusko. There, various ceremonial feasts would occur, the child would meet the emperor, and different priests would then lead the procession,

which now would be a smaller group, up to the summit of a pre-designated mountain. Llamas would often be utilized to carry different stones and soil and grass that would be used to build the permanent stone structures and platforms of the burial site. The platforms were typically large retaining walls made of stone that would make a tomb-like interior in which the child and other offerings such as statues, shells, ceramic pots, and highly adorn figurines were placed to accompany them on their journey

to the other world. Regarding how the children and adults, depending on what sacrificial ceremony we're talking about, were brought to death, varied. Juanita, the first mummy we discussed, did have a skull fracture on the back of her head, leading a lot of people to believe that she would killed through blunt force trauma. But Johan believes that this was a way to quickly knock her out as a way to minimize the suffering of being entombed alive and left to be exposed to the elements, which would ultimately result in a longer, slower death. So it's not 100% certain whether that blow killed her or if it was kind of like a mercy,

like we're knocking you out. And then the elements will do the rest in that case. So the hope was that she didn't wake up after being knocked out? Yes. And then moving on to the three children on Yuya Yoko, the body of El Niño, aka the boy, was seven years old at the time of his death. He was found tied up lying in the fetal position. He appeared to have died under duress, likely suffocation, especially after vomit and blood were later discovered on his clothing. However, some have theorized that he actually died as a result of altitude sickness or exhaustion. before he reached the summit. And the ropes and the fetal position was just a way to transport him to the summit. The vomit could have been indicative of altitude sickness.

The trek was obviously arduous. I mean, for anyone, never mind a child. Yeah, right. So there's a couple different theories regarding his death. The remains of Leninia del Raleo, the lightning girl, believed to be roughly five years old at the time of her death, were remarkably intact. Despite being struck by lightning,

Her internal organs and tissue, such as her heart, eyes, and brains were very well preserved. But further evaluation regarding the details as her exact cause of death are difficult to determine due to the damage that the body sustained by being struck by lightning. Do they think that she was struck by lightning while she was alive? After. After. Okay. Mm-hmm. There have been many more mummies located prior to Johan's discoveries that exemplify the most common methods of killing. Some bodies were discovered by looters or construction crews, others by treasure hunters, and some just by recreational climbers as early as the early 1900s, like 1905.

After analysis, strangulation, blunt force trauma, being buried alive, and death by exposure to the elements were all present. So that seems to be the most common forms of killing. It is really hard to imagine anyone of any age to be willing to die in such a way. or that kind of we talked about briefly that parents could willingly and in some cases excitedly give up their small children for such a purpose. But what we have to keep in mind is that their belief system of how the world worked, the promise of the afterlife, and their way of life in the present hung in the balance of these rituals. The Incas had a completely different concept of life and death. They believed that the children who were sacrificed didn't die.

They actually just slept and then woke up together with their ancestors. ancestors and deities in the other world. Author Maria Saruti wrote a paper called Frozen Mummies from the Andean Mountaintop Shrines. In it, she speaks about how the Inca Empire rose so quickly and powerfully, taking control of so many millions of different Andian people. Because, again, I know we talked about it before, but they rose really quickly and they overtook a lot of different ethnic groups, like groups that never even knew the other existed or had any sort of communication with them.

This is an empire that spans thousands of miles is incorporating a lot of different people and belief systems at the forefront, but ran so smoothly. And she speaks of how they kind of indoctrinated their beliefs into those people, saying, quote, the Inca sacrifice of children would have been presented as having an important mission

in which the chosen ones would continue living among the celestial and mountain deities on behalf of the Inca emperor and for their own people. Their parents, their kinsmen, and local communities would have been encouraged by the Inca to believe that the payment of this type of tribute, aka their own children, was not only a religious obligation, but more importantly, it was a great social honor. This wasn't, there wasn't a malicious intent behind their beliefs. It's not like, they didn't look at it as they were murdering children. Correct.

even though they were murdering children. Murdering children. It wasn't in the way that we view murdering children. It's so, like I said, it's a difficult conversation to have. Because you do want to understand, you do want to, because you want to be open to hearing and understanding other cultures, especially in a time that was so long ago. And them having a different understanding of the world. It's super interesting.

It is. I mean, of course, today, you can't. have people doing that. Those belief systems are long retired, at least in modern society, and you go to prison for things. You would go to prison for sure for something like that. But it is interesting to learn about how other cultures thought and especially so far, like so long ago. It is a hard pill to swallow, though, to be like, oh, it was their culture. That's why they did this when you know what's going on but you know who's to say what actually no one actually knows what happens in the afterlife either so who knows like maybe they were on to something maybe they were completely wrong and what they did was

horrendous or maybe they're on to something like we don't know and we're not going to find out until it's our time right and i think it's really important like you said like being open to learning that's what this is all about despite the belief at the time that this was a great honor and it was a religious obligation. There have been accounts by early Spanish colonizers running into children who narrowly escaped sacrifice. One account in 1598, there was a 10-year-old girl who was found alive by a European minor three days after she had been entombed inside one of these funerary towers. And another tells of a young boy who gained refuge with the Spanish after he ran away from a ritual sacrificial burial, like it about to be his own. Yeah. It was also considered a great dishonor or even a shame.

for parents to show grief after the death of their children if they were offered for these ceremonies. So you weren't allowed to be sad. Right. That's so tough. I mean, I can't sit here and be like, I understand that because I don't like in my own life. Right. That would never be something that I understand, but I do think that it's really interesting. And it's just something to learn. It's something to know about history and what was happening. And the whole subject is interesting. Thank you. I'm glad you think so. Because it's super. It's super. morbid and it's super tough. It's so morbid. And it's obviously something that, I mean, I feel like we're beating a dead horse right now because we keep saying the same thing. But it's true. It's one that when I first started, I was like, God, I'm so into this and learning about this. And I want to share it. I kind of hesitated because I'm like, God, this is a really tough subject. And I don't know if it'll be well received. But it's captured the attention of people around the world for a reason because we're so like perplexed by it, I think. And we want to know more. are so different now. Right. We're like how, why, how could this ever happen? And this is,

this is how. Back to the mummies, it's believed that the oldest mummy found of the three children, a girl nicknamed La Dansea, which also, she also goes by the Yuya Yoko maiden. So there's the Ice Maiden, aka Juanita, who is the original one I talked about. This is a different maiden. Okay. She was estimated to be around 15 at the time of her death and was considered to be, an Akaya or a sun virgin. This is also another tough subject. So these children also referred to as the chosen women or the wives of the Inca were chosen at the age of around 10, kind of pre-pubescent. They were removed from their families and sequestered a way to live under the guidance of a priestess. They were often chosen from higher classes based off of their intelligence, their skills,

and their physical beauty. They were taken by government representatives and sent to live in special homes to live together. They would be trained for about four years in different subjects, religion, weaving, food preparation. Prior to being either married off to men of high status, sent to the capital to become concubines, sent off to further religious duties,

or in the case of La Dansea, chosen for sacrifice in the Kapachoka Rituala. No good options as a woman. None. Really none. None. And it was, they were like, okay, you're beautiful, you're smart, you are skilled in household duties, you know what you're doing, we're taking you. You're valuable. We're going to use you for benefits of men or sacrifice. Mm-hmm. I mean, I feel like that's a common theme among many cultures in history.

Yes. Yep. Mm-hmm. But it doesn't make it any easier hearing it over and over and over. Right, right. La Demcea is believed to have died of exposure, and the study of her remains reveal not only her final moments, but her final year. A DNA and chemical study of her hair revealed the changes in her life, which indicated when she was chosen and what followed after that selection. So your hair grows about a centimeter a month, and it remains unchanged, which makes it a perfect record to study. Based off of the analyses, she was likely leading a person. typical ordinary life, but about a year before her death, she was removed from that lifestyle

and began living an entirely different one. They could tell from her hair that her diet shifted entirely instead of one that was comprised mostly of vegetables, she was now consuming large quantities of animal protein and maize, which were like high end. Most strikingly was the induction and heavy use of coca, a plant that was used for its medicinal and psychoactive properties. Koka is the beginning of cocaine, if you didn't put that together. And coca was a highly controlled substance at the time, but it was introduced 12 months prior to her death, with another huge spike in its use, six months preceding her death. And then in the final few weeks of her life, alcohol consumption surged as well. So she was being drugged. Andrew Wilson says, quote, we're probably talking about the last

six to eight weeks, which show a very altered existence, that she's either compliant in taking this or is being made to ingest such a large quantity of alcohol. Certainly in her final weeks, she's again entering a different state, probably one in which these chemicals, the coca and the alcohol, might be used in almost a controlling way in the final buildup to the culmination of the Kappa Kota right and her sacrifice. So he's basically saying that she was being slowly fed these things over the final 12 months of her life but the final few months and weeks

they really ramped up. The use in order to make her more docile, compliant out of it she was drugged. Make it an easier sacrifice. On the day of her death, the drugs may have made her more docile or rendered her completely unconscious.

It's hard to tell. But chewed cocoa leaves were found in her mouth upon her discovery in 1999. And I will put, in our Instagram, there's a scan of her skull, and they highlighted this little area. It's literally between her jaw. You can see these coca leaves, just like she was chewing them and had them in her mouth at the time of her death. And testing of the two younger children on this site also revealed use of coca and alcohol just at way lower levels. So they were all drugged. The intended results of

the ritual sacrifice intended to ensure health, rich harvests, and good weather. The mountain gods would be appeased. The child who was sacrificed would then be forever regarded as a deity. They would receive an afterlife of complete bliss, and the status of their remaining family and descendants would forever be elevated. So that's kind of the point of the ritual in their eyes. All good things happen after this, allegedly. And for centuries, historians had to rely on the historical chronicles by early Spanish explorers

who detailed the events as they were told them, because they weren't firsthand accounts. There's no historical record of these rituals from someone who actually witnessed it or was a part of it. So these are all secondhand accounts. And like I said in the beginning of the episode, it's hard to, it's like take it with a grain assault type of thing. Is this being embellished?

Is this even real? Like, where's the evidence for this? So now with these discoveries of the Ice Maiden, the Lightning Girl, the Maiden, and El Nino, all of these secondhand written accounts are being supported in a way like, ever before. Like, here's the evidence that matches what has been written down and chronicled over the years. The removal of the mummies from the sacred mountaintops throughout the Andes has

long since been the subject of controversy, especially with regards to indigenous rights. A museum was constructed to exhibit the mummies along with various artifacts found within them, which was open to the public in 2007. However, some local indigenous communities, many of whom our descendants of the Inca, began demanding that the museum returned the bodies prior to them even being on display. In 2005, representatives from different indigenous communities issued a document regarding the matter, outlining how sacred the mountain is to their ancestors that it is not only an important energetic balance, but a place that shelters, maintains and protects the bodies of their ancestors. It goes on to say, which is, this is like kind of like a screw you, it goes on to say,

quote, but logically this knowledge and ancestral science is far from being grasped and understood by Western scientists who only consider our sacred heritage as a mere object to study an exhibit. We condemn and denounce before world public opinion the so-called exhibition of those children, human beings with the right to rest in peace and a respect for their privacy. I'm glad that you mentioned that because I was going to ask if there was backlash for this, because essentially they are taking its historical, yes, and it's scientific and it's interesting, but there are a lot of descendants of Inca people who exist, and this is obviously a sacred sacrifice that happened, and to move it and to put it on display for how you said there were so many people,

they only got six minutes each, if there was an opinion on doing that and moving them in general. So I'm glad that you mentioned that. Yeah, it's obviously evokes a lot of opinions and feelings from both sides. And obviously, it's not cut and dry. Like, if you're an indigenous person, you believe this. And if you're a Westerner, you believe that. It's obviously mixed. But it was a huge deal, especially with kind of the gearing up of the opening of this museum.

From that point, when they kind of entered this statement, there were several different meetings between the provincial authorities and different indigenous representatives that occurred as well as different protests in front of the museum itself. Like this was a big deal. And after several years, the demands eventually dissipated. But one of the most outspoken protest leaders, Miguel Cyrus, is now on the same page as the museum. He was quoted as saying, I was never in agreement with the desecration of the children, but in spite of everything, we have been searching for a coordination with the authorities. We have achieved harmony for the children, evading a confrontation.

Here they are well cared for. We only demand that this does not happen again that if they discover new bodies, that they stay in the mountain. So I think it was probably a losing battle as far as having them returned. So they're like, okay, well, if you're going to care for them and be respectful, just don't do it again.

Along with concern from the indigenous communities, though, there is a concern from a scientific perspective as well. Concern regarding the preservation, now that they have been removed from the conditions that kept them so intact for so many centuries was now at the forefront because the lighting, temperature, climate, humidity, all these factors are now completely altered. So the question of what is going to happen to them was one of huge concern. So what are they doing to preserve them now? They're doing a lot. So archaeologist Christian Vitry says that several additional expeditions to the volcano were done in order to measure the exact

climatic conditions that the corpses were found in to best replicate them in a museum setting. In order to avoid deterioration, the bodies are exhibited only one at a time, while the others will remain in a dark or dimly lit laboratory setting. And there are light filters in the showcase in place as an additional protective measure. The bodies are placed on digital balances to track any change in their mass because as bodies decompose, the process of hydration and dehydration affects their weight. So this is all being tracked by scales. So any change in weight signifies there could be some possible decomp going on and it's addressed. Digital color meters in the body detect changes in coloration, which is also an indicator of possible decomposition and any and all

efforts of crypto preservation are taken by the museum, all of which guarantee the preservation, of the bodies for the next at least 200 years with modern science right now as it stands. I mean, 200 years is a long time, but it's not that much time in comparison to how long they've been preserved for already. That's right. But at the same time, you wouldn't have the science behind it if they were still in that environment and you wouldn't know that this was going. I don't know.

You can see the different sides. I can see both sides, yeah. And lastly, there is also a divide between visitors, some of which, you can see. which are completely repulsed by the idea of seeing the corpses of children on display, while others are intrigued and eager to learn more about them and the history that they represent. Vittry stated everything that has been done in the museum has been done in a mark of respect, and that they always prioritize giving respect, saying, quote, it is a complex matter, but for me, the objective is to transform the initial attraction,

perhaps morbid, of seeing a body exhibited into a tool to educate about prehaping. Hispanic ancestors. And lastly, anthropologist Marta Flores says that the mummies exemplify the clash between the scientific ideology and an indigenous view of the world, what life and death is, which is a place that occupies the mind of people around the world. And that is the story of Los Ninos de Yuya Yaku. Ooh, Lord. I feel like that was like draining. It was a lot of information. but you condensed really well. And I thought it was a really interesting episode and a avenue that we haven't touched on at all in this podcast.

I mean, we've talked about ancient ruins and we've talked about ancient cultures and how they still exist today and things like that. But we've never really dove into sacrificial ceremonies and the science behind some of these mummies that exist. So I thought it was really cool and it was really interesting, even though it is a hard topic because it involves children. I think it is a really interesting topic that existed.

I mean, you can say this is a hard topic and it's tough to want to talk about, but the reality of it is that it exists. And it happened. Yeah. It happened. And it will forever be part of history, whether or not you hear about it or not. Right. So I'm glad you told us all. Yeah.

And like you said, it is difficult to look back on acts today that we're like totally shocked and stunned and horrified by. but it is important to make space to learn and respect the beliefs of ancient cultures for what they were because history isn't going to change just because it's hard to look at. And then the last thing I did want to just make a super brief mention about is it's also really important to remember that for most of human history, cultures from all over the world from many different religions, practice human sacrifice for many different reasons and in a variety of ways, some much more brutal and public than the rituals we just discussed. And I mentioned at the start of the episode how I read that little excerpt from the death and afterlife book

that kind of sparked this entire episode. And it made mention of the Morning Star ritual, which was practiced among the Pawnee, who lived in what is now central Nebraska. And they had a last documented Morning Star ceremony sacrifice that took place on April 22nd of 1838 with the killing of a 15-year-old Lakota girl named Hoxie. And I'm not going to get into the whole Morning Star ritual. You can look it up and it's, it was done for different reasons and was obviously gone about differently. But I just wanted to make mention of that because this seems like something that is so far removed from our corner of the world and our time. And it is, but

there are different versions of human sacrifice that hit closer to home. And, closer to the time that we live in. And I just wanted to make mention of that because wherever you are in the world, chances are that cultures and civilizations practiced things like this, kind of where you are. So I just wanted to say that, even though it's not. Food for thought. Look it up in your area. Well, I mean, if you're into it, like I am. I mean. Yeah. And yeah, like they, I was looking up just like briefly, I'm like, oh, like what other human sacrifices, you know, whatever. And girl, everyone. Public. Like ripping your heart out, flaying you alive. Humans are gruesome. Humans are the fucking worst, honestly. They really are. And yeah, so if you're

interested in learning more, you can do your own research because that's all I have on human sacrifice. And that's it. Well, everyone sleep well tonight. Night night. I know for us, it's night. Like, I mean, at nighttime, we're going to have nightmares after this, but I know a lot of people listen to this on like, their morning commute. And it's like, have a good day. Have a nice day at work. Okay, bye. I guess enjoy the view. But watch you're back. Okay. Bye. Bye. Thank you so much for joining us again this week. If you have a trail tale or story suggestion,

send us an email at Stories at NPADPodcast.com. Follow us on Instagram and Facebook at National Park After Dark and on Twitter at NPAD podcast. Join our Outsiders-only community on Patreon or Apple subscriptions to listen ad-free, unlock monthly bonus episodes, and exclusive content. And remember, when you support our sponsors, you are supporting our show. For our exclusive discount codes and source information from today's episode, check out the show notes. For more information on our show, our book recommendations, merch updates, and more. visit our website at npaddpodcast.com.

And please rate, review, and subscribe from wherever you listen to podcasts. You're listening to this podcast, so I know you've got a curious mind. Here's a helpful fact you may not know yet. Drivers who switch and save with Progressive save over $900 on average. Pop over to progressive.com, answer some questions, and you'll get a quick quote with discounts that are easy to come by. In fact, 99% of their auto customers earn at least one discount. Visit progressive.com and see if you can enjoy a little cash back.

Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. National average 12-month savings of $946 by new customers surveyed who saved with Progressive between June 2024 and May 2025. Potential savings will vary.