Huaca
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In Quechua, the language of the Inca Empire, a Huaca is an object that represents something revered, such as an ancestor, a god or even a character trait. The conquistadors extended its meaning to encompass any old buildings. This meant that the ruins of Moche administrative buildings would be called huacas just as readily as would their temple.
The term huaca can refer to a specific type of sacred or holy locale, or shrine, sometimes a place for veneration and ritual. It can also refer to a specific pacarina (burial place), or a place of origin similar in definition to the origin places in the North American Southwest known as the place of emergence or Sipapu/Shipapu among the peoples which used kivas for worship (especially among the people commonly referred to as Pueblo).
Each separate linguistic group in the Andean empires had its own sacred places. Many of the civilizations of Peru have considered all the world to be sacred and alive, this concept meant that anything of significant beauty or strength would be called a huaca. The word pacarina is sometimes used interchangeably for these locations. Huaca (or sometimes shrine) can be a place honored such as a high mountain pass, an origin or emergence or place of creation (pacarina), a place of traditional significance such as a spring, a mountain top (apu) where rain and water originates, an astronomically aligned location, or a place of historical or mytho-historical significance (the pre-contact peoples of the Andeas did not differentiate between historical and sacred events.). A huaca could also be the residence or panaka of the deceased mummys of previous Incas. The huaca could also be the sacred location of one of the adopted (conquered) subkingdoms of the empire of the Incas or their preceding empires, such as the complex at Lake Titicaca.
A huaca could exist along a processional ceremonial line or route as they did for the enactment of sacred ritual within the capital at Cusco. Such lines were referred to as ceques. The work of Tom Zuidema and Brian Bauer (UT-Austin) explores the range of debate over their usage and significance. Also these lines were sometimes astromonically aligned to various stellar risings and setting pertaining to time keeping (for the purposes of agriculture and ceremony and record keeping). These ceque lines bear significant resemblance to the processional lines among the Maya (sacbe) and the Chacoans [1]. Special compounds were erected at certain huacas to compose entire elaborate network of rituals and religious ceremonial culture. For instance, the ceremony of the sun was performed at Cusco (Inti Ramyi). Incas elaborated creatively on a preexisting system of not only the mita exchange of labor but also the exchange of the objects of religious veneration of the peoples whom they took into their empire. This exchange ensured proper compliance among conquered peoples. The Incas also transplanted and colonized whole groups of persons of Inca background with newly adopted peoples to arrange a better distribution of Inca persons throughout all of their empire in order to avoid widespread resistance. In this instance huacas and pacarinas became significant centers of shared worship and a point of unification of ethnically and linguistically diverse empire bringing unity and citizenship to often geographically disparate peoples. This led eventually to a system of pilgrimages throughout all of these various shrines prior to the introduction of Catholicism by the indigenous people of the empire.
Of course, huacas were sometimes idols to false gods. Before Francisco de Toledo murdered Tupac Amaru, Amaru gave a speech in which he claimed that when he or his brother consulted the sun via Punchao for advice, they just made up whatever they wanted the sun to say. The statement of Tupac Amaru (who was one of the final rulers of the Inca empire) must be considered within the context of his capture and execution (1572). His rule was at the finale of his dynasty and his people had been under Spanish rule since 1532. He was captured and he was under coercion (at the very least) by the authorities (who were also the inquisitors) who were seeking any admission (however, miniscule) in order to legally justify his disposal. He was the son of Manco Inca, but his rule and his concepts upon the grandeur of his predecessors were tenuous at best. His knowledge of the religious practices and beliefs of his ancestors was no doubt genuine, but tremendous and terrible upheaval had taken place in the years between the conquest of the Spaniards and his capture rendering any statement here about his authority on the huacas fairly unreliable. Almost all continuity of rule by the Incas with the rule of the Incas of the past was severed by this point in time. As early as the death of Huana Capac the father of Atahualpa and Huascar the ruling lineages of the Inca was in great chaos and that was a large part of the reason why the Spaniards found their entry into Peru so unhampered. Without the highly federalized rule of the Inca in Cuzco both the political and ceremonial life of the state sponsored portion of Inca religious practice was in grave decline. Thus Tupac Amaru's statement about the huaca shrines should be used with only the utmost skepticism as he was attempting to please his captors.
The European conquererors considered huacas to be idols to lesser gods than theirs, but they could not easily destroy a mountain or even a rock with their primitive technologies. If there was gold inside, they might change the course of a river to wash away an adobe burial mound, as they did at Huaca del Sol. In fact the structure had nothing to do with Sol, or Sun worship. It was a Moche site: they believed not in gods as such, but in the concept of duality.