Panakas are the huaca (sacred compounds) in which the royal mummies of the Incas were housed. There were twelve or thirteen located in Cusco. The mummies were honored with their own royal entourages and households between their necessary attendance at all civil-political rituals.
Description
The Inca's religious beliefs did not hold that these persons ceased to have souls at the end of life. It was not uncommon for indigenous Americans to believe that life of the body and the continuation of the soul did not cease with the cessation of breathing. In many ways, it was felt that the royal mummies continued to have a sort of life. They were preserved and ritualistically fed and honored, and paraded in rituals and ceremonial pilgrimages. The royal family was honored in this way because they were believed to be the sons of the sun (Inti). The political mandate to rule depended upon this belief, and the belief also guaranteed the exalted status of the mummies and their entourages along with their preservation.
Spanish Catholic priests seized the mummies and destroyed them during their campaigns, which were often labeled the extirpation of idolatry, along with almost every other aspect of native culture.