There are over 500 different types of corn here, but only one kind of popcorn...disturbing.
In some of the pre-Inka tribes, they hadnt learned to domesticate animals yet, so the men had to work the land with primitive tools. The cool part is that they made women plant the seed, hoping that the fertility of women would lead to better crops. It kind of makes sense, but isnt planting a seed tradionally men`s work? (To quote Spinal Tapīs "Sex Farm": "I'm scretching in your pea patch / Plowing through your beanfield / Planting my seed ....")
In the biggest cathedral in Cusco, an absolutely massive and stunning building with over 300 oil paintings inside, the most famous work is a huge painting of The Last Supper, with Jesus about to carve up some fried ginea pig, Peru`s most traditional dish.
Strangle-mugging is the most popular form of robbing tourists here. A group of men will accost the tourist: One will put him in a sleeper hold while the others pick up his legs and shake him until unconscious.
For Inkas, deformed babies and people were considered special because it was believed the Rainbow or Thunder&Lightning gods "touched" them in the womb. They were so special that they were often the first to be sacrificed. So if you`re a deformed baby in a primitive society, you`re kind of up shit creek no matter what culture you`re in (in other primitive cultures, and even recent ones, deformities were seen as work of devils and got you killed also).
Speaking of deformities, South America`s fascination with cosmetic surgery probably had its birth in the Inka empire. There`s no evidence of fake tits, although like I say about Argentina`s boob jobs, its really hard to tell what`s fake if they`re tastefully done. In any case, babies of noble famlies or sons destined to be priests often had "head sqeezers" from birth until age 6, shaping their head into a half-ass Conehead or a double-bump head, just like the profile of a double-hump camel. I think there was a character in the Cantina bar from Star Wars who had a head just like this. Seriously. And you thought Chinese foot-binders and the BonsaiKitten.com guy had cornered the market on post-birth deformation!
