section_path: Government/Beliefs
section_name: Beliefs
paragraph_text: Beliefs
  
  The Sapa Inca, the head of upper Cusco, was conceptualized as divine and was effectively head of the state religion. The Willaq Umu (or Chief Priest), the head of lower Cusco, was second to the emperor. Local religious traditions continued and in some cases such as the Oracle at Pachacamac on the coast, were officially venerated. Following Pachacuti, the Sapa Inca claimed descent from Inti, who placed a high value on imperial blood; by the end of the empire, it was common to incestuously wed brother and sister. He was "son of the sun", and his people the intip churin, or "children of the sun", and both his right to rule and mission to conquer derived from his holy ancestor. The Sapa Inca also presided over ideologically important festivals, notably during the Inti Raymi, or "Sunfest" attended by soldiers, mummified rulers, nobles, clerics and the general population of Cusco beginning on the June solstice and culminating nine days later with the ritual breaking of the earth using a foot plow by the Inca. Moreover, Cusco was considered cosmologically central, loaded as it was with huacas and radiating ceque lines as the geographic center of the Four-Quarters; Inca Garcilaso de la Vega called it "the navel of the universe".