text: Inca The ancient Inca displayed a connection with death and their mountains. It is well known by scholars that the Inca sensed a deep reservoir of spirituality along the mountain range. Situating their villages in the mountains, they felt these places acted as portal to the gods. Ritual child sacrifices called Capacochas were conducted annually, where the most precious gift that could be given (innocent, blemishless, perfect human life) would be sacrificed to the gods. Tremendous effort would be taken as the sacrificial victims would be paraded alive throughout the cities, with multiple festivals and feasts taking place. The final destination would be the tops of some of the highest mountains near their villages, leaving these sacrifices to freeze in the snow. These would take place during great times of distress, during times of famine, violent periods of war, and even during times of political shift. This connection with the mountain as a sacred space is paramount. There would be no other place that would be sufficient or acceptable enough for the gods to accept these gifts. It is neither a surprise nor a coincidence that their honored dead were placed on the highest peaks of the mountains to express the shared connection between the sacred mountain, the gods, and the dead.
  China
  In China, many different sets of sacred mountains exist, each associated with a different religious tradition: Taoism and Chinese Buddhism. The sacred mountains have all been important destinations for pilgrimage by laymen, monks and emperors for centuries, with the Chinese expression for pilgrimage (朝圣; 朝聖; cháoshèng) being a shortened version of an expression which means "paying respect to a holy mountain" (朝拜圣山; 朝拜聖山; cháobài shèng shān).